Draft Appropriations Bill Calls For Decrease In Social Security Operating Funds

     The House Appropriations Committee has released a draft appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017, which begins on October 1, 2016, covering Social Security's administrative budget. Here's the summary:

The bill provides $11.9 billion to administer SSA activities – a decrease of $250 million from the fiscal year 2016 enacted level – to ensure those served by the program receive efficient and timely assistance and services. One‑time costs for building renovations provided in fiscal year 2016 make up a majority of the decrease.

     I'm all in favor of reducing the appropriation for the building renovation. The appropriation for the current year included an exorbitant amount of money for the renovation of one office building at Social Security's central offices. This had not been requested by the agency or the President. It was added to get the support of Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, where the money would be spent. However, the agency as a whole is in dire straits and needs a significant increase in operating funds.

Does This Address Real Problems?

     From a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM)published in the Federal Register today by the Social Security Administration:

404.935 (a) ... Each party must make every effort to ensure that the administrative law judge receives all of the evidence and must inform us about or submit any written evidence, as required in Sec. 404.1512, no later than 5 business days before the date of the scheduled hearing. If you do not comply with this requirement, the administrative law judge may decline to consider or obtain the evidence unless the circumstances described in paragraph (b) of this section apply.

(b) If you have evidence required under Sec. 404.1512 but you have missed the deadline described in paragraph (a) of this section, the administrative law judge will accept the evidence if he or she has not yet issued a decision and you show that you did not inform us about or submit the evidence before the deadline because:

(1) Our action misled you;

(2) You had a physical, mental, educational, or linguistic limitation(s) that prevented you from informing us about or submitting the evidence earlier; or

(3) Some other unusual, unexpected, or unavoidable circumstance beyond your control prevented you from informing us about or submitting the evidence earlier. For example, the administrative law judge will accept the evidence if you show that:

(i) You were seriously ill, and your illness prevented you from contacting us in person, in writing, or through a friend, relative, or other person;

(ii) There was a death or serious illness in your immediate family;

(iii) Important records were destroyed or damaged by fire or other accidental cause; or

(iv) You actively and diligently sought evidence from a source and, through no fault of your own, the evidence was not received or was received less than 5 business days prior to the hearing. ...

404.938 Notice of a hearing before an administrative law judge.

(a) Issuing the notice. After we set the time and place of the hearing, we will mail notice of the hearing to you at your last known address, or give the notice to you by personal service, unless you have indicated in writing that you do not wish to receive this notice. We will mail or serve the notice at least 60 days before the date of the hearing...

404.949 Presenting written statements and oral arguments.

You or a person you designate to act as your representative may appear before the administrative law judge to state your case, present a written summary of your case, or enter written statements about the facts and law material to your case in the record. You must provide a copy of your written statements for each party no later than 5 business days before the date set for the hearing.

     This seems to me to be an attempt to blame the attorneys who represent Social Security claimants for the horrible hearing backlog. We're not to blame. It's the fault of the Congress which has failed to give the agency adequate operating funds. This sort of thing gives aid and comfort to those who would blame the victims of the backlog. Even taken at face value this proposal could address no more than the tiniest sliver of the backlog.
     I have often found that Social Security employees who have never been involved in obtaining evidence from claimants' medical sources haven't the slightest idea how difficult and time consuming this can be, nor how long it can take. Doctors and hospitals aren't standing around eager to hop on my request for medical records. They often sit on requests for weeks or months and ignore telephone calls urging them to act. They often invent bizarre excuses for failing to act, such as "This is a photocopied signature and we can't accept that" when the printed medical release was obviously signed in blue ballpoint ink. One of the biggest dodges is to demand that the patient sign the medical provider's own medical release. These medical providers refuse to accept medical releases designed to meet all legal standards. Only their medical release is good enough even though some of the provider medical releases fail to meet legal standards. Can you imagine how difficult this can be when an attorney is dealing with hundreds of medical practices and a dozens of hospitals? And I haven't even mentioned claimants who fail to communicate with their attorneys. Due to homelessness, poverty and mental illness many claimants lead highly disordered lives. It's hard to get them on the phone and when you do, it's hard to get information out of them. Every attorney who represents claimants will tell you tales of claimants who denied new medical sources in a phone call a month or two before a hearing but who then show up on the day of the hearing and tell the attorney about hospitalizations and new physicians that date back well before that phone conversation. Worse, some claimants simply disappear for months and then show up on the day of the hearing. I make diligent efforts to obtain medical evidence on my clients. I generally contact my clients, to the extent I can, two months prior to a hearing to update their medical records but sometimes the medical evidence still hasn't arrived by the date of the hearing. And, no, I'm not just starting to obtain medical evidence two months prior to the date of the hearing. That starts soon after the request for hearing. I'm talking about updates here. Administrative Law Judges want up to date medical records and so do I but it's a moving target. New medical records keep getting created.

Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing

      From a press release:

Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled “Modernizing Social Security’s Information Technology Infrastructure” on Thursday, July 14, at 10:00 ...

Upon announcing the hearing, Chairman Johnson said:

... “What makes no sense is that, despite the importance of this information, Social Security relies on technology so outdated it is not even taught in computer science classes.

“For years, I’ve sounded the alarm on the dangers of Social Security’s outdated and aging IT. I look forward to hearing Social Security’s plan to update its IT for the 21^st century – a plan we have been asking to see for far too long. ...

     Republican lawmakers like to talk about Social Security's technology problems. It's a good way of deflecting attention away from Social Security's staffing problems which are 100% the result of inadequate funding. Also, Republican lawmakers want to make very sure that if Social Security gets any additional funding that most of it goes to contractors instead of hiring additional staff. The technology problems are certainly real but so are the staffing problems. Throwing money at the technology problems will help but it won't be quick and it won't be easy. Throwing money at the staffing problems will definitely work and work fairly quickly and easily.
     By the way, there are two reasons why Social Security can't come up with a long term IT plan. First, technology is changing so fast that any long term plan will be outmoded long before it can be implemented. Second, the agency has a hard time with even medium range IT planning because it has no idea what funding level to expect in coming years.

Read Charles Binder's Employment Contract With Binder And Binder

     For those interested in learning what's going on in the Binder and Binder bankruptcy, take a look at this objection filed by Charles Binder. It's hard to follow but attached to it are copies of contracts that Charles Binder had with Binder & Binder – The National Social Security Disability Advocates (NY), LLC which may be of more interest. By the way, the link I'm giving will only be good until July 15 so download it while you can!

Why Wouldn't Democratic Platform Endorse Expanding Social Security?

     From the Washington Post:

The Democratic National Committee added a call for a $15 minimum wage to its 2016 platform, a victory for progressives produced by a deal between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Just an hour later, however, Clinton-loyal members of the platform committee defeated two amendments that would have committed the party to expanding Social Security — a moment marked by cries of "Shame!" and "Are you Democrats?" from Sanders supporters sitting in the observation area of the Hilton hotel where the party was meeting.

Would You Name Your Daughter After A Character In "Game Of Thrones"?

     From the Houston Chronicle:

Using name data from the Social Security Administration, MooseRoots, a genealogy research site that’s part of Graphiq, set out to discover which names broke their own popularity records in 2015. To do this, they found the 100 most popular names, 50 from each gender, that were ranked higher in the U.S. than ever before. ...

The most popular record-breaking female name of 2015 is Charlotte. ... This spike could partially be explained by the arrival of the royal baby Princess Charlotte. ...

Of the 50 most popular record-breaking female names, several can be connected to figures from pop culture. The popularity of the name “Arya” could partially be due to the “Game of Thrones” character Arya Stark played by actress Maisie Williams. The name “Emilia” also appears on the list, perhaps for the same reason. Emilia Clarke plays Daenerys Targaryen in the hit HBO show. ...

“Riley”, which reached a peak popularity ranking of 35, might be due to Riley Curry, daughter of well-known NBA player Stephen Curry. “Ivy” made the list as well, perhaps due to Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter, who made a cameo in Beyoncé’s “7/11” music video. ...

Of the 50 most popular record-breaking male names, a few are worth highlighting. The popularity of the name “Jaxon” which reached its peak popularity ranking of 44, could be connected to pop singer Justin Bieber’s younger brother Jaxon Bieber. “Maddox” which also makes the top 50, is the name of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s adopted son. ...

Kind Of Pathetic

     There's been a controversy over the Social Security Administration's efforts to collect ancient debts, some more than thirty years old, by seizing current benefits owed as well as tax refunds. Social Security generally has no records to substantiate that anything was ever owed. Often the agency tries to collect debts from the children of the person allegedly overpaid.

     Inevitably, these extreme debt collection practices have generated litigation. Apparently, Social Security has no confidence in its ability to defend its practices. The agency is now trying to moot a class action lawsuit by writing off the alleged debt of the named plaintiff. This has generated an appeal.

     Let me suggest that if Social Security doesn't think it can win in court on the merits of its position that it should change its position. This effort to moot the litigation is unworthy of a government agency.

Happy Birthday FOIA!

     The 4th of July of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). In a rare act of bipartisanship that has attracted almost no public attention, Congress passed important amendments to FOIA that are coming into effect this month. Here are some excerpts:

• Search fees will no longer be assessed if an agency fails to meet the strict time limits set forth in FOIA unless the records requested exceed 5,000 pages. Since no agency is meeting the time limits, there will no longer be a search fees in most cases.
• Agencies can no longer withhold documents under an FOIA exemption unless "the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption." An agency can't just come up with some halfway plausible argument for an exemption. They have to have an argument that there will actually be some public harm.
• Agencies can no longer use the inter-agency or intra-agency exemption for documents more than 25 years old.
• "Each agency shall designate a Chief FOIA Officer who shall be a senior official of such agency (at the Assistant Secretary or equivalent level)."

     FOIA doesn't have a special impact at Social Security. It's just that it's crucial for our system of government. There won't be a FOIA float at any 4th of July parade but it's an essential guarantee of our liberties.
     Making a FOIA request isn't difficult. You can do it online.

A Question For Federal Court Wonks

     The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District Of North Carolina is now requiring that Social Security make the transcripts that Social Security files with the Court be searchable. The other two Districts in North Carolina aren't doing this. How common is this nationwide?

     By the way, searchable Social Security disability claim files at the administrative level would be nice.

Happy Independence Day!

Using Real Magic!

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Rep Payee Mess In Richmond

     From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Hundreds of seniors and disabled Social Security recipients flocked to the federal agency’s West Cary Street office on Friday for their monthly checks after a Richmond-based payee service suddenly closed, leaving many without access to their accounts.

Crossroads Inc. is a payee service that accepts Social Security checks and manages the money on behalf of clients who are unable to do so themselves.

For a small fee, the company is supposed to handle rent and other bills for its clients and budget any remaining money throughout the month.

But the Social Security Administration said it received notice on June 23 that Crossroads, located at 6800 Everglades Drive in South Richmond, had closed.

A phone recording at the service told clients to collect their monthly checks from the Social Security Administration office on West Cary Street on Friday.

Some of those waiting in line — many said they had waited more than three hours as the line wrapped around the building much of the morning — said the company still had their money from previous checks and that they had been told their accounts with Crossroads had been drained. ...

Henrico police said they are investigating allegations against the company along with other jurisdictions. ...

New Neurological Listings

     The Social Security Administration has revised its Listings for neurological disorders. The new Listings go into effect on September 29.

An Opinion On eBB

     Below is a comment posted on this blog concerning the Electronic Bench Book (eBB) for drafting Social Security Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) decisions that I think deserves more attention:

David Hatfield said...

This should have been a classic case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but some just could not leave well enough alone. FIT [Forms Integrated Template] was designed by a handful of users from the hearings operation. Decisions were made by me, an ALJ, with input from users. Then Commissioner Barnhart saw the wisdom of allowing adjudicators to create their own tools, and she gave me full decision authority to make it happen. It was done by users for users. Expenses were virtually zero, utilizing the amazing talents of SSA's DGS [Digital Government Strategy] staff. We created the system in less than a year, and by the following year almost every decision was written in FIT and it was embraced by almost every ALJ. Why? It saved folks time, and led to better written decisions. ALJs liked it because the quality of drafts increased, allowing the ALJs to hear and decide more cases instead of editing drafts all day. Decision writers liked it as the prompts inside the templates gave them a virtual GPS, saving them time and reducing errors. Perhaps most importantly it allowed for flexibility and did not impede the huge process of hearing and deciding cases. We never had to mandate its use, as users wanted it. We made modifications based on user input, and everything we did was with the user in mind. We were not concerned with data mining, or production of management reports. FIT was all about making the adjudication process better in quantity and quality. We built in SmartFIT features that eliminated obvious errors, such as not allowing a favorable decision to be written when the date last insured expired before the established onset date, or not allowing a case to be denied when the medical/vocational Grid directed a conclusion of disabled.

True, FIT was and is just a WORD product. But when the agency was looking at a web-based system, it could have easily converted FIT. We urged that. But some thought the hearing level could be converted to the eCAT system that was being designed for the DDS. We tried to convince folks that while the polices at the levels are the same, the adjudicative operations are very different. FIT "fit" the hearings operation. I thought they were listening. eBB was then created, and I, along with a colleague, sat down with a big group of people, none of them hearings operation employees, attempting to guide them toward FIT. However, unlike FIT, eBB had many masters and agendas, each wanting features to serve their own purposes (eg, data mining), or who still wanted elements of eCAT at the hearings level. The primary purpose of creating an adjudicative tool was frustrated. It was clear decisions had been and were being made behind the scenes. As a result, 4 years and a lot of money expended later, eBB is still struggling. It is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, with many of them never having cooked a meal.

Closing That Office For A Day Will Really Deter Vandalism

     From WLUK:

The Social Security Office in Green Bay was closed Tuesday after graffiti was found spray-painted on the building.

Police say the decision to close was made by social security officials.

The phrase "bomb the system," was scrawled on the brick building.

Police say anytime the word "bomb" is used, it's very concerning.

As Social Security Workload Increases, Agency's Headcount Decreases

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at the Social Security Administration as of March 2016:

• March 2016 64,264
• December 2015 65,518
• September 2015 65,717
• June 2015 65,666
• March 2015 64,432
• December 2014 65,430
• September 2014 64,684
• June 2014 62,651
• March 2014 60,820
• December 2013 61,957
• September 2013 62,543
• June 2013 62,877
• March 2013 63,777
• December 2012 64,538
• September 2012 65,113
• September 2011 67,136
• December 2010 70,270
• December 2009 67,486
• September 2009 67,632
• December 2008 63,733
• September 2008 63,990

SSA.Gov Having Problems

     The Social Security Administration is reporting that some people are having difficulty accessing its ssa.gov website. This problem has been going on since Friday.

Stay Classy Eric Conn, Stay Classy

     Eric Conn's defense team is getting ready for a trial on the criminal charges brought against him for his representation of Social Security disability claimants. They're hired an investigator who is himself under indictment in an unrelated case.

Electronic Bench Book Controversial

     Social Security has spent $25 million to develop and implement "electronic Bench Book" (eBB), a system to process hearing decisions. Only 20% of Administrative Law Judges use it. A recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) shows that it is controversial. Many at Social Security believe it increases processing time. Here's a chart based upon interviews of those who use eBB showing what OIG heard from ALJs and others who have used or tried to use eBB.

It's Not April 1 And This Isn't The Onion -- Social Security For Robots?

     From Reuters:

Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution. ... 

The draft motion called on the European Commission to consider "that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations". ...