More On The Elevation Of Dudek — With A Small Role For Andrew Saul

      From Lisa Rein at the Washington Post:

Leaders of the Social Security Administration had just opened an investigation into a career employee they believed was improperly sharing information with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team when President Donald Trump elevated the employee this week to acting commissioner. …

It’s not clear what data Dudek shared, but his actions raised enough alarm that he may have violated privacy and tax laws that senior officials placed him on paid leave as they launched their investigation. The officials, including attorneys in the general counsel’s office, also were notified late last week that Dudek had sent harassing emails to employees in the agency’s personnel and security divisions to rush them to let several engineers hired by DOGE start work and gain access to agency computer systems. The officials pushed back, saying that they had not completed background investigations into the new hires….

When the [DOGE] team learned last week that Dudek would be investigated, the chief information officer called acting commissioner Michelle King to demand answers. Then, on the Sunday of Presidents’ Day weekend, King received an email announcing that Trump had appointed Dudek to replace her. After being effectively forced out, King abruptly retired after three decades of service, the three individuals said. Her acting chief of staff, Tiffany Flick, also retired. …

In his first days on the job, Dudek has made bold moves that are highly unusual for someone in an acting role. He has slashed the agency’s research program, restructured numerous departments, announced the hires of new political staff, and made personnel changes that include the demotion of the career senior executive who was involved in placing him on paid leave last week, according to internal personnel announcements obtained by The Washington Post. …

“If I were them, I would want to get my permanent person in as fast as possible,” said Andrew Saul, who served as Social Security commissioner during Trump’s first term. “The situation is not good, obviously.”
Saul said he recommended King, then deputy commissioner for operations, to Trump’s transition team after his election in November. “I knew she’d hold the ship down.” …

The Rise Of Dudek

    From the Wall Street Journal:

Leland Dudek had spent more than a decade at the Social Security Administration, including time overseeing a fraud investigation office, but was largely unknown to senior executives at the agency.

Just last week, in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Dudek said that he was put on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

“I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” he wrote in the post, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. …

[Michelle] King was informed in an email Sunday morning that Dudek had been elevated to acting commissioner and she decided to retire from the agency after three decades, some of the people said.

Dudek’s elevation to acting commissioner followed a tumultuous period in which members of Social Security’s leadership team grew concerned about the manner in which he was helping DOGE personnel, some of the people said. They had received information that Dudek had been sharing information with nonagency personnel beginning in December, before Trump’s inauguration, and heard complaints from career staff who said he had pressured them to help DOGE representatives, these people said. …

Dudek Speaks

     A press release:

Statement from Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner, about Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information

“I am honored and humbled to be appointed Social Security's Acting Commissioner pending Senate confirmation of Frank Bisignano to be SSA's next Commissioner. I accepted the position because I strongly believe in the agency's mission and the hardworking and dedicated employees who serve America.

Openness, transparency, and accountability are tenants of good government and demonstrating them begins with me. To that end, I want to share several points to reassure the public and our employees that I will continue SSA's history of transparency and protecting benefits and information.

I have experienced firsthand the impact that Social Security benefits have on family's lives. Since joining SSA in 2009, I have had the opportunity to work across multiple parts of SSA, and especially appreciated my experiences working alongside frontline employees in the Cambridge, MA field office.

Transparency begins with me: My first call as Acting Commissioner was to our Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to provide them an opportunity to oversee and review any and all agency activities, including my actions past, present, and future. I trust in the People to be informed, and I am making available my agency personnel and performance files to the OIG.

The law matters and we will follow it: I have invited the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan and independent agency that works for Congress, to observe how we conduct agency business.

Good government means finding ways to do better: The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, is a critical part of President Trump's commitment to identifying fraud, waste, and abuse, and better ways for the government to function to support its people. I want to be very clear about the DOGE personnel who are now working at Social Security.

• Our continuing priority is paying beneficiaries the right amount at the right time, and providing other critical services people rely on from us.
• DOGE personnel CANNOT make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information. They only have READ access.
• DOGE personnel do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future.
• DOGE personnel must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.

I also want to acknowledge recent reporting about the number of people older than age 100 who may be receiving benefits from Social Security. The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits.

I am confident that with DOGE's help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people.”

    Tenants? Tut, tut, tut.

Another Great Victory For DOGE: Acting COSS Resigns

      From the Washington Post:

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said Monday.
Michelle King, who spent several decades at the agency before being named its acting commissioner last month, left her position Sunday after the disagreement, the people said.
President Donald Trump appointed Leland Dudek, a manager in charge of Social Security’s anti-fraud office, as acting commissioner … 

In selecting Dudek, Trump bypassed dozens of other senior executives who sat higher on the agency’s leadership hierarchy, touching off alarm in and around the agency, which has already faced years of budget and staffing difficulties. …

     According to the New York Times “Before he was named, Mr. Dudek posted comments on LinkedIn praising Mr. Musk’s team and saying he had been assisting its efforts, according to people who saw his posts. Mr. Dudek has deleted his account.“ comments on LinkedIn praising Mr. Musk’s team and saying he hYou thought I was joking when I said that some high Social Security officials would face horrible decisions during the Trump Administration. 

Bisignano Interview

     CNBC has posted a recent interview with Social Security Commissioner nominee Frank Bisignano. It sounds to me as if he's having trouble shifting gears mentally to the idea of working in the public sector. Fiserv handles humongous quantities of extremely simple financial transactions. Social Security handles huge quantities of complicated transactions. It's a different ballgame. Fiserv  has the money it needs to hire the staff it needs and the technology it needs. Social Security works in an arena where its administrative budget is controlled by people who are often indifferent to the proper functioning of the agency and in some cases eager to see it fail.

Info On Frank Bisignano

     From a longish piece in Fortune on Frank Bisignano:

... [Bisignano] rebuilt Citigroup’s decimated back-office operations from the ashes of 9/11, repaired Washington Mutual’s stricken subprime book after the 2007 housing meltdown as Jamie Dimon’s fixer at JPMorgan Chase, and transformed a lumbering warhorse that was one of the worst investments KKR ever made into a potent money spinner that he merged into Fiserv, then drove the combo to reign as America’s largest non-bank handler of credit card payments to retailers, restaurants and other merchants, ferrying $2.5 trillion in payments per day. ...

Bisignano built his career bulldozing forward to mend the most basic but unsexiest of businesses. The Brooklyn-born Bisignano’s father labored as a career customs agent. His mom was a 105-pound dynamo who began as a bookkeeper at a stevedoring outfit and rose to run the whole waterfront operation. Bisignano went to Baker College, a liberal arts school in Kansas, where he majored in business and won trophies as a nationally ranked bowler. [The bowling team at Baker College isn't exactly the same as the fencing team at Yale. How did an Italian-American kid from New York City end up at a small college in Kansas anyway? By the way, note that there is no mention of an M.B.A. which is surprising for someone with Bisignano's work history.] In 1994, Jamie Dimon hired Bisignano at Travelers to run operations at Smith Barney. Bisignano unwound leading a zany softball team of Italian Americans who dubbed themselves “the Paisanos” and sported floppy hats like pizza makers on the diamond. ...

Bisignano contracted throat cancer [sometime after 9/11], a condition he likely ascribes to the toxic soot of 9/11 [He was working in the area at the time]. Every morning, he’d undergo radiation in the New York area, and right afterward head to the airport to fly cross-country for a day of work on the West Coast. Then he’d jet back overnight and take radiation again in the morning. Bisignano survived surgery, and his trademark gravelly voice is a legacy of that illness. ...

Bisignano created probably the most sumptuous corporate hub in Manhattan by purchasing and totally renovating 1 Broadway, a Queen Anne–style architectural marvel dating from 1745 that overlooks Bowling Green and the New York Harbor. ...

    Read the whole thing. There's the inevitable assumption that someone with a successful business background will "turn around" Social Security, which causes my eyes to roll, but also a good deal of useful information about the man.

Bisignano Nomination Resubmitted

     I suppose we should expect any sort of incompetence from the Trump White House but this is amazing. The Bisignano nomination has been resubmitted! It was definitely withdrawn and then quickly resubmitted.

Bisignano Nomination Withdrawn

      I had asked at least twice whether Frank Bisignano know what he was getting into with his nomination to become Commissioner of Social Security. I can’t say that the issues that concern me led to it but the Bisignano nomination has been withdrawn.

New Acting Commissioner

     Social Security’s organization chart now shows Michelle King as Acting Commissioner.

Nasty Congressional Hearing With O’Malley

      From The Hill:

Martin O’Malley, the former Social Security commissioner who is now seeking to chair the Democratic National Committee, took the brunt of House GOP anger over federal telework policies – and a number of other topics – in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Thursday [actually Wednesday].

Republicans primarily took aim at O’Malley’s role in overseeing a late 2024 deal between the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees, that will lock in the current levels of telework for union employees until October 2029 – beyond the end of the Trump administration.  …

O’Malley’s bid to be chair of the Democratic National Committee was also brought up multiple times by Republicans, with some bringing up topics far removed from the issue of federal telework. 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who has become a leading anti-transgender voice in Congress,  asked O’Malley to define what a woman is.

“You’re going to ask me to define what a woman is?” O’Malley asked. “I’m talking to a woman right now, a distinguished woman … I think you’re kind of denigrating the purpose of this hearing.”

Good Tax Planning

    From Urban Milwaukee:

2020 was a profitable year for Fiserv, the financial services company located in Brookfield. The company earned $1.1 billion in pre-tax earnings on revenue of $14.85 billion.

Even better, it paid not a dollar in federal taxes on those earnings.

Still better, it actually got a tax rebate from the IRS, of $25 million, increasing its net income for the year.

    As you will recall, Frank Bisignano, who has been nominated to become Commissioner of Social Security, is CEO of Fiserv.

A Christmas Question: Can You Overturn It?

      From the Baltimore Sun:

… Martin O’Malley has been called to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month about an agreement he signed to allow some Social Security employees to work remotely through 2029.

O’Malley signed the agreement in late November, two days before leaving his Social Security Administration position.

James Comer, a Republican representative from Kentucky who serves as the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, wrote in a letter to O’Malley that his agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees to guarantee a minimum amount of telework for 42,000 Social Security employees through 2029 “will tie the hands of your successor at SSA for the duration of the next administration, and beyond.”

How Do You Pronounce Bisignano?

     Don't ask a guy whose surname is Hall how you pronounce the Italian name Bisignano! Fortunately, there are websites to help with questions like this and this website includes audio. Basically, the "g" is silent or nearly silent.

Will Frank Bisignano Telework?

Coming back to Social Security?

     You may remember that former Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul tried to end telework at Social Security while he was teleworking himself. He never moved from New York City to the Baltimore area. That didn't go over well with agency employees.

    The newly nominated Commissioner of Social Security is the CEO of Fiserv which is based in Milwaukee. However, Bisignano never moved from his hometown of New York City when Fiserv moved its corporate headquarters to Milwaukee raising the question of whether Bisginano will move to the Baltimore area if he is confirmed as Commissioner. I don't think that we can say he's teleworking at Fiserv. There may be good reasons why the CEO of a financial services company would be located in New York City but after Saul you have to wonder whether Bisignano intends to move. Trying to end telework for everyone else when you're teleworking yourself isn't a good look. In any case, if you're serious about being Commissioner of Social Security you should be living and working in the Baltimore area.

    I hope this issue comes up in Bisignano's confirmation hearing.

Does Frank Bisignano Realize What He's Gotten Himself Into?

     I'm surprised that Frank Bisignano wants the job as Social Security Commissioner. He's now the highly paid CEO of a very successful corporation. It's his niche and apparently he's very good at it. Is he aware of the problems he'll face at Social Security?

• If he thinks he'll lead Social Security out of its long term financing problems, he's deluded. Senators of both parties will demand that he promise that he will stay completely away from long term financing issues. He can't be confirmed without making such promises. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that Trump would want him to stay away from such issues. Also, if he actually looks into the political thicket surrounding it, he'll want nothing to do with Social Security "reform." Let Elon Musk take that bullet.
  
• If he thinks he can in any sense "transform" Social Security, he's deluded. There's no simple fix, technical or otherwise, for Social Security's service delivery problems. There's not even a complicated set of fixes that don't take a lot of money and time. It's highly unlikely that he'll get more money.
• If he thinks that he'll have an advantage because he knows nothing about Social Security and won't be held back by old ideas, he's deluded. In any job, it helps to know how things are already set up, what the obstacles to change are, and what ideas have been tried before and how they worked out. The people who came before you weren't fools (except for Jo Anne Barnhart). Social Security isn't a Gordian knot and Bisignano won’t have have a sword.
  
• If he thinks that the real problem at Social Security is that federal employees are stupid and lazy, he's deluded. That sort of arrogance would lead to indifference, if not joy, in losing the experienced, hard-working employees who keep the Social Security Administration afloat. Not every agency employee is a star but they mostly do their jobs ably. There just aren't enough of them.
  
• If he thinks that ending telework will make Social Security significantly more effective, he's deluded. I've been around long enough to know that telework makes little, if any, difference. If telework ends, some percentage of employees will quit. My guess is that it won't be that high a percentage but that's just a guess. Nobody knows. Losing even a few experienced people will hurt an agency that's as bad off as the Social Security Administration. The commonly held view that Social Security is simple is simply wrong. For example, there's not just one type of Social Security disability benefit. Depending upon how you count them, there are as many as seven (remember that blindness is a separate category under both Title II and Title XVI)! And don't get him started on the windfall offset! It'll blow his mind. It takes long training and considerable experience for an employee to become competent.
  
• If he thinks he can transform the Social Security Administration with new IT, he's deluded. When the companies that Gisignano has led have needed to spend money to acquire new IT systems, all he's had to do was to convince a complaisant board of directors to approve the money. The money was available since the companies were profitable. The situation at Social Security is entirely different. Convincing the White House to approve additional funding will be hard enough. Convincing Congress is much more difficult. Martin O'Malley is a born lobbyist. How far did he get? Is Gisignano any kind of lobbyist?
• If he thinks that fighting employee unions will make the Social Security Administration more effective, he's deluded. The unions can be a pain in the neck but they have just about no effect on productivity. Spending energy fighting them isn't worth it. They're not the enemy.
  

Bisignano Nominated To Become Commissioner

     From USA Today:

President-elect Donald Trump said he's nominating financial services CEO Frank Bisignano to serve as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. ...

Bisignano currently leads the financial services and payments giant Fiserv, one of the largest financial software companies in the country.

He’s previously held executive leadership positions at major banks including JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup.  ...

    From Wikipedia:

... Under Bisignano's tenure, hundreds of First Data and FiServ locations have closed, resulting in the termination of thousands of employees. Employees who previously had remote positions due to the COVID-19 pandemic or other legacy reasons have reportedly been particularly targeted. ...

One Thing About Carolyn Colvin

     Let's say that someone other than Carolyn Colvin had been made the Acting Commissioner of Social Security and let's say it's a career employee in his or her prime working years. Let's also say that the Trump Administration decides a priori that Social Security will do just fine with a 20% reduction in staffing. That Acting Commissioner would face a dilemma. The person could forcefully resist internally in which case that person would probably be fired and their federal career would be at an end. That person could quit in protest in which case their federal career would also be at an end. That's tough on a person with a mortgage and kids in or near college.

    At her age, Colvin can easily resign in protest. She has no reason to worry about her federal career. She can court firing or quit without concern. If she leaves, she can be very noisy about it. This gives her a certain power that others, younger than her, don't have.

    By the way, if you're someone in line to succeed Colvin, what would you do as Acting Commissioner if the Trump Administration orders up something that you know will have disastrous effects? Would you have the courage to resign in protest? Would you be willing to preside over a disastrous situation? Is there some way of squirming out of the dilemma? These may not be abstract questions for a handful of people at Social Security.

O'Malley's Tenure As Commissioner

     From a piece in Government Executive about Martin O'Malley's too brief tenure as Commissioner of Social Security:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley on Wednesday described his nearly a year in charge of the embattled agency responsible for administering Americans’ retirement and disability benefits as one of the “greatest honors” of his career in government and politics. ..

O’Malley told Government Executive on Wednesday that he was “enormously proud” of the agency’s beleaguered workforce, which was able to find significant customer service improvements despite operating at a 50-year staffing low and serving the most beneficiaries in history. ...

[T]he public’s preference for telephonic and video disability hearings–with 90% of new requests being through those avenues–has made it easier to optimize administrative law judges’ workloads regardless of geographic location. ...

Jim Borland, the agency’s assistant deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, said he will be retiring after a 40-year career in the federal government next month, and that this final year was “the most fun” he’s had at work in those four decades. ...

Carolyn Colvin To Be ACOSS

 

    The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) is reporting that Carolyn Colvin will once again serve as Acting Commissioner Of Social Security (ACOSS). She had served previously in that role from 2013-17.

    Of course, the incoming Trump Administration can designate someone else for the acting position or can quickly nominate someone to be the confirmed Commissioner of Social Security.

    Also, of course, Colvin isn't obligated to hang around if she is ordered to make layoffs that would have a disastrous effect on the agency.

Yesterday's Hearing

     The hearing yesterday before the Labor-HHS Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee went about as I expected but there were interesting details.

Robert Aderholt, Subcommittee Chair

    Robert Aderholt, the Chair of the Subcommittee, spoke first. He said he was happy that Commissioner O'Malley had already come to his office to discuss the agency's appropriation. He said that less than half of agency heads did this, which I find surprising. He also said that this was the first House Appropriations Committee hearing on Social Security in a decade. I knew it had been a long time but that's even more than I imagined. Note to future Commissioners, including Acting Commissioners: Meet with Appropriations Committee members on as regular a basis as you can.

    Aderholt went quickly into Republican talking points which basically amount to pressure to force an end to telework and a demand that the agency manage its way out of its service delivery problems. In particular, he didn't like the amount of overtime at Social Security and thought that it was being abused by employees. Maybe there are problems with overtime but if it there are, it's just the normal sort of management issue that you find at any large entity. It's hardly responsible for any work backlogs, nor is telework. Just about every entity employing white collar employees allows telework. If you don't allow it, you have a hard time holding onto your employees or hiring new ones.

    The other Subcommittee members divided along party lines in predictable and somewhat depressing ways. My limited experience with Congressional hearings in past decades was that they were nowhere near as partisan as this.

     There were many questions along the lines of “Can’t you use AI so you can give better service inexpensively?” The Commissioner’s answer was basically “We hardly have the money to maintain the systems we already have so we can’t possibly afford new AI contracts.”

    It grated on me that Commissioner O'Malley kept saying he had "turned around" Social Security. He's a politician so you expect some hyperbole but saying that the agency has been "turned around" is over the top. O'Malley has done a good job in the short time frame he's had but actually "turning around" the agency was impossible without more time and more money.

    In the end, I hope I'm wrong but I would be surprised to see any additional money for Social Security coming out of this Subcommittee.

    Republicans will get a chance to see whether a Trump appointee as Commissioner can manage the agency out of its service delivery problems. I don't have high hopes of anyone even being nominated for the position for many months, if not years, into the future. Given the quality of the man Trump appointed in his first term in office, I'm not expecting a transformational leader.