How Independent Is The Social Security Commissioner?

Michael Astrue was the keynote speaker at a TechAmerica meeting on March 3, 2009. TechAmerica is apparently a trade industry group. A video of the 50 minute presentation is available online.

The most interesting thing that I learned from watching this is that last fall Astrue won a longstanding battle with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Because of his victory he was finally able to tell Congress that his agency needed a new national computer center.

Some questions come to mind:

• Why would Astrue need OMB permission to tell Congress that Social Security needs a new national computer center? The Commissioner of Social Security is not only allowed, but required, by statute to give Congress his or her own budget for the agency. The statute contemplates that the Commissioner of Social Security will have more independence than Astrue is able or willing to exercise.
• When he was interviewed by the White House before being nominated to become Social Security Commissioner did Astrue make a promise to the Bush Administration that he would not exercise any budgetary independence? Does he still feel bound by such promises?
  
• Is Astrue such a team player that he cannot imagine not getting the approval of the White House before telling Congress what Social Security needs?
• Does OMB have so much power that Astrue feels that it would be suicidal for him to exercise the budgetary independence given him by statute?
• Could it be that Michael Astrue would love to tell Congress and the American people how many employees his agency needs to properly do its work, but he is waiting for OMB permission?
• If Social Security Commissioners have as little independence as Astrue is saying, why are we pretending that Social Security is an independent agency?
  

Iowa Helping New York

From Radio Iowa News

The employees at Social Security offices in Iowa will soon be busier helping congested offices in New York. Offices in Carroll, Creston, and Ottumwa will electronically handle hundreds of claims from thousands of miles away.

Social Security regional commissioner, Michael Grochowski, says the offices have the capacity to handle the additional work, especially compared to locations in New York.

"You can come into our office here without an appointment, and you're probably going to be served in five or ten minutes. If you've got an appointment, they serve you in two or three minutes, if not right on the dime. We have places in the country that you wait an hour. You wait a half hour if you have an appointment," Grochowski explains.

"We're going to pair up with some offices in the New York region, especially in their metropolitan areas, where they can't keep up with walk-in. When their doors open up, they have 100 or 150 people at the door everyday."

Why?

Just a few days ago there was a report that state employees who make disability determinations for the Social Security Administration in New Jersey might be furloughed because of a state budget shortfall, even though the federal government is paying all the costs associated with these employees. A South Jersey Courier Post article shows that this will soon be a reality. The article gives the following list of states who are furloughing or will soon furlough disability determination employees:

• California
• Connecticut
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• New Jersey
• Ohio
• Oregon

In New Jersey, 18% of state employees are funded by sources other than state appropriations. Almost all will be furloughed.

VOIP No Substitute For Warm Bodies

From the minutes of the March 16-19, 2009 meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel. The meeting included a session with Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue and Social Security Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Linda McMahon:

TSRP/VOIP [Telephone Systems Replacement Project/Voice Over Internet Protocol] – The new equipment does little to help us answer phones more effectively. Nor does it revolutionize our service delivery. It would be helpful to be able to divert phone calls to another place, perhaps the TSC [Teleservice Centers, which are also overworked and would also like to offload some of their work to someone else]. We have a new phone system, which we have long needed; however, it does not enable the Field Offices to provide better public service. Human resources are still the answer to many of these issues. [Translation: We need more employees. to help us get our work done.] We continue to see more visitors despite Internet utilization. In addition, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to move Internet claims. Phone service is sacrificed. What will happen when we have VOIP reports to show where we really are in terms of not answering phones? Will we then have the same pressure we now have as a result of VIP [?] data? Metrics will only be one more thing to manage. We need, on average, at least two additional employees in each office just to be able to answer telephones. Quality is lacking in the clarity of our new telephone systems. ...

In many cases, VOIP provides less functionality than our old phone systems. For example, the paging feature is not available to all offices; only to those offices that were previously utilizing it. Both the Commissioner and Linda were surprised to learn of the problems we are having not only with VOIP but also with Nortel.

By the way, I am using VOIP technology in my office. There is nothing wrong with VOIP per se. It provides a clear cost saving advantage. However, in no way does VOIP substitute for warm bodies answering the telephone.

COBRA Assistance Won't Be There For The Disabled

I had earlier wondered whether the COBRA health care insurance continuation assistance now available for laid off workers would extend to those forced to leave work due to illness, on the theory that their departure from work was also "involuntary."

Unfortunately, it was the Internal Revenue Service rather than the Department of Labor (where separations from employment due to illness have long been held to be involuntary for purposes of unemployment insurance) doing the interpreting. IRS Notice 2009-27 defines involuntary termination to mean a separation from employment "due to the independent exercise of the unilateral authority of the employer to terminate the employment." The notice goes on to say that "absence from work due to illness or disability" is not enough to qualify one for the COBRA assistance.

Border Patrol

From a presolicitation announcement that Social Security placed on FedBizOpps.gov:

Investigative services to be performed under contract to verify claimants' U.S. residency for the purpose of establishing eligibility and continuing eligibility for receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for the Social Security Administration (SSA). ... The service area zones are located along the Mexico-U.S. border in Texas and New Mexico. ...

SSA officials will notify the contractor of the name and address for residency verification. Upon written request, the contractor shall perform an unannounced onsite visit to the claimant's reported address to verify residency, contact one non-relative neighbor who has first hand knowledge of individual's residence and submit a written report documenting the results.

Bad Blood At Social Security

From Joe Davidson's Federal Diary column at the Washington Post (registration required):

Like married couples who are lovey-dovey in public but have a tense relationship at home, the fondness that federal union leaders express for President Obama may not always reflect what's going on between local union leaders and managers in the workplace.

The problem is the emotional baggage left over from their previous relationship. ...

Mark Roth, AFGE general counsel, said "the relationship is now venomous on both sides." Referring to a potential presidential directive calling for labor-management partnerships in federal agencies, Roth said "you just can't layer an executive order over" the bad blood that lingers from the Bush days.

"I know that our Social Security activists are not in a mood to partner with" top Social Security Administration officials, he said. "They want them gone."

Speaking of unions and the Social Security Administration, the Association of Administrative Law Judges is celebrating a victory over the agency that allows the union to represent judges who hear cases involving disability benefits.

An arbitrator, Michael A. Murphy, ordered SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue to "cease and desist from refusing to recognize the union" and "from displaying anti-union animus."

Understaffing Costs Money

From an audit report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

Our objective was to determine whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) evaluated earnings reported to the Master Earnings File (MEF) for disabled individuals receiving Title II benefits. ...

In our July 2004 report, Disabled Title II Beneficiaries with Earnings Reported on the Master Earnings File, we stated that SSA did not evaluate all earnings reported to the MEF between 1996 and 2000 for disabled individuals receiving Title II benefits as of March 2002. We estimated that approximately $1.37 billion in overpayments resulting from about 63,000 disabled beneficiaries’ work activity was not identified.

To perform our follow-up review, we identified 25,904 disabled beneficiaries (from 1 Social Security number segment) who were receiving Title II benefits as of July 2007 and had earnings reported on the MEF between 2001 and 2006 that may impact their entitlement to benefits. ...

Based on our review, we estimate that approximately $3.1 billion was overpaid to about 173,000 disabled beneficiaries because of work activity. Although the Agency identified about $1.8 billion of these overpayments to approximately 141,000 beneficiaries, we estimate about $1.3 billion in overpayments to approximately 49,000 beneficiaries went undetected by SSA. ...

We recognize SSA’s efforts to improve the work-related CDR process. In addition, we acknowledge the Agency’s limited resources with which to perform this workload. However, we believe SSA may achieve greater savings in the long-term if it could provide the resources to perform more work-related CDRs.

Should Make For Interesting Reading

Under President Obama's Memorandum of March 20 executive branch agencies receiving funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may not consider the views of any lobbyist about expenditures under ARRA unless those views are expressed in writing. These written communications must be posted online within three business days. This does not prevent in-person meetings or telephone conversations in addition to the written statement, but the agency must post a summary of such conversations within three business days.

As best I can tell, Social Security is not yet in compliance with this portion of the March 20 Memorandum. This is not unusual. The Sunlight Foundation reports that few agencies are.

You can already find out online who has been lobbying Social Security, but until now you have been unable to find out what they are saying.

Stay tuned.

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