What Struck Me About Today's Hearing

I have not yet been able to watch all of today's hearing. The thing that struck me most about what I was able to watch was the comments made by Senator Bunning. Bunning had previously been most insistent that Social Security's hearing backlog, at least, had nothing to do with budget. At this hearing Bunning talked about how getting the Social Security Administration $240 million above the President's recommended budget for the next fiscal year is "essential." He browbeat Linda McMahon about why her agency had not been more independent about submitting its own budget to Congress. I have seen Bunning browbeat other witnesses in the past and did not like it. I found his browbeating of McMahon especially unfortunate, since she is not responsible for Social Security's budget submissions. Perhaps I had misinterpreted some comments he made earlier or perhaps he is now seeing the light. Clearly, he now realizes that Social Security has a big budget problem. Perhaps, it is the office closures and the telephones not being answered. It has to be hard for a Senator to ignore that. If a fairly right wing Senator like Bunning is talking like this, things are changing.

Written Statements At Senate Finance Committee Hearing

From the Committee Chairman, Max Baucus:

My staff found that many Montanans who tried to phone the field offices got busy signals for weeks. In desperation, these Montanans gave up trying to telephone the local field offices. They drove hundreds of miles to the offices and back. This is not acceptable.

In 2006, Social Security surveyed people who reached the field offices by telephone. They found that most callers — 51 percent — had encountered busy signals earlier that day.

And the 51 percent figure is only the tip of the iceberg. Social Security could survey only the people who actually got through to the field offices’ automated answering services or to an employee. If you got a busy signal for weeks on end, and never got through, you were not even part of the survey sample. ...

By the end of last year, Social Security indicated that there was already a backlog of 1,000 workyears for the workloads that are being deferred. That’s not even including the deferred medical continuing disability reviews and SSI redeterminations. By the end of next year, that backlog is expected to grow to 8,100 work-years.

From the Ranking Member, Charles Grassley:

I recently instructed my staff to begin a comprehensive review to identify ways to reduce administrative complexity and improve program integrity [at Social Security]. This is an ongoing effort that is still in progress. I hope to introduce legislation before the end of this summer.

From Linda McMahon, Deputy Commissioner for Operations (somebody screwed up since her statement still has a "Draft" watermark on it):

Although the President's budget will allow us to process more continuing disability reviews and SSI non-disability redeterminations, we still will be unable to address as much of this important workload as we did just a few years ago. ... Although the [President's proposed] FY 2009 budget will allow us to make important strides in core areas, the backlogs of our less visible work, which is generally performed after an individual is approved for benefits, will continue to grow.

This sounds like she thinks her agency needs more money than the President proposed.

From Rick Warsinskey, Past President, National Council of Social Security Management Associations:

We are very skeptical that any computer program could be designed to fully substitute for the in-depth review and analysis that our Claims Representatives conduct for claimants filing for benefits. Again, we are discussing a quarter of a million dollar worth of benefits and the options on selecting these benefits are varied and can be very complicated. Would individuals turn over investing their own money to a computer without any human analysis? We don’t believe SSA has developed a thinking computer, we are nowhere close. We do believe that new estimating software being produced by SSA can assist in educating the claimants on their choices. But this should be backed up by someone who is an expert at providing this assistance. ...

A key concern we have at this time is that there is intense pressure on our employees to increase internet utilization in SSA at the same time the back end of the product we receive isn’t fully ready for prime time. Once a tested and proven internet claims product that works better is released it would be more appropriate to market and try to increase utilization. But all claimants should have the choice to file a claim on the internet and not be pressured to do so. We are aware of instances where some claimants come into a Field Office to file but are encouraged to go back home and file their claim on the internet. We believe this practice is occurring to meet intense pressure to attain internet percentage goals that are often set at regional and area levels.

From Witold Skwierczynski, President of the American Federation of Government Employees National Council of Social Security Administration Field Operations Locals:

Employees who work on the SSA front lines and interact with the public are assigned impossible workloads. They are expected to increase their productivity, interview more and more claimants, maintain a high level of accuracy, provide friendly and compassionate service when interacting with the public while Congress and the President not only assign more programs and workloads to the Agency but do so while reducing staff. Dedicated veteran employees are fed up with the deteriorating stressful work environment and count the days till they can retire. SSA changes priorities and engages in crisis management efforts to plug the rapidly multiplying holes in the dam. ...

SSA staffing shortages have encouraged 3rd party businesses to fill the void and offer to assist claimants in their interactions with SSA. Such assistance, of course, is for a price. Few claimants attempt to navigate the SSA hearings appeal system without representation. However, SSA has plans to encourage and assist 3rd parties in expanding the menu of services that they offer claimants for a fee. ...

SSA asserts that 2.5 million electronic transactions were completed by the public in FY 07. However, a substantial number of these electronic transactions were problematic to the degree that SSA employees were required to recontact the transactor. SSA employees are very concerned about the direction of the Agency strategy toward unreviewed Internet transactions because few Internet applications are completed accurately and, consequently, require recontact by SSA employees.

Barbara Bovbjerg of the Government Accountability Office also testified. It is impossible for me to copy anything from her report. Read it online, however.

ALJ Summit Being Planned

From a notice of intent to make a sole-source acquisition posted by the Social Security Administration:

Intent to Sole Source – Conference Support Services The Social Security Administration Office of the Chief Administrative Law Judge Summit

The Social Security Administration (SSA) intends to negotiate a sole-source acquisition with the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Hotel, 11111 North 7th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, 85020, for the purpose of providing conference support services including registration space, conference meeting space, office space, and associated support services including A/V equipment, morning and afternoon breaks, dry snacks/beverages and a two working lunches for up to 350 attendees on the dates of June 16th -20th, 2008. ... Main meeting space shall be able to accommodate congregation/flow of 350 daily attendees from Monday, June 16th to Thursday, June 19th. Breakout rooms are required as follows: 10 daily rooms from 7:00 a.m. Monday, June 16th to 5:00 p.m. Thursday, June 19th each with round tables to accommodate seating for 35 participants. 1 Breakout room is required on Friday, June 20th from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. with round table seating for 30 participants. Exhibit space shall be provided for 2 (8x10) government-furnished booths.

Senate Finance Committee Hearing Today

This morning at 10:00 EDT.

The subject is "More Work, Less Resources: Social Security Field Offices Struggle to Deliver Service to the Public." The hearing should be available for viewing online, both live and as a recording.

New Regs On Employee Information

From today's Federal Register:

We are implementing a nationwide program to enhance the safety and security of our employees who are victims, or potential victims, of domestic violence. In order to safeguard their anonymity we will not disclose their work location and/or phone number to individuals who pose a threat to their personal safety.

Kabuki Theater?

From the Orange County, California Register:

With the clock ticking on the life of a voluntary online system that helps employers make sure they are hiring legal workers, a House panel today heard from lawmakers, business owners and experts on what to do next. ...

Rep. Ken Calvert, who authored the first program to check on the legal status of workers, the Basic Pilot Program, told the House subcommittee on Social Security that the current program should be made mandatory. ...

But after he testified before his colleagues, Calvert said that he doesn't expect any significant immigration bill to pass this year. What is likely, he said, is that Congress will pass a temporary extension of the current system.

Today's hearing before a Ways and Means subcommittee and another session before the Education and Labor Committee are viewed by immigration-watchers as part of an effort by Democratic leaders to show they are taking steps to address immigration. More hearings are expected before the Memorial Day recess on different aspects of the immigration issue.

"Legislating in an election year, especially on immigration-related matters, is more like Kabuki theater than serious policy deliberation,'' said Doug Rivlin, spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Article On E-Verify Hearing

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Forcing companies to use a government system to verify the legal status of workers would cause thousands of citizens and legal residents to be initially rejected for work and cripple the Social Security Administration, critics told Congress on Tuesday.

The system, known as E-Verify, is currently voluntary, but several proposals in Congress — including an immigration enforcement measure known as the SAVE Act — would make it mandatory. ...

he panel's chairman, Rep. Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.), said he was concerned that SSA offices could be overwhelmed with a "massive new workload" as U.S. citizens and other authorized workers try to correct their information. This could hurt efforts by the agency to reduce an unprecedented backlog of disability claims, he said.

Greg Heineman, president of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations Inc., which represents 3,400 SSA managers and supervisors, predicted that making E-Verify mandatory for all U.S. employees would result in an "onslaught" of more than 10 million more visits to SSA field offices.

Competing Proposals Aired At Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

From The Hill:

House lawmakers heard competing proposals designed to ferret out the number of illegal workers in the labor market in a year when even modest attempts at immigration reform appear to be a difficult task. ...

The discrepancy between competing workplace verification proposals was on full display Tuesday, as a House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee heard two ideas for changing the role of the nation’s electronic verification system, also known as E-Verify. ...

A bill by Rep. Health Shuler (D-N.C.) would mandate that the E-Verify pilot program currently in use by some 61,000 employers be uniformly adopted by the estimated 7.4 million employers across the country. ...

But already a competing and wholly different employment verification proposal is emerging from another bipartisan group in the House.

Social Security Subcommittee ranking member Sam Johnson (R-Texas) and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) have introduced legislation to require only newly hired employees to be subject to verification. They called their bill superior to Shuler’s proposal. Giffords said that Arizona’s experience using E-Verify has been less than stellar.

Many businesses in her state are finding E-Verify “complicated, unreliable and burdensome,” Giffords said. “From our experience in Arizona we know what isn’t working.”

The Johnson-Giffords New Employee Verification, or NEVA, Act, would check only new and non-citizen hires against the “new hire reporting” database put in place by states 12 years ago to track down so-called deadbeat dads, and would not rely on the Social Security Administration (SSA) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), they said.

Johnson and Giffords found a warm reception from Social Security subcommittee Chairman Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.) who homed in on how E-Verify is leaning heavily on what he said was already an overburdened SSA. ...

McNulty questioned Shuler and Calvert on E-Verify’s impact on SSA, and reminded them of the average wait time — well over a year — for a Social Security disability claim to be processed in their districts.

“Imposing a substantial new immigration-related workload on SSA would potentially swamp the agency and threaten its ability to serve our constituents who rely on Social Security and SSI for basic income,” McNulty said. “For this reason, proposals for mandatory verification that do not realistically address the workload placed on SSA’s shoulders should not be enacted.” ...

Despite their differences in approaches — which aides described as deep on Tuesday — lawmakers on both sides followed their testimony with statements indicating that some kind of common ground could be found.