Officials Fight To Keep Social Security Office Open
From
WIBX:
After the Social Security Administration office in Rome [NY] announced plans to close and relocate to Utica, several high ranking officials teamed up to stop it from happening.Rome Mayor Joe Fusco, Senator Chuck Schumer, Congressman Richard Hanna, State Senator Joe Griffo and Assemblymen Anthony Brindisi, all say they joined forces to help area seniors maintain their access to critical benefits. ...
The officials were able to reach an agreement to keep the office open for the next three months. During that time a pilot program will be implemented to measure the cost benefit of keeping the office open indefinitely. Schumer says he’s also asking the Social Security Administration for its economic justification for wanting to close shop and relocate. ...
For the next three months, the office will be open one day a week until a final agreement is reached.
10 comments:
Office open one day a week? How much does it cost to maintain the other six days? Is this a resident station? Just what 'critical benefits' will seniors lose access to that they cannot do over the telephone. Brother.
What?? Change?! Couldn't agree more with the first post... In most towns where offices are closing, it should have been done years ago. Just flat out wasteful. It's the 21st century... not 1940 anymore. We can't be using the same business models for government that we used 75 years ago.
This is what happens any time SSA proposes to close an underused office. Generally, the agency backs down when Congressmen complain. Agree with A 1010--we simply don't need a lot of the offices we have and could save a ton of money by closing them.
put a sign on the door with directions to the local library along with the following message
"go to www.ssa.gov to do whatever business you came here to do"
I find it fascinating how often the Congressman fighting to keep a little utilized post office or social security office open campaigned on either "running government like a business", "eliminating waste", "reducing the size of government" or some combination thereof. Even more entertaining is that often these closures are being done because the agency has less money, in part because the member of Congress fighting the closure voted to reduce the agency budget.
What I find I sad is how rarely do members of the media point out these inconsistencies.
To refer to these offices as "underutilized" is so ridiculously stupid as to defy consciousness. field offices in upstate NY have lost half-to-two-thirds of their staff in the past 20 years. The workloads are crushing. SSA is so short of funds that the only way to operate is to close buildings, saving money on rent, utilities, guard services, phones lines, etc. Even so, to contest this by keeping Rome open one day a week is just as stupid. Just shut it down, stop wasting time and effort. Save the money fo staffing, what little remains.
By the way, it is illegal for an SSA employee to refer the public to unsecured public computers, where personally identifiable information might be compromised, under the existing systems security sanctions regulations.
Maybe they can borrow some money from GSA.. they seem to have plenty of cash to burn.. ?
Yes, many of these facilities are underutilized. Take a look at the number of office visitors in some of these outposts. I managed a couple of them, and while we still were tasked with the usual RZ/RP accounting/alerts and everything else, those things could have been taken by the district office. Until you know the amount of money spent on guard and security costs, rent and utilities, you can't give an intelligent comment about just how much this stuff actually costs the agency.
"outposts"??--ok troll alert-- pretend manager--no the "district office" cannot do the work, without the additional people, because they are also understaffed. They are all understaffed. Of course the fixed costs are high--that is why the offices are closing, to save money for people costs. We used to be a district office until we were downsized into a branch, and now waiting for our turn to close, all the while our beneficiary population has mushroomed. outpost--b.s.
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