Gave It A Try But Struck Out

     It looks like Social Security lobbied to get an additional appropriation for itself in the $51 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental appropriation bill but struck out. The agency did get permission to transfer $2 million (page 18) from the special economic stimulus appropriation given about three years back for technology improvements. Not all of that special appropriation has been spent yet since much of it is going for the new national computing center which is still under construction. Several of Social Security's offices were damaged by the storm. A large program service center was down for several days. Overtime is needed to make up for workloads not processed during the downtime. Asking for money in the supplemental appropriation was no stretch. I doubt that $2 million comes close to Social Security's costs as a result of Sandy. The agency certainly needs that $2 million for technology. In normal times, a little money to help Social Security with its disaster related costs would have been no big deal. Now, the agency gets the cold shoulder.