From NCSSMA The Question: Will Social Security Field Offices Be Replaced By H&R Block?

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management employees has posted the minutes of its September Executive Committee meeting. It is obvious from the Minutes that the overriding concern during this meeting was the perception that Social Security is being forced by budget problems to move away from field office service to Social Security claimants, even at a time when there is more demand for field office service than ever before.

The NCSSMA Executive Committee wondered if there was some plan to privatize service to Social Security claimants, as this segment of the Minutes shows:

Linda [McMahon, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations, who met with the NCSSMA Executive Committee] feels that we should be talking with 3rd party organizations and finding out how they want to work with us [by using electronic means to file claims]. There is a huge untapped potential and Linda believes that we need to find out how to make it work. The Agency is looking to work with large employers and working through their HR departments. A question was raised about whether our eGov strategy includes encouraging private sector companies to help applicants file for benefits with SSA electronically, like H&R Block helps them with taxes. Linda said it is not in our strategy to take a position but we can certainly tap into one if one exists.

There was discussion suggesting that SSA is devising more creative ways of discouraging claimants from staying on the line when they make 800 phone calls to SSA:

In FY07, we will see something called “screen splash”. This is where 6 questions for verification will be asked through voice activated questions before the caller gets to an agent. The questions would be asked and then show up on the screen to the agent – to show which ones verified and which ones didn’t. At that point, the agent may only have to re-ask a few questions. This saves 30 seconds at a minimum per call. By saving time, it frees up capacity.

The NCSSMA Executive Committee heard that Social Security will not have a budget for fiscal year 2007, which began on October 1, until after the election and that if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives there may be no budget until sometime into 2007. Efforts are underway to restore funding for SSA.

The minutes reveal that NCSSMA is hearing that the agency is now looking to spread out the effects of any furlough of agency personnel that may be required by the fiscal year 2007 budget, probably meaning that the agency would close for only one day at a time and that these days would be spread out over a long period. This was somewhat controversial with the NCSSMA executive committee since some saw it as disguising the severity of the problem.

There was the following discussion of the provisions that recently came into effect that spread out SSI back benefits in almost all cases:

Employees are spending large amounts of time explaining why all the money can’t be released at once. Only under certain circumstances can the money be released in one payment. This issue is regulation and part of the budget process. This workload is an unfunded mandate.

The minutes contained this brief report on the early days of the Disability Service Improvement (DSI) initiative:

Offices are busy preparing for DSI. Boston’s experience so far has been very good. The quick decisions cases are being decided well within the 20 days. In fact Connecticut had one decided in 3 hours. Overall the impact on the field offices has been minimal. Some regions have mandated quality reviews on their disability cases which are very onerous.