Union Victory Over Trump Administration

      From Reuters:

A federal judge has dismissed a bid by President Donald Trump's administration to obtain judicial permission to cancel dozens of collective bargaining agreements between eight federal agencies and unions representing their employees.

Waco, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Alan Albright decided late on Wednesday that the agencies do not have legal standing to bring a lawsuit to implement a Trump executive order exempting them from having to bargain with unions, handing a victory to the American Federation of Government Employees union, or AFGE. …

The Departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration, filed the lawsuit in March. The American Federation of Government Employees represents 800,000 federal workers. …

Are You Suggesting That There’s A Relationship Between Staffing And Productivity? That’s Crazy Talk!

      From a press release issued by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

From FY 2019 to FY 2023, Disability Determinations Services (DDS) productivity, measured as Production Per Work Year, decreased by 21 percent, and average processing time increased by 81 percent from 121 to 219 days. The lower productivity and increase in processing times coincided with the loss of key technical staff, including disability examiners who evaluate disability claims and make disability determinations in accordance with laws, regulations, policies, and procedures governing Social Security Administration (SSA) disability programs.

Social Security Always Chickens Out

     From CBS News:

The Social Security Administration said it will continue issuing paper checks to the retirement program's beneficiaries, backing away from a previously announced plan to switch all payments to electronic deposits after Sept. 30. 

On Wednesday, the Social Security Administration told CBS MoneyWatch it would continue issuing paper checks for beneficiaries, including recipients of retirement and disability benefits, who have no other means of getting payments. But the program will also emphasize the advantages of electronic transfers to its roughly 70 million beneficiaries in an effort to encourage check recipients to switch, a Social Security spokesperson added. ...

    I've seen this same scenario play out at least a couple of times before. 

OIG To Audit SSA Performance Data

     From Nextgov:

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano has agreed to have the agency’s inspector general audit SSA’s performance data and to publicly report a broader list of data, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday after meeting with the longtime financial services businessman who took over the agency in May.

SSA changed what data it reports publicly last month, removing many metrics on the agency’s phone line — such as current call wait times, callback wait times, the number of people waiting on hold and the number waiting for a callback — and processing times for some benefits. 

“More accurate data is absolutely essential to oversight,” said Warren. “So we've gotten commitment to an independent audit of those data and much more transparency about the data that will be posted.” …

     Of course, the IG will take many months to do anything and may shade its report since it’s no longer truly independent.

Getting Better And Better

      The Social Security Administration has issued a press release touting “substantial progress in service delivery outcomes resulting from focused technology enhancements and process engineering.”

"The Stress Level Is Probably At A Maximum For Everyone"

     From NPR (they're still a thing, for now at least): 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently reassigned a small share of its field office employees in an effort to bring down lengthy wait times for the agency's national 800 phone number.

Workers at local offices across the country say these reassignments have been disruptive for staff and are increasing wait times for other services. ...

"They are in a deep hole of their own creation on staffing and so you just don't have enough people to go around to serve the public," said Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official who's now director of Social Security and disability policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). "And so all you can really do at this point is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic." ...

Nicole Morio, a field office worker in Staten Island and union representative, said these reassignments have forced front-line staff to take on more work.

"The stress level is probably at a maximum for everyone," Morio said. "At one point I think we were doing the work of 1.8 people. Now it seems as though we're doing the work of 10 to 15." ...

Bisignano Meeting With Senator Warren

     There's no word on the results but Senator Elizabeth Warren is reported to be meeting with Social Security Commissioner Bisignano sometime today.

Is This True?

     This comment was posted in response to my post about a representative payee problem in one case:

SSA has not even been reviewing the payee cases since at least January. I am one of the contractors that does payee reviews per the congressional mandate and SSA is not reviewing anything right now because they re-assigned all our people that review the payee cases. Our cases of misuse that we have done and our corrective action plans we've issued have thus far just been sitting there ignored. 

    Is this true? If so, this is a big problem brewing. 

Proposed Change In Public Assistance Household

      Last year Social Security changed its regulations to alter the definition of a public assistance household in ways that benefit Supplemental Security Income recipients. The agency has now submitted new proposed regulations to the Office of Management and Budget to alter what was done. We don’t have the text of what was submitted but I’ll take a guess that the Trump Administration wants to completely undo it.

     The odd thing about what has been posted is that it’s labeled an Executive Order but it certainly seems like it would have to be a change in the regs. Also, they don’t give prior notice of Executive Orders.

A Rep Payee Problem

     From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

On a chilly night in April 2023, Charlotte Walker got a text message. Her sister, 68-year-old Barbara Walker, was in jail and facing a felony.

Barbara's crime: starting a fire to keep warm. 

Charlotte was infuriated. Her sister, who has schizophrenia, should not have been living on the street at all.

Under an arrangement with the Social Security Administration known as the representative payee program, a staff member at the local nonprofit Outreach Community Health Centers was supposed to be assisting Barbara with housing.

That employee, Elizabeth Gabriel, was responsible for receiving Barbara's monthly disability benefit checks and using the money to help her secure food, medicine and housing. Since 2017, Gabriel had collected over $80,000 on Barbara's behalf, approximately $900 per month.

But over the past three years, Barbara’s siblings say their sister has consistently lived on and off the street while Gabriel has repeatedly failed to return phone calls, text messages and letters about their sister's care. They say neither she nor Outreach has provided insight into why Barbara was unhoused or how the funds were used. ...

 Outreach declined to comment on the Walker family's complaints, citing federal privacy laws. Gabriel did not respond to multiple requests for comment.