From Government Executive:
A Social Security Administration office tasked with resolving beneficiary issues brought to its attention by federal legislators has shrunk from about 50 employees to as few as three, according to an agency employee.
In addition to constituent casework, employees in SSA’s Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs provide technical assistance to lawmaker offices when developing Social Security legislation and answer questions from Capitol Hill staffers, among other legislative and regulatory responsibilities. …
[After recent cuts] OLCA was left with just three staffers, two of whom were brought over from a different office. …
SSA did move a congressional casework team to a different component and remaining OLCA staffers have been instructed to contact other offices to help with their responsibilities, according to the employee. …
[An] employee said that some OLCA staffers were asked to return, potentially increasing the number of workers in the office …
16 comments:
I would gut the whole thing. Congress has left this Agency out to dry for so long, I really could care less about their complaints.
Finally, someone spoke up for the American Public ....
It's like being in a bad relationship, get out, please come back.
We've received far fewer Congressionals since January in our field office than we used to. We had a CSR come to us once saying they had a Congressional staffer cold-calling out general inquiry line about a case, which.....lol. If the communications pathways that had long been in place for this kind of work are that broken, to where they're sitting on hold for 2 hours to get an answer, I can't help but laugh.
This is what smaller government looks like, people.
These administration has unlimited material! 🤣
A spokesperson said that Social Security's congressional affairs says work is continuing in offices across the agency.
Is this comment referencing the current administration or the plight of SSA employees training.
“It’s a s— sandwich, and we're eating it,” they said. “You have all these really inexperienced people who were doing other work effectively now doing disability adjudications.”
Would the quote brevity is the soul of wit apply in this situation?
The former OLCA employee is now working in disability adjudication, which handles eligibility determinations for SSA disability benefits. The employee said that they’re “overwhelmed” because the reassigned employees were provided with seven weeks of training instead of the usual six months.
Congress is not a huge priority for this administration, so this seems about right. Kudos to Gov exec for a good article though. The whole “what’s the point” attitude is not limited to just this
A toxic relationship for sure!
Forced reassignments. Regardless of the quality of training, this administration has brought hell upon employees.
This….Congress gives two Fs about how Elon gutted the Agency. We should tell Congress to sit on it and rotate.
Ever write a congress person about an issue? Ninty nine percent respond with some canned language that has nothing to do with the issue raised. I suggest SSA respond to every congressional inquiry with a copy of the latest COSS press release and close them out. Three people can handle that just fine.
OLCA was a small but important part of headquarters--not just helping to resolve constituent issues, but providing Congress with technical assistance on legislative drafting issues, drafting regulations, and advocating for SSA's interests before Congress. The people who worked there are smart and had a good relationship with congressional staff and OMB. SSA is poorer for their loss. But it's what you'd expect from the clown show running SSA and the administration.
Even better create an automated reply mechanism. AI can do it!
Is all of OLCA now three people, or is that just the part responding to Congressional casework inquiries? Big difference. OLCA also helps prep leadership for Congressional hearings, answers policy inquiries from legislators (as opposed to casework questions), and handles Federal Register notices. Not sure how they vs. Policy divide the work of actual reg drafting (nobody seems to do leg proposals as part of the President's budget request anymore) or responding to comments on Fed Reg notices, but with all the upcoming regs on the Unified Agenda at OMB, somebody's going to have to handle that. Also, is the field office in Rayburn (which was previously very functional--definitely a plum job for excellent FO staffers) still staffed? And are the I&E folks (who were a mixed bag in prior administrations) still working at PCs?
Congress has made itself irrelevant by failing for years to pass much legislation beyond continuing resolutions to fund the government (which it cannot even do on time in most years) and by abdicating its power to the president, which the supreme court is happy to support when the president is Trump. So gutting congressional affairs staff was probably a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.
Besides, the whole country is on the verge of collapsing into a fascist s**thouse like 1930s Germany anyway.
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