The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel has written Linda McMahon, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations about staffing problems. The letter is worth reproducing here in full:
Dear Linda,
As you may know, we are in the process of tabulating the results from the 2007 NCSSMA Survey of Management. The resounding theme I am seeing is that staffing on the front lines is the number one issue of field and TSC management staff across the country. Over the past year, feedback has evolved from subtle messages about staffing and service concerns to strong demands from members that NCSSMA must try to do something to address the deterioration of service in the field and TSC's.
We are most concerned about the significant resource losses in field offices since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2006. FO’s have lost over 1,700 CR and SR positions and in this fiscal year alone, there has been a loss of about 700 in these two positions. The Field has 1,270 fewer positions now compared to the beginning of FY 2005, which was before we did special hiring for Part D Medicare. Losses in these critical positions are significantly more than the average losses for the entire Agency. The Field and TSC’s [Teleservice Centers] have lost had nearly two-thirds of the FTE [Full Time Equivalent] losses in the Agency since the beginning of the Fiscal Year while they only represent about 52% of the Agency’s staffing. (Note Area Offices are included in this percent.) Offices across the country are finding it very difficult to provide a full level of service.
We can clearly see this from the survey results and overwhelming feedback coming in from the Survey of Management. The results of this survey will be published soon. Here are three examples of comments that are typical of the feedback we received:
■ “We have lost 20% of our staff over the last several months with little hope of replacing them. A once happy, productive and successful office now has morale sinking to an all time low. Management staff is doing all the clerical work and is taking over more and more production workloads just to keep things moving and try to keep staff morale from hitting rock bottom. Bright, hardworking employees are finding work elsewhere.
As a manager, I find it very frustrating. I can’t hire. I can’t reduce workloads. I can’t even adequately reward staff members for their hard work.
We have management staff trying to answer the general phone lines all day long, which is impossible with all the clerical and production tasks we are trying to cover in addition to management duties.”
■ “It is discouraging to keep being asked to do more with less and embarrassing to see the service you provide erode before your very eyes. Although we manage to keep our head above water, the constant interviewing and long lines of people waiting to be seen is also impacting our staff. Even my most energetic staff members seem to be demoralized and anxious wanting to take care of their workloads and dealing with irate visitors who want to know what’s taking so long to clear their cases.”
■ “We have not been able to replace our losses, resulting in very poor telephone service answering in FO’s. Our reception area is standing room only because callers cannot get through on the telephones.”
Most offices are not doing an adequate job of answering telephone calls, and waiting times are climbing. As we continue to refine and promote our internet services, the need for skilled interviewers to assist the online filers is increasing. This additional task is falling on the already burdened shoulders of our front-line employees. As the recent hearings on disability backlogs graphically illustrated, the Congress has a strongly held interest in public service issues. We would hope that the steady deterioration of field office resources be remedied before we too are subject to such outside scrutiny.
We recognize that the Agency’s budget is very tight this year and that next year’s budget could also be very bleak. We helped advocate for the funds that are available this fiscal year and well understand that the ability to hire new CR’s and SR’s will be limited. However, now is the time to reprioritize within the Social Security Administration - the status quo is not acceptable nor fair to the public we serve. We firmly believe that there needs to be an Agency wide focus on providing more resources and support to critically shorthanded Field Offices and on increasing the number of interviewing positions.
We do believe that we need to slow down the trend of assigning CR’s [Claims Representatives] to non-interviewing positions such as SDW [Special Disability Workload -- too complicated to explain here] cadre. We need a commitment to increase the number of interviewers and slow down the growth of staff components. Although we agree that the Regional Offices play an important role, we note the Regional Offices have grown in staff in the past few years despite the losses we’ve seen in field offices and TSC’s.
Perhaps a special workgroup can be formed soon to come up with a plan on how to best address these losses. We certainly would be willing to provide our assistance in any such workgroup. We do believe that a concerted effort needs to be made immediately to look at this issue. We sincerely want to be part of developing the solutions needed to address the staffing and service issues that we are facing in the field and TSC's.
Sincerely,
/s/
Rick Warsinskey
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