... The rise in SSA-related imposter scams primarily affected its field office and national 800-Number teleservice center staff. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, SSA estimated its 800-Number staff handled about 854,000 scam-related calls. Also, in FY 2019, the OIG received about 65,000 scam-related allegations from SSA staff—an over 1,000-percent increase over the number of similar allegations SSA staff sent in FY 2018.
Time spent responding to scam-related inquiries and making fraud referrals deflected staff from completing their normal workloads. SSA estimated it spent over 100 workyears in FY 2019 on these and other scam-related activities at a cost of $8.4 million. Per SSA, it takes 100 workyears to process 6,000 initial disability claims, 43,000 retirement claims, or 270,000 Social Security number card requests. ...
But yeah, the real reason for long telephone wait times is definitely those lazy employees your readers kept whining about in your earlier post about the 1-800 number- the same ones whose bare-bones teleworking privileges Commissioner Saul also so astutely determined to be the cause of service declines.
ReplyDeleteSo, 11:23, can you tell me who keeps going into the local offices and stealing all the paperwork? Couldn't be the employees losing or destroying it. We have the green cards to show it was received and who signed for it so we know it wasn't lost in the mail. Someone must be coming in and stealing it all. Guess they need better security, huh?
ReplyDeleteJob security.
ReplyDelete@1:03 PM
ReplyDeleteI honestly can't even tell what point you're trying to make. Are you suggesting that the misplacement of paperwork you're alleging is proof that field office employees are lazy and unproductive when teleworking? If so, can you please explain how the two are connected? Because I'm just not seeing any logical relationship.
Also, when handling millions of sheets of paperwork from tens of thousands of people across hundreds of understaffed field offices, some papers are going to get misplaced. Seems irrational to conclude that this inevitable cause-and-effect is due to laziness or deliberate theft, and even more irrational to conclude it has anything to do with telework. If it's processing delays you're referring to, of course those are going to occur during a pandemic that prevents staff from safely being in the buildings. But that's hardly the fault of the field office, who have no control over this virus.
I can't tell you the times as OS and DM I came across mail hidden in desk drawers, overhead bins, or shredder bins. This included attorney paperwork. That's one reason why it was necessary to fax everything in to keep track of paperwork by management. Desk audits are a must.
ReplyDelete@9:14
ReplyDeleteEven faxing is not always enough. I recall an instance where 7 faxes, and 3 hand-delivered requests for hearings were delivered to a field office and ignored for literally years. Regional was unresponsive. Finally, once the individual involved retired, the requests were found in their desk drawer. And the individual involved WAS management.
@ 10:13
ReplyDeleteEvery employer, especially massive ones like SSA, has its bad apples. Your experience is by no means an indictment of the workforce as a whole.
Except, 10:13, some of us have seen this same thing repeated in multiple field offices. I'm not specifically trying to blame all the workers but the frequency with which this happens means that it has to be deliberate. There is apparently some systemic issue that causes employees to hide, lose, ignore paperwork. It does make the agency and the employees look bad and someone should try to fix the problem.
ReplyDeletePoor training, poor mentoring, lack of communication, no trust on part of management. On staff side lack of accountability and responsibilities.time management.
ReplyDelete@3:58
ReplyDelete10:13 here. I agree. Literally that's the only example I am aware of. My point was, the individual involved WAS management, and you can't just rely on managers to catch bad apples.
@4:37
Not sure what your point is. My statement didn't indicate it was not deliberate, I believe it was.
Sorry 10:13, meant to direct that to 3:58. Names would be so much easier.
ReplyDelete@11:55
ReplyDelete10:13 here. Ha! No problem.