Inspector Javert Is Alive And Well And Working At Social Security

     From the State Journal-Register of Springfield, IL:

About 50 years ago, Harry and Gladys Samonds owned Ferrell’s Corner, a tavern, and the Illini Court Motel at Clear Lake and Dirksen.  Harry was pretty well-known in Springfield when he died in 1969. He left behind Gladys and his son, Mike, at their home on Ridge Avenue.

Mike was only 15 when his father died. As a minor, he qualified for survivor benefits through Social Security. Monthly checks were sent to Gladys since Mike was a minor. ...
Today, Mike and his wife, Brenda, live in Glenarm. After filling out their federal tax return for last year, they were due a refund. A few weeks ago the refund check arrived. But it was $189.10 light.

Mike and Brenda thought that was odd and were wondering what the explanation could be. They soon found out. A letter to them from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Management Service out of Alabama said money was being deducted from the Samonds’ refund and would be taken by Social Security to satisfy Mike’s debt to said agency. ...

The notice from Treasury says, and I quote, “The Agency has previously sent notice to you at the last address known to the Agency.” (That would be Gladys’s 40-year-old address) “That notice explained the amount and type of debt you owe, the rights available to you, and that the Agency intended to collect the debt by intercepting any Federal payments made to you, including tax refunds.”

A letter, dated April 10, arrived from the folks at Social Security. It says, “We recently received $189.10 of a Federal payment you were due and used it toward the overpayment of Social Security benefits paid to you.”

Social Security says, then, that over 40 years ago it overpaid $189.10 in Mike’s survivor benefits and it took that amount from the Samonds’ tax refund to make it good. ...

The letter to Mike and Brenda from Social Security included a Chicago phone number for Mike to call if he had any questions. Of course he did. But I don’t even need to tell you what happened when Mike called the number.

“I was on hold for 45 minutes,” he says. “I put the phone down but could hear the music playing. When it stopped, I picked it up.”

He might as well have called Mars for all the assistance he got.

     What happened here was not some weird accident. It's official policy. There is no statute of limitations on collection of overpayments by administrative offset. Not even 50 years.
     Is this reasonable?

Retirement Of Nancy Shor

     The following is a message just sent out by the President of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) to NOSSCR members: 

Nancy Shor, our long-time Executive Director, has advised the Board of her decision to step down as Executive Director. I am pleased that she will continue with NOSSCR during this transition and that she will be staying on in another capacity. I know I can speak for all of us when I say that words cannot express our gratitude for the wonderful job Nancy has done as our one and only Executive Director.

As NOSSCR president, I have set up a search committee to find our new Executive Director. If you or anyone you know is interested in this position, please forward a resume to me at ________. Resumes need to be submitted by May 5, 2013.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, send me an email or call me at _______. 

Debra S. Shifrin Attorney at Law.

     I'm leaving out Debra's e-mail address and telephone number since those were intended for NOSSCR members. I'm sure that any resumes or messages sent to NOSSCR's offices will reach Debra.

     I'm sorry that this day has arrived. Nancy Shor has been NOSSCR's Executive Director since it was formed in 1979. I've been amazed by Nancy's ability to deal with the multitude of issues that have confronted NOSSCR. There has never been any internal NOSSCR issue that ever posed a significant threat to the organization. That's all due to Nancy's skill. When you're talking about a 34 year time period, that's just astonishing.  Nancy has been a trusted friend to generations of NOSSCR presidents, board members and NOSSCR members in general and all of those categories include me. I'm glad to see that Nancy will still be around in a consultant relationship. Her abilities and experience will be greatly missed but what we'll mostly miss is -- Nancy.

     Nancy's importance in the Social Security world extended well beyond NOSSCR. She represented NOSSCR in its dealings with Social Security, Capitol Hill and other organizations. There have been 19 Social Security Commissioners since Nancy first became Executive Director of NOSSCR. There's no way of counting the number of members of Congress, Congressional staffers, Social Security officials and executives of other organizations she's dealt with. Everyone knew Nancy. Everyone listened to Nancy.

     I hope that despite retiring, Nancy will have a long continued relationship with NOSSCR.

ALJ Assignments Now Shown On Hearing Office Status Report

     Social Security's Hearing Office Status Report in the ERE system now shows the name of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to whom a pending request for hearing has been assigned. This is done not merely for cases that have been scheduled for hearing. Most of mine with a request for hearing date after the middle of July 2012 have an assigned ALJ even those most of these clients will not have a hearing scheduled for several months. Some cases where the request for hearing was only filed in the last three months have an assigned ALJ. Perhaps these are cases that were considered for dismissal or on the record reversal. This may vary from office to office.

Examining That NPR Series

     From a press release:

Online now and airing this Sunday at 5:30 p.m. (April 21) on the Philadelphia CNN-News affiliate WFMZ-TV, The American Law Journal presents "Social Security Disability- Unfit for Work?" examining a March 22, 2013 National Public Radio broadcast of "This American Life" that according to panelists on the program has drawn both staunch praise and heavy criticism.

Joining host Christopher Naughton are Pennsylvania claimants' attorney, Jess Leventhal of Leventhal, Sutton & Gornstein, former SSA representative and New Jersey claimants' attorney, Alan Polonsky of Polonsky & Polonsky, Rebecca Vallas, staff attorney for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia and Jagadeesh Gokhale, Senior Fellow with the CATO Institute, from CNN studios in Washington, D.C.

     This is a "debate" between three well-informed people and one uninformed ideologue who sticks to talking points.

Is It Wrong For A State To Do This?

     From the New Hampshire Union-Leader:

Four years ago, in the depths of the Great Recession, staffers in the state Division of Family Assistance started to notice that people were applying for disability income through the state, but not following through with their federal applications.

"In 2009, we began asking the question: Are we maximizing federal revenue in our state programs?" said Terry Smith, division director. "So I met with Social Security, and we did a case load analysis."

The analysis showed the state could save millions by making sure all federal options were exhausted before state assistance kicked in through Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled (APTD), which was intended to supplement, not replace, Social Security Disability Income (SSDI).

In March 2010, three staff members in the division were reassigned to a newly created Facilitated Social Security Unit, with impressive results. ...

"We push clients into doing the Social Security applications and appeals," said Smith. "We don't actually do any of the work for them, but we require them to provide verifications to us that they have done their job."

Ever Wonder How It Was That Social Security Started Compiling Lists Of The Most Popular Baby Names?

     From The Atlantic:

In 1997, Michael Shackleford was an employee of the Office of the Actuary at the Social Security Administration's headquarters in Baltimore; his wife was pregnant and he was determined to avoid giving the child a common name like his own. With his access to Social Security card data, he wrote a simple program to sort the information by year of birth, gender, and first name. Suddenly he could see every Janet born in 1960. He could see that the number one names in 1990 were Michael and Jessica. He realized this could be important. "I knew that my eyeballs were seeing this list of the most popular baby names nationwide for the first time," he recalled recently. "It was too good to keep to myself."

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing Announced

     From a press release issued by the Social Security Subcommittee scheduling a hearing for 9:30 on Friday, April 26:

As the nation ages, the SSA will continue to face unprecedented service delivery demands even as it moves to automate many of its core functions. With Congress and the President agreeing on nearly static annual SSA budgets for the last three years, along with tight budgetary caps for future federal agency spending, the SSA has reached a crossroad in terms of how it will continue to deliver services to the public in a constrained fiscal environment.

In response, the SSA is already operating under a self-imposed hiring freeze for the last 2.5 years and has reduced the hours its offices are open to the public.  At the same time, the agency has significantly increased online services, where today 45 percent of retirement applications and 33 percent of disability applications are being filed on line. ...

The SSA will be led by a new Commissioner once the President chooses his nominee and the Senate completes its confirmation process. ...

The hearing will focus on the challenges facing the next Commissioner, including those related to service delivery capacity, human capital management, strategic planning, information technology, physical infrastructure and the agency’s ability to effectively administer Social Security programs.

ALJ Union Sues Agency On Workload Issues

     From the Associated Press:

Judges struggling to handle a surge of disability cases sometimes award benefits they might otherwise deny in order to clear cases faster so they can meet quotas imposed by the Social Security Administration, according to a lawsuit filed by the union representing the agency's administrative law judges.

The Social Security Administration says judges should decide 500 to 700 disability cases a year. The agency calls the standard a productivity goal, but the lawsuit claims it is an illegal quota that requires judges to decide an average of more than two cases a workday.

The lawsuit says the requirement violates judges' independence, denies due process rights to applicants and further strains the finances of a disability program that is projected to run out of money in 2016. ...

The lawsuit was filed by the union Thursday in federal court in Chicago. ...

In an interview, [former Commissioner Michael] Astrue disputed the union's claims.
"What's really happening here is that the judges' union doesn't want accountability of its members and it's been trying to sell this story to the media and to the Congress and to the agency for a very long time," Astrue said. "And no one's buying it because it's not true, and no federal judge is going to buy this story, either."

"There are a very small number of malcontents who want to litigate or put political pressure on the agency rather than do their work," Astrue said.

     Am I sympathetic to this lawsuit? Yes and no.
     It's important to note that the workload pressures on Social Security's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are ridiculous. Expecting 500 to 700 decisions a year is way too much. My experience is that these workload norms have caused significant degradation in the quality of the hearing process at Social Security. More and more productivity has been expected of ALJs at a time when the cases themselves have become more and more time-consuming. Claimants with insurance are seeing more and more specialists and having more and more tests and medical procedures. All of these records have to be reviewed by the ALJ. Electronic medical record-keeping produces more medical records. Many of the electronic record systems essentially repeat a patient's entire medical history each time he or she visits a doctor. Anyone reviewing these records has to wade through this repetitious mess looking for what's new on each doctor visit. Social Security case files keep getting longer each year. That fact hasn't filtered through to Social Security management but it's a huge problem at ground level.
     As much as I sympathize with ALJs on their workload pressures , I've seen no evidence that ALJs have been subjected to anything more than workload norms. They can ignore these norms without fear of formal punishment unless they get to the point of extraordinarily low productivity. The norms have certainly had a dramatic effect but I've seen no evidence that there is any real enforcement mechanism behind the norms. I don't see how you're going to make the argument that there is a quota and I'm not sure that a quota will be illegal anyway. Unwise yes but illegal?
     Filing suit at this time makes no sense to me. Yes, Michael Astrue is gone. He was quite unsympathetic to ALJs, as you can tell from the quote given above -- although I thought he became less unsympathetic the longer he was Commissioner. You might think that Social Security management would now be more sympathetic to ALJs and more willing to settle this lawsuit but has the ALJ union heard of sequestration? It's a huge problem for the agency. I don't think it's realistic at this time to expect the agency to settle this on terms favorable to the ALJs.
     By the way, it's worth noting that ALJs are not all union members. Those who are union members don't always agree with what the union does. I'm sure that there is a vigorous debate going on among Social Security's ALJs right now. Whether you agree or disagree with this lawsuit, don't give blame or credit for it to all ALJs. They are a diverse group.