Government Projects No Social Security COLA In 2009

The Congressional Budget Office and the Obama Administration are projecting that there will be no Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) in Social Security benefits this year, because the cost of living has not and is not going up, according to a Robert Pear article in the New York Times. In fact, the head of the Congressional Budget Office says there may be no COLA until 2013.

False Alarm In California

From NBC San Diego:

Hazardous-materials crews scrambled to the Social Security administration building in Kearny Mesa Thursday to investigate reports of some type of white powder in an envelope opened by an employee.

The suspicious powder turned out to be powder used by the Social Security office on mass mailings and was not found on incoming mail.

Update: Some commenters thought it was mysterious that harmless white powder might be found in a batch of printed material. Not me. Job one for an attorney who represents Social Security claimants is to prove that my client is unable to perform the work he or she used to perform. In this capacity one learns a lot about the working conditions at many jobs. I can tell you that printing is often a dusty job. Wet ink can be sticky. It is important that newly printed items not stick together. It is also important that the ink on newly printed items not smear. Many types of printing equipment use something like talcum powder to dry the ink. The power is blown between the newly printed items to help dry the ink. This powder can be a real problem for a printer who suffers from a lung disorder such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. A malfunctioning printing machine could easily dump too much of this powder in a batch of printing as could a clumsy printer reloading a printing machine with powder.

Poll

Lawsuit Gets Results For Gay Father

From a press release from Lambda Legal:

... [T]he Social Security Administration (SSA) reversed its prior determination to deny benefits to the children of a disabled gay father in Lambda Legal’s case representing the family against apparent antigay discrimination by the federal government. ...

In February of 2006, Day completed the applications for Child Insurance Benefits for his children. He provided birth certificates and court documents that acknowledge him as a legal parent of the children. The SSA acknowledged that they received the application and promised to provide a response in 45 days.

After more than a year with no response, Lambda Legal sent a letter on Day's behalf seeking action by the agency. The SSA still did not provide an initial determination of eligibility citing unspecified "legal questions and policy issues" involved with the application. Day provided all the necessary documentation to establish a legitimate parent-child relationship and fulfilled all of the SSA's prerequisites, yet his family was left without the social safety net that Day had paid into for decades and that all other families are provided on a regular basis.

In May 2008, Lambda Legal, along with co-counsel from McDermott Will & Emery LLP, filed suit against the SSA compelling the agency to act on Day’s application and urging the SSA to recognize Day as a legal parent of the children. Today’s letter recognizes the legal relationship between Day and his children without discrimination based on his sexual orientation or family status.

This may have something to do with Social Security's limited recognition of the effects of civil unions. You do know that Social Security recognizes them to a limited extent, don't you? That was decided almost a year ago.

Telework Changes Coming

From Alyssa Rosenberg at Government Executive:

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on Wednesday announced a broad new telework plan for employees, in part to deal with growing concern over the spread of swine flu in the United States. ...

It calls for a council of program managers to develop standards for telework, and requires agencies to submit telework policies to that council for review. It also asks agencies to designate a telework managing officer and create an appeals process for employees who are denied permission to use the work arrangement. Additionally, it would establish training programs to prepare employees to telework and curb managerial opposition. OPM would be in charge of providing technical assistance.

NC Furloughs State Employees But Exempts DDS

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue has just announced a furlough of state employees, but has limited it to those "whose salaries are paid in whole or in part from moneys appropriated" by the state, thus exempting employees of the North Carolina Disability Determination Service, (DDS) who make initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims, since their salaries are paid for by the federal government.

Update: Perdue's order seems clear to me, but employees at NC DDS remain uncertain about whether the furlough will affect them.

Plans Old And New

The written statements for yesterday's Social Security Subcommittee hearing are available online. Here are a few excerpts:

Mary Glenn-Croft, Deputy Commissioner for Budget, Finance and Management, Social Security Administration:

We will use a significant portion of this funding to hire and train new employees and to provide additional overtime so that we can process critical workloads. ...

• Our field operations will hire 1,500 employees in local field offices, teleservice centers, and processing centers;

• Our hearings offices will hire 550 new employees and 35 additional administrative law judges, and

• State disability determination services (DDS) throughout the country will hire 300 additional disability examiners.

Robert Hewell, Acting Deputy Commissioner, Public Building Service, General Services Administration

[Schedule for new National Computer Center]:

• Site Acquisition: 2nd quarter FY2010
• Design-build contract awarded: 2nd quarter FY2011
• Construction completion: 1st quarter FY2014

Valerie Melvin, Director of Information Management and Human Capital Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office:

Finally, a number of initiatives undertaken by SSA to improve the disability process and potentially remedy backlogs have faltered for a variety of reasons, including poor planning and execution. In fact, some initiatives had the effect of slowing processing times by reducing staff capacity, increasing the number of appeals, or complicating the decision process. Several other initiatives improved the process, but were too costly and subsequently abandoned. This was the case for several facets of a major 1997 initiative, known as the “Disability Process Redesign,” which sought to streamline and expedite disability decisions for both initial claims and appeals. In the past, we reported that various initiatives within this effort became problematic and were largely discontinued due to their ineffectiveness and high cost. Further, implementation of an electronic system enhanced some aspects of the disability claims process, but also caused delays due to systemic instability and shutdowns at the DDS and hearings offices.9 Further, the “Hearings Process Improvement” initiative, implemented in 2000, involved reorganizing hearing office staff and responsibilities with the goal of reducing the number of appeals. However, many of the senior SSA officials we spoke with expressed the opinion that this initiative left key workloads unattended and was therefore responsible for dramatic increases in delays and processing times at the hearings level.

[Is it churlish to point out that GAO was a cheerleader for all of these ill-considered plans?]

Update: The GAO report originally linked on the Social Security Subcommittee website was for the GAO testimony at the Social Security Subcommittee hearing in March. They have now updated their website to correctly link to the testimony delivered yesterday. This GAO report is extremely preliminary.

Sylvester J. Schieber, Chairman, Social Security Advisory Board

You might wonder why I would suggest that many in the American public would find taking five years or more to build a new computer center and another two to three years to get the operating equipment in place as laughable. I do not believe that most people would consider the five-to-eight-year time frame involved would reflect the urgency this project deserves given the national dependence on this agency. I do not believe that most people would accept that we could not do this on a more timely basis if we were truly committed to the task.

Employment Numbers

Below are the December 2008 figures for the number of employees at Social Security, recently released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), along with earlier figures for comparison purposes. It is interesting that the figure remains almost identical to what it was in December 2006, shortly after the election that made Democrats the majority party in both houses of Congress.

• December 2008 63,733
  
• September 2008 63,990
  
• June 2008 63,622
  
• March 2008 60,465
  
• December 2007 61,822
• September 2007 62,407
• June 2007 62,530
• March 2007 61,867
• December 2006 63,410
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521
• September 1999 63,957
• September 1998 65,629