Six Months For Cashing Dead Mother's Checks

From WTNH of Connecticut:

A federal judge has sentenced a Willimantic woman to six months home confinement for cashing her dead mother's Social Security checks.

Patricia Macha, 66, had pleaded guilty in January to one count of theft of government property.

Prosecutors say that between February 2001 and February 2007, Macha received more than $64,000 in Social Security benefits to which she was not entitled.

Macha has been ordered to pay full restitution at $50 per month, which will be deducted directly from her Social Security disability checks.

If my math is correct, it will take Ms. Macha over 100 years to pay back the money.

Confusing People In 15 Languages

The Social Security Administration has announced that it now offers information on the internet in the following 15 languages other than English:

Arabic
Armenian
Chinese
Farsi
French
Greek
Haitian-Creole
Italian
Korean
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
Russian
Tagalog
Vietnamese

Italian, but not German? Portuguese, but not Japanese? Korean, but not Hindi-Urdu? Greek, but not Swahili? There are choices to be made. Perhaps they based it upon the frequency with which they encounter immigrants speaking a particular language. Perhaps, they are working on others.

Rick Warsinskey On Marketplace Radio

Rick Warsinskey, the former head of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, was on Marketplace radio this morning, talking about Social Security's backlogs and budgets. You can listen to the piece online.

Excerpt From Written Statement Of Marty Ford

A very short excerpt from a much longer written statement by Marty Ford, Co-Chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force, a large and important umbrella group representing many non-profits concerned with helping the disabled.

In addition, CCD also urges Congress to separate SSA’s LAE budget authority from the Section 302(a) and (b) allocations for discretionary spending. The size of SSA’s LAE is driven by the number of administrative functions it conducts to serve beneficiaries and applicants. Congress should remove SSA’s administrative functions from the discretionary budget that supports other important programs. The LAE would still be subject to the annual appropriations process and Congressional oversight.

I present this excerpt since I think this seemingly technical issue is of huge importance. There is likely to be a serious effort to remove Social Security from the budget or at least to remove it from the sort of budget limitations that apply to other agencies.

Statement Of Witold Skwierczynski

Some excerpts from the statement of Witold Skwierczynski, President of the American Federation of Government Employees National Council of Social Security Field Operations Locals:

I present this statement on behalf of approximately 50,000 bargaining unit Social Security employees who work in over 1500 facilities nationwide. ...

The primary message the Union wants to convey to this Committee is that Social Security is in dire need of both additional administrative funding and Congressional oversight of its service delivery practices. ...

Claimants find it difficult to interact with a Social Security employee when they need assistance. 25 % of the calls to the 800 number are unanswered. If a claimant calls their local office they can’t get through 51% of the time. ...

Few claimants attempt to navigate the SSA hearings appeal system without representation. However, SSA has plans to encourage and assist 3^rd parties in expanding the menu of services that they offer claimants for a fee. ...

Commissioner Astrue has decided to hire and train insufficient support staff that each new ALJ relies upon to prepare cases for hearing and write and process post-hearing decisions. ...

So far in FY 08 more than 61 percent of Social Security disability claims for benefits are approved in the Washington DC DDS, while just 30 percent of those who file for benefits are approved in the South Carolina DDS. New Hampshire approves the most initial SSI only disability cases with more than a 55 percent allowance rate. However, residents of Michigan, Ohio, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia are approved less than 30 % of the time by their respective DDS. ...

Removing SSA’s LAE [Limitation on Administrative Expenditures, Social Security's operating budget] from discretionary spending caps will allow Congress to assess SSA’s administrative requirements without regard to the competing budgetary demands of the Departments of Labor, HHS and Education agencies. ...

Because potential payments are involved, SSA is required to send letters to people who fail to keep appointments and notify them that their benefits will be protected for up to six (6) months. If SSA does not send this letter, the protective filing date is left open and a person could be paid years of retroactive benefits if the matter is not dealt with promptly.

However, SSA has decided NOT to apply this law to Internet claims. Under the current system, when someone initiates an application on SSA’s Internet site but cannot complete it, SSA issues a confirmation number to the individual to re-access the application but the Agency does not consider the unsuccessful attempt to file evidence of a desire to file which would protect the date of filing. ...

In fact, SSA intends to solicit 3^rd parties to engage in bulk filing of electronic claims for multiple claimants. This will enable for profit companies to offer a filing service for claimants in return for a fee. ...

Additionally, AFGE records indicate that in 2007 SSA closed a record number of offices. In 2007, the Administration closed 17 offices including:

Burbank, CA

Industry Hills, CA

San Fransisco-Parkside, CA

SF Western Addition, CA

San Pedro, CA

Hallandale, FL

Miami-Central, FL

St Louis NW, MO

Warrensburg, MO

Auburn, NY

Bay Ridge, NY

N Charleston, WV

Nacogdoches, TX

Cheektowaga, NY

Bronx River, NY

Carbondale, PA

Brentwood, PA

Scheiber Statement To Ways And Means: 43% Of Re-Recons Approved

An excerpt from a much longer statement by Sylvester Schieber, Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board, to the House Ways and Means Committee:

One of the initiatives in the Commissioner’s Plan to Eliminate the Hearings Backlog is the informal remand process. Cases that were denied by the DDS and are waiting for a hearing at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) are being screened and where appropriate returned to the DDS for another look. The program has been in place for about a year now and the cases that are sent back have been purposely selected because they are the most likely to be proper allowances. Nonetheless, out of the 34,000 cases informally remanded so far, the DDSs have allowed 43 percent and well over two-thirds of those were allowed without any additional development.

Astrue Says ALJs Who Want More Staff Promote "A Fiction Designed To Sidetrack Some Of Our Productivity Initiatives"

Some excerpts from Commissioner Astrue's written statement to the House Ways and Means Committee (emphasis added):

I would like to start with Social Security’s front door, the field office. The past few years have been tough for field offices. As overall agency employment dropped from 63,569 in 2003 to 60,206 at the end of 2007, field offices felt the effect of staffing losses more intensely because so many of our activities mandated by law are performed in our field offices.

As staffing fell, workload burdens grew. The general population continued to grow, and it got older, which meant more retirement applications and more disability applications. New state laws aimed at illegal immigrants increased the number of people seeking replacement Social Security cards. New federal statutes required claims representatives, teleservice representatives, and other field staff to take on complex and time-consuming new responsibilities in Medicare Part D. This year, our field offices are processing additional requests for 1099s to help taxpayers file for payments under the stimulus bill.

Our field offices do their best, but simply cannot provide the level of service the public expects from the Social Security Administration at recent levels of funding. This Committee has recognized this problem and I would like to thank you for providing SSA with the resources to better fulfill our responsibilities to the American public. The 2008 appropriations was the first time that Congress has appropriated at or above the President’s Budget request since 1993. ...

The resource distribution problem [at ODAR] is neither obvious nor is its cause clear to me. Nonetheless, when you look at where we were a year ago, it is clear that there was a longstanding imbalance in Office of Disability Adjudication and Review resources. In particular, the Chicago and Atlanta regions were dramatically under-resourced compared to the rest of the country. The hearing offices in many of the most backlogged cities – such as Atlanta, Cleveland, and Detroit – were receiving 3-4 times as many filings per administrative law judge as offices in Southern California and New England.

We have moved swiftly to correct this problem. Where we can address it by changing jurisdictional lines in adjacent locations, we have done so. As an example, our suburban Pittsburgh office now serves Youngstown and other parts of eastern Ohio to take some of the burden off overloaded offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For the same reasons, we have reassigned responsibility for cases scheduled for video hearings to less busy offices. At our site in Toledo, we have video hearing capability, so that now administrative law judges in Boston assist the Toledo office with their video hearings. ...

With the allocation of the 175 newly-hired administrative law judges, we have made equalizing resources a priority even though we have received some criticism for doing so. We are sending 10 to Ohio and just 1 to New England. That is not a regional bias – I am from Boston myself – but a data-driven decision that recognizes that there is a strong correlation between filings per administrative law judge and cases pending. ...

We have also received some criticism that we are not providing adequate support staff for our administrative law judge corps. In my opinion, that is a fiction designed to sidetrack some of our productivity initiatives. Since I began as Commissioner, I have increased the number of support staff per ALJ from 4.1 to 4.4. The number of staff needed to support a disposition will change as we fully implement the backlog plan, but at the moment that number is difficult to project with any certainty. We know that automating many of our clerical functions will reduce the amount of time spent by staff on more routine tasks, and allow them to absorb additional workloads. We are also working to standardize our business process, which should result in additional staff efficiencies. We will continue to monitor the appropriate staff to ALJ ratio as the new processes are implemented. ...

We have other possible improvements in the pipeline. In June, we expect to start a 6-month pilot program with the National Organization of Social Security Claims Representatives, an association primarily comprised of lawyers. In this pilot, we are testing a program that will allow representatives to conduct video hearings from their offices. This initiative should offer convenience and comfort for many claimants, save time for attorneys, and cut down on our investment in bricks and mortar, a cost which increases above the rate of inflation year after year.

I did not realize that I and the vast majority of ALJs were promoting a fiction designed to sidetrack productivity gains at ODAR. To be blunt, how does Michael Astue have enough experience at Social Security to make such an inflammatory statement impugning the motivations of ALJs with many years of experience on the frontlines? Astrue is making enemies of ALJs whose cooperation he needs.

Watch Ways And Means Committee Hearing

Today's House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Social Security's backlogs and staffing problems will be available in live streaming video at 10:00 EDT.

C-SPAN is not planning to broadcast it. They are doing a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Darfur instead. It is a shame that we cannot get George Clooney interested in Social Security matters! Of course, you have to figure in that C-SPAN's fourth most watched program recently was a Ralph Nader campaign event and its sixth most watched program was entitled "Proust Was A Neuroscientist."