Congress forces federal workers to relocate with pay cuts, no moving help.
H.R. 2027 — Returning SBA to Main Street Act of 2025 · Filed by Mark Alford (R-MO) · Introduced Mar 11, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill requires the Small Business Administration to relocate at least 30% of its Washington headquarters employees to regional offices outside the DC area within one year, reduce headquarters office space by 30%, and cut the pay of relocated employees to match their new locality's pay scale. Employees who relocate lose full-time telework authorization; those who remain in DC and currently telework full-time also lose that authorization after 180 days. The stated goal is cost reduction and improved regional customer service.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a mandatory relocation and pay-cut scheme for federal employees, framed as cost reduction and regional service improvement. It is not a market-facing regulation or subsidy; it is internal federal workforce management.
- Section 3(e)(3) bars relocation incentives for affected employees, forcing them to absorb moving costs—unrelated to the core relocation mandate and a direct cost to workers.
What the text implies
- Pay cuts for relocated employees are permanent and tied to lower regional pay localities, creating a two-tier pay system within the same agency for identical work.
- Full-time teleworkers remaining in DC lose authorization after 180 days, effectively forcing in-office work for those not relocated—a secondary mandate not highlighted in the title.
- Section 7 (Supersession) voids collective bargaining agreements and labor contracts, stripping union protections and negotiated terms for affected employees.
- Section 8 (No private cause of action) bars employees from suing to challenge the relocation decision, selection process, or pay reduction—eliminating judicial review.
- The bill does not require the SBA to offer voluntary relocation packages, retraining, or career counseling, leaving employees with limited options: accept a pay cut and move, or resign.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens may benefit from improved regional SBA customer service and potential cost savings to the federal government, but the bill achieves this by unilaterally imposing pay cuts and work-location mandates on federal employees without negotiation, severance, or relocation assistance—a cost borne by workers and their families. The bill explicitly bars relocation incentives, forcing employees to absorb moving costs personally.
Who stands to gain
- Small Business Administration (reduced HQ operating costs and office space lease obligations)
Named in the bill
Small Business Administration (SBA), Administrator of the SBA, House Committee on Small Business, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Washington metropolitan area (DC-MD-VA-WV-PA), Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title 5, United States Code (federal employee pay and telework rules)
Where it stands
- Mar 11, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 11, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Small Business · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Small Business”
- Apr 30, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Apr 30, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 15 - 11”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $450,426 in lobbying spend. A filing names 39 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mark Alford, the sponsor, reported $600,750 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Fed of Government Employees AFL-CIO — $450,426 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (9,842 characters) on Aug 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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