It Always Takes Longer Than You Expect

On December 31, 2009 Social Security was expecting to open a new hearing office in Fayetteville, NC in August, 2010. Now comes word that the General Services Administration (GSA) has signed a long term lease for space for that hearing office. It sounds like things are right on schedule. Unfortunately, the lease was signed for space in what is currently a burned out shell of a building. The owner of the building has only preliminary drawings for what will be done with the space and is unable to give a timeline for construction until financial arrangements are completed.

I think it would be a safe bet that the new hearing office will not open until well after August, 2010.

By the way, Social Security is leasing 16,000 square feet of space but only plans to have 54 employees in the office. They must be giving the office plenty of room to grow into.

The Show Must Go On

Even though government offices in Washington have been closed for two days now due to snowfall and the area is experiencing another heavy snowfall today, the government employees at the Office of Federal Register still plan to put out an edition tomorrow!

Central Offices Remain Closed

Social Security's offices in the Baltimore-Washington area remain closed today due to the heavy snowfall. More snow is predicted. There is no telling how long this closure could last.

Strange Ruling In Pennsylvania

A court in Pennsylvania has ruled that a worker who files a claim for Social Security retirement benefits forfeits all rights to periodic workers compensation benefits because he has removed himself from the labor market.

More On 1099s

I am hearing from an attorney who has spent more time studying his 1099 than I have that the amount being reported is the gross amount of the attorney fee before deduction of the user fee. Was that intended?

Update: I have had a chance to review my own 1099 and list of cases and can confirm that the user fee was included as if paid to me. One person has suggested that this is just like W-2s and all attorneys have to do is to post the user fee as a deduction on our income tax forms. That is not as easy as the poster thinks. Social Security is not sending out a list of user fees paid and it would be almost impossible to keep track of them. My bookkeeper records the bank deposits she makes and those are my firm's gross income. Doing it any other way would be quite cumbersome and unnatural. If Social Security ever figures out a way to report accurate figures on payments of attorney fees, there is going to be trouble.

Cental Offices Closed?

Because of the record snowfalls, federal offices in Washington, DC are closed today. What about Social Security's Central Office in Woodlawn, MD, just outside the District? Is it closed today? Social Security has been pretty hard nosed about closing its Central Offices but this snowfall was something way out of the ordinary. I cannot imagine that the parking lots would be clear or that public transit would be functioning today.

Staffing Improves At Hearing Offices

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

In March 2009, SSA’s Commissioner testified that about 4.5 staff per ALJ (referred to as the staffing ratio) was necessary to maximize the number of legally sufficient hearings and decisions by ALJs [Administrative Law Judges]. In this context, “staff” represents both decision writers and other support staff. Moreover, in a Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 memorandum, ODAR’s [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's] Deputy Commissioner recommended the Regions hire 1.5 decision writers per ALJ and 2.5 other support staff per ALJ (referred to as the staffing mix ratio), thereby giving additional definition to the Commissioner’s staffing ratio goal. [And adding confusion, since that would be a 4 to 1 ratio, rather than 4.5 to 1.]

RESULTS OF REVIEW

In FY 2009, as a result of additional Agency funding, ODAR increased the number of its ALJs to approximately 1,200 (about a 19-percent increase since FY 2000) and the number of its hearing office managers and support staff to about 6,200 (almost a 25-percent increase over the same period). By July 2009, ODAR’s staffing ratio was about 5.1, exceeding the Agency’s national goal of 4.5 staff per ALJ. However, our review of ODAR’s staffing reports found that 42 hearing offices did not meet the national staffing ratio goal, and 7 of those hearing offices had staffing ratios below 4.0. In addition, ODAR’s staffing ratio had not been adjusted to reflect attorney adjudicators who perform two roles—staffing duties when drafting decisions and ALJ duties when issuing fully favorable on-the-record decisions.

In terms of the staffing mix at hearing offices, we found that the hearing offices that met or exceeded the 1.5 decision writers-per-ALJ staffing mix goal had, on average, an almost 9-percent higher productivity rate than those hearing offices with a ratio less than the goal. We did not find similar productivity differences for the other support staffing mix goal. ...

Fiscal Year National
Staffing Ratio
2006 4.23
2007 4.46
20081 4.08
2009 5.06

The Sky Is Falling

When you see headlines such as Social Security Races To 'Negative' (their single quotes, not mine) and Rush Of Retirements Push Social Security To Brink in USA Today you know someone is pushing private accounts. Sure enough, here is George Will's column touting a scheme proposed by Republican Congressman Paul Ryan:

Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent. ...

Ryan's plan would allow workers younger than 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan long available to, and immensely popular with, federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose of every dollar they put into these accounts.

Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing -- subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees' adult lives.

I certainly hope that Republicans in Congress get a chance to vote on this proposal. By the way, I am pretty sure that the numbers do not come close to working for Ryan's scheme. If you stop one-third of the FICA taxes going into the trust funds, you soon run out of money to pay current retirees. Also, by the way, investing one-third of your FICA is not going to support you for long in retirement. It is not that much money.