From Federal News Network:
A federal service used by financial institutions to verify Social Security numbers, recently highlighted as a prime example for how the government could reduce improper payments and fraud, is at risk of a “death spiral” due to a steep increase in user fees, according to proponents of the system.
The Government Accountability Office is now conducting a review of the Social Security Administration’s electronic Consent Based Social Security Number Verification (eCBSV) program after lawmakers flagged concerns with cost overruns and price increases.
Meanwhile, it’s not clear whether eCBSV factors into a forthcoming SSA plan to make real-time Social Security number verification available to federal benefits programs. ...
When SSA launched eCBSV in 2020, SSA said it would charge new users a $3,693 administrative fee and returning users a $1,691 renewal fee. SSA also charged transaction fees, ranging from $400 for a user to submit up to 1,000 transactions, to $276,500 for users submitting between 200,000 and 50 million transactions.
Beginning in 2022, SSA eliminated the transaction fees, but began creating more tiers and increasing the transaction rates for high-volume users.
And as part of the most recent fee structure published in May, SSA raised the rates again for higher volume users. Those submitting between 15 million and 20 million cases will be subject to a $6.25 million annual fee; between 20 million and 25 million transactions will cost $7.25 million; and between 25 million and 75 million transactions will cost $8.25 million.
The new fee structure goes into effect in July.
The upshot, [Katie] Wechsler [of a group composed of banks, credit card companies and other large users of eCBSV] pointed out during last month’s hearing, is that a user submitting 20 million cases this year will pay 22 times what they were charged in 2021 for the same number of transactions. ...
Please correct me if I'm wrong but eCBSV is not something that LAE funds can be used and must be paid for with a separate appropriation or by user fees. Complaints about SSA operating withing their legal constraints are being sent to the wrong people if not sent to Congress. from the article and not quoted by Mr Hall in the above - “We must increase the tier charges to recover funds so that we don’t use our administrative funds for non-mission eCBSV work and permanently reduce the amount of administrative funding available to serve the public,” she said.
ReplyDeleteIt really is that simple.
And as far as complaints from users about rising costs, well, welcome to the real world where what you want isn't necessarily what can be provided. Pay the fee if the value add is worth it, lobby Congress to get eCBSV a dedicated appropriation or don't use it and shut up. If the eCBSV program cannot sustain itself on fees, then it's not a tool SSA can provide until Congress provides non-LAE funding for it.
Who would be inquiring about 50 million per month? That's like 20% of the population over age 18 EVERY MONTH.
ReplyDelete