From Government Executive:
Officials at the Justice Department last week announced that it would suspend a controversial system for managing immigration judges’ performance based on the number of cases they decide, prompting judges at other agencies to request an end to similar quotas. ...
The decision has raised the hopes of another union of judges that its agency will abandon its own controversial quota system. The Association of Administrative Law Judges said they have been operating under an onerous requirement from the Social Security Administration to schedule at least 50 disability cases per month since 2017.
“We have to submit a calendar that demonstrates that we will hold at least 50 hearings in a month, and if you don’t, you have to make up the difference in other months,” said AALJ President Melissa McIntosh. “The consequences include discipline, and judges who have received proposed removal actions are cited for ‘not managing’ their docket . . . In addition to this scheduling rule, they repeatedly say that you must have between 500 and 700 legally defensible decisions per year.”
McIntosh’s organization is urging acting Social Security Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi to abandon the performance metrics, arguing that they effectively deprive claimants of their due process rights, particularly as cases have gotten more complex in recent years. ...
9 comments:
So does every worker that works in a system with quotas.
The performance requirements lead to a need to produce instead of get the work done right.
Agree with 9:41. You will burn out the ALJ's who are trying to carefully review their cases. This kind of work does not lend itself to quotas.
That is true at all levels at SSA. Numbers are valued over quality. It's sad really.
8:56am ALJs are supposed to carefully consider all evidence and decide cases fairly and according to law. This takes time. It is not a widget factory where "one size fits all". If you were in the regular court system, for example, charged with a crime, would you want to be judged by a judge who had a quota (e.g., had to allot only 5 days to your murder trial)? Even with a traffic ticket, you would want your day in court and time to present your case.
In August 2021 there were about 1240 ALJs "available" according to OHO stats. Let's just call it 1200. 1200 ALJs x 50 hearings per month X 12 months would be 720,000 hearings. In all of FY 2020, with 100 more ALJs, OHO disposed of 585,000 cases (that includes decisions and dismissals). They only received 430,00 hearing requests. Through August 2021, OHO had disposed of 416,000 cases (and received a total of 356,000.
All of this to say that ALJs are doing far less than 50 cases per month, and it's totally fine because they are disposing of far more cases than they receive. Consequently, the number of pending cases (a.k.a the backlog) and time to process cases is falling rapidly.
If OHO has 1200 ALJs and a quota of 40 cases per month (20% less than the union alleges they are forced to do), they would still be able to dispose of 576,000 cases which 150,000 more than all cases received in 2020, and over 200,000 more than received in 11 months of 2021. A "quota of 30 cases per month with 1200 judges would be enough to stay current on all new cases received.
Something about AALJs accusation makes no sense.
As an ALJ trying to carefully review my cases, and edit the drafts I am provided with, and finalize and sign the decisions on a timely basis while also holding a quota-driven nonsense number of hearings, I am beyond burnt. Removing any layer at all of the poor management decisions, like the quotas, can only help and will relieve a lot of the pressure and the interference that pressure causes. Let me train my own writer (my personal idea of work heaven), and then we can work towards protecting due process, and providing fair decisions that are well-written documents which are easy to read and published fast enough so that everyone still remembers the hearing and who said what.
@12:38, the 2020 numbers are an aberration. During that time period SSA field offices have been closed which means only those claims which are already in the system or which are being filed online or over the phone are coming in. A significant portion of SSI claims (which are usually larger files since they are often Medicaid recipients) have not been coming in because those ere usually filed in person.
So yes, currently many ALJs have less than 50 on the docket. (Some are still full up). But that is the first time in living memory when that has happened. SSA's own budget writers have said this is an aberration and expect a deluge of new claims when offices are reopened.
@103 sounds like you need to go to an NHC.
There is no quota for ALJs. ALJs are not performance rated and are not fired for basically anything let alone missing a 50 hearing per month goal. ALJs just have to schedule 50 a month for telework during normal times.
It's also worth noting that ALJs make 185k per year plus benefits. just sayin
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