From: ^Commissioner Broadcast
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 2:37 PM
Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--12/23/11
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 2:37 PM
Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--12/23/11
A Message To All SSA And DDS Employees
Subject: Budget Approved
Thank you for your patience during the latest budget negotiations and for handling the uncertainty professionally. I am pleased to report that President Obama today signed the Omnibus appropriations bill. The good news is that we know how much money we have for this fiscal year much earlier than we did last year.
Accounting for the across-the-board reduction that each agency had to take, we received a small increase of about $25 million over last year’s budget. This budget increase does not pay for much of our more than $300 million increase in fixed costs, so it will be another very tight year. We are in the process of making some difficult decisions so that we can accomplish our most important missions. We will release revised budget allocations in January and expect only to make minor modifications through the remainder of the fiscal year.
Thank you again for working hard during this period, and I wish you all a wonderful holiday season with family and friends!
Michael J. Astrue
Commissioner
I guess I'll never get a new chair now. LOL
ReplyDeleteWell if this budget doesn't allow for new hires or overtime, then Congress should be lobbied for more money. It's not acceptable to let SSA backlogs grow for a year, disabled and elderly people will be hurt.
ReplyDeleteThe continued consequences of elections. Let's hope this unreasonable push against the SSDI program, the attorneys that represent claimants, and "outlier" ALJs will be over after the next election, and after a new Commissioner is appointed.
ReplyDeletebacklogs are growing again!
ReplyDeleteno overtime at the DDSs; pitiful for claimants.
And with the effort to reduce backlogs, the pinnacle of this commissioners administration, tanking, where else would a lame duck repub commissioner go next? Of course, give cover to the Tom Coburn's, and other right wing extremist at the WSJ of the world.
ReplyDelete