As required by law, the Social Security Administration has published its annual inventory of service contracts. Notable on the list is Lockheed Martin, which received over $100 million in contracts over the last year. Northrup Grumman received over $60 million in contracts. In glancing through the list I was a little surprised by the number and amount of contracts with Brookfield Relocation, apparently for employee relocation services. It's a small matter in the overall picture but I didn't think there would be that many Social Security employees being relocated at agency expense or that the costs, often over $100,000, would be that high.
Anytime one moves for management benefit, the Agency pays a lot of it, including closing costs on houses, etc, The big area of this is with hearing office administrative law judges as there is a great deal of turn over there and also with national hearing center judges as they are considered management and there is a very high incident of turn over there.
ReplyDeleteRelocation packages actually haven't been offered much this last year, even with promotional or management level positions.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the 2012 spreadsheet and didn't find the relocation expenses. I wonder why the change in reporting? Or I just missed them.
ReplyDeleteAt ODAR relocation packages are offered with every management transfer that I have seen or heard of.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about ALJs, but lots of internal listings (viewable by the public at ssai.usajobs.gov) for management - even HOD jobs - I have seen over the last year or so are not offering relocation.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard that, in my region, there is an informal/unspoken/whatever you'd like to call it policy that even when relocation is clearly not offered, the region puts a very tight radius around the job and will not hire someone from far away. Rumor has it there was an issue in the past where an employee caused a stink and ended up getting relocation benefits even though the posting said there were none.
Also, my region is not one like San Francisco or Denver, who routinely restrict postings to their own region, so this phenomenon, if true, seems like kind of a big deal since it sort of undoes the whole "open to all SSA employees" thing.
In addition to the ALJ issue already mentioned, I suspect a majority of this cost is due to retiring SES who receive one last fully-funded agency relocation to their final destination (i.e. home), which may or may not be the one from which they originated. That can get quite expensive is some cases. Just my guess. If I'm wrong, I hope someone will correct.
ReplyDeleteSES gets a free relo at retirement to go home?
ReplyDeleteSo, you're stacking cake as an SES employee and, after a (presumably and very likely) super long career with your high three in the stratosphere you get a free few tens of thousands of dollars to help sell your huge NOVA estate and move to some state without state income tax?
I need to break into the SES
Could be more Baltimore types like when Christaudo left and others left when Astrue hit the road. There was some , but not enough, house cleaning..
ReplyDeleteFrom OPM.gov
ReplyDeleteLast move home
A career SES appointee is entitled to moving expenses upon retirement if the individual was moved geographically and was eligible for or within 5 years of optional retirement, or was eligible for discontinued service retirement, at the time of the Federal Government directed move
Don't forget about the agency employees who get picked up for ALJ. Their relo is paid.
ReplyDeleteWeren't all the ALJs who were hired from inside SSA given up to $100K to relocate to their new hearing offices? From a cost benefit analysis, people really have to question whether using ALJs to decide non-adversarial disability claims is really worth what they cost the American taxpayers. No federal rules of procedure or evidence apply when evaluating the claims. Making decisions on these claims does not requires 3 years of law school plus 7 years as a practicing lawyer.
ReplyDelete@ 8:41
ReplyDeleteYou're right with regard to SSA ALJs. However, as we all should know, the federal ALJ corps is not just for SSA, though SSA gets the vast majority of ALJs. There are ALJs in other agencies/bureaus who actually do know and have to apply things like the FRCP or FRE in adversarial proceedings.
I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing SSA trying to move towards replacing ALJs, or at least using some other type of job for initial claims to significantly cut back their numbers. While SCOTUS requires a great deal of process for termination of benefits, the procedural bar is a lot lower for initial applications. Considering the agency's disdain of their lack of control over the ALJs thanks to decisionmaker independence, their frustration over OPMs control over the ALJ making process, and the high cost of ALJs (as opposed to a corps of gs-14 or 15 hearing examiners), wouldn't such a move be contemplated by SSA upper management?
Any admin law mavens out there? Care to chime in on whether the move away from ALJs as described would require Congressional action or is this something SSA could do on its own via rulemaking?
Mentioning the re-allocation expense for insiders, a whole lot of them do not ustilize the re-allocation package as they want to transfer back home as soon as possible. When I was promoted to ALJ, I received a re-allocation package of around $115,000.00 I believe. I used to temporary living expense for a couple of months, using maybe $6,000.00. Since I wanted to get back home as soon as possible, I moved nothing and rented a small apartment and rented some furniture. All out of my own pocket. My family stayed at home. 18 months later I moved back home on my own dime. I never touched the remaining over $100,000.00 in re-allocation expense money. A whole lot of my friends have done the same.
ReplyDeleteRelocation packages for ALJs (other than ones who are willing to become HOCALJ at an office one wants) makes me sick. This just further reinforces for me the thought that these folks are total leeches on the federal govt, simply taking the position for the benefits, flex time, etc. as opposed to carrying about the job.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started in this field years ago, I respected ALJs. Today, not so much, particularly not the new crop that has been coming in over the past 5 years or so.
Well, perhaps your firm will relocate you to Mount Pleasant Michigan without a relocation package. I used to respect reps also, but not so much anymore. Lazy.... Even when there is a brief, it is the same one with the victims name changed... Oh, how I love it when they think the claimant meets 12.05C because of a 68 FSIQ score although he has a 25 year work history of skilled and semi-skilled work... What are they smokin'????
ReplyDelete@ 2:45PM, If you hate where they send you, guess what, you can get a new job! Don't you have a law degree? If you hate your life, you can change it. You don't have to take out the fact that you are miserable of the claimant's who come before you.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of lazy, how about all those ALJs who just skim the file the night before the hearing and ask the same set of questions to every claimant regardless of the issues involved in the case and then just rely on the State agency assessment to deny the claim once again.
Last I checked, 12.05C requires something more than just the IQ, a second impairment that imposes an ADDITIONAL limitation on the ability to work. So the fact that the person was able to work in the past with just the low IQ, and no additional limitations, is not evidence that the IQ is invalid.
No, but it certainly is an indication that the low IQ does not cause more than a minimal affect on work activity, since the claimant has performed SGA for over 20 years.
ReplyDeleteyou both show your significant lack of knowledge of 12.05
ReplyDeleteDEFICITS IN ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING is part of what the appellate courts call "prong one" of 12.05. I don't care how many valid IQ scores in the range, how many other impairments imposing additional, significant limitations you have--if your subaverage intelligence does not cause deficits in adaptive functioning, you do not meet 12.05. Period.
the first poster who thought he/she was slick and knew the listing started talking about adaptive functioning--significant work Hx in competitive (and perhaps even skilled!) work; raising children independently; graduating high school; driving; etc. etc.