Details Emerge On Budget Plan

From today's Wall Street Journal:

The [Obama] budget [for Fiscal Year 2010], scheduled for release Thursday, will include funds for what the White House is calling a "program integrity" initiative, enough to fund 1,100 field officers in the Social Security Administration ...

Budget office officials say every dollar spent by the Social Security Administration to review disability claims will save $11 in erroneous payments. The administration hopes to secure $485 million more in the fiscal year that begins in October -- $4.3 billion over five years -- to plow through the backlog of disability reviews, which determine continued payments for disability insurance and supplemental security income, programs for the poorest of the poor. Recipients continue to receive payments while their eligibility is under review.

We will have to see the details, but only 1,100 additional employees? That is not even enough for a credible program integrity initiative.

Budget Changes Proposal In Works

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (emphasis added):

The objective of our review was to address the requests of Congressmen John S. Tanner and John Lewis that we provide the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives (Committee), with recommended management reforms for Social Security Administration (SSA) operations. ...

When examining SSA programs with significant improper payments or insufficient debt collection practices, we noted several overarching themes-or "causes"-for the vulnerabilities identified. ...

SSA reports that it has been significantly under-funded for a number of years. At the same time, its workloads have increased-through additional retirement and disability applications, as well as new congressional mandates (for example, processing millions of Medicare Part D subsidy applications and expanded participation in employee eligibility verification programs). Given the Agency's resource limitations, it made tough decisions in prioritizing its workload. However, in our opinion, such decisions have sacrificed stewardship activities and increased improper payments. ...

To help ensure SSA has the resources to perform this critical work, we support a legislative proposal to create a self-funding program integrity fund. This proposal was drafted by SSA and, as of June 2008, contained the following two elements.

Provide authority for SSA to expend a portion of actual collections of erroneous payments on activities to prevent, detect, and collect erroneous payments. Specifically, the proposal would establish permanent indefinite appropriations, subject to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) apportionment, to make available to SSA up to 25 percent of the actual overpayments collected during the base FY and make available to OIG up to 2.5 percent of the same collected overpayments.

Establish a revolving fund that would be financed from SSA's stewardship/program integrity activities' projected lifetime savings. That is, SSA would be permitted to deposit up to 50 percent of the estimated future lifetime program savings from processing program integrity activities such as (but not limited to) CDRs, SSI redeterminations, Cooperative Disability Investigation Units, and Special Office of the General Counsel prosecutions. The Commissioner would be authorized to fund initiatives that would yield at least a 150 percent return on investment within a 10-year time period. This proposal would link budgeting for cost-effective program integrity activities with their results. ...

The OIG has not performed any audit work to confirm whether funding shortfalls and diminished staffing levels have impacted SSA's ability to operate effectively.

The big story here is that Social Security is working on a proposal to partially exempt the agency from the budget process. That would be important. However, I cannot get over OIG admitting that it has failed to conduct any audit work to confirm whether Social Security's ability to get its work done has been affected by funding shortfalls and diminished staffing levels. I cannot imagine a non-political reason for turning a blind eye to what has long been a major issue.

Commissioner Astrue Speaks At Brookings Institute

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.