Dec 22, 2015
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 18, 2015
Social Security Seeking Information On Moving Its Data Operations To The Cloud
Huge sums of money were spent in recent years building two computer centers for the Social Security Administration, a National Computer Center in the Baltimore area and a backup computing center near me in North Carolina. It now looks like this money was wasted. The agency just issued a request for information on moving its data operations to the cloud. At the rate things are going, the National Computer Center may never even be used. Great planning.
Dec 17, 2015
Does It Cost This Much To Renovate An Office Building?
Congress is about to appropriate $150 million to renovate Social Security's Altmeyer Building. The agency had not requested any money for this purpose. I had earlier asked how many square feet there are in the Altmeyer Building. A reader was kind enough to find the answer to my question -- 213,716 square feet. If you divide $250 million by 213,716 you find out that the appropriation would work out to be $701.87 per square foot.
Let's try to get some scale on this. Imagine if you bought an old 2,000 square foot home that needed renovations -- just renovations, not an addition. If you spent $701.87 per square foot doing renovations on that old home you'd end up spending $1.4 million. Does that sound plausible? Office renovations are, of course, different than home renovations but do you really think that renovating Altmeyer will cost $150 million? Even if it does cost $150 million, does Congress have to appropriate all the money now? Such a big project is going to take more than a year. I'd guess that the agency doesn't even have a comprehensive plan to renovate the building. Could construction even begin during the current fiscal year? Wouldn't it be better to appropriate some money to come up with a plan and then appropriate money for construction once you have a better idea what it will cost? Aren't you inviting waste by appropriating a ton of money when you don't know exactly what the agency is going to do with the money? That $150 million would really help the agency deal with its backlogs.
Let Me Put This In Terms People Can Understand
The whole appropriations process is confusing. You may wonder whether it matters. Let me put it in terms that people can understand. Social Security's plan to start working down its hearing backlog by hiring more ALJs probably went up in smoke. There's no money to increase the number of ALJs without cutting something else. The agency's plan to reduce the hearing backlog with senior attorney and re-recon decisions probably went up in smoke also. They needed to hire more people and use more overtime for this. The money's not there. Improving service at the field offices in any significant way? No money for that. Improving computer systems? No money for that.
By contrast, the National Institutes of Health got a near 7% increase in its budget. I'm sure that's money well spent but the money would have been well spent at Social Security also.
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