An Image From 1960

Another CLE

Here is a CLE (Continuing Legal Education) session that I did not include in my list of two days ago.

• July 24, 2007, Ohio State Bar Association, Columbus, OH

Binder and Binder Sued

From the NY Daily News:

A Connecticut secretary who suffers from the "winter blues" is suing her ex-employers for $33 million, claiming they wouldn't give her a well-lit desk with a window view.

Caryl Dontfraid says she has seasonal affective disorder, which causes depression during the fall and winter and can be alleviated by exposure to bright light.

"She wanted to work closer to a window with good light," her attorney, Robert Campos-Marquetti told the Daily News. "This is a request that could have been easily accommodated."

Dontfraid was cited as an "exemplary employee" for Binder & Binder, a Park Avenue law firm specializing in disability claims.

Binder and Binder represents more Social Security disability claimants than any other law firm.

Upcoming Meetings and CLE

• June 8, 2007, Minnesota CLE on Social Security Practice, Rochester, MN
• June 12, 2007, Social Security Advisory Board, Washington, DC
  
• July 12, 2007, PBI CLE, Pittsburg, PA
• June 13, 2007, Ticket To Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel Meeting, teleconference
• July 16-17, 2007, American Association for Justice (formerly ATLA) CLE, Chicago, IL
  
• July 23, 2007, Legal Aid Society, Nashville, TN
  
• September 10-15, 2007, International Social Security Association General Assembly, Moscow, Russia
• August 9-10, 2007, Retirement Research Consortium Annual Conference (funded by SSA), Washington, DC
  
• September 15-20, 2007, NADE National Conference, Sioux Falls, SD
• October 17-20, 2007, NOSSCR CLE, St. Louis, MO
• November 30, 2007, Legal Services of New York Legal Support Unit CLE, New York, NY
• April 8-11, 2008 NADE Regional Conference, Austin, TX
• June 4-7, 2008 NOSSCR CLE, Miami, FL
• October 15-18, 2008 NOSSCR CLE, Century City, CA

If you know of one that I have missed, please e-mail me at charles[at]charleshallfirm.com.

NADE Newsletter -- eDIB and Budget

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an association of employees of state disability determination agencies, has issued its Spring 2007 newsletter.

The newsletter contains some interesting information about Social Security's paperless eDIB system. eDIB now contains 105 million documents taking up 22 terabytes of storage -- and it is just getting started. Because of the huge amounts of data, the agency is in the process of building a second data center in North Carolina.

The newsletter contained this little budget tidbit:

NCDDD [National Council of Disability Determination Directors, a separate group from NADE] also met this week with the house subcommittee and senate finance committee. There is a bi-partison (sic) committee working on an agreement to consider taking CDR [Continuing Disability Reviews] and redeterminations off line from the appropriations that are capped. This proposal also gives SSA [Social Security Administration] additional funding for CDR & redetermination workloads. The committee planned to contact SSA to be sure that this is favorable to SSA and the commissioner.

Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing

From the House Social Security Subcommittee:

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing Advisory No. 3 -- Congressman Michael R. McNulty (D-NY), Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on current and proposed employment eligibility verification systems and the role of the Social Security Administration in authenticating employment eligibility. The hearing will take place on Thursday, June 7, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 10 a.m.

Fraud In Charleston, WV

The Charleston, WV Daily Mail reports on Brenda Sue and Ray Jude who pleaded guilty to fraud for misrepresenting their income and living arrangements to obtain SSI benefits from the Social Security Administration.

What Astrue Didn't Talk About

I have given summaries of what Commissioner Astrue said at last week's Senate Finance Committee hearing. It is worth listing some things he did not talk about, or at least did not talk much about.

• Any plan for quickly working off Social Security's enormous backlog in holding administrative hearings. Even though Astrue has apparently been told if he does not come up with a plan that Congress may enact statutory time limits on holding hearing and issuing decisions, the best that Astrue can come up with is a plan that maybe, possibly, hopefully would reduce the backlogs to a near acceptable level in five years, but no guarantee on that.
  
• The "brute force" approach to eliminating Social Security's backlogs that the Commissioner had talked about at his confirmation hearing. Astrue used this phrase once. He did talk about increasing Social Security's workforce. However, in general, Astrue concentrated upon management approaches to reducing backlogs, an approach which has failed miserably in recent years.
• Any modeling of what could be done at Social Security given various budget funding levels. Astrue seemed to be promising exactly this at his confirmation hearing, but stayed away from this subject last week.
• The Social Security Administration's own recommended budget for fiscal year (FY) 2008 of $10.44 billion.
  
• The Congressional budget for Social Security which will probably be about $10.1 billion for FY 2008. Astue wanted only to talk about President Bush's much lower proposed FY 2008 budget for Social Security, even though it is a dead letter. Astrue continued the, at best, unprovable line first advanced by his predecessor that there would be no backlog problem if Congress had just adopted President Bush's budgets for Social Security over the years. I think most knowledgeable people just roll their eyes at that one. Why is Astrue so concerned with deflecting responsibility away from President Bush? Astue is supposed to be independent, unconcerned with making Bush look good or bad.
  
• Social Security's budget for years beyond FY 2008. Should he not already be lobbying for the FY 2009 budget and beyond?
• Any plans for dealing with Social Security's staffing shortages at its Field Offices, Teleservice Centers and Payment Centers.