Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) ,the union that represents most Social Security employees, has issued its January 2010 newsletter.
The union and Social Security are in contract negotiations. The newsletter quotes the union president, Witold Skwierczynski, as saying that “After reviewing the Agency’s initial contract proposals, it is clear that SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] intent is to severely restrict the [Union’s] ability to represent SSA employees" which sounds like the prospects for a new contract are poor, but for Skwierczynski this is a bit tame.
The newsletter contains an interesting allegation of management impropriety at a field office:
The union and Social Security are in contract negotiations. The newsletter quotes the union president, Witold Skwierczynski, as saying that “After reviewing the Agency’s initial contract proposals, it is clear that SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] intent is to severely restrict the [Union’s] ability to represent SSA employees" which sounds like the prospects for a new contract are poor, but for Skwierczynski this is a bit tame.
The newsletter contains an interesting allegation of management impropriety at a field office:
The manager of the Independence, Missouri Social Security Office has apparently found a unique way to make himself look better: take applications from people with-out actually contacting them, and then process those phony claims.
When Jared Gaspard realized in June that his office would not meet its statistical “goals” for that month, he checked the agency’s computer system to determine who had filed for Social Security Disability but not SSI.
According to Witold Skwierczynski, the President of the National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals, Gaspard then manufactured a series of SSI applications.
I've seen that done with redeterminations--open a redetermination issue in MSSICS, go through the path, print it out,clear it as "attested". Other CR's got these puzzled phone calls from claimants who couldn't figure out why they got their copy of this in the mail, when they hadn't talked to anyone. Management could care less how the cases got cleared as long as they got cleared. Of course, the person who did that got award, after award, after award.......
ReplyDeleteWhen attestation was introduced, I knew that unscrupulous employees would use this to their advantage. Most employees are honest, but attesting without really talking to someone is really easy to do. The whole concept of making sure that statements are made over the penalty of purgery are going out the window. I have always made it a point to be sure that I use the canned language to the claimant and get their agreement to anything that I attest. Or be sure that I saw the 'wet' signature.
ReplyDeleteI think documentation is going downhill fast.
There were lots of problems with fake clearances mainly in the Eastern states during the early 1990's. Usually redets. In only a few cases were entire management staffs involved in the problem. Employees have been engaged in pumping up numbers on their own initiative since forever. It's a violation of statute and the code of conduct. If caught, depending on the circumstances, people can be fired. So, nothing new. But, interesting that supervisors aren't doing desk audits, random checks, etc to insure nothing's amiss. I guess that's out of style. Maybe people prefer to hear it from Witold.
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