Washington state is about to enact a state government hiring freeze. The problem is that at the moment the Washington state Disability Determination Services (DDS) , which makes the initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims in the state, is included, according to Adam Wilson, a columnist at The Olympian newspaper.
Although all DDS costs are paid for by the federal government, this is a state agency. It is hard for a governor to exempt the employees at DDS from this sort of adverse action without making other state employees angry, even though including DDS in the hiring freeze does nothing for the state budget.
If a hiring freeze does not sound like a big deal to you, think again. State DDSs have terrible turnover problems. A year long hiring freeze would be much worse than furloughing employees for a couple of days a month. It would quickly cripple the state DDS.
Although all DDS costs are paid for by the federal government, this is a state agency. It is hard for a governor to exempt the employees at DDS from this sort of adverse action without making other state employees angry, even though including DDS in the hiring freeze does nothing for the state budget.
If a hiring freeze does not sound like a big deal to you, think again. State DDSs have terrible turnover problems. A year long hiring freeze would be much worse than furloughing employees for a couple of days a month. It would quickly cripple the state DDS.
Hiring freezes are less drastic than furloughs. With furloughs, there are thousands of pending claims sitting idle throughout the state.
ReplyDeleteWith hire freezes, there are no idle claims. The newest claims will just be worked by other states if need be.