Really?

From an anonymous poster on the ALJ Discussion Forum:

Although this is the final week of the Federal Government's Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] decided that last week would be the final "countable" week for FY 2011 dispositions/decisions, next week will be the first week for FY 2012 dispositions/decisions, and that this week will be a "stand alone" week, with nothing that is done this week being credited to either fiscal year. My (rather obvious) prediction: this will easily be the least productive week of the year, to the obvious disservice of the claimants.

Social Security Employees Like Their Jobs

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) does an annual survey of federal employees. Social Security scored well on this year's survey, coming in at number 4 in leadership and knowledge management and number 4 in employee job satisfaction.

Why Appropriations Matter

     From a letter sent by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union the represents most Social Security employees, to the Democratic members of the "Supercommittee" that is supposed to come up with means to reduce federal budget deficits (emphasis added):

Recently, AFGE’s Social Security Council was provided with a comprehensive briefing by SSA [Social Security Administration] officials regarding the impact of different budget reduction scenarios on SSA services and programs.   It was made quite clear that any reductions below the FY [Fiscal Year] 12 Budget Request will have adverse consequences.    Further cuts below the current FY 11 baseline will lead to furloughs, staffing reductions, office closings, longer wait times and general dissatisfaction with the Social Security system itself.  The union was informed by SSA officials that for every $25 million of cuts below the FY 11 appropriation, SSA will be forced to furlough both SSA federal employees and State Disability Determination Service workers 1 day.
With respect to office closings, S.S.A. has closed or proposed to close 19 offices to date in 2011.  AFGE expects that number to increase significantly before the end of the year.   Each of those offices has less than 15 employees and was targeted in 2007/2008.  However, SSA is aggressively proceeding with its plans and not waiting for leases to expire.  AFGE’s Social Security Field Council has determined that more than 515 offices could be at risk of closure. 

The letter includes this summary that must have come from SSA (again with emphasis added):

FY 2011 Current Status
1. S.S.A FY 2011 administrative expenses appropriation is $11.4 billion, nearly $1 billion below the amount the President requested.
2. S.S.A-wide hiring freeze with the exception of hearings operation (ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review]).
3. Overtime spending has been severely reduced despite increasing workloads and reductions in personnel..
4. S.S.A will lose about 2,500 federal employees and 1,000 DDS (Disability Determination Service) State employees.
     o    As a result, S.S.A is facing geographical disparities in service as some offices are facing more losses than others.
5. S.S.A did not open 8 new hearing offices and the Jackson, TN Teleservice Center.
6. S.S.A stopped service in most contact stations and remote sites.
7. S.S.A temporarily suspended mailing the Social Security Statement.  Neither the union nor the public were notified in advance of this change.  Social Security statements are an important link between young contributors and the benefits they will receive when they retire.  
8. S.S.A closed Social Security field offices to the public 30 minutes early each day beginning August 15, 2011.  Yet the agency has provided no evidence or cost analysis to show that this reduction in hours will in fact save money.

FY 2012 at Level  Funding
9. Level funding in FY 2012 would effectively leave us with about $800 million below our FY 2011 funding:
     o    In FY 2011, S.S.A is using approximately $450 million of IT [Internet Technology] no-year funding, which S.S.A will not have in FY 2012. (See table for available funding.[table not included in AFGE letter])
     o    S.S.A also expects to incur approximately $350 million in growth of mandatory cost increases, such as rising health care costs for our employees and increases in rent and guard costs, etc.
10. S.S.A would lose another 4,400 SSA and DDS employees in FY 2012.  This would be on top of the 3,500 S.S.A expects to lose this year for a total reduction of 7,900 employees in two years. 
11. S.S.A would complete 568,500 periodic medical CDRs (Continuing Disability Reviews) and 2.622 million SSI non-disability redeterminations, consistent with the Budget Control Act.
12. S.S.A would complete 2.8 million disability claims, nearly 400,000 less than in FY 2011, with pending levels rising from 845,000 to about 1.2 million and processing time exceeding 4 months.
13. It would greatly delay other less visible workloads, as S.S.A faces a snowball effect of staffing losses two years in a row.  

FY 2012 Budget at Below Level Funding
14. If FY 2012 funding is below the FY 2011 funding level, our performance would be substantially worse, and it would be difficult to avoid furloughs and closing our doors to the American people.
15. An across the board reduction in agency spending of 5 percent will result in the imposition of 24 furlough days for every S.S.A and D.D.S. employee.
16. Each furlough day would result in approximately 19,000 retirement claims, 11,000 initial disability claims, and 3,000 hearings S.S.A would not be able to complete.
17. Each furlough day would also result in 2,400 periodic medical CDRs and 10,500 SSI redeterminations that S.S.A could not complete. These reviews more than pay for themselves and are vital to protecting taxpayer dollars. 
18. Substantial cuts in our administrative budget will result in significantly higher program costs and negatively affect the economy. 

 By the way, why isn't SSA releasing this information directly to the public?

Both Republicans And Democrats Love Ticket To Work -- Why?

An excerpt from the written report of Daniel Bertoni of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), testifying at today's House Ways and Means Committee hearing:

Lack of performance measures may send the wrong message to ENs [Employment Networks -- Ticket to Work contractors], whose staff may be unclear about program goals and send mixed messages to ticket holders about expected outcomes. Of the 25 ENs we interviewed, representatives of 15 said SSA had not adequately articulated performance expectations for serving ticket holders. SSA’s EN handbook does state the ultimate goal of the program is to reduce dependence and, whenever possible, eliminate reliance on benefits. Yet, an EN, which had the fourth-largest payment amount from SSA in fiscal year 2009, stated in its last three annual periodic outcome reports that 100 percent of its ticket holders placed in jobs had earnings of less than $10,000 per year—equating to less than the SGA level [Substantial Gainful Activity  -- if the ticket holders earn over the SGA level they eventually lose their Social Security disability benefits, which is the pretty much the whole point of Ticket to Work as far as Congress is concerned], if earnings were accrued regularly over the course of 12 months. In fact, this EN’s recorded phone message states that DI [Disability Insurance] ticket holders can work part time indefinitely without reducing SSA benefits, and its Web site says most of its positions are designed so ticket holders stay below income thresholds for benefit cutoff. With assistance from our investigative staff, we found multiple ENs among those with the largest payment amounts communicating through their Web sites, recorded phone messages, or in our discussions with representatives that as long as DI ticket holders’ earnings stay below the SGA level, they can keep full disability benefits ...

User Fees Being Studied

     Sam Johnson, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, asked Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) to determine whether there are additional activities performed by the Social Security Administration for which a user fee might be charged. OIG's study is so preliminary that it is almost worthless but it does reveal that the Social Security Administration itself has formed a "user fee workgroup." 

     The important things here are that Republicans in Congress have some interest in charging fees for some activities at Social Security and that Social Security is studying how it can best do this.

     Let me make it clear that, so far, they are only studying fees for services such as providing replacement Social Security cards but it is only a short distance from there to charging a fee for filing a claim, processing an appeal or answering a question.

GENEX Gets Into PR Game

     For years Allsup has been using public relations to promote their business of representing Social Security disability claimant. The efforts often take the form of getting a newspaper or television station to run a story about a Social Security disability claimant who has had a long struggle getting on Social Security disability benefits and finally won with Allsup's help. Two can play that game. GENEX has just gotten the "I-team" at WBAL in Baltimore to run a story promoting GENEX's services.

     Both Allsup and GENEX are primarily involved in working for large insurance companies who administer long term disability (LTD) plans. The LTD plans have an offset for Social Security disability benefits so the insurers have a big interest in getting the LTD recipients on Social Security disability. They employ Allsup or GENEX to "represent" their LTD recipients before Social Security. I put "represent" in quotes since there are reports that Allsup and Genex are quite willing to sell out the claimants they "represent" by providing the insurance companies with any medical evidence that comes into their possession that could be used to cut off the LTD benefits of the people "represented." I do not know whether anyone else thinks that is a problem but attorneys think that is an unconscionable conflict of interest. 

     Allsup and GENEX are also interested in the retail trade which is why they get into PR, apparently figuring that it is cheaper than advertising. It must have been working for Allsup since they have been doing it for years. 

     By the way, Allsup's website boasts of a 98% success rate. Assuming that number is not a complete fabrication, that tells me that Allsup really hates to fly someone in to represent a Social Security disability claimant at a hearing. They mostly have to fly someone in since they are nowhere near big enough to have offices all over the country. They won't fly someone in for a merely gold-plated case. It have to be solid 24 carat gold. The good thing about that, as far as I am concerned, is that it dramatically limits their potential for expansion into the retail business.

Social Security Ends Gender No-Match Letters

From Metro Weekly:

The National Center for Transgender Equality announced this evening:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has confirmed that it has ended the practice of allowing gender to be matched in its Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS). This will result in the immediate cessation of SSA sending notifications that alert employers when the gender marker on an employee's W-2 does not match Social Security records.

Asked about the decision, White House spokesman Shin Inouye told Metro Weekly, "The White House welcomes this move by Social Security Administration."

A Freedom of Information Act request from NCTE showed that 711,488 gender no-match letters were sent in 2010 alone.

NCTE executive director Mara Keisling said in a news release about the development, "Ending this practice, which has endangered transgender people and our jobs, has been a priority for NCTE and we are pleased that the SSA has updated its policy."

Senate Bill Would Give SSA $208 Million More

From a press release issued by the Senate Appropriations Committee concerning the subcommittee markup of the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill that covers Social Security:

Social Security Administration--The bill includes $11.6 billion, an increase of $208 million over the fiscal year 2011 level, for the SSA’s administrative expenses. This increase includes $139.5 million for program integrity activities and $68.8 million in base administrative expenses. As SSA faces sustained record levels of core workloads, the increase for base administrative expenses will allow SSA to provide targeted increases to parts of the agency facing the highest demand for services while maintaining the goal of eliminating the disability hearings backlog by the end of 2013.

The House Appropriations Committee has twice delayed taking up its version of the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill.