Michael Astrue has been testifying today before the Senate Appropriations Committee. His written remarks talk about about what is already happening because his agency is operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that freezes the operating budget at last year's levels and what will happen if this freeze continues:
Because of the uncertainty of our budget and the length of the CR, I have had to make choices that will begin to erode service. Our employees continue to churn out work, but they are disappointed and are becoming demoralized about the prospect of watching what they have worked so hard to achieve slip away. I regret that we may not be able to keep our commitments to the American people because we do not have the necessary funding to continue moving forward. ...
While we regret the resulting loss in service, we have tried to prepare for the CR. In July, we instituted a full hiring freeze for all headquarters and regional office staff, and then we further restricted hiring to allow only those components critical to the backlog reduction effort to replace staffing losses. Under a CR, we will continue – and likely expand – the hiring freeze. We will reduce or eliminate, overtime, which our front line employees depend on to keep up with their work.
We have decided not to open eight needed hearing offices, and we will not have staff to open our new Jackson, Tennessee Teleservice Center this year, and perhaps not even next year. We are discontinuing service in over 300 remote service sites throughout the United States. Most of these sites are contact stations housed in locations like libraries, senior centers, or other facilities where a Social Security employee travels, typically once or twice a month, to take applications for Social Security cards or benefits, as well as answer questions. We have also begun looking at field office consolidation where that decision makes fiscal sense.
Each year we send Social Security Statements to non-beneficiaries who are over age 25. These annual Statements cost us approximately $70 million each year to print and mail. In order to conserve funds, we will suspend the current contract and stop sending out these Statements.
The Commissioner also talks about what would happen if the appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives, which would cut funding well below last year's levels, becomes law:
[T]here is a direct nexus between our funding and our service level. We want to prepare you for what a deep cut would mean. Our backlogs will skyrocket, and people will wait considerably longer to receive decisions. As our backlogs grow, it will become more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for us to eliminate them. Waiting times in field offices and on our 800-number will increase dramatically. Deep cuts will cause billions of dollars of payment errors that will take years to address, hardly a wise use of taxpayers’ dollars. Even if we have specific funding for program integrity work, we need the people to do that work plus all of their other fundamental responsibilities. ...
I hope the House Appropriations Committee has a chance to hear this.
7 comments:
Thank you Mr. Commissioner, and good job. And keep in mind folks, this is a Republican put in place by George W. Bush. But he has come to understand and appreciate the value of Social Security and the commitment of its employees to serve the American people. I wish Congress felt the same way.
If money is tight, you have to tighten your belt and buy what you can afford. Just as any family might have to cancel a vacation or put off buying a new car, SSA has to freeze hiring and cut out OT.
This sounds bad. And i mean bad.
Cutting hiring and freezing overtime are bearable--both for employees and applicants/beneficiaries. Furloughs (office closure) are another matter entirely. And that's what the House bill would require.
Wake Up America - cutting hiring, freezing overtime is NOT bearable for the SSA front line employee - we can't keep up with the workload and severe backlogs in the district offices and the ODAR offices nationwide under such deplorable conditions. Not opening 8 needed hearings offices and not opening the new facility in TN is a crock of you know what - for every claim filed in the district office there are at least 10 claims sitting in an he appeals office waiting to be adjudicated. The waiting time in the district office can take up to 9 months or better and if denied, add up to another 18 months in the hearings offices. A lot of these claimants are terminally ill, facing evictions or foreclosures and all types of medical and/or economic situations. I hope somebody reads this and gets a real clear understanding that this severe budgetary horse hockey is just that - you must and need to realize these decision and actions as set forth - not by the Commissioner but the House and Senate; this is a direct attack on your entitlement benefits should YOU or your infant, child, teen, adult spouse becomes disabled lasting 12 months or longer or ends in death. In the appeals offices alone, how many of you have counted the deaths of claimants waiting and waiting for their benefits to help not just them but their families and survivors - I am ashamed of the House and Senate and the greed and power wars between Democrats and Republicans - we have a job to do and a responsibility to help our fellow Americans. These entitlement benefits are not just for the general public; they affect the US Armed Forces and its veteran population along with their spouses and children. If you are going to put a hiring freeze on any agency leave SSA and the Department of Veterans Affairs - Veterans Benefits Administration, and the Veterans Healthcare agencies alone - give them all the help and funding possible -
Anon #3 - if SSA cuts out OT, then even less of its work will get done. Do you think this is what the public wants?
Anonymous Wake Up -- It is obvious that you must be an attorney who represents disability clients. The sad fact is that most of the claimants waiting for a hearing were denied because their medical conditions do not satisfy the stringent requirements of the law. To become entitled to SSA disability benefits is different from becoming entitled to retirement benefits, where you just must be age 62 & have worked long enough to be insured for T2. In addition to having worked long enough under social security to have insured status for T2 or to qualify for T16 under income and resources, the standard of "disability" under the law must be met. And that says you cannot work at any job, anywhere and that this standard has to be met at a time set by law.
I know SSA cannot continue to deliver the same service with fewer trained people working fewer hours. I know how tired I am after working 1-2 hours of overtime every day and 4-5 hours on Saturday.
I also know the government cannot keep spending money that isn't there. Unfortunately, our elected officials don't seem to have any solution.
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