No COLA This Year

The Huffington Post is reporting that the Social Security Administration has informed Congressional aides that there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) this year. The official announcement is said to be coming on October 15. The Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, Earl Pomeroy, has been working on a plan to give Social Security recipients a one time check for $250 each if there is no COLA this year. The Huffington Post says that a staff aide told them that "discussions" are still ongoing on this proposal. It seems to me that if it were going to happen, that it would have happened before Congress went into recess.

Attorney And Employee Charged With Social Security Fraud

From Arkansas Online:

A Forrest City attorney and an employee in his office have been indicted on federal Social Security fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas said.

Barry Michael Easley, 62, and Marie Diane Douglas, 61, are both facing charges of aiding and abetting Social Security fraud and aiding and abetting theft of government property. Douglas is also charged with one count of making a false statement.

Douglas reportedly began working at Easley's law office in August 2002, a year after she began receiving Social Security disability payments that limited the amount of money she could earn.

According to the indictment, portions of Douglas' salary were paid to other individuals for her benefit to avoid going over and a $100,000 bonus paid to her was structured so it appeared to be a civil settlement.

A $100,000 bonus?

Hello White House

Unless you go to a lot of trouble, when you visit this or any other website you leave behind some evidence that you were here. It is nothing too personal. I cannot identify individuals who visit. One of the pieces of information you leave behind is the identity of your service provider. This is how I know that I get lots of visits from Social Security employees. For the first time in a couple of years I recently decided to look down the list of service providers for visitors to this blog. There was a service provider listed that I had not seen before, "Executive Office of the President." I wish I could show you the chart on visits from this service provider but Adobe Acrobat is not cooperating and I lack the technical savvy to do it in another way. What it shows is exactly zero visits during the Bush Administration. Starting in June 2009, this has gone up to a fairly stable level of approximately 100 hits per month. This is almost as many hits as this blog receives from the entire Department of Health and Human Services.

I am not under the illusion that President Obama or anyone close to him is reading this blog. More likely, it is one or more people at the Office of Management and Budget or the President's domestic policy staff charged with Social Security matters.

And Still More On The Big IT Contracts

Yes, this topic is worth all these posts. These are enormous contracts of major long term significance to Social Security. From Nextgov:

The Social Security Administration has assigned four vendors specific jobs within a multibillion-dollar contract to support the agency's modernization program, rather than have the companies compete against each other for the work, agency officials said on Friday.

The decision differs from some procurement specialists' expectation that the agency would let the contract winners Lockheed Martin Corp., Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. bid on certain tasks to encourage competition. Instead, Social Security will reserve the right to replace one supplier with another, if any of the companies do not keep costs low or fail to complete work on time, officials said. ...

During the seven-year contract period, Lockheed will support software development. Accenture will concentrate on electronic health records and emerging technologies, possibly including voice recognition and data mining. CSC will help with application validation, software engineering and systems administration for the operating systems z/OS, Unix, Windows and IBM WebSphere. Northrop Grumman's assignments include application and business planning, as well as enterprise architecture, which is the practice of driving operational change by comparing how an agency functions today versus future performance expectations. ...

"There was intense competition among vendors for both receiving a contract award and for the technical areas," Social Security spokeswoman Kia Green said. "There will be competition in the form of proposals for any new technical areas, but, as of now, each vendor has been awarded specific technical areas and there is no competitive bidding for projects in a technical area."

And More On The Big IT Contracts

From Information Week:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has selected four prime contractors under the Information Technology Support Services Contract (ITSSC) that will be used, in part, to acquire health information technology that works with electronic health record (EHR) systems to process applications for disability benefits.

The ITSSC includes a one-year base period plus six additional one-year options with an aggregate ceiling valued at $2.8 billion.

The four prime contractors under ITSSC are Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin.

While those companies could bid on various "tasks" that SSA might order, the agency has provided direction to each prime contractor about the type of work they'd most likely be expected to participate in, said Accenture managing director Steve Shane in an interview with InformationWeek.

"All four companies are prime contractors, but SSA has directed different paths" for each, he said.

For instance, Accenture's focus is on "emerging technologies," including projects involving analytics, mobile, and web portals, Shane said. Accenture will also focus on integrating data from EHRs into SSA systems to assist in disability and other entitlement program determinations, he said.

I have to ask the question: Are electronic records really worth this kind of money to Social Security?

Update: And by the way, Social Security should have put out its own press release on this. Accenture's press release was really misleading.

Maybe Accenture's Contract Isn't So Big

A comment posted below is worth noting:

This news release is very misleading....Accenture got only a part of this potential contract and not the full potential amount.

It went to 4 vendors.....and the bulk of the money goes to Lockheed Martin....

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=8372314c59b0d6808e179923a57fe4d3

Not Everyone Loves Accenture

Accenture, which just announced a huge new contract with Social Security, has its detractors. Take a look at the company's profile on crocodyl.

$2.8 Billion Contract For Accenture

From a press release:

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) has selected Accenture (NYSE: ACN) as a prime contractor under the Information Technology Support Services Contract (ITSSC) that will be used to acquire a wide range of IT systems development and modernization services. The ITSSC includes a one-year base period plus six additional one-year options with an aggregate ceiling valued at $2.8 billion.

Under the contract, Accenture will implement emerging technology applications designed to improve SSA’s service delivery capabilities to current beneficiaries and future retirees. Task orders issued under the contract may request services such as evaluating ways to integrate data from health records more seamlessly, expanding Web and social media to enhance user accessibility, and applying predictive models and analytics capabilities to SSA’s business.

Accenture is a spinoff of Arthur Andersen, an accounting firm. Accenture was incorporated originally in Bermuda and is now incorporated in Ireland. Its headquarters are now in New York. It is a multinational consulting company with 200,000 employees.