From Damian Paletta at the
Wall Street Journal (the rest of this is behind a subscription wall):
Managers in the Social Security Administration, struggling to handle a skyrocketing number of disability cases, had an unusual request for their workers this week: slow down. ...
Social Security judges and employees in Florida, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and Arizona were among those instructed to set aside disability cases this week, with the slowdown allowing managers to boost their performance numbers for the coming fiscal year, which starts Monday.
Top officials, in a bid to meet goals to win promotions or thousands of dollars in bonuses, directed many employees to refrain from issuing decisions on cases until next week ..
Update: I have now seen the entire article. Here are a couple of more excerpts:
On Monday, the Social Security Administration's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review closed out 230 cases nationally, compared with the roughly 3,000 it usually averages a day, a government official said. No cases were closed in the SSA's Boston and Denver regions on Monday, that person said, and the Seattle region closed just one case....
On Wednesday, the agency's chief judge, Debra Bice, sent a memo to all judges ordering them to close cases normally.
5 comments:
Well they took this in the worst possible light. Managers are telling workers to work on other important assignments that don't show up on their metrics, like filing, paperwork, etc. I'd be interested in seeing the whole article, and find out who they interviewed, if indeed they interviewed anyone. I'm the last person to stick up for management at SSA, but I'll be damned if I stick up for Murdoch lackeys.
There is a difference between working on other priorities and telling employees that under no circumstances should they close any cases. The only possible explanation for 0 closed cases in entire regions is that employees were specifically instructed not to close their cases until next week.
Of course, if ODAR really told offices they would get no credit for closed cases during the phantom week, this outcome was entirely predictable. And why ODAR only? Why did this mysterious problem not affect field offices?
OK...calm down. Last week was the end of FY 2011. There was a large push to issue decisions. Therefore, this Monday, there were relatively few in the "queue" waiting to go.
The Chief ALJ has specifically indicated that this week is business as usual.
Don't forget about the savings that will come from laying off unneeded SSA workers. I'm almost certain there is some in every office. The budget will be balanced in no time.
Great job exposing this accounting nightmare. Now everyone will know that this year's number will have had most of 53 weeks effort crammed into those inflated numbers so a 2% increase is really equal to the previous year's efforts. If next week's output is extraordinary, it will be understandable.
Post a Comment