Social Security has cut the number of monthly visitations to the Midland County Contact Station in half.
Midland residents will only be able to meet with a Social Security Administration representative twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesdays ...
The move was made April 19, according to Cynthia Edwards, Social Security public affairs specialist in Flint.“With more people utilizing Social Security online and our automated telephone services, and visiting the local Social Security offices in both Saginaw and Bay City, there have been fewer visitors to the Midland contact station,” said Edwards, explaining the reduction. “And due to the options provided to the public and the reduction in Midland visitors, the decision to cut back in Midland was made.” ...
Edwards said Midland is not the only city effected by the current budget situation. There have been other Social Security offices in Michigan that have reduced their hours of operation or the days of service to their contact stations.
“It is anticipated this will have little impact on the Midland community,” Edwards said.
Maybe there's been a decrease in demand in Midland but I'm pretty sure the real reason for this cut was lack of an adequate operating budget at Social Security. And that crack about "little impact"! I doubt that the good citizens of Midland appreciate that.
5 comments:
Whatever the rationale, it's far from a serious reduction in service. Midland, Bay City and Saginaw are called the "tri-cities" for a reason; they are pretty darned close to each other. Getting from Midland to Saginaw or Bay City isn't a very long trip.
Keeping a majority of these contact stations open has been a traditional waste of money and staff time from the get-go. The service options have advanced a long way from when most of them were established. Bay City is 20 miles from Midland; this is not a hardship if someone insists on traveling to an office in person.
The main reason these unproductive CSs have been kept open is to appease small town governments. Many, if not most, should have been closed even before the current budgetary "crisis".
I'd like to see this issue become a target of an OIG audit rather than a lot of the arcane stuff they "investigate". It would be good to see just how much budget money is spent on these things. Ditto for small, underutilized resident stations.
i'm surprised to see Charles support the contact station premise. it is a poor way to give service in my opinion and can truly disadvantage someone "waiting" to see a rep at a contact station instead of using the 800 number or internet service.
I manned a contact station for two years, twice a month for four hours each day. I'd be lucky if I saw 15 people. Yet they kept the stupid thing open as the township elders would complain to their Congressman every time the idea of closing it was floated. Total waste of time and travel money.
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