Another Wisconsin Flexiplace Problem

Some excerpts from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Julie Dable Stuart had been waiting more than three years for a decision on whether she qualifies for Social Security disability benefits when a large envelope arrived in the mail at her Waukesha home late last year. ...

The envelope contained copies of her medical information, work history and family information submitted to the Milwaukee Office of Disability Adjudication and Review in November 2004. Those documents were submitted as part of her request for a hearing to determine her eligibility for benefits, which had been denied when she first applied in 2003.

Upset and confused, she immediately called the Social Security office.

"They told me there was no way these files ever leave the building," Dable Stuart said Wednesday.

William Jarrett, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration, said administrators had no knowledge of Dable Stuart's phone call to the agency about the documents mailed to her home until contacted by a reporter Thursday.

To this day, who mailed the confidential documents remains a mystery.

Social Security employees gave her only bits and pieces of information about documents missing from her file, and she said she didn't realize the full scope of the problem until reading a Feb. 19 story in the Journal Sentinel [about files that a Social Security employee had lost after being allowed to take them home to work on as part of the Flexiplace program]. ...

In late December, Dable Stuart received a letter from Social Security that said the agency was "reconstructing your file, which includes updating, reviewing and analyzing current and past medical records," records show. The letter was signed by the employee who had lost the files. ...

In early February, Dable Stuart received another letter. This one said that "hearing-related documents" from her file "appear to have been stolen from an employee of the Milwaukee Office of Disability Adjudication and Review."