Social Security's Office of Inspector General has published its plans for reviews it intends to conduct in 2007. Many, many reviews are planned. Here is a description of one of them:
Administrative Law Judges’ Caseload Performance
Objective
To evaluate SSA’s oversight of ALJ caseload performance.
Background
Federal legislation prevents SSA from requiring that ALJs process a certain number of cases. However, SSA may set reasonable production goals for ALJs as long as the goals do not infringe on ALJs’ independent decision-making processes.
Federal legislation also prevents SSA from establishing a performance appraisal system for ALJs. However, disciplinary actions can be taken against ALJs if the Merit Systems Protection Board finds good cause. In two cases we reviewed, the Merit Systems Protection Board found that an ALJ may be disciplined for substandard production, but SSA did not provide sufficient evidence to compare ALJs’ caseloads. Therefore, the Board denied the request for action against the ALJs based on poor production.
In a prior review, we determined the number of cases processed by ALJs at one hearing office ranged from as few as 276 to as many as 1,892 in a 1-year period. This variance may have occurred because the ALJs were given the discretion to determine the number of cases they would process instead of SSA establishing the number and holding ALJs accountable for reasonable production goals.
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