Comptroller General Calls For More Funding For SSA -- And Jo Anne Barnhart Reappears

From Federal Computer Week:

The Social Security Administration is making progress in reducing its backlog of disability claims, but without more resources, it will like fall further behind as aging boomers overwhelm the system, Comptroller General David Walker said.

SSA needs more funding from Congress and it needs to hire more staff, Walker said.

“There are serious fundamental and systematic problems. We need to change the pipeline, not just the tail end. We need to look at the flow,” he said Jan. 16 at a panel sponsored by the Association of Administrative Law Judges. Administrative law judges hear disability cases as claims wind through the lengthy process.
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SSA received an increase in appropriations last month to hire a number of administrative law judges this year to reduce the backlog. That means, however, that SSA will not be able to hire for positions in earlier stages of claims processing, said Jo Anne Barnhart, Social Security commissioner from 2001-2007.

Barnhart estimated in 2004 that it would take 8,000 employee years or four years to clear the backlog. However, SSA has steadily fewer employees, she said. While commissioner, SSA started the Disability Service Improvement initiative to evaluate what happens with claims at each stage of the process.

Funny, but I do not seem to remember Jo Anne Barnhart making much of a pitch for increased staffing while she was Commissioner. She seemed, if anything, to be promising much better processing times no matter what how much or little money was appropriated to the Social Security Administration -- as long as her Disability Service Improvement plan went forward.