What The Managers Think

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, surveys its membership each year, asking about their experiences in managing Social Security field offices. Here is their summary of this year's survey:

• QUALITY OF WORK
• 87.4% of Survey respondents reported that they receive complaints weekly from the public about the accuracy or timeliness of the work being produced.
• 82.5% of managers report that the number of quality case reviews performed in their office is insufficient to ensure an accurate and timely work product.
• 71.9% of managers considered inadequate staffing to be the first or second greatest obstacle to ensuring a timely and accurate work product from their office. 61% said that competing operational priorities was the first or second greatest obstacle.

• FIELD OFFICE TELEPHONE SERVICE
• 64.6% of Field Office managers said that their offices were able to provide prompt telephone service less than half of the time.
• Virtually all of the managers (98.1%) receive weekly complaints about telephone service provided by their office. 72.8% said they receive up to four such complaints each week.
• 67.8% of the respondents said that the increased volume of visitors walking into their office is due in moderate or very large part to the inability of their office to provide prompt telephone service. 36.5% attribute the increased walk-in traffic in large part to the limited ability to answer the phones. The cause and effect is clear. 71.7% of managers said that they frequently or very frequently reassign staff from handling phone calls to helping in the reception area to reduce waiting times.
• Field Office managers overwhelmingly (88.7%) said that more staff was the most necessary element to improve telephone service in their office. Only 5.2% said that better telephone equipment was the single greatest need.

• STAFFING
• As in recent Surveys, the need for additional staff is the most significant concern for Field Office managers. 95.5% of the managers said that they need to hire at least one more employee to provide adequate public service; 89.2% said that they need to hire at least two more employees; and 71.2% said that they need to hire at least three more employees.
• Despite 1:1 staff replacements as a result of the FY 2010 SSA budget, 42% of the respondents indicated that they were not given authority to hire in FY 2010.

An E-Mail From The Commissioner

From: Commissioner Broadcast
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:07 PM
Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--04/06/10

To All SSA And DDS Employees

Subject: New Hires

I know that our unprecedented workloads continue to pressure every part of the agency. To help ease this pressure, we have been replacing staffing losses across the agency and hiring a substantial number of employees in the DDSs and ODAR. We have recently reassessed resources, and today I approved 900 new hires for front-line positions in Operations; virtually all of this allocation is for field offices. Moreover, I have decided to provide many of the additional hires to the most stressed offices. To the extent that space allows, we will be adding an average of 3 hires to the 200 field offices we found to be the most short-handed.

We can take this step forward because we have honored our commitment to Congress and the American public to make disability backlog reduction our top priority. We have 25 new hearing offices coming on line, and ODAR has reduced the number of pending cases for 15 straight months. Average processing times, particularly for the most backlogged offices, are dropping steadily.

In the face of furloughs and a deep recession, the DDSs have kept the number of pending cases well below our original projections so far this year.

Thank you for all you are doing in hard times to keep serving the American public.

Michael J. Astrue

Commissioner

Trust Funds Report Delayed

The Associated Press has put out a story saying that the annual report on the state of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds is being delayed until June 30, three months later than usual so that the effects of health care reform can be factored in. I doubt that health care reform will have any effect upon the Social Security trust funds in the near term. Increased longevity could have an effect upon the trust funds in the long term. In fact, I have read that health care reform should be judged primarily based upon its effects upon longevity. Health care reform certainly will have major effects upon the Medicare trust funds in the next five years.

One Shining Moment

GTHC

Cert Denied In Encarnacion

The Supreme Court has denied the petition for a writ of certiorari (scroll way down), that is they decided not to hear, the case of Encarnacion v. Astrue which concerns Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits for disabled children. There had been earlier speculation that the Court might hear the case.

Happy Easter

It Began Long Before Franklin Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt in 1912:

It is abnormal for any industry to throw back upon the community the human wreckage due to its wear and tear, and the hazzards of sickness, accident, invalidism, involuntary unemployment, and old age should be provided for through insurance. This should be made a charge in whole or in part upon the industries the employer, the employee, and perhaps the people at large, to contribute severally in some degree. Wherever such standards are not met by given establishments, by given industries, are unprovided for by a legislature, or are balked by unenlightened courts, the workers are in jeopardy, the progressive employer is penalized, and the community pays a heavy cost in lessened efficiency and in misery. What Germany has done in the way of old age pensions or insurance should be studied by us, and the system adapted to our uses, with whatever modifications are rendered necessary by our different ways of life and habits of thought.

Encarnacion v. Astrue

The SCOTUS Blog thinks there is a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court will grant a writ of certiorari, that is agree to hear, Encarnacion v. Astrue when the justices conference today. The question presented in Encarnacion is:

Whether, in issuing benefits to disabled children from poor families under the Supplemental Security Income program, the use of a “non-combination” policy for assessing disability in children — requiring “extreme” limitation within one of six “domains” of functioning rather than across domains — violates 42 U.S.C. § 1382c(a)(3)(G)’s instruction to consider “the combined effect of all of the individual’s impairments.”

I Wonder How This Happened

I have heard from a colleague who was put on hold recently by Social Security's Southeastern Program Service Center (PSC) in Birmingham, AL and by Social Security's Hearing Office in Atlanta. Both times she heard the same music looped to play over and over. The music is "I Surrender All." Here are the lyrics for "I Surrender All:"

All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live
I surrender all
I surrender all
All to Thee my Blessed Savior
I surrender all.

YouTube has a recording of this hymn made at the White House. That is probably a different recording than the one my colleague heard.

Social Security Loses Another Fugitive Felon Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has just held in Clark v. Astrue that Social Security misinterpreted the statutory provision prohibiting payment of benefits to "fugitive felons." This opinion concerns claimants with alleged probation and parole violations. This is a class action case that will affect a large number of people.

Social Security had earlier settled the case of Martinez v. Astrue which involved a different fugitive felon issue.

The underlying problem is that Social Security adopted ridiculously overbroad interpretations of the fugitive felon provisions enacted by Congress. Congress had in mind murders and rapists. The reality was that the vast majority of those caught up by the fugitive felon provisions, as interpreted by Social Security, had committed, at most, relatively minor crimes. Many had no idea that anyone considered them a fugitive. Some had been convicted of nothing. The records that Social Security was using to declare claimants fugitives were rife with errors. I can give an example that is not directly on point but close enough to give an idea of the problems with these records. After one of my clients was approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, we were informed that no benefits would be paid since my client was in prison in New Mexico. This made no sense since she was living in North Carolina. My client's response was one which makes New Mexicans cringe: "What are they talking about? I've never been to Mexico!" When I contacted the New Mexico prison authorities, they told me that they had never had a prisoner with my client's name or Social Security number.