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In one of his first official actions as governor, Mike Braun signed an executive order Wednesday requiring thousands of state employees to return to in-person work.
By ending the pandemic-era measure, all state agencies must require their full-time workers to be back in office by July 1. More than 7.3 million hours of work have been logged under about 10,500 remote-work agreements, according to the executive order. More than 32,000 Hoosiers work for one of Indiana’s 80 state agencies and departments.
“We believe in the value of in-person collaboration,” Braun said, “and believe this will foster a stronger, more connected state workforce.”
Another executive order signed Wednesday would strip diversity, equity and inclusion policies from state government. The state is barred from supporting DEI positions, programs, departments or activities. The order also eliminates any use of affirmative action in the hiring process and any requirement for a worker to note their pronouns.
Braun said he plans to replace DEI with MEI, standing for merit, excellence and innovation. The text of the executive order says it is inspired by the Fourteenth Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling on affirmative action.
The order also shutters the Office of the Chief Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity Officer within the Governor’s Office. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb appointed Karrah Herring as the office’s first-ever chief in 2020 and included her in his cabinet.
Braun also signed seven other executive orders Wednesday:
- EO 2025-11 directs the creation of a web page of active executive orders to increase transparency.
- EO 2025-12 directs the Office of Management and Budget to develop incentives to encourage agencies to operate within budget.
- EO 2025-13 requires OMB to develop key performance metrics for state agencies and create a performance dashboard.
- EO 2025-15 requires the State Personnel Department to examine current job postings and remove degree requirements, if possible, replacing them with skills- and experience-related alternatives.
- EO 2025-17 requires state agencies to “reduce regulatory burdens” by 25% by 2029.
- EO 2025-18 requires agencies to reduce professional licensing requirements, if possible.
- EO 2025-19 directs the state to join a cloud-based computing framework, creating requirements for vendors across jurisdictions.
“It’s all what I campaigned on, to make sure government is leaner or efficient, better aligned with the needs of Hoosiers,” Braun said. “Through these orders, you’re going to see my promise to streamline operations, enhance transparency.”
A full list of executive orders is available online.
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Aw, the sweet smell of sanity starting to return
You should have said poverty.
And, with EO2025-17, a return to at least 25% of the sweet smell of raw sewage and agricultural runoff in our streams and rivers and toxic particulates in the air we breathe, and another quarter of our wetlands and wildlife habitat, and ultimately the wildlife, fish and fowl and bald eagles we so proudly brought back, will disappear under the promise “economic growth” and minimum wage jobs.
So if we are implementing MEI in state government, when exactly is Diego Morales impeached?
Impeached? Why, he represents the highest ideals of Republican character!
It’s a special kind of leader toTWICE get fired from the office you’re now running for incompetence.
Maybe that’s why he created that six figure job for his brother in law. Maybe he’s the brains of the operation.
MEI obviously doesn’t not apply to elected officials, for they have already been “vetted” by the intelligent and enlightened voters of the state.
Back to the office? Netflix viewing in Indiana during weekdays will plumet.
No pay raises for state employees in 2025, and now remote work gets stripped away. Talk about a hard 180. Unreal.
Perhaps a job in the private sector would be a better fit for you…
That’s OK, they’re also looking at reducing degree requirements for state positions. It’s part of the shift to a less educated and expensive workforce… they want people to quit.
The majority of state employees have a hybrid schedule (2 days remote max) so don’t get confused. Pretty easy to figure out how beneficial that is for families. More useless travel time will cost me 4hrs of work per week, at least. More wear and tear on my vehicle. More time away from my 2 y/o son. If you value your time like I do it adds up quick. Life is short.
And curious, of these people from whom actually showing up for work will destroy their family; what did you do BEFORE Covid?
Dominic: “Just do what you were doing before! Surely your life hasn’t changed over the past five years! Just revert back to what you were doing half a decade ago.”
Sorry to burst your bubble A.R but It hasn’t, other than inflation and increased crime thanks to the soon-to-be-gone administration.
Honestly Dominic, if your life has been stagnant for the past five years, then you failed. Some people had kids. Some people got new jobs. You should be less self-centered.
So good to see the new governor really focusing on those “kitchen table” issues on which he campaigned and about which all Hoosiers are so darn concerned … getting those remote workers back into the office and doing away with DEI.
Two very big steps in the right direction. He’s going to cut out so much waste that guess who pays for? You, me and every other Hoosier.
Interesting. Study after study shows that for office jobs, work from home has increased productivity and thereby lowered costs, makes employees more satisfied in their jobs, and actually willing to work for less money in exchange for more family time. And DEI provides the opportunity for non-male, non-white employees to move ahead, and we’re abandoning them. MEI is short for More Entrenched Idiocy.
Timothy, if work from home is so great for companies why are there so many telling employees to return to the office?
Rhea – It’s a way to lay people off without paying a severance for some companies.
Richard, DEI IS a kitchen table issue, just not the way you want it to be. As always Democrats think their ideas look best on OTHER people. There is zero chance Kip Tew, Ann Delaney, and Nate Feldman would employ DEI in their personal life when it is THEIR money. Can you imagine them choosing a HVAC contractor based on gender and skin color? Of course not. They would look for the best value like any sane person. DEI is of course racist, but as always, Democrat approved racism is ok
You mean all white, male Christians will run the state? Shocking. Forget about attracting talent here. And half of the government should be replaced if we’re looking for “intelligence”.
How embarrassing for Indiana.
Absolutely nobody is keeping you here Beth. You and your sisterhood of HR workers can jangle your bracelets in one of those smartly-run progressive enclaves in Cali or Oregon. I mean, SOMEBODY has to move there.
Can you imagine what your ilk would have thought in the 1960s of a certain uppity civil rights worker who wanted people to judge on “content of character” rather than intrinsic characteristics? Same old Dixiecrats; different decade.
As study after study affirms that nationwide employers are looking for better and higher educated work forces, and study after study shows the higher income neighborhoods in Indiana are primarily populated by college grads, Indiana Republicans once again do what they can to discourage college education. And they wonder why the college grads leave Indiana. Doesn’t anyone in the Governor’s office or the Legislature read the work of Republican Mike Hicks of Ball State?
Why would a woman or person of non-Caucasian race with a college degree stay in Indiana when their educational achievements mean nothing, and they will be discriminated against on the basis or race and gender. Good ol’ white boys whose experience in pollution comes from being the polluters will be moved ahead in the line based on their “experience.”
The Truskian-PJ Pance-Baur-Beckwith-Banks Republican Party will lead this state to ruin.
maybe you should go back to school…
You do realize that most Republican ran states are moving in the same direction on these topics? Florida, Texas, Georgia and Tennesse all are Republican ran and with Republican governors. Point is these are the fastest growing states in economics and population growth. Everybody is moving to one of theses states no matter the race, gender or sex. So all this nonsense about nobody will want to come to Indiana is ridiculous. As long as the cost of living, taxes and good paying jobs keep coming, people continue to move here to raise their families and the undesirables will leave….
Timothy there is always the private sector these people can work in. Or they can always move to that liberal utopia if Illinois.
I’m not that Kevin P, but I agree with him on this!
Indiana’s current population projections have us losing population beyond 2050. The only thing keeping Indiana’s population growing is the birth rate, which won’t last long given Indiana’s ATROCIOUS infant mortality rate. 2/3rds of Indiana’s counties have lost population in the last decade. Overall population growth has tanked from ~53,000 per year between 1990 – 2000 to just 25,000 per year between 2010-2017. We’re failing.
Kevin P, those Republican states you mention all share one characteristic vs. Indiana: warmer average winter temperature.
The US sunbelt has been growing for half a century because of that one thing…climate. (And even 20-30 years before that, California.) Not Republican policy. If all it took to induce growth in cold states was the low-tax, budget-cutting stuff, then people would have flocked to Kansas under Sam Brownback. But they didn’t.
Where do people move in Texas? Austin.
Where do people move in Georgia? Atlanta.
Where do people move in Tennessee? Nashville.
What are most people doing if they’re staying in Indiana? They move near Indianapolis. This drives legislators nuts.
Indiana needs to be spending money on building a nicer state that people want to live in and better educated kids so we have the workforce. Our legislators are more interested in lining the pockets of their charter school campaign contributors and cutting taxes to the bone. Simply put, they don’t see a future for the state of Indiana worth investing in.
I remember many years ago when my father had a government job, sticking to the departments budget was the fastest way to get it cut.
Historically as measured by a percentage of GDP, government spending is already at near an 80 year low. I always say you get what you pay for. People that think we still need cuts has no idea what government does or should do.,
Yes. Low taxes gets you potholes that make streets undrivable in good weather and snow packed to ice in winter…because the government doesn’t have money to fill potholes or plow streets. But please…keep believing that the problem is waste and fraud.
Sad we already had a Republican Governor but with no backbone to stand up to the craziness of DEI. Gov. Braun has taken a great first step.
Just because Braun and DJT don’t like DEI doesn’t mean that national and international companies won’t require it when adding jobs, looking for a new location or even a place for a convention.
I thought we were already going to lose ALL the convention business with RFRA?! Is Chicken Little out of print?