More Evidence Of Social Security Staffing Problems

The National Conference of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA) is an organization of Social Security management personnel. They post online the minutes of their meetings. Those minutes give a fascinating insight into the problems faced by Social Security's frontline personnel. The minutes of their January 17, 2007 teleconference have been posted. This sounds awfully boring, but if you are interested in what is really going on at Social Security, these minutes are fascinating.

Here is NCSSMA's discussion of service backlog issues:

Carla asked about whether Congress has commented about the service backlogs. She is seeing an increase in the number of congressional inquiries her office receives. ...

Hugh Stempfley related information about a conference call conducted in Illinois between SSA, represented by CO [Central Office], Chicago RO [Regional Office], and many district managers and congressional staff members from Senator Obama and Senator Durbin’s offices. The call lasted two hours and the focus was on how offices are losing staff without being able to replace them and how the loss of staff has negatively impacted service in the field offices. All concerned concluded that we have resource issues in the field offices right now.

Rick mentioned that he had a call from a manager today who pointed out that the public has an increased expectation of field office service levels but our staffing levels continue to decrease. This is a problem we are seeing in field offices and teleservice centers across the country.