This was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives
(NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online
to non-members. It is basic operating statistics for Social Security's
Office of Hearings Operations.
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13 comments:
Also interesting that the huge increases in overtime hours don't seem to correlate with any significant increases in ALJ dispositions. In fact, the two metrics appear to have an inverse relationship.
From home overtime.
@11:10 AM
Fine. But who's using all that over-time? Most OHO staff are subject to strict production quotas, so if the extra time isn't resulting in a proportionate increase in productivity, they'll be fired in a hurry. And are ALJs even eligible for over-time pay?
I actually snorted out loud! "they will be fired in a hurry" seriously! smh
Let's do a linear regression on the ALJ dispositions vs. overtime!
That will give us some statistics!
Then we can all look at our hand-crafted statistics and ponder when we will have in-person hearings again.
From everything I have heard from insiders, decision writers have been nearly sitting around waiting for decisions to write so I can't imagine them needing overtime. Perhaps the case techs who are pulling double duty as hearing monitors are the ones getting all the OT, and perhaps deservedly so. Cases still need to be worked up so the ALJs, some who have very little to do, can hear cases. If the case techs are spending 1/2 days a couple days a week in hearings, then OT certainly seems appropriate for them. They keep the process moving.
Decision writers are getting OT to make prehearing calls to unrepresented claimants to help with development, answer questions about phone hearings and right to rep, etc.
Is anyone getting OT to scan paper cases, which OHO hasn't worked (with the exception of a few dozen TERI cases) since March?
ALJs don't get overtime. These OT hours are for support staff, but not for decision writing -- with many reps declining phone hearings left/right/center from April through September, and with failure-to-appear dismissals not permitted, and with the CSU having epic trouble getting off the ground in its first 12 months of "operation", there were very few cases to decide or write for a good six months.
Not sure whether to sigh, chuckle, or throw a shoe, when I read again and again how ALJs have nothing to do. I am running full dockets (sorry, itineraries), every scheduled hearing day. Thousands of pages of medical records. Sometimes none, and usually only a few, of the heard cases are ready for decision because the magical 5-day letter sends them to POST. So I get to touch most files at least four times, reducing efficiency. I am grateful to have the opportunity to hear cases without going in to the office. But the meme of judges sitting around with nothing to do is far removed from my reality.
Not surprised by this, as 3rd quarter is the end of the Agency's fiscal year. To prevent reductions in next fiscal year OT funding levels, OHO (like all other divisions of the agency) have to use all the OT that they accepted and budgeted. As a result, they obviously pushed using the OT as much as possible to get as much done as possible by the end of September.
@10:26PM. Your reference to the "the magical 5-day letter" which sends a case to POST and reduce your efficiency tells me you will go far in the SSA world. Efficiency over fairness is the Kool-Aid SSA has been pushing for years.
3:09, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but the 5-day letter was SSA's own proposal, and once I get one of those letters from the representative, I can't close the record on the day of the hearing, or it's an automatic remand from the AC. So of my scheduled 50 hearings a month, at least 30 of those cases will go into POST. And since the SCTs are now spending half their time recording hearings, those cases will sit in POST for months and months. This is all by SSA design (Gruber and Neagle trying to make the ALJs look bad, so they can replace them with staff attorneys? Well, they got their wish), and it's the opposite of efficiency. It's not efficient for the ALJ -- and it's definitely not fair to the claimant.
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