Trump Budget Could Lead To Massive Furloughs At Social Security

     A message from the head of the union that represents most Social Security employees:

President Trump announced yesterday that he would increase defense spending by $54 billion and cut non-defense discretionary spending by the same $54 billion.

Non defense discretionary spending is currently $666.7 billion.  A cut of $54 billion is 8.1%.

SSA has informed the union that they will be forced to furlough the SSA workforce for 5 days for every 1% cut in its administrative budget.

If Trump succeeds in reducing non-defense discretionary spending by $54 billion equally to all non-defense agencies, SSA will have to furlough SSA employees for 8 weeks or 40 days.  This would be an across the board pay  cut of 15.4%.  In addition, SSA's ability to process the public's work would collapse.

We have the fight of our lives ahead of us.

Witold [Skwierczynski, union president]

Acting OIG Head To Testify

     From the House Committee on Appropriations:

Management Challenges at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and the Social Security Administration: Views from the Inspectors General

Thursday, March 9, 2017 10:00 AM in 2358-B Rayburn

Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
Witnesses

Scott S. Dahl
Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor

Daniel R. Levinson
Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Gale Stallworth Stone
Acting Inspector General, Social Security Administration

Kathleen Tighe
Inspector General, U.S. Department of Education

This Hasn't Been Merely A Matter Of Courtesy

     I'm hearing reports that several hearing offices around the country are now scheduling hearings without first contacting the claimant's attorney. This is contrary to settled practice. The purported goal is to save time. I don't know whether this is something that is supposed to become universal.

     This isn't going to work. Contacting attorneys before scheduling hearings wasn't just a matter of courtesy. It was to avoid having to reschedule hearings. If you don't contact attorneys first, you're going to have endless conflicts between hearings scheduled by different Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and different hearing offices, much less conflicts with various obligations that attorney have with other cases pending before other tribunals much less personal obligations such as those associated with being a parent or medical care. No, using Social Security's online systems to identify conflicts won't work. Often, the attorney of record isn't the attorney who will actually appear for the hearings. Don't blame law firms for this. It happens because the agency refuses to recognize law firms. No, I don't think that having attorneys inform hearing offices of every item on their calendar will work. There's just too many items on anyone's schedule to expect this to work even if hearing offices knew exactly which attorney is supposed to appear at each hearing. I've also found that hearing office employees can be completely unrealistic about time and distance. Too many times I've hearing questions like, "Your hearing in Greenville is at 9:00, so why can't you do a hearing in Raleigh at 10:30?" coming from people who don't realize that it's a hour and a half drive between Greenville and Raleigh.
     Rescheduling hearings takes time and leaves blank spots in ALJ schedules. I really, really want to get hearings scheduled as quickly as possible but I don't think this will help. There are practical reasons that Social Security called before scheduling hearings. It doesn't take that much time and it avoids wasting time down the road.

OMB Head Wants To "Reform" Social Security Disability

     From The Hill (emphasis added):

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Monday that President Trump could soon review potential reforms to Social Security and Medicare — but he stressed that the reforms under consideration wouldn’t touch payments for current beneficiaries.

Mulvaney said he plans to prepare several entitlement reform proposals for Trump after finishing the White House’s first budget outline proposal this week. Mulvaney previously said the top-line budget proposal wouldn’t address entitlements. ...

“I’ve already started to socialize the discussion around here in the West Wing about how important the mandatory spending is to the drivers of our debt,” Mulvaney told radio host Hugh Hewitt in a Monday interview. “People are starting to grab it.”

“There are ways that we can not only allow the president to keep his promise, but to help him keep his promise by fixing some of these mandatory programs.” ...

Mulvaney said Trump wasn’t likely to propose raising the age at which someone could retire and receive full entitlement benefits. Instead, he floated changes to Social Security disability payments, which Mulvaney called “one of the fastest growing and probably one of the most abused mandatory programs in the country.” ...

     I've heard the "we'll be able to get away with cutting Social Security as long as we don't touch benefits for current recipients" strategy many times before. Anybody remember that working for Republicans? I've also heard the "disability is the soft underbelly of Social Security" strategy before but the belly has always proven a lot tougher than Republicans expected. So, please proceed GOP. There's always an election coming.

Online SSI Claims Coming On March 25 -- For Some People

     From Emergency Message EM-17008:

This Emergency Message explains the policy and procedures associated with enhancements to the online benefit application (iClaim) scheduled for release on March 25, 2017.  ...

For this first release, applicants applying online for Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) who answer “Yes” to the question, “Do you intend to file for SSI [Supplemental Security Income]?” are able to submit an iSSI application if they meet all of the following criteria:

· Age 18 through 64;· Resides in 1 of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands;
· Alleges disability, but not blindness;
· Never married; and
· Claimant’s Social Security Number (SSN) does not exists in any SSI system such as the Modernized SSI Claims System (MSSICS) and Supplemental Security Record (SSR).

     The "never married" provision rules out most adults. Why is that necessary? I assume the last provision would rule out anyone who has filed a prior SSI claim. Why is that necessary? Are these two provisions just intended to keep the roll-out slow to allow kinks to be worked out?

Former Social Security Employee Indicted

     From the New York Daily News:

An ex-Social Security Administration worker was indicted by a Brooklyn federal grand jury for swiping social security numbers and birthdates, authorities said Friday.

Sharon Coffee-Dean, of Queens, is charged with stealing the information of 41 people and selling them to individuals who filed fraudulent tax returns.

Imposter Phishing Scheme

     From a press release:

The Acting Inspector General of Social Security, Gale Stallworth Stone, is warning citizens about a nationwide telephone “imposter phishing” scheme.  The Social Security Administration (SSA) and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have received several reports from citizens across the country about persons receiving phone calls from individuals posing as OIG investigators.  The caller indicates an issue exists pertaining to the person’s Social Security account or Social Security number (SSN) and directs the person call a non-SSA telephone number to address the issue. 

The reports indicate the calls include a recording from a caller stating she is “Nancy Jones,” an “officer with the Inspector General of Social Security.”  The recording goes on to say the person’s Social Security account, SSN, and/or benefits are suspended, and that he or she should call 806-680-2373 to resolve the issue.  Citizens should be aware that the scheme’s details may vary; however, citizens should avoid calling the number provided, as the unknown caller might attempt to acquire personal information. ...

Damage At Social Security Central Offices

     From the Baltimore Sun:

Severe storms brought wind gusts upwards of 60 mph Wednesday afternoon, downing trees and power lines, tearing off siding and shingles and breaking windows.  

A person was injured when a gust tore a satellite dish and part of the roof from a building on the Social Security campus in Woodlawn, agency spokesman Mark Hinkle said. A 50-by-100-foot section of the roof was stripped off, exposing heating and cooling equipment, said Natalie Litofsky, a Baltimore County spokeswoman.