A Message To All SSA And DDS Employees
Subject: The FY 2011 Budget
It is a relief to finally know what our fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget is, although I am frustrated that it is very late and very short of our expectations and needs. Congress passed an appropriation that is nearly one billion dollars less than the President’s budget.
While all of your work is important, we are not making cuts evenly across the board. We need to do what we can to preserve the most critical activities. Cutting all areas evenly is an easier approach, but it’s not the right way if we are going to continue to provide the best possible service. Most of the cuts already in place will have to stay because easing up on them increases the likelihood of furloughs, especially next year, and I am doing what I can to avoid them.
As I have mentioned before, operating under a continuing resolution (CR) at last year’s budget level actually gives us less money than we had last year because our fixed costs like rent and guards continue to increase. Regrettably, not only are we not operating at CR levels, but Congress also cut our budget below the CR level.
Given the Nation’s fiscal climate, we anticipated the possibility of reduced funding, which is why we took action months ago to make cuts and stop hiring. When I talk with you, you invariably ask for more people to help you handle the work. Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the resources to lift the hiring freeze. Hiring freezes make it hard to serve the public and manage work in offices that lose staff, but when we decide whether to hire new staff, we must consider if we can afford to pay them for as long as they stay with us. Regrettably, even our strongest advocates in Congress are warning us that the best we should expect next year—just five months away—is funding at our current level. Hiring staff now would increase the likelihood of furloughs next year.
I have authorized a small amount of overtime to support some of our most critical activities, including completing late day interviews instead of turning people away. In this new, tough fiscal environment, you should not count on the availability of overtime when you make your personal budget decisions.
Even technology, which has been instrumental in handling our increasing workloads, has taken a hit. In spite of the proven success of our popular online applications—we took the top three spots for iClaim, Retirement Estimator, and Extra Help in the most recent ACSI report and outdid companies like Amazon and Netflix—Congress also reduced our information technology fund by $275 million, which will limit new technology that is the best way for us to manage our growing workloads.
Budget cuts of this magnitude have very real implications. We are working creatively to come up with ideas that help us move forward, like suspending the mailing of the Social Security Statement, which will save us about $30 million this year. With the support of the Office of Management and Budget, I expect that you will see a series of small but significant initiatives to reduce workloads that will also help us weather this difficult fiscal climate.
The choices we make going forward remain difficult. I share your regret at watching the progress we have made, especially over the last two years, start to slip away. One goal that we are doing our best to meet is our commitment to eliminating the hearings backlog by 2013. When I became Commissioner, Congress made it clear that it had to be our number one priority, and that mandate has not changed. We are on track to meet that goal, and I am giving ODAR resources to deliver on this imperative.
Please know that we will continue to fight for the budget our work deserves. Thank you for staying focused on what is most important during all of the distractions. You should be very proud of all that you are accomplishing.
Michael J. Astrue
Commissioner
10 comments:
The agency needs more overtime or new hires to handle our workload. The front line workers are generally working very hard but there is only so much someone can do in an 8 hour day.
So what will SSA & DDS prioritize? And what will be ignored?
Close the Representative Call Center. Let attorneys call the regular 800 number like the rest of us.
It is clear that Congressional leaders want American to think about ways to disable Social Security so that they may create reason not too far down the road to junk it and sell it off to the stock market for pennies on it's true dollar value. Its a plan that seems to be working.
@9:06A: No, it isn't. Polls consistently show that the public overwhelmingly opposes privatization. Service delivery is one thing. Other issues such as financing, means-testing, eligibility age, etc., don't have anything to do with it.
The public's outrage will grow with the SSA backlogs, when their cases are not processed timely. Then Congress will have to provide SSA with fair funding.
"The public's outrage will grow with the SSA backlogs"
The outrage will only grow when retirees face backlogs. The people who collect SSI or DIB are largely poor or uneducated. These people don't have an easy platform from which to voice their opinions and their concerns are not exactly a top priority of most politicians.
"because our fixed costs like rent and guards continue to increase.
Seems to me that you just tell companies bidding that this is what we are going to pay, take it or leave it. Where are the Keystone Cops going to go to make they money they make here?
Same with the landlord, this is what we will pay or we will move. There is plenty commercial buildings empty.
"The outrage will only grow when retirees face backlogs. The people who collect SSI or DIB are largely poor or uneducated. These people don't have an easy platform from which to voice their opinions and their concerns are not exactly a top priority of most politicians."
Disability applicants have an easy platform to express their concerns -- the media. There have been numerous newspaper articles about the backlog in recent years, also featuring profiles of applicants who are waiting for a hearing and clearly disabled (at least according to the story they tell the reporters) or individuals who waited years before receiving benefits (though these individuals were probably often paid because of their age (50+), not because they were truly unable to work).
More importantly, while disability claimants might not have a strong lobby, the attorneys who represent them do have power to influence Congress. NOSSCR and friends have squashed reasonable efforts to try to address some of the problems in the disability system, because the changes would have hurt their bottomline.
Don't get caught up in the three card Molly game. Unless the folks who want to privatize are voted out of office, SSA will get the blame for not taking care of the Trust and our elected officials will hand it over to Wall Street.
Post a Comment