I am hearing that there is a near complete hiring freeze across Social Security for the remainder of the fiscal year but some limited overtime. There may be some limited hiring of Administrative Law Judges to replace those leaving.
If you are a Social Security employee, what are you hearing and seeing? What effects are you seeing where you are? What do you expect for the future?
17 comments:
The Appeals Council has had no overtime since early March and no one expects it to return.
Hmm that's encouraging. And I thought our days of waiting 2+ years for an AC decision were over....
We have no overtime or comp time.
There is no travel or training.
We cannot hire new employees, although we have been losing about 10% of our staff each year due to retirements.
The work is increasing, staff are tired and stressed with no relief in sight.
More people are thinking of retiring. With no salary increases, if you are eligible to go now, you might as well.
There is a fear of what Congress might do to our salaries, pensions and other benefits.
Bottom line: we feel like we are the most hated group of people around. And most of us work for the government because we want to provide service to the American public.
what I am hearing...no new hiring, people that leave will PROBABLY be replaced.
People need to stop complaining. Things like OT and pay increases are decreasing the private sector, why should you expect anything different in the public sector.
Why can't people be happy with generous vacation, minimal work hours and decent benefits and pay?
Seriously, as someone who came from the private sector to SSA...this is a GREAT place to work.
No one is saying this isn't a great place to work. And no one is complaining. He asked what we are seeing and these are the facts. But we are losing good, experienced staff and the workload is increasing. This inevitably will affect the service we provide to the public--which is the reason why we are working here. I worked in the private sector too and I did not see the dedication to a mission that I see at SSA. This is more than a paycheck to the people who work at this Agency.
"With no salary increases, if you are eligible to go now, you might as well."
That doesn't really sound like someone who is "dedicat[ed] to a mission."
Poppycock. When you are overworked, tired, worn out, dis-respected by the public you are trying to serve, and there's no financial incentive to keep you working, of course you would consider retiring. That says not a thing about your dedication to the agency's mission.
I have worked with people who loved to work for SSA because of the good pay, benefits, vacations, etc. Problem is, those are the folks whose work I had to do in addition to my own. In other words, the true stereotypical government employees who did not care about the mission of the agency. Why complain, indeed.
If this agency wants to recognize the SSA employees, it would agree to a ratified contract, they would pay the bonuses that are due from last year and sign EO 13522. SSA employees deserve better than burgers and ice cream.
Oddly, ALJ's will have annual training in DC in August. That's been going on since 2008, and it's largely a waste of money and time. It's the same kind of training we were getting by video in the 1990's. Now, with improved video equipment in every office, judges have to drop everything to go to DC for a week's worth of alleged training.
ogc is seeing nearly 50% increase in federal cases/disability litigation. yet no more hiring. it is truly scary.
In my component, work is driven by "goals" and "targeted workloads". It is of no importance how many man-hours of work there are a week, goals do not change and deadlines for targeted workloads are not moved forward. Amount of staff available for processing is also immaterial. Goals relate to statistics like number of days in a location, "age" for certain types of cases (and the workload in general), percentage of incoming work that must be "screened out" (i.e. processed immediately) etc. Certain specially identified or cyclical workloads have end dates by which all must be completed...hence "x" number have to be completed per week to arrive at the deadline. So....less time to do all this after a few weeks, let alone months, means there is more work pending and it is harder to meet all the goals. A delightful side effect of all of this is an increase in high priority cases (Congressional inquiries, public relations problems, other "drop everything" type of cases) which must be completed immediately. Too bad for you if the high priority case is not also a goals case----you've lost some more time needed to complete your goals cases. Double too bad for you if the high priority case is really messed up and will take time to figure out and complete. And don't get me started on the effect of the (inevitable) loss of quality coworkers with decades of experience and "institutional knowledge". I think the point some of the earlier posters were trying to make is that loss of OT is more than loss of $. Most of us who are honest and look at friends and family around us who do not have fed jobs, know we are fortunate to be employed where we are. That does not mean that we cannot observe and acknowledge the (adverse) effect the current climate has on our day-to-day work life and does not make us whining ingrates.
U.S. Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) introduced legislation on May 5 that would freeze most federal hiring until the federal deficit is eliminated.
The Federal Hiring Freeze Act of 2011 (HR 1779) is the first bill introduced by the freshman Congressman since he took office on Jan. 5.
Comment: Is this the equivalent of when Hell freezes over???
a new round of ALJ hiring offers began to go out today, ODAR appears to continue to be the priority component for any new hiring
anon 8:01 has it exactly right and matches my experience and observations. SSA is now in a death spiral, and for the first time in my long career it actually looks hopeless. staffing will evaporate and offices will close, and obtaining full and accurate benefit payments will be next to impossible . claimants will have to accept what they can get and be grateful for that. there is no way that ssa staffing wil ever recover to the level needed to provide the service that the public has already paid for and contiues to pay for. the money is going elsewhere.
From a state DDS - we have just been authorized for a small amount of OT, but we have been told there will be no new hiring. Due to collective bargaining issues and proposed pension losses, we expect to have many people retire and leave who will not be replaced.
Anon 8:01 hit the nail squarely on the head. I work in ODAR where, like apparently like all the other components of SSA, the only thing that matters is numbers. We are being pushed for more, more, more with less, less, less. We are all tired and frustrated but the worst thing is that we all know we've cut too many corners. The quality of our work is significantly reduced; that is the most demoralizing part of all this fiasco.
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