The draft House Appropriations Committee report on the Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill, which includes administrative funding for the Social Security Administration, is out. This hasn't been voted on even in committee, much less on the floor of the House of Representatives or the Senate. The report contains language showing appropriation amounts, which, if adopted, would be mandatory but it also contains a good deal of what we may call recommendations. Agencies aren't under a legal obligation to act on those recommendations but they always have to pay attention to them and often act on them. There is more of this sort of language than I can ever recall seeing for Social Security. Here are some excerpts from this draft (emphasis added):
... LIMITATION ON ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES
Appropriation, fiscal year 2022 $11,219,945,000
Budget request, fiscal year 2022 12,341,896,000
Committee Recommendation 12,219,945,000
Change from enacted level +1,000,000,000
Change from budget request -121,951,000 ...
The Committee provides an increase of not less than $650,000,000 to support frontline operations in field offices, teleservice centers, and program service centers. In addition, the recommendation includes the increase requested in the budget to replace losses and build capacity at the State Dis-ability Determination Services (DDS) agencies that make disability determinations for SSA.Within the recommended funding level, the Committee provides $89,500,000 for SSA to mail paper statements to all contributors aged 25 and older not yet receiving benefits ...
The Committee considers the Final Rule ‘‘Hearings Held by Administrative Appeals Judges of the Appeals Council’’ (85 Fed. Reg. 73138, December 16, 2020) to be an unjustified erosion of due process for individuals who are appealing a denial of Social Security or SSI benefits. ...In light of the harm that would be caused by this policy change, the Committee strongly urges SSA not to exercise this authority ...
The Committee continues to be deeply concerned about the impact of Presidential Executive Order 13843 (July 10, 2018) on the judicial independence of adminstrative law judges (ALJs). The Order eliminates the competitive hiring process for ALJs and has the potential impact of converting independent adjudicators to political appointees, undermining long-standing principles of fair and unbiased consideration of matters of vital importance to the American people. ALJs must be independent decision-makers and it is the Committee’s expectation that SSA maintain the highest standards for appointment of ALJs. ...
The Committee recognizes that the pandemic disrupted progress SSA made with its initial disability claims backlog, and remains concerned about the adverse impacts disability claim hearings backlogs have on an individual’s ability to access their Social Security benefits. Accordingly, the Committee urges the Commissioner to prioritize the hiring of additional administrative law judges and requisite staff to adjudicate backlogged claims. In addition, the Committee directs the Commissioner to continue to prioritize efforts to reduce wait time disparities across the country by directing resources and workload assistance, as necessary, and to provide the Committee annual reports on efforts to reduce the hearing backlog for Hearing Offices in the bottom twenty of national ranking by average processing time. ...
The Committee is concerned about the time it takes SSA to effectuate favorable SSI and/or SSDI disability determinations and directs SSA to submit a report to the Committee within 180 days of enactment of this Act, on SSA’s procedures for paying past-due and ongoing benefits after a claimant has been found disabled. ...
The Committee believes that quality representation in matters with SSA assists claimants and beneficiaries, and can also help SSA work more accurately and efficiently. The Committee continues to support direct payment of fees to representatives, encourages the Commissioner to raise and index the cap on fees payable via fee agreement, and requests that the Commissioner add a Performance Measure on timely and accurate payment of representative fees to the Fiscal Year 2022 and subsequent Annual Performance Plans. ...
The Committee reiterates its support for well-managed telework programs in the Federal workplace, which have demonstrated benefits for human capital as well as continuity of operations. The Committee expects SSA to implement telework policies that support these goals while also strengthening service to the American public, including in-person service in community-based field offices. The Committee directs SSA to submit a report within 90 days of enactment of this Act detailing the agency’s telework policies and identifying any positions for which telework has not been provided or has been reduced from pre-October 2019 levels,along with the reasons for any telework reductions. ...
The Committee understands that during the COVID–19 pandemic, SSA is providing claimants with the option of a video hearing, a telephone hearing, or a postponement if the individual would prefer to wait until an in-person hearing is available. The Committee expects that once the COVID–19 pandemic ends, SSA will resume in-person hearings.
ReplyDelete"The Committee directs SSA to submit a report within 90 days of enactment of this Act detailing the agency’s telework policies and identifying any positions for which telework has not been provided or has been reduced from pre-October 2019 levels,along with the reasons for any telework reductions."
This seems designed to rescind all of Saul's October 2019 orders which eliminated telework for thousands of SSA employees.
Then in early 2020 before the pandemic hit in March, Saul grudgingly allowed greatly reduced telework (1 day biweekly) for a few components. (This was only after he was pressured by Congress.) But still he refused to give PSC, FO, or TSC any of their telework days back.
Anyway based on this latest directive, all of Saul's draconian cuts in telework will be null and void.
It also sounds like this will take months to resolve, as the report is not even due for 90 days.
Since the regulation that allows agency lawyers (i.e. non-ALJs w/out the APA protections of decisional independence) to hold disability hearings wasn't subjected to the CRA (I thought perhaps it would), perhaps this will persuade the new (!!) leadership to repeal that rule.
ReplyDeleteDid no one tell Congress the backlog is gone? They want to hire more ALJs when there's already too few hearings to schedule?
ReplyDelete1:06, it takes about 2 years to hire and train an ALJ to full productivity. There is a big and growing DDS backlog--the President's budget expects 1.5 million cases pending at initial and recon next year, and a bunch of those will wind up requesting ALJ hearings. If SSA waits to hire ALJs until the claims are sitting at OHO, they'll end up with processing times over 700 days again.
ReplyDelete1:06: I was recently looking at our firm's case numbers while lamenting the lack of hearings scheduled this summer. Less than 10% of our total case load now is at the hearing level. Over 90% of all our cases are currently sitting at the initial app and recon levels. When these cases finally make their way to the hearing level, our hearing totals will explode. I expect we're not the only firm so situated. It is smart for Social Security to try and get ahead of this incoming tsunami of hearings that will be coming in '22 and '23.
ReplyDeleteThere will be a flood of disability claims in the next 1-2 seasons. So they will need more ALJs in the future. Or the backlog will come back just as strong.
ReplyDeleteWho will determine when "the COVID-19 pandemic ends" since the acute crisis stage has been ended by the development of an effective vaccine. It's past the time for return to in-person hearings. Without masking I now shop for groceries, eat in restaurants, visit a local gym, swim at the community pool, attend baseball games, and ride on public transportation. Enough of the excessive caution and worry. Get vaccinated and return to work now.
ReplyDeleteI see we are pretending that cases aren't rising exponentially thanks to a combination of the Delta variant and the glut of anti-vaxxers. Lambda, which appears even worse, will follow.
DeleteIf our surge follows the same track as the one the UK has experienced for the past 6 weeks, we will be looking at new case counts between 200,000 and 300,000/day within two months.
The writing is on the wall. SSA will not be expanding in-person service in 2021. 2022 ain't looking so hot either at the moment if tens of millions of idiots continue to refuse the jab.
The magical thinking coming from this nation's right wing is counterproductive. The sooner they sober up to reality, the better.
BTW, LA County just reimposed the indoor mask mandate for everyone, including the fully vaxxed. Plenty if municipalities will follow suit in the coming weeks.
anon@6:01pm,
ReplyDeleteExcept that the "acute crisis stage" hasn't ended (and won't end anytime soon) because half the US population are drinking the Fox National Enquirer News kool-aid and refuse to get vaccinated. My barber just the other day asked me if I was aware that that I had received "monkey DNA" vaccination yet... (suffice to say, I'm getting a new barber - he wasn't very happy when I pointed out when I left that he, myself, and every other human being on the planet already share almost 99% of our DNA with a monkey anyway). In my state, hospitalizations are exploding again as we have ~30-35% vaccination rate and I shudder to think what is going to happen come fall/winter.
And, in states like Missouri, they are literally shipping patients out to surrounding states as fast as they can stabilize them because their hospital systems are collapsing under the massive inflow. This ain't gonna be over until all the idiotic morons who won't get vaccinated either get sick or die (and I'm to the point I literally don't care anymore which one happens to them).
Don't get me wrong - I'm fully vaccinated and I agree with you. I found out the other day that SSA (who somehow managed the minor miracle of convincing me, against my better judgement, to come out of retirement and return to work as a FO CS) will still insist that I wear a mask in the office, even when I am fully vaccinated and further will be one of only two people there at any given time. I'm now committed until at the first work day in 2023, but they are going to find out really quickly that they'd better back off if they want to keep me any longer than that.
Utter stupidity knows no bounds. I already feel brain cells dying at the thought of returning to that insane asylum of an agency....
ReplyDelete6:01 You may be wearing a mask again soon for all the activities you listed. Look at what’s going on in LA. We can’t just pretend the COVID variants don’t exist. Especially Delta. SSA should be very cautious about reopenings.
ReplyDeleteSome areas of the USA are in trouble again. Tennessee COVID19 cases are up 340% in two weeks. SSA is national, cannot just open FO, PSC, and TSC in those areas of the USA which are doing well with COVID.
The best solution for SSA, at least for the foreseeable future, is the same one that many companies have recently decided upon: Continued remote work for almost all employees.
draft
ReplyDeleteIf I’m not mistaken, isn’t the request about telework positions cut in October 2019 referring to nearly every position in the agency that was teleworking? This is quite a big recommendation because last I heard it was up to the DCs to determine the level of telework, but now they want a look at every position that was cut? That’s like all of them.
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ReplyDeleteAfter Saul's initial termination of telework in 2019, there was such an uproar that they decided to give a little bit back. Deputy Commissioners (Such as Grace Kim for DC for Operations) were given authority to decide in early 2020 (pre pandemic) how much telework their area should have.
The problem is that the DC's gave such a small, minimal amount of telework back to employees. TSC, PSC and FO received no telework days back at all, and many other components only received 1 day every two weeks.
In short the Deputy Commissioners showed that they could not be trusted in deciding how much telework employees should have. Like many managers they don't want telework no matter how well it is working. So this decision is being taken out of their hands, as it should be.
It is good to allow ALJ's to be independent in their decision making. It is not good to use that concept, however, as a shield to inhibit removal of ALJ's from their jobs at SSA when they perform their jobs poorly. Sadly, that is what happens at SSA. And, because of it, the service to the public suffers tremendously.
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