But that policy is about to end. A little-known bill that repeals it will take effect May 7.
Utah lawmakers tucked the repeal into HB404, which mainly clarified who can participate in the state’s pay-for-performance management program, meant to incentivize employees to meet performance goals. As it made its way through the legislative process, public discussion in both chambers focused only on the pay-for-performance provisions of the bill. During their presentation of the legislation on the House and Senate floors, HB404’s sponsors never mentioned the repeal, which appeared in innocuous language near the end of the bill.
Though four Democrats voted against it in the Senate, the bill easily passed both chambers, with no opposition in the House. Gov. Spencer Cox signed it into law March 26.
Now, state employees are beginning to learn that the program initially pitched as a way for the state to lead out on proactive air quality efforts will cease to exist in less than four weeks, and just in time for the state’s smog-prone summer months.
But state officials say they’re moving away from the surge work program because traffic data shows it’s not making a difference.
Marilee Richins, deputy executive director of the Department of Government Operation, confirmed to Utah News Dispatch on Thursday that eligible state employees will no longer be asked to work from home on bad air days as of May 7.
She said the recommendation to end the program came after traffic data collected by the Utah Department of Transportation showed no statistical impact on the number of cars on the road during red air days.
“It was a great idea,” Richins said of the program when it was first conceived, inspired by the drastic reduction of road congestion and improved air quality during COVID-19 shut downs. But ultimately, she said UDOT’s traffic cameras showed the number of vehicles on the roads on surge days were “not statistically impacted at all.”
“In fact on some surge days, it increased,” she said.
According to two UDOT “surge day analysis” reports — one with an analysis period in July and August of 2023 and the other conducted during the same period in 2024 — the department’s Traffic Management Division determined “daily variation in traffic volumes makes it difficult to determine the actual impact of surge days.”
“The daily traffic volume fluctuation likely accounts for the differences observed in surge and non-surge days,” the report written in January 2025 said. “Any difference in volumes appears to be statistically insignificant.”
Richins noted that the state still has an “active teleworking program” that was established in 2018, separate from surge remote work linked to bad air quality days. Of the state’s roughly 22,000 employees, she said 8,890 have jobs that allow them to telework two to three times a week. That’s the same number of employees that are eligible for surge days.
An additional 3,982 employees telework full time, Richins added, noting that most of these employees live in rural areas off of the Wasatch Front.
In 2022, Utah had more than 2.25 million licensed drivers, according to the Federal Highway Administration, and ranks as the state with the third-highest rate of car ownership in the country, according to Forbes statistics.
Read the full report at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
