NCSSMA On Budget And Backlogs

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA) has posted a statement that it made for the record to the House Appropriations Committee on March 30. However, the House Appropriations Committee website shows no hearing on that date. Maybe, the hearing is still to be scheduled. Here is an excerpt from their statement:

For Fiscal Year 2008, the President has proposed an increase for SSA of approximately $304.0 million over the final level of funding for Fiscal Year 2007. And yet, staffing levels in offices across the country are being cut. In fact, SSA will lose about 4,000 positions from the beginning of Fiscal Year 2006 to Fiscal year 2008. The most significant staffing losses in SSA have occurred in the agency’s Field Offices. Field Offices have lost about 2,300 positions in the past 18 months and about 1,200 positions in the past 6 months. The vast majority of these losses have been in the most critical positions in the Field: Claims Representatives and Service Representatives. All of this comes after five years of reductions to the President’s Budget Requests, which total $720.0 million dollars, and about 8,000 work years. It is interesting to note that while total Executive Branch Employment is expected to increase 2.1% from FY 2006 to FY 2008, SSA’s employment is expected to decrease by 6.2%.

NCSSMA has also posted the minutes of a conference call of their Executive Committee on March 22. Here are a couple of excerpts from that:

NCSSMA’s contacts related to the FY 2008 Budget Resolution have been very productive. Rachel is optimistic that there will be good news about the FY 2008 Budget Resolution and its recommendations for SSA very soon. Rachel and Rick are very encouraged with the reception they have been getting from the staff of key members of the House and Senate related to the Budget Resolution and SSA’s resources needs. There is definitely interest in SSA-related issues and the information we have been sharing has been both well-received and appreciated. ...

Rick and Greg met with Commissioner Astrue on March 1. The Commissioner spoke at length about disability backlogs and it is clear this will be his primary focus, at least for the short term. Congress is expecting him to respond to them about the problems with ODAR and disability backlogs by April 15. He has been working with Linda McMahon and other senior staff on many issues, and we can probably expect some changes to be announced in the near future.