I’m Torn; Was There Any Point In Sending This?

      An e-mail to Social Security employees:

From: ^Human Resources

Sent: Monday, April 24, 2023 8:10 AM

Subject: 2022 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government

 

A Message to All SSA Employees

Subject:  2022 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government

 

The Partnership for Public Service recently released its 2022 Best Places to Work (BPTW) in the Federal Government Rankings, which is based on results from the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS).  SSA now ranks 17 amongst 17 large federal agencies.  Our 2022 BPTW and FEVS results reflect your experiences from last summer – one of our most challenging periods in recent years.  Over the past year, we used that feedback to make workplace improvements to support you in providing trusted service to our customers.

While faced with our lowest staffing levels in more than 25 years, resuming in-person service amidst the ongoing pandemic, and juggling increasing workloads, you worked tirelessly to serve the public.  Because of your commitment to service, the public rated us as the 2nd most trusted agency in the federal government, second only to the National Park Service.  You are the reason for that rating – your service to the public makes a difference.

Your commitment to public service is unwavering, but changes are needed.  For over a decade, we received insufficient and inconsistent funding to administer our programs.  This led to hiring freezes and staff losses, resulting in workload and workplace challenges that directly impact your experiences.  Thankfully this fiscal year, we received a higher funding level, which allows us to start rebuilding our workforce.  Hiring is a priority; and so far, we have onboarded over 3,200 new team members across the agency.  Also, our latest data shows attrition rates are starting to slow down.

Senior leaders value the feedback you provide.  We reviewed last year’s FEVS results, as well as surveys of new hires and those leaving our agency.  Based on that input, we instituted several workplace improvements to accompany our hiring strategy.  For example, you told us transparency is important, so we increased our communications to keep you informed of our priorities and challenges.  We learned how we can better support your work-life balance and help you navigate the hybrid work environment through workplace flexibilities and wellness resources.  We are also improving access to career and professional development offerings to help you take charge of your career.

We know these changes are just a start.  Sufficient funding for future years will allow us to maintain the progress we’ve made, and we will continue to advocate for the support we need.  Additionally, your continued feedback is always welcomed.  The next FEVS – scheduled to occur later this spring – presents another opportunity for you to weigh in on future workplace improvements.

Thank you for your resilience and dedication to the public and our agency!  The public’s high level of trust in our agency is a direct reflection of the service that you provide.  As we pursue our mission, we will strive to make the agency a truly great place to work.

Seems Almost Quaint

     For most of the history of Social Security, all monthly payments of benefits came out on the third of each month. That changed in 1997 so that the Title II payments come out on three dates each month. The date you receive your payment depends upon the day of the month upon which you were born. 

    The Social Security Administration's statement at the time this change was made gives an insight into the level of service that was then prevalent at the agency. This is from a notice published by Social Security in the Federal Register on February 11, 1997 (emphasis added):

SSA’s current practice of paying 47 million beneficiaries within the first 3 days of each month results in a large surge of work during the first week of each month. This surge includes a large number of visitors to field offices and calls to our toll-free 800 number to report nonreceipt of a check, question the amount paid, or ask about other payment-related issues. Approximately 9 percent of all calls during check week concern nonreceipt, compared to 3 percent during the rest of the month. As an example of the surge that occurs around the current payment days, on April 3, 1995, 1,091,282 calls were placed to SSA’s 800 number. On April 14, 1995, the number of calls placed to our 800 number decreased to 229,022. It is important to beneficiaries and customers to be able to reach SSA with fewer busy signals, and we have pledged to enable callers to get through to the 800 number within 5 minutes of their original attempt. However, in fiscal year (FY) 1994, during peak periods, customers encountered busy signals on SSA’s 800 number 40–63 percent of the time and had to wait more than 5 minutes to get through about 30 percent of the time. ...

 Our goal is for our customers to have minimal waits for service when visiting a Social Security field office. Today, SSA does not always meet this goal. In FY 1994 there were 24 million visitors to our field offices. While the average wait during check week for individuals with an appointment was 8 minutes, some individuals with appointments had to wait over 2 hours. Thirty-two percent of the visitors to our offices without appointments in FY 1994 (typically people who have questions related to their payments or who want to report payment delivery problems) had to wait more than 30 minutes after arriving to be served. The average wait during check week for individuals without appointments was 16 minutes, although some individuals without appointments had to wait over 3 hours. ...

    The agency already felt it was under customer service stress way back in 1997 but the level of stress was vastly less than it is now. Adequate service has been defined downward dramatically since then.

IRS Telephone Wait Time 4 Minutes

     Last year, the average wait time when you called the Internal Revenue Service was 27 minutes. This year it's 4 minutes. How did the IRS do it? They got a big infusion of money because Congress finally realized that service at the IRS was completely unacceptable. 

    Social Security's telephone wait time is something like four times as long as for the IRS. How is that acceptable? When do things reach such an extreme state that Social Security gets an infusion of money?

OPM Memo On Telework

     From Government Executive:

The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday announced that it will end the use of maximum telework as part of the federal government’s operating status next month, following President Biden’s planned expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The public health emergency is set to expire on May 11. In a memo to agency heads Tuesday, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja announced that as a result, the federal government’s HR agency will no longer recommend that agencies remain “open with maximum telework flexibilities” as part of a governmentwide operating status. ...

Ahuja stressed that although OPM’s recommendation for maximum telework was ending, agencies should still balance the Office of Management and Budget’s call for “substantially increased meaningful in-person work at federal agencies” with the benefits associated with continued use of workplace flexibilities, including increased productivity, employee engagement and recruitment and retention of workers.

 “OMB’s memorandum informed agencies of an expectation to increase meaningful in-person work while still using flexible operational policies,” she wrote. “Agencies should continue to strategically use telework and remote work policies in support of their workforce plans moving forward while capitalizing on the benefits of meaningful in-person work.” ...

[T]he memo did not assuage the concerns of House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who compared the memo to a decades-long policy on LGBTQ+ Americans serving in the military. ...

    Cut the endless comments on the merits of telework. Don't you guys get tired?

Only 47% Of Disabled People Between Age 50 And Age 64 Draw Social Security Disability Benefits

     From a television station in New York:

A researcher estimates that over 1 million Americans with disabilities aren't getting the benefits they may need.

Zachary Morris, an assistant professor at the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare, wanted to look at how well a couple of big Social Security programs are working for people.

Morris analyzed data on people between 50 and 64, shy of retirement age, who have work-limiting disabilities.

He found just 47% of these folks, Americans who are theoretically eligible for benefits, get Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income or both. ...

Rolls Royce Service For OIG; Little Service For The Public

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) operates its own hotline for the public to use in reporting waste or fraud. Think about that. Why does OIG have its own separate hotline? Why not use Social Security's regular 800 number? The teleservice center employees are certainly capable of taking down basic information and forwarding it to OIG. I think we know the reason. The crappy service on the general 800 number would be unacceptable for OIG.

    At the moment, OIG is advertising the availability of a contract for handling its hotline. Here's one of the criteria that OIG expects a contractor to meet: "At a minimum, the contractor’s systems must handle all incoming calls, and the contractor must achieve at least an average 95% answer rate for all calls offered and a maximum average wait time of one (1) minute after call offer." The OIG contractor has to be able to "handle all incoming calls"? The agency's general 800 number certainly can't do that. A 95% answer rate? Not imaginable for the general 800 number. A maximum average wait time of one minute? Are you kidding me? It's more like 15-20 minutes for the general 800 number. 

    Why are we funding excellent call center services for OIG but those needing to file a claim or to talk with someone about their pending case get horrific service? I'm all in favor of getting fraud reports from the public but I'm also in favor of the public getting decent service from the Social Security Administration.

Get Your Act Together

     Just yesterday I wrote about Social Security's noncompliance with the CARES Act, which requires the agency to accept electronic consents from digitally identity proofed and authenticated record holders to disclose Privacy Act protected records to third parties. The same day Social Security released a new Emergency Message saying that it now has a fully electronic means to give consent for release of records. The problem is that the link in the EM takes one to a webpage saying the agency is committed to protecting privacy and little else. There's supposed to be a tab for "Electronic Request for Consent to Disclose" but there's no such tab. The closest thing is a tab for "Submit A Privacy Act" request but that takes you only to a webpage giving links to the agency's privacy regulations.

    Shouldn't someone have checked to make sure the electronic request form was actually available online before posting the EM?

Social Security's Noncompliance With The CASES Act

     I'm not sure that I heard of the CASES (Creating Advanced Streamlined Electronic Services for Constituents) Act until I saw a recent report by the Congressional Research Service. CASES requires federal agencies to "accept electronic identity proofing and authentication processes for individuals to consent to gaining personal access to, or the disclosure of, an individual’s records in possession of a federal agency to another party" and to "create templates for electronic consent and access forms and require posting of the templates on agency websites" and to "accept the electronic consent and access forms."

    Apparently, a major impetus for this legislation is the problems that Congressional offices themselves have in providing constitutent services. They want to be able to access agency records directly. However, the language isn't limited to Congressional offices. Social Security claimants should be able to access their own records as well as their attorneys. 

    Social Security seems to be wildly out of compliance with CASES and making little, if any, progress to compliance. Yes, claimants can establish electronic access to something that Social Security calls their file but that access is extremely limited. For instance, claimants can find out that an Administrative Law Judge has made a decision in their case but they cannot access the decision. They can find out that their disability claim is pending at the initial level but they cannot see what is going on other than a totally meaningless percentage that purports to show how far along their case is. Telling a claimant that their case is 55% of the way to a decision is giving them meaningless and misleading information. It doesn’t work like that. Claimants can't access the medical records in their case. Yes, attorneys can get better access to their clients' files but the attorney electronic consent and access form has so many problems that it's seldom used. If the e-1696 is submitted, the agency still contacts the claimant by telephone to make sure they really did appoint an attorney and they must still laboriously enter the information in Social Security's data systems, processes that can literally take months. Even after that, attorneys still don't get much access to their clients' files other than at the hearing and Appeals Council levels. We certainly cannot access information on what is going on at the black holes called payment centers.

Where Are The Missing Children?

      From The Hill:

… Recently, the Social Security Administration (SSA) began publishing statistics on beneficiaries by race. There are approximately 260,000 Black children receiving survivor benefits from Social Security. With nearly 1 million orphaned Black children in the country, a natural question policymakers should ask is “Where are the missing beneficiaries?”

Black children may miss out on survivor benefits because of eligibility requirements, such as the parent not having sufficient work in Social Security-covered employment. Policymakers should acknowledge the reality on the ground and ask whether those eligibility requirements need to be updated.

Black children also miss out on survivor benefits because of mistakes by SSA, a lack of awareness of benefit eligibility, and budget cuts to SSA’s administrative budget. …

Union Negotiations Start On Monday

     Joe Davidson at the Washington Post reports that negotiations between the Social Security Administration and its largest employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), are scheduled to begin on Monday. According to the Post:

... At Social Security, labor relations still are hung over from the anti-union days of the Trump administration. President Donald Trump used executive orders to sharply weaken the ability of unions to bargain with agencies, including through the unilateral imposition of contract provisions. Union leaders say current Social Security leaders don’t want to give up that authority.

A key example is telework, which Republicans claim there is too much of in the federal workforce. Restrictive telework policies were implemented under Trump and the agency now “doesn’t want to give up its power,” [Rich] Couture [of the AFGE] said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t want to give up its discretion.”

He added, “they won’t guarantee a telework program or telework levels. They won’t negotiate with us over telework, despite at one point promising to do so. That’s a huge issue that they have shown zero actual interest in fixing with us.”

Another key issue is the “very dire situation in terms of service delivery and how much it’s deteriorated in the last couple of years …” Couture said, “stemming from overwhelming workloads, low employee morale … a lack of competitive pay and benefits.” ...