Public Servants

      While I was at a concert recently, I wasn’t trying to listen in but happened to overheard a snippet of the conversation of the people sitting next to me during the intermission. One of them referred to someone who “retired after a 36 year career as a public servant.” That struck me. That term “public servant” is one you don’t hear much these days. I think it was more used when government employees were held in higher esteem. Why are they held in lower esteem now? I’d say it mostly has to do with Republican attacks on government and government employees. These attacks are often direct and angry  — as in claiming that government is always the source of problems rather than the solution to many problems or that there’s some “Deep State” that frustrates Republican presidents — but they’re also indirect. Underfunded government agencies render poor public service feeding public perceptions that government employees are to blame for frustrating interactions with public employees. It’s an anarchistic approach that claims, in essence, that government is so terrible that we would be better off with no government. If you can’t directly end government, make it function worse and worse to move the public in the direction of your view, mindless opposition to all government.

    We need to honor public servants. They do a super job often under difficult circumstances.

A Thought

     I'm sorry for my readers who work for the Federal government, at least today. It's a shame you guys can't have an office NCAA Tournament pool like your counterparts working in the private sector.
     On second thought, considering how my bracket is coming along, maybe I should envy you!

Information Sharing Missions Which Support Homeland Security?

     Social Security is advertising two Intelligence Operations Specialist jobs in Woodlawn, MD. According to USAJobs:

This position [actually positions] is located in the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Budget, Finance and Management (DCBFM), Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness (OSEP), Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP). Once selected for this important position at SSA, the incumbent will serve as an Intelligent Operations Specialist responsible for complex assignments involving defensive counterintelligence (CI) and information coordination with a broad set of Communities of Interest (COIs) to establish and maintain SSA's defensive CI operations, collaboration, and intelligence and information sharing missions which support homeland security.

     Social Security certainly needs defensive counterintelligence to protect its data but the "information sharing missions which support homeland security" part concerns me. Just how much data is Social Security sharing with homeland security? For that matter, is anything being shared with NSA?

Headcount Continues To Decline

     The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at Social Security. Here they are, with earlier numbers for comparison purposes.

•  March 2012 65,257
• December 2011 65,911
• September 2011 67,136
• June 2011 67,773
• March 2011 68,700
• December 2010 70,270
• June 2010 69,600
• March 2010 66,863
• December 2009 67,486
• September 2009 67,632
• December 2008 63,733
• September 2008 63,990
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521

One Sentence

The Social Security Administration's "Update" contains this sentence: "The number of employees we have determines the amount of work we can complete."

Does that sound innocuous? Self-obvious? The last Commissioner of Social Security, Jo Anne Barnhart, would never have allowed such a sentence in a Social Security document. She promised that the magic fairy dust of her "plan" would make everything all better at Social Security regardless of the number of employees her agency had. She promised wonders from her "plan" but delayed and delayed announcing what her plan was. The delay was almost certainly because she had no more than vague ideas about a "plan." She probably also had an increasing realization that no "plan" would work without additional employees. She finally announced her "plan" shortly before she was to leave office, leaving it to her successor to make her "plan" work. Of course, her "plan" was unworkable and quickly abandoned. The whole thing  deceived the naive, of which there are many.

This week is an opportunity to fully bury the Barnhart approach. We have a Congressional hearing coming up that will focus on the question of why Social Security keeps overpaying people. Undoubtedly, Social Security will be criticized. Social Security can respond by saying, in effect, "Thank you, Congress, for pointing out our errors. We will do better." Or Social Security can respond by saying, in effect, "Yes, we've known about these issues for years. We'd love to address them but we don't have enough personnel. We've been telling you this for years. We got a bigger budget in 2009 and 2010 but never enough to get these problems resolved. Now, our budget has gotten tighter. Get us a bigger budget and we'll take care of these problems. Otherwise, nothing's going to happen and it's not because we don't care." Which would be a more honest answer to the criticism? Which will Social Security give? I understand the need for diplomacy  in  dealing with Republican Congressmen who remain all too eager to believe that the amount of work which may be accomplished by a federal agency is independent of the number of employees that agency has but honesty is needed as well.

Social Security Laborforce Declines Rapidly

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted  updated figures for the number of employees at Social Security. Here they are with earlier numbers for comparison purposes.

•  March 2011 68,700
• December 2010 70,270
• June 2010 69,600
• March 2010 66,863
• December 2009 67,486
• September 2009 67,632
• June 2009 66,614
• March 2009 63,229
• December 2008 63,733
• September 2008 63,990
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521
• September 1999 63,957
• September 1998 65,629

Notice the rapid decline since the beginning of the fiscal year. Republican foot-dragging in the last Congress and the election results have more than a little to do with this.

Furloughted Workers Should Not Expect To Be Paid

From the Washington Post:

Rep. James Moran (D-Va), whose Northern Virginia district is home to thousands of federal employees, said furloughed workers should not expect to be paid, based on feedback he is getting from Republican colleagues in Congress.

“It is highly unlikely that about 1 million federal employees who are not working will ever be reimbursed,” Moran said in a conference call Wednesday with reporters. He called the majority of his GOP colleagues “far more anti-government in terms of their mindset” than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during the 1990s shutdown, when Congress agreed to reimburse furloughed workers retroactively.

Closing Early Today?

The Office of Personnel Management has authorized Washington area federal employees to leave work two hours early today because of an impending snowstorm. It is not clear whether this applies to Social Security employees in the Baltimore area.

A 10% Cut In Federal Employees -- What Harm Could That Cause?

From the Washington Post:

A Texas Republican congressman wants to cut the federal workforce by 10 percent in the next decade, impose a three-year pay freeze across federal agencies and Capitol Hill, and trim government printing and vehicle costs.

Rep. Kevin Brady's bill, the Cut Unsustainable and Top-heavy Spending (CUTS) Act, is the first detailed series of spending proposals introduced in the GOP-controlled House that targets government operations and the federal workforce. Democrats and federal employee unions have long expected the GOP to target domestic spending programs and the workforce in an effort to trim the federal deficit.

Brady chairs the Joint Economic Committee and is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee - perches likely to put him at the center of Congress's forthcoming debate on government spending and deficits.

ALJ Pay Frozen As Well

From the Washington Post:

The two-year pay freeze that is now law for federal employees on the pay scale known as the General Schedule will also apply to hundreds of thousands of civil servants whose wages are set under a separate salary system, according to an executive order signed last week by President Obama. ...

They include ... administrative law judges and attorneys ...

Permanent End For FCIP

From the Washington Post:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order, perhaps as early as this week, ending a federal internship program that critics say circumvents proper hiring practices.

The program has drawn fire from federal employee unions and from the government board that oversees federal hiring practices, which ruled in November that the program undermined the rights of veterans, in particular, who were seeking federal work.

According to a draft copy of the executive order, which The Washington Post obtained from a person involved with the review process, the program will be terminated in March and be replaced with a program clearly designed to provide short-term federal work opportunities for recent graduates of schools of all kinds.

Federal Career Intern Decision

That decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board on the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) is available online. Some key excerpts:

We hold that FCIP is inconsistent with the Civil Service Rules that govern placement of positions in the excepted service under 5 U.S.C. § 3302(1) -- a law relating to veterans’ preference -- because it allows an agency to invoke an appointing authority reserved for “positions . . . for which it is not practicable to hold a competitive examination” after the agency holds a competitive examination that yields highly-qualified preference-eligible candidates.

We wish to emphasize what we do not hold. Amicus NTEU [National Treasury Employees Union] asserts ... that FCIP violates the merit system principles because it allows hiring without “fair and open competition.” ... The cases before us, however, arise under the VEOA [Veterans Employment Opportunity Act]; the sole issue is whether the appellants’ rights under a statute or regulation relating to veterans’ preference have been violated. ...

In this connection, we overrule the statement in Gingery v. Department of Defense, 105 M.S.P.R. 671, ¶ 9 (2007), rev’d on other grounds, 550 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2008), that FCIP is “a valid exception to the competitive examination requirement” because it is “authorized by an Executive Order.” ...

The Board has recognized that in unusual cases its decisions may have such a far-reaching impact on the workings of the government that the normal timeline for compliance should be extended. ... This appears to be such a case. At the same time, untold numbers of veterans are potentially being shut out of job opportunities for which they would have preference, because the agencies are filling the positions under FCIP without public notice. ... Balancing the foregoing considerations, we conclude that OPM must comply with 5 U.S.C. § 3302(1) within 120 days of the date of this decision instead of the customary 30 days.

This will have a massive effect upon future hiring at Social Security and other agencies. FCIP was probably intended to be a small part of federal hiring but has come to be a major way in which federal employees are hired. Of course, because of the elections results, Social Security may not be doing much hiring over at least the next two years.

Social Security Employees To Get Extra Day Off At Thanksgiving

From Government Executive:

Social Security Administration employees this year will receive an extra day off to celebrate Thanksgiving, according to a report from Federal News Radio's Mike Causey.

SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue told nonemergency employees they do not have to report to work on Nov. 26, the Friday after Thanksgiving. Thursday is a federal holiday. Friday won't be considered a holiday for pay and leave purposes, but workers will receive their normal pay, according to Astrue.

According to Causey's report, Astrue said SSA employees have "faced unprecedented workloads and unprecedented hostility from an increasingly stressed public. While many government agencies understandably have moved backward in this climate, you have moved forward."

It's not clear yet whether other agencies and departments will follow SSA's example.

The day after Thanksgiving AND Columbus Day AND President's Day?

Number Of Social Security Employees Jumps

Below are the June 2010 figures for the number of employees at Social Security recently released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), along with earlier figures for comparison purposes.

• June 2010 69,600
  
• March 2010 66,863
  
• December 2009 67,486
  
• September 2009 67,632
  
• June 2009 66,614
  
• March 2009 63,229
  
• December 2008 63,733
  
• September 2008 63,990
  
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521
• September 1999 63,957
• September 1998 65,629

ALJ Employment Offers Being Made

There are reports that Social Security is making calls today offering jobs to some applicants for Administrative Law Judge positions. This is causing great excitement among the applicants.

Social Security Employment Down Slightly

Below are the March 2010 figures for the number of employees at Social Security recently released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), along with earlier figures for comparison purposes.

• March 2010 66,863
  
• December 2009 67,486
  
• September 2009 67,632
  
• June 2009 66,614
  
• March 2009 63,229
  
• December 2008 63,733
  
• September 2008 63,990
  
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521
• September 1999 63,957
• September 1998 65,629

Social Security Loses Big Time In Arbitration

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog:

Saying the Social Security Administration (SSA) flagrantly violated its contract with AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees, a member of the AFL-CIO] and “trampled upon the rights” of a 14-year worker, an independent arbitrator has ordered the agency to pay her back wages with interest along with $100,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

Magnolia Littles, a member of AFGE Local 3291 in Little Rock, Ark., was suspended for 90 days after a benefits payment she had approved turned out to be fraudulent. Patti McGowan, an attorney with AFGE, said the arbitrator found there was no substantial evidence that Littles—who has a spotless record at SSA—was negligent in her duties. The arbitrator found that SSA violated her rights by, among other things, not informing Littles she had a right to have a union representative present at her disciplinary meeting.

The agency also discriminated against her because of her race, the arbitrator said. Of the four employees who processed the fraudulent benefit payment, two African Americans, including Littles, received suspensions. A Latina was fired outright, but the lone white employee in the group was not disciplined at all.

Social Security Wants Employees To Retire

Looks like Social Security is eager for its employees to retire. From an e-mail sent to all Social Security employees:

From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 10:58 AM
Subject: Availability of Early Out Retirement for 2010 -- INFORMATION

To: All SSA Employees

From: Reginald F. Wells
Deputy Commissioner
for Human Resources

Subject: Availability of Early Out Retirement for 2010—INFORMATION

This is to inform you that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is offering early out retirement to all employees except:

All employees in the Office of the Chief Actuary; and All employees in the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

By July 1, 2010, all eligible employees who wish to retire must advise their immediate supervisor of their intent to separate through the early out program and contact their servicing personnel office (SPO) to initiate their retirement processing. All employees must separate by August 31, 2010.

Supervisors should ensure that all employees under their supervision (including those on extended leave) receive this information.

AGE, SERVICE, AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS

To be eligible, employees must have completed 20 years of creditable service and be at least 50 years of age, or have at least 25 years of creditable service at any age. (This must include 5 years of civilian service). Employees must be serving under a non-time-limited appointment and have been continuously on SSA's rolls since November 16, 2009. In addition, employees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) must have served in a CSRS position for at least 1 year out of the 2 years immediately before retirement. This last requirement does not apply to employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). ...

That Predicted Social Security Employee Retirement Wave ...

That predicted wave of Social Security employee retirements? It may not be happening. At least, the predicted retirement wave of federal employees generally is not happening The Federal Times reports that the number of retirements of federal employees dropped last year to its lowest level in seven years.

Has anyone seen any numbers on employee retirements just at Social Security?

Social Security Employees Recognized

The Partnership for Public Service, a private nonprofit group, has announced the names of 32 finalists for Service to America Medals awarded to outstanding federal employees. Social Security employees Shane Kelley and Eva Ristow are finalists for the medal presented for social services. Here is some information on their achievements:

Position: Director, Center for Automation (Kelley) and Project Manager (Ristow)

Agency: Social Security Administration, Denver Region

Location: Denver, Colorado

Residence: Commerce City, Colorado (Kelley) and Westminster, Colorado (Ristow)

Achievement: Improved the delivery of Social Security benefits to citizens living in impoverished and remote locations through an innovative two-way video service.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has found it difficult to serve Americans living in remote and poor regions of the country, particularly on Indian reservations in the West where disabled and elderly citizens often have failed to take advantage of benefits that they desperately need.

Shane Kelley and Eva Ristow have helped bridge this gap, linking difficult-to-serve Indian communities in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah to Social Security claims officials hundreds of miles away through an Internet-based two-way video conferencing system called Video Service Delivery (VSD).

“VSD’s greatest impact is its ability to bridge distances to help government reach the customer rather than expecting the customer to reach government,” said Kelley.

This vast six-state geographic area is home to 29 Indian reservations, where life can be difficult. The two million acre Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, for example, contains three of the poorest counties in the United States. Infant mortality is five times the national average, the adolescent suicide rate is four times the national average and unemployment hovers around 80 percent. Additionally, life expectancy is about 50 years, and 49 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line.

The delivery of Social Security services to such poor, remote locations is a challenge. Although connected by telephone and periodic visits, Social Security representatives have not always been able to achieve the consistent “visual” communications essential in establishing an understanding of benefit programs. As a result, many applicants missed their scheduled interviews, leading to incomplete claims.

Social Security beneficiaries in these areas can now go to designated local libraries, public health clinics or other facilities close to home and get service “on demand” via the two-way video connection. Thanks to this added accessibility, VSD has increased the number of benefit applications by nearly 80 percent among Native Americans at some of the reservations.

“Some of these individuals have an average annual income of $3,000. Helping them receive disability or retirement benefits has had a huge impact,” said Jan Foushee, a senior executive program specialist with Social Security. “The money they receive can help support entire families and has an impact on the communities as well.”

The program has grown from a handful of units to hook-ups in about 70 locations in the Western states. The agency has now begun implementation of the system in the nine other Social Security regions around the country, with about 180 VSD units having been deployed so far.

Nancy Berryhill, the Social Security regional commissioner in Denver, said the concept was first tested in 2003, before Kelley came on board, by connecting the Minot Social Security Office in North Dakota to the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa Nation.

But she said he took over the slow moving project in 2007, handled key technical details, found suitable sites for installation, promoted it to regional commissioners around the country and made it a model that now has unlimited possibilities to improve service.

“Without Shane’s leadership and vision, this would not have become a reality,” said Berryhill. “There was really no road map, but Shane is a problem solver. For him there are no problems, just opportunity.”

One recent successful connection has linked Hawaii with its remote satellite office in American Samoa. Social Security also has linked VSD units in high-traffic offices in New York City to locations in upstate New York. The upstate claims representatives now assist the beneficiaries in the city through the video service.

In addition, Social Security is planning to extend the video claims service, in cooperation with the State Department, to reach Americans living in Canada and possibly Europe, and is working with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on a project called “VA Connect” to assist disabled veterans returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Besides receiving VA benefits, veterans can be connected via VSD to Social Security officers who can help them get the assistance they need. The first SSA/VA Connect claim came from a veteran undergoing treatment for stage four colon cancer and it was approved in just two days.

Kelley led the VSD effort for three years until a recent promotion, and has since worked alongside his colleague, Ristow, the current VSD project manager.

Kelley said he realized early on that they would need to prove to Social Security colleagues and the public that the equipment was secure, cost-effective and able to improve the delivery of services. He initiated a program in several Wyoming libraries, and the success of these efforts led to rapid expansion.

“As soon as I saw how clear the video connections were, I knew VSD would greatly enhance the way SSA delivers service to the public,” he said

Martha Lambie, Social Security deputy regional commissioner in Denver, said the project never would have materialized into anything substantial without Kelley. “He took a concept and made it a reality,” she said.