From Joe Davidson at the Washington Post:
The Democratic chairman of a powerful Senate committee on Wednesday called on President Biden to fire the lead watchdog for the Social Security Administration, pointing to stalled investigations and plunging staff morale.
In a letter sent Wednesday to the White House, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said promises by Inspector General Gail Ennis to “establish a culture that welcomes debate, collaboration, and transparency … appear to have been hollow.”
“I urge you to remove her,” Wyden wrote. ...
No comments at all to the recent blog posts about the wide- ranging problems in the OIG? Seems odd. Wonder if OIG leadership has threatened to sue Mr. Hall if he permits any comments.
ReplyDeleteI know OIG has problems with the IG, but I am sort of shocked about the morale issue. This is just anecdotal, but in work with several components of OIG in my role at SSA and they never complain the way SSA staff does.
ReplyDeleteanon@5:45PM,
ReplyDeleteIn many areas there aren't enough agents to even complain.
In our state, they had to call a single retiree back to work to even have an agent, and only late last year finally managed to hire a pair of agents who only recently completed training. As long as Ennis is in charge, I suspect they'll complete their probationary periods and look for OIG work in greener pastures....
Funnily enough, Ennis didn't hesitate to hire all her own buddies and stooges to high level positions though. As I recall, OIG has by far the highest ratio of GS14 management to employees in the entire federal government -- something that came about entirely on Ennis' watch and through her intentional actions.
Don't hold your breath about her being removed, though. Biden spent his capital removing Saul, and he isn't going to do anything to allow the red wingnut brigade to have something else to scream about before the election.