Sep 24, 2008

Last Week's Hearing -- E-Pulling Worries And Schieber Gets Religion

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel has posted a summary of what transpired at last week's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee. Here are a couple of excerpts, with my comment in brackets and bolded:
Across the board, in response to this question, there seemed to be a real concern with ePulling, in that as of right now, it is adding work that is not allowing SSA to make any headway. ...

Mr. Schieber [Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB)] also added that the current outcome is a result of a cut in resources, and an increase in claims. He hinted that if some of the money that was put into special initiatives would have been funneled into budget resources, for possible hiring, we may have had a slightly different outcome when it comes to decreasing the disability hearings backlog. [But the SSAB was a big backer of the "special initiatives", such as former Commissioner Barnhart's Disability Service Improvement plan! It is good to see Schieber finally seeing the light. The current leading example of a "special initiative" is E-pulling.]

No comments: