NADE Obsessed With Fraud

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE) has released its Spring 2014 newsletter. NADE certainly seems taken with the Republican campaign to root out fraud in Social Security's disability programs. 

Fast Track For Non-English Speakers?

     Now the right is making the absurd claim that non-English speakers are "fast-tracked" on to Social Security disability benefits. Yes, there is a minor provision that recognizes the special employment difficulties that handicapped people have if they can't speak English but I've been representing Social Security disability claimants for almost 35 years and I've yet to see a claimant get benefits as a result of this provision.  

     What type of rule is the right proposing -- that impediments to work must be disregarded if they mostly affect people they don't like?

Disability Claim Filings Reduced But Backlogs Persist Because Of Decreased Staffing

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on the agency's initial disability claims backlog. In 2010 Social Security established a goal of getting the backlog down from about a million to 525,000. That goal hasn't been achieved. The report is too polite to give the main reason, the fact that the House of Representatives passed from Democratic to Republican control after the November 2010 election. This cut agency funding and eliminated most Congressional pressure to reduce the backlog. You can see below what has happened.

     Staffing had gone up significantly between 2008 and 2010. Social Security was poised to work down the backlog. They made a little progress on the backlog in 2011 and 2012 because staffing levels were still above the low level of the Bush Administration but by 2013 progress had pretty much ended as staffing levels decreased.

     One reason for slight optimism about backlog levels is that initial claims receipts reached their peak in 2011 and are now declining, as more and more of the baby boom generation reaches full retirement age. Yes, despite what you may have heard, fewer disability claims are being filed, not more.

Visions Of The Future: The Case Of The SST

     I recently posted an e-mail from the President of the union that represents most Social Security employees about the "plan" of a consulting firm envisioning a Social Security Administration without field offices by 2025. Reportedly, the company envisioned an environment in which most people never left their homes except to be entertained. 

     This vision of the future reminded me of the SST. You ask what is the SST? The Super Sonic Transport, of course. The Super Sonic Transport? That would be an airplane that can transport commercial passengers at supersonic speeds, of course. Remember the Concorde? It was an SST. The idea for the SST was that the globe is awfully big, so big that it takes a long time for a commercial aircraft to get from, let's say New York to Los Angeles, much less from New York to London. The time it takes to fly from New York to Tokyo is just ridiculous. It would be so much better if we had aircraft that could take passengers these long distances several times as fast. The vision of the SST emerged in the 1950s. A number of companies started to develop an SST but only one actually produced an SST for commercial use. That was a French-British consortium which produced the Concorde, which first took to the air for scheduled flights in 1976.

     Whatever happened to the Concorde? It turns out that there were a few problems. Planes flying at supersonic speeds create a very loud sonic boom. If you ever hear a sonic boom, you won't forget it. I have. I never heard the Concorde's sonic boom, just the sonic boom from U.S. fighter aircraft. It's literally loud enough to shatter windows. It turned out that no one wanted the Concorde flying over their house. They were banned from flying at supersonic speeds over land. There goes the New York-Los Angeles route and the New York-Tokyo route since so much of that is over land. It also turned out that the Concorde was very, very expensive to build and operate. Concorde fares were sky high, far higher than first class airfare on subsonic planes. The number of people who could afford such expensive airfare was extremely limited. The realization set in over time that there were no technological fixes for the Concorde's problems. The sonic boom can't be engineered away. The cost problem can't be engineered away.

     In the end only two Concorde planes were build. Two. They were gorgeous airplanes but only two were built. The two Concorde aircraft operated for some years but eventually one of them crashed and the other was retired.

     The SST was a wonderful vision. It's a shame that it didn't work but the reasons it wouldn't work were obvious from the beginning. People just ignored the problems because their belief in the vision was so strong.
     The problems with a vision of the Social Security Administration without field offices should be obvious to those who actually have ground level experience with Social Security. The agency doesn't just take retirement claims. It takes disability claims. It takes survivor claims. It takes Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims. Even though most of the money paid out by Social Security goes to retirement benefits, most of the work its employees do is on disability, survivor and SSI claims. These claims are messy and complicated. There's no way to remove the messiness or complexity. It's an inherent part of these benefits. While more and more people are computer literate, many of the people that Social Security employees deal with will never be computer literate enough to deal with the Social Security Administration just over the internet. That's because their transactions with Social Security are complicated and many of these people suffer from cognitive problems or mental illness. These problems aren't going away any more than the Concorde's problems would go away.

A Bad Apple

     From WJLA:

A former specialist for the Social Security Administration pled guilty Tuesday to soliciting more than $50,000 in bribes from Social Security recipients in return for providing them with extra, unauthorized benefits.

Christopher Payton, 46, of Mount Rainier, Md., pled guilty in D.C. District Court Tuesday to one count of bribery. The plea agreement calls for him to pay $54,662 in restitution and an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgment.

According to a statement of offense, signed by the defendant and the government, Payton was a Social Insurance Specialist for the SSA's Anacostia Office in Southeast Washington. ...

Between January and May of 2013, Payton reportedly met with 13 people as part of his responsibilities at the agency. Upon meeting these individuals, Payton reportedly told them that if they gave him a tip, he would take care of them....

After the victims agreed Payton used his access to cause retroactive Supplemental Security Income benefits to go into the individuals' bank accounts....

The charge carries a statutory maximum of 15 years in prison and financial penalties. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Payton faces a likely range of 30 to 37 months in prison and a fine of up to $60,000.

Why Did Social Security Seize The Tax Refunds Of The Children Of People Who Had Been Overpaid Decades Earlier?

     I think that conflating overpayments with fraud had more than a little to do with this. Fraud usually creates an overpayment but most overpayments aren't the result of fraud.

Vision 2025: "A Society Where Most People Will Never Leave Their House Except To Be Entertained"

     Below is an e-mail from the head of the union that represents most Social Security employees. From what I hear, just about every Social Security employee who isn't a union member has also seen this e-mail.

From: Witold Skwierczynski

Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 3:28 PM
To: All Bargaining Unit Employees
Subject: Vision 2025

SSA Bargaining Unit Employees:

On March 11, the union was given a copy of a draft plan produced by the National Academy of Public Administration (Academy) entitled "Long term Strategic Vision and Vision Elements for the Social Security Administration" .  The Academy was contracted by SSA to assist the Agency in developing Vision 2025.

SSA is now seeking your ideas for a Vision 2025 plan.  What SSA is not telling you is that they already have a draft plan that is a product of the Academy with the framework of that plan given to the Academy by SSA leadership.

The draft plan has certain principles that we cannot agree with.  First it states that the basis for a Vision for 2025 must be that online services are the primary means for delivering customer service.  This is a change from SSA's long time commitment to allow the customer to determine how they interact with SSA either by face-to-face contact, by phone, or by the Internet.  The entire basis of the field office structure and community based offices where the public can choose to receive face to face service is based on the concept of customer choice.

Another basis for their draft report is the following concept:

we (i.e.,SSA) automate processes to maximize operational efficiency, meet customer demand and diverse expectations, resulting in a smaller workforce and in reduced physical infrastructure.

The Academy's draft report is based on SSA 's desire to eliminate much, if not all, the field structure and to get rid of many employees.  That means closing field offices reducing staff, redeploying current staff and possibly laying off excess workers.   It also means the virtual elimination of face-to-face community based service.

The academy draft report proposes 29 elements under 5 categories: Direct Service Delivery to customers, Indirect service Support of Service delivery, Planning and management of information Resources, Workforce and Organizational Structure and Dynamics.

Item 1 of their 29 "vision elements" is "online self-service delivery is our primary service channel".  Thus, SSA clients will be expected to fend for themselves which is the real meaning of "self-service".

Item 2 states: "we provide direct service options (e.g., in-person, phone, on-line chat, video conference) in very limited circumstances, such as complex transactions and to meet the needs of vulnerable populations."  This means that no longer will a member of the public have a right to communicate with an SSA employee.  The future SSA requires a justification in limited circumstances before a member of the public can talk to an employee face-to-face, by phone, by video-conference or by chat.  The Agency will be staffed with a limited amount of interviewers to insure that only very few get this direct communication option.  My  belief is that  these limited number of interviewers will work in either centralized facilities like PSCs, Regional Offices and Baltimore Headquarters or they will work at home.

Item 3 calls for seamless and integrated customer service channels enabling customers to process transactions in one step start to finish.  That sounds nice but, unfortunately, there won't be any field offices providing seamless service.  When AFGE questioned the Academy about whether this could mean that DDS' would be federalized and SSA employees could be promoted to higher graded positions that adjudicate both the disability and non-disability portions of a claim, its clear that it was not their intention to disturb the current Federal and State relationship.

Item 4 proposes "integrated service delivery across SSA programs and with external partners to improve access to a broad suite of high quality government services ".  What's that about?   This proposal would increase the number of 3rd party claims takers that currently flood our offices with frequently substandard and incomplete claims.  It also looks like the plan is to provide that profit making 3rd party claims takers have more access to SSA's systems.  It's certainly cheaper to use 3rd parties to submit claims and charge either the public or a government agency (i.e. tax $$) for a service that is now provided by SSA employees. 

Item 5 recommends simplification which is a laudable goal but something that gives the union concern.  The simpler the work is, the employees who process it will be workers with lower grades.  The current grade structure is based on the complexity of work that we produce.  Significant legislative changes would be necessary to truly simplify the claims process.

Some of the high lights or, in my estimation, low lights, of the remaining of the recommendations follow:

• "Our work processes are fully automated except for those decisions that require some human judgment."  This recommendation would potentially eliminate the current review of all i claims.  "Full automation" and "some human judgment"  means that most cases will be automated without any review process (i.e., judgment).
• "Our work is "portable" (e.g. electronic case files enable matching workload with available workforce capacity, advancing telework)."  This proposal is consistent with the vision to eliminate face-to-face service and, therefor, dismantle the field office structure.  Remaining employees will work at home- not in offices.  Consequently, no more face to face service in 2025.
• "All our support functions (e.g., Human Resources, Finance) are provided through a shared service model (e.g., within SSA, across government and by contract)."  This proposal envisions widespread contracting out of work currently performed in regional offices, Baltimore Headquarters and Area Director offices to the private sector.  
• Another proposal envisions the IT workforce as primarily focused on development of systems to "effectively leverage private sector services to meet business needs."  This is another indication that SSA's vision is to privatize more and more of what we do.
• "Technology advances allow us to have a significantly smaller and more virtual workforce".  There will be fewer of us and we won't be in the same building - the workforce of alienation.  
• "We make greater use of generalists with an emphasis on problem-solving, communication and data analytics skills."  The Academy only visited 1 field office in Washington DC before making these proposals.  Obviously they don't understand the technical complexity of the SSA programs and that few can be effective generalists due to this complexity and requiring employees to be generalists increases stress and causes health and safety problems.
• "Our "blended" workforce delivers services with greater use of project-based employee and contractor teams."  Why is the current SSA leadership so eager to contract out our jobs?
• "Our communication and business processes enable a dispersed workforce that is no longer working in centralized traditional offices."  
• "Our physical infrastructure is significantly reduced and re-aligned based on service delivery changes, IT and automation investments, and workforce shifts."

On March 12, 2014 the union met with the Academy to discuss these draft proposals.  Obviously we objected to virtually all of them and made the case for maintaining the community based field office structure that continues to allow claimants to determine how they want to get SSA services - including face-to- face services.  We argued that there is nothing wrong with SSA being a government agency made up of government employees. We told them that SSA's overhead is only 1.4%.  This is cheaper than any other benefit program and significantly cheaper than any insurance company.  We argued that its our experience that many people who file claims online make poor decisions that result in permanent benefit loss for themselves and their families and the option of discussing benefit choices with a trained SSA employee is essential to the service that SSA should provide to taxpayers.  We told them that one should not accept continuing reductions in SSA's administrative budget and that what the Agency needs are strong advocates who demand that Congress provide SSA sufficient revenue so that SSA can continue to provide first class face-to-face and telephone services to those members of the public that choose to use them.

Academy members stated that their vision of 2025 is a society where most people will never leave their house except to be entertained. Therefore, there will be no need for offices and face-to-face options.

What a horrible vision! It's a vision of alienation where people in the future will not interact with others except virtually.  I don't accept this vision.  Most SSA employees don't accept this vision.  Those who talk to the public all day know that many couldn't survive without being able to deal directly with an SSA employee to complete their business.

So SSA now wants you to participate in this charade of seeking your input when they have already decided to significantly reduce services.  The recent office and contact station closings, reduction of hours that field offices are open to the public, initiatives to centralize work like moving review of Internet claims away from field offices, elimination of services like numi-lites and benefit verifications, the sudden management acceptance of flexiplace after years of opposition, the installation of self-help kiosks, the requirements demanded by SSA that employees sell Internet claims and services to the public, My SSA, video conferencing used for hearings, further expansion of regional hearing centers, starving small offices of staff till they become non-viable and close, etc. are all SSA strategies to reduce staff, consolidate operations and to transform SSA into an Agency that no longer provides the public with personal service.

The union has decided to offer it's own vision for the future.  This vision would maintain the field structure, continue to offer the claimant filing options, reduce unnecessary management, create more promotional opportunities for employees and enhance their benefits, make the field office a safe and stress free environment, continue to provide services to the public that they request and preserve the integrity of SSA records.  This is a vision that puts the public first and mirrors the services of what the public wants not what some bureaucrat has decided the public should get.  It puts a high value on employee health and safety and enhancement of employees careers and employee benefits. 

Please go on Ideascape and vote YES  on the AFGE plan for 2025.  

After you vote, think about what SSA wants to do.  An elimination of the field office structure means an elimination of your job.  IT'S TIME TO FIGHT TO PRESERVE YOUR JOB.  Please periodically check the AFGE Council 220 website at www.afgec220.org. for actions that you can take to preserve your job and to keep up with what SSA and the union is doing.  Also, check out our Facebook page at RallyPoint.

Witold Skwierczynski

President

AFGE Council of SSA Field Operations

Social Security's "Awful Inequities"

    Laurence Kotlikoff has a list of what he calls "awful inequities"in Social Security that outrage him. And he doesn't even mention the cap on the F.I.C.A. tax! How many do you agree with? I'd note that most of the "inequities" he talks about would end if dependent and survivor benefits were stopped. Do you think that would be a good idea? A politically plausible idea?