Correction: Astrue Has Been To Obama White House

I blundered in saying that Commissioner Astrue had not been to the White House during the Obama Administration. He has been there several times. Thanks to Social Security's Press Office for setting me straight. I would plead that the White House visitor database is far from user friendly but I should have double-checked something that seemed so surprising to me. I expected that the Commissioner of Social Security would be invited to certain receptions and to have at least occasional meetings with the Office of Management and Budget and perhaps to go to other meetings concerned with the implementation of new policies and legislation. It turns out that my expectations were correct while my ability to understand the White House visitor log database was faulty.

I wish I could have corrected this earlier in the day but this is a blog. I am a practicing attorney. My client's hearings must come first.

No White House Visits For Astrue In This Administration

The Obama White House has released the White House visitor records for this administration. The name of Michael Astrue, the Commissioner of Social Security, does not appear on the list. About 450,000 other names do.

Social Security Employees Rate Their Agency Highly As Place To Work

A press release from Social Security:

Social Security employees rate their agency as one of the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government according to The Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation. Among the large federal agencies in the top ten Best Places to Work, Social Security also had the greatest improvement in overall employee satisfaction.

“I am always impressed by the outstanding work of our employees and by their commitment to public service,” said Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security. “Our workloads have grown tremendously due to the recession and we are under more pressure than ever to keep up with the increased demand for our services. Despite these pressures, every day our employees bring the energy and teamwork necessary to provide the public with the highest standard of considerate service.”

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings draw on responses from more than 263,000 federal employees to produce detailed rankings of employee satisfaction across 290 federal agencies and subcomponents. Data from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is used to rank agencies according to a Best Places to Work index score, which measures overall employee satisfaction. In addition to the employee satisfaction rating, agencies are scored in workplace categories such as effective leadership, employee skills/mission match, pay and work/life balance. Social Security employees gave the agency higher ratings in all of these categories when compared to the prior survey.

“Our employees make a positive difference in the lives of millions of Americans,” Commissioner Astrue said. “I encourage anyone looking for a career in public service to look closely at Social Security. You can make a difference in people's lives and your own.”

Priorities

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on how Social Security spends its appropriated funds. There are a couple of interrelated issues covered. One issue is the appropriated money that remains unspent each year. Towards the end of each fiscal year the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House, has been allowing Social Security to transfer funds that will not get spent before the end of the fiscal year to a "no-year" account that Social Security can spend in later years. This is nothing new. It has been going on for decades. At least lately, these transfers have not been nickle and dime affairs. Social Security just transferred $280 million to a "no-year" account. That is something like 2.5% of its total budget for the year. At least lately, the transferred money has been going into an account that can only be spent on information technology. The second issue is the return on investment of the money spent on information technology. Social Security is not able to document much return on investment on some of its technology expenditures.

I had concerns about technology expenditures during the term of the previous Commissioner. Even though the agency was collapsing around Commissioner Barnhart, she kept diverting more and more of the agency's scarce resources to long term information technology projects. My fear was that she wanted to make sure that as much money as possible went to contractors (who are more likely to be Republicans) than to employees (who are more likely to be Democrats and union members as well.)

OIG is asking pertinent questions about what is going on today. The service that Social Security is giving the public is not as bad as it was but it is still far from satisfactory. More money is being spend on hiring employees but still there are not enough of them to get all the work done. Huge sums are being spent or committed to information technology projects. There are still huge backlogs in continuing disability investigations and Supplement Security Income (SSI) redeterminations. Why is so much money remaining unspent at the end of each fiscal year? Why is so much money being diverted to information technology? What is the return on investment on Social Security's information technology? Is a proper balance being struck between having enough personnel to get the work done and having good technology to help get the work done?

I wonder how Social Security's operating budget would be spent if Michael Astrue had resigned as Commissioner at the end of 2008 and been replaced by a Democrat. Would Social Security's operating budget be spent differently? To ask this is not to suggest that Commissioner Astrue's decisions on spending have been politically motivated or that he does not care about the service that his agency delivers to the public. However, personal beliefs inevitably impact the decisions made by agency heads. It is only a slight oversimplification to say that it has been an article of faith among Republicans in recent decades that federal employees are bad and private contractors are good. It is reasonable to ask questions about how such a philosophy might be impacting spending decisions at Social Security.

Frightening

The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, who may become the Speaker of the House next year, is proposing that federal spending levels be returned to what they were in fiscal year 2008. Returning Social Security's budget to its 2008 level, would be a massive cut. There would be layoffs. The agency would go into free fall with dramatic reductions in public service. It would be a nightmare.

Bed Bugs In Jamaica

From Federal News Radio:

Bed bugs have infested the Social Security Administration's regional offices in Queens, N.Y. According to a post on FedBizOpps.gov, the agency is looking for a company to provide it with extermination services, including the use of a Bed Bug Heat Treatment Oven.

An SSA executive tells Government Computer News the bed bugs are affecting several offices in the Joseph P. Addabbo Federal Building and that the problem will be addressed as quickly as possible.

The ovens would be used to clean items such as clothing, books, papers, chairs and file cabinets in the office.

This isn't the first time the bugs have been found in that particular space. In December 2009, seven large file cabinets on five different floors in the building were infested.

Increasing The Retirement Age In France

From CBS:

French strikers disrupted trains and planes, hospitals and mail delivery Tuesday amid massive street protests over plans to raise the retirement age. ...

[P]eople poured into the streets in 220 cities, setting off flares and beating drums ...

French protesters are angry about the government's plan to do away with the near-sacred promise of retirement at 60, forcing people to work until 62 because they are living longer. ...

One sign in Paris showed a raised middle finger with the message: “Greetings from people who will die on the job.”

HEART Act Regs

From today's Federal Register:

We are revising our regulations to incorporate improvements to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program made by the HEART Act. The HEART Act changes the way we treat certain cash payments to members of the uniformed services and veterans and the way we treat cash and in-kind payments to AmeriCorps volunteers. In addition, we are making a technical change to our rules to reflect the correct section of the Internal Revenue Code.