Federal prosecutors have moved to seize $6.9 million from a bank account owned by USProtect, two homes in Naples, Florida, and a boat owned by the past and present owners of an apparently defunct security contracting firm.I do not know whether this is adversely affecting Social Security Administration operations.
On Monday, 9NEWS NOW reported USProtect had locked its doors after being unable to make its payroll last week. Hundreds of employees are impacted. ...
In Washington, US Protect employed hundreds of Court Security Officers at most of the city's courthouses. The company also had contracts for several other courthouses scattered across the United States. In addition to the Department of Justice, US Protect also done business with the Dept. of Homeland Security, the US Air Force and the Social Security Administration. ...
Leaders of the International Union of United Government Security Officers of America tell 9NEWS NOW this is the second collapse of a major government security contractor in less than a year here in the Washington area. International President James Carney adds several more companies have gone under elsewhere around the country. Carney calls it a "growing epidemic" due to contractors under-bidding multi-million-dollar federal security contract proposals. He says sooner or later they find themselves unable to meet their largest expense: the payroll.
Tuesday's forfeiture move came as sentencings of three former company officials approach following earlier guilty pleas to major corruption charges. ...
Richard Hudec, who took over USProtect, later pleaded guilty to charges of concealing earlier felony convictions from federal contracting officials, as well as tax evasion charges.
Mar 19, 2008
USProtect Defunct
From WUSA in Baltimore (emphasis added):
World's Largest VOIP For SSA
From a press release issued by Nortel:
The U.S. Social Security Administration(2) (SSA) has confirmed selection of a team led by Nortel Government Solutions(1) to deploy one of the world's largest enterprise VoIP [Voice over Internet Protocol] networks under the 10-year, US$300 million Telephone Systems Replacement Project(2) (TSRP). ...
TSRP is expected to expand and improve services for an anticipated influx of new users, including retiring 'baby boomers.' It will include a centrally managed contact center solution with carrier-class unified messaging and interactive voice response (IVR) capable of supporting 55,000 field office agents. This will provide a common, more friendly 'look and feel' for users and faster, more efficient call handling through skills-based routing that matches each caller's inquiry to the most appropriate agent. ...
Core network rollout begins immediately and is expected to be complete within 180 days. The schedule calls for replacement of existing telephone systems in 205 of the SSA's nearly 1,600 field offices in the first year and another 500 per year after that. The contract also includes network integration operation, maintenance, user support and training. ...
The Nortel Government Solutions team includes General Dynamics, Black Box Network Services, Shared Technologies, York Telecom, High Wire Networks, NetIQ, NETCOM Technologies and Pal-Tech.
Mar 18, 2008
Fee Payment Numbers
The Social Security Administration has finally posted updated numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants:
Fee Payments | ||
|---|---|---|
| Month/Year | Volume | Amount |
Jan-08 | 20,559 | $75,368,163.45 |
| Feb-08 | 26,570 | $95,228,284.32 |
Waiting In The Carolinas
From the Charlotte Observer:
A Freedom of Information Act request, federal reports and interviews showed the Carolinas had about 48,500 pending disability cases, including about 8,700 in the Charlotte area. Waits at Charlotte's Disability and Adjudication and Hearing Office ranked among the worst -- 125 out of 141 offices in the nation.
The reason: Charlotte administrative law judges, on average, decided 375 cases in 2006. The Social Security Administration asks judges to make 500 to 600 decisions a year.
Though officials tried to remove reporters from the hearing office, the Observer spent more than 40 hours monitoring workers. At any given time, half of the six courtrooms were not in use.
Judges blamed the problems on staffing. The Social Security Administration has since announced it is hiring more judges to reduce delays.
Advance Notice Of Rulemaking On HIV
From today's Federal Register:
In a separate notice in today's edition of the Federal Register, we are publishing final rules revising the criteria we use to evaluate immune system disorders, found in sections 14.00 and 114.00 of the Listing of Impairments in appendix 1 to subpart P of part 404 of our regulations (the listings). In those rules, we indicate that we will issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) inviting public comments on how we might update and revise listings 14.08 and 114.08, our listings for evaluating HIV infection. We are now requesting your comments and suggestions about possible revisions to those listings.
If The News Media Starts Covering Social Security Cases In The Federal Courts, You Know Something Has Changed
From the Associated Press:
Six years after he suffered a stroke at age 46 that ended his career as a truck driver, Paul McCadney faces still more legal proceedings in his effort to collect Social Security supplemental security income and disability insurance payments.
An administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration concluded that McCadney could still work as a janitor, and denied those benefits.
But a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis on Monday sent the case back to federal district court at Little Rock. The appeals panel ruled that it wasn't clear if the administrative law judge took into account or discounted the findings of a psychologist who concluded that McCadney suffered from dementia, adjustment disorder and avoidant personality.
Waiting In Indiana And Michigan
From WSBT in South Bend:
They worked hard for years, giving part of each paycheck to social security. Now a backlog is causing tens of thousands of people in Indiana and Michigan to wait months, even years for their Social Security Disability money.
In Indiana, the average processing time to collect Social Security Disability is 694 days. In Michigan it's 698 — that's almost 2 years. ...
"There's blame everywhere," explained attorney Bob Rosenfeld. "Congress has cut back substantially on the social security budget, resulting in reduction of the work force, resulting in an increased backlog."
Rosenfeld helps people involved in the backlog. When we asked the Regional Social Security Public Affairs office why the backlog is so large, a representative said over the phone:
"[The backlog] is not something that can be corrected overnight, but we are working at getting those processing times reduced."
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