No Match Rules Coming Back -- Unchanged

While this may be an excellent immigration enforcement technique, the Social Security Administration is not ready for all the calls and visits it will get from U.S. citizens who will inadvertently fall afoul of this plan -- if it comes to pass. From the Associated Press:

The Homeland Security Department on Friday offered a lengthy defense of its proposed program that would force employers to fire workers whose names don't match their Social Security numbers, and said it would try again to have the rules enacted into law.

A federal judge in San Francisco blocked the rules in October, saying the proposal would likely impose hardships on businesses and their workers. Employers would incur new costs to comply with the regulation that the government hasn't evaluated, and innocent workers unable to correct mistakes in their records in time would lose their jobs, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote.

In a 44-page "supplemental" document released late Friday, the department attempted to address several of the judge's concerns.

Among other things, the document "outlines clear steps an employer may take in response to receiving a letter from the Social Security Administration indicating that an employee's name does not match the Social Security number on file," the department said. If businesses follow the guidance in the No-Match Rule, the department said they will have "safe harbor" from the letter being used against them.

The last line of the 44-page document says the department intends to "repromulgate, without change," the same set of rules the judge blocked in October. ...

Chertoff said the department has also filed an appeal of the October ruling, and is pursuing both tracks - revised rules and the legal appeal - "simultaneously to get a resolution as quickly as possible."

Status Of Ticket To Work

From the Capitol Insider, put out by the Disability Policy Collaboration:

The Social Security Administration and its numerous partners on the Ticket to Work program met in Louisville, KY last week to re-energize the Ticket to Work program in anticipation of the release of new regulations governing the program. Although a success for some individuals seeking to leave the Social Security disability programs for work, the Ticket program has been more limited than was expected by advocates in 1999 during passage of the authorizing legislation. SSA met with representatives of state vocational rehabilitation agencies, other rehabilitation service providers and employment networks, businesses, Work Incentives Planning and Assistance Programs, Protection and Advocacy Systems, consumers, and national organizations to stimulate more interest and to share opportunities for improved cooperation among the various players. UCP and The Arc were represented. Final regulations that are expected to further improve the mechanics of the Ticket program are expected to be published within the next month or so.

Social Security To Start Collecting Race And Ethnicity Data

All federal agencies must file with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and publish a notice in the Federal Register when they establish a new system of records. Social Security put this notice in the Federal Register today:

Race/Ethnicity Collection System--0960-NEW. Currently, SSA has no reliable, statistically valid means of capturing race/ethnicity data in our core business process. While SSA collects some race/ethnicity data on Form SS-5 (OMB No. 0960-0066), the Application for Social Security Card, SSA does not receive the data through other means of enumerating individuals, such as the Enumeration at Birth and Enumeration at Entry processes. Moreover, SSA does not collect it during the disability application process. Adding race/ethnicity to SSA's benefits applications will give us data we can use to ensure the benefits decision process is being conducted in a fair manner.

This ICR [Information Comment Request?] is for the Race/Ethnicity questions. Note that OMB established the categories of racial/ethnic choices and the descriptions we use. We modified our proposed instructions and explanations to the public based on feedback we received during public focus groups (conducted under the aegis of OMB No. 0960-0765). The respondents are Title II and Title XVI claimants.

Type of Request: New information collection.
Number of Respondents: 7,870,538.
Frequency of Response: 1.
Average Burden Per Response: 3 minutes.
Estimated Annual Burden: 393,527.

Last Chance To Enter Social Security News Bracket Challenge

Enter the Social Security News NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge and test your knowledge of NCAA basketball! To enter, go to the ESPN Tournament Challenge website for the Social Security News group. The password is "Michael Astrue", without the quotation marks. There is no fee for entry.

There is no prize for winning other than the recognition you will receive here.

You can make an entry up to about noon today Eastern time, which is when the tournament begins.

Dueling Press Releases

First I read a press release from Advantage 2000 Consultants touting their ability to represent Social Security disability claimants and referring to themselves as "America's leading Social Security Disability Insurance representation firm."

Then I read this press release from Allsup (emphasis added):

Allsup (www.allsup.com), the nation’s leading Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) representation company, has named Karen Hercules-Doerr as National Sales Director of Consumer Sales & Marketing.

Hercules-Doerr will oversee efforts to raise awareness and educate individuals nationwide about the Social Security Disability Insurance program and the assistance that is available for people with disabilities. These steps include reaching out to social workers, case managers and medical professionals in assisting people who have become disabled and unable to work. ...

Founded in 1984, Allsup has helped more than 100,000 Americans with disabilities obtain $1.5 billion in Social Security and Medicare payments. Allsup has a 97 percent award rate and received the Better Business Bureau Torch Award for excellence in customer service. Today, the company has 500 employees working to pre-qualify individuals to ensure eligibility, develop an accurate factual record and represent applicants through the disability decision process.

I think that few law firm would try to get away with describing itself as the "leading" Social Security law firm or talking about a 97% success rate. State bars take a dim view of that sort of thing.

Guard Stabbed At Seattle Office

From the Seattle Times:

A South Carolina man with a history of mental illness and an apparent grudge against the Social Security Administration was charged with stabbing a guard Wednesday morning at the administration's office in South Seattle.

Calvin Eugene Bennett, 50, appeared distracted and did not speak Wednesday afternoon during a brief court appearance where he was charged with assault on a federal officer. ...

The complaint filed in Wednesday's attack alleges that Bennett was seen outside the Social Security offices on South Lane Street more than a half-hour before Wednesday's 9 a.m. opening. Witnesses said that two minutes before the doors were to open, Bennett began hacking at the doors with a knife, according to the complaint. ...

The guard, identified in the documents by the initials "J.R.," was attacked when he opened the doors to check on the commotion. One witness said the guard was stabbed twice in the head.

Lorie Dankers, the spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the guard was armed but never had a chance to draw his weapon. "He suffered stab wounds in both hands and his head," she said.

SSA Extended USProtect Contract After Problems Already Apparent

USProtect's website contains a press release showing that the Social Security Administration extended its contract with USProtect in July 2006. However, the company's problems were already apparent in 2002 and became more obvious in 2005 when bribery charges were filed.

Bribery was apparently involved in getting the contract with the Social Security Administration -- not bribery of anyone at Social Security, but bribery of a General Services Administration official who gave recommended USProtect to Social Security. Apparently, it was Social Security's Office of Inspector General who first received an anonymous report of the bribery involved in getting the Social Security contract.

Obviously, the Social Security Administration was aware of serious problems at USProtect in 2006 when the contract was extended. Why was this company's contract with Social Security extended?

SSA Dropped Crime Ridden USProtect Just Last Friday

The mess with USProtect, which had been providing security guard services to the Social Security Administration keeps looking worse. The former chief officer of USProtect has pleaded guilty to bribing a contracting officer at the General Services Administration.

Apparently, the Social Security Administration stopped using USProtect just last Friday. Why did it take so long to drop them? USProtect officers had been in major criminal trouble since 2005! Its former chief financial officer has pleaded guilty to withholding information about felony convictions to get $150 million in federal contracts.

USProtect Defunct

From WUSA in Baltimore (emphasis added):

Federal prosecutors have moved to seize $6.9 million from a bank account owned by USProtect, two homes in Naples, Florida, and a boat owned by the past and present owners of an apparently defunct security contracting firm.

On Monday, 9NEWS NOW reported USProtect had locked its doors after being unable to make its payroll last week. Hundreds of employees are impacted. ...

In Washington, US Protect employed hundreds of Court Security Officers at most of the city's courthouses. The company also had contracts for several other courthouses scattered across the United States. In addition to the Department of Justice, US Protect also done business with the Dept. of Homeland Security, the US Air Force and the Social Security Administration. ...

Leaders of the International Union of United Government Security Officers of America tell 9NEWS NOW this is the second collapse of a major government security contractor in less than a year here in the Washington area. International President James Carney adds several more companies have gone under elsewhere around the country. Carney calls it a "growing epidemic" due to contractors under-bidding multi-million-dollar federal security contract proposals. He says sooner or later they find themselves unable to meet their largest expense: the payroll.

Tuesday's forfeiture move came as sentencings of three former company officials approach following earlier guilty pleas to major corruption charges. ...

Richard Hudec, who took over USProtect, later pleaded guilty to charges of concealing earlier felony convictions from federal contracting officials, as well as tax evasion charges.

I do not know whether this is adversely affecting Social Security Administration operations.

World's Largest VOIP For SSA

From a press release issued by Nortel:

The U.S. Social Security Administration(2) (SSA) has confirmed selection of a team led by Nortel Government Solutions(1) to deploy one of the world's largest enterprise VoIP [Voice over Internet Protocol] networks under the 10-year, US$300 million Telephone Systems Replacement Project(2) (TSRP). ...

TSRP is expected to expand and improve services for an anticipated influx of new users, including retiring 'baby boomers.' It will include a centrally managed contact center solution with carrier-class unified messaging and interactive voice response (IVR) capable of supporting 55,000 field office agents. This will provide a common, more friendly 'look and feel' for users and faster, more efficient call handling through skills-based routing that matches each caller's inquiry to the most appropriate agent. ...

Core network rollout begins immediately and is expected to be complete within 180 days. The schedule calls for replacement of existing telephone systems in 205 of the SSA's nearly 1,600 field offices in the first year and another 500 per year after that. The contract also includes network integration operation, maintenance, user support and training. ...

The Nortel Government Solutions team includes General Dynamics, Black Box Network Services, Shared Technologies, York Telecom, High Wire Networks, NetIQ, NETCOM Technologies and Pal-Tech.