Spending The Extra Money

From Social Security's May 1 report to the Office of Management and Budget on how it has used its extra funding under President Obama's economic stimulus package (ARRA) so far:

• Agreed on a monthly reporting cycle with the House Ways and Means Subcommittee starting June 15, 2009.
• Hired 100 employees in the Office of Disability and Adjudication Review - Atlanta (34), Chicago (11), Dallas (10), Denver (3), Kansas City (3), New York (1), Philadelphia (10), San Francisco (24), Seattle (4); Continuing to hire Operations, ODAR and State DDS employees, including 35 Administrative Law Judges.
• Hired 1,510 employees in the Office of Operations - Atlanta (395), Boston (24), Chicago (186), Dallas (165), Denver (29), Kansas City (39), New York (105), Office of Central Operations (154), Philadelphia (145), San Francisco (230), Seattle (38).
• Hired 236 employees in the State Disability Determination Services - Atlanta (118), Boston (5), Chicago (13), Dallas (17), Kansas City (5), New York (2), Philadelphia (31), San Francisco (28), Seattle (17)

Get Out The Pitchforks!

Steny Hoyer's plan to "reform" Social Security is drawing strong opposition at Firedoglake. Worth a read.

Finally

Tomorrow's Federal Register will contain a notice that the Social Security Administration is officially withdrawing the proposal to increase by two years each of the age categories in its regulations on disability. This was proposed while Jo Anne Barnhart was Commissioner of Social Security and drew widespread opposition. It would have had a dramatic effect upon Social Security disability claimants. The rumor was that Barnhart was forced into the proposal by the Office of Management and Budget and did not support it. While it made no progress towards becoming a final rule, it was not withdrawn and could have been adopted at any point. After the election, I had a small concern that it would be adopted as a spiteful act in the final days of the Bush Administration. Similar things happened at other agencies. I am relieved to see this finally and officially killed off.

Update: Here is the link to the notice as published in the Federal Register.

Hearing Processing Time Report

Compare the average processing time as it has changed over time:

• January 25, 2007 -- 508 days
• May 25, 2007 -- 523 days
• July 28, 2007 -- 528 days
• August 31, 2007 -- 523 days
• November 30, 2007 -- 500 days
• February 29, 2008 -- 511 days
• May 30, 2008 -- 523 days
• June 27, 2008 -- 529 days
• July 31, 2008 -- 530 days
  
• September 3, 2008 -- 532 days
• November 5, 2008 -- 476 days
  
• December 3, 2008 -- 480 days
• March 8, 2009 -- 499 days
• April 1, 2009 -- 490 days
  

Union Contract To Expire In August

The contract between Social Security and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a labor union that represents most Social Security employees, expires in August 2009. Apparently, contract negotiations are to resume shortly. Given the ill will that exists between the union and Social Security management, these negotiations may be rocky.

Yeah, Right Department

From the Washington Post:

Key lawmakers from both parties have held tentative talks about overhauling the Social Security system, and Congress could turn its attention to the federal retirement program as soon as this fall if a bipartisan consensus emerges, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said yesterday. ...

According to an advance copy of the speech [that Hoyer will deliver today], Hoyer will suggest that Congress could approve "more revenues," "restrain the growth of benefits, particularly for higher-income workers," "and/or we can raise the retirement age, recognizing that our life expectancy is higher today."

Update: Here is a link to Hoyer's speech. Hoyer not only conflates Social Security with Medicare and Medicaid, but also with health care generally. I think that the only way to resolve whatever issues there may be with any of these is to make sure to completely delink them. Social Security, especially, should be delinked since its funding problems are trivial when compared to Medicare, Medicaid or health care. I get the strong impression that Hoyer has little idea what he is talking about. How did he become the House Majority Leader?

Details Emerge On Budget Plan

From today's Wall Street Journal:

The [Obama] budget [for Fiscal Year 2010], scheduled for release Thursday, will include funds for what the White House is calling a "program integrity" initiative, enough to fund 1,100 field officers in the Social Security Administration ...

Budget office officials say every dollar spent by the Social Security Administration to review disability claims will save $11 in erroneous payments. The administration hopes to secure $485 million more in the fiscal year that begins in October -- $4.3 billion over five years -- to plow through the backlog of disability reviews, which determine continued payments for disability insurance and supplemental security income, programs for the poorest of the poor. Recipients continue to receive payments while their eligibility is under review.

We will have to see the details, but only 1,100 additional employees? That is not even enough for a credible program integrity initiative.

Budget Changes Proposal In Works

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (emphasis added):

The objective of our review was to address the requests of Congressmen John S. Tanner and John Lewis that we provide the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives (Committee), with recommended management reforms for Social Security Administration (SSA) operations. ...

When examining SSA programs with significant improper payments or insufficient debt collection practices, we noted several overarching themes-or "causes"-for the vulnerabilities identified. ...

SSA reports that it has been significantly under-funded for a number of years. At the same time, its workloads have increased-through additional retirement and disability applications, as well as new congressional mandates (for example, processing millions of Medicare Part D subsidy applications and expanded participation in employee eligibility verification programs). Given the Agency's resource limitations, it made tough decisions in prioritizing its workload. However, in our opinion, such decisions have sacrificed stewardship activities and increased improper payments. ...

To help ensure SSA has the resources to perform this critical work, we support a legislative proposal to create a self-funding program integrity fund. This proposal was drafted by SSA and, as of June 2008, contained the following two elements.

Provide authority for SSA to expend a portion of actual collections of erroneous payments on activities to prevent, detect, and collect erroneous payments. Specifically, the proposal would establish permanent indefinite appropriations, subject to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) apportionment, to make available to SSA up to 25 percent of the actual overpayments collected during the base FY and make available to OIG up to 2.5 percent of the same collected overpayments.

Establish a revolving fund that would be financed from SSA's stewardship/program integrity activities' projected lifetime savings. That is, SSA would be permitted to deposit up to 50 percent of the estimated future lifetime program savings from processing program integrity activities such as (but not limited to) CDRs, SSI redeterminations, Cooperative Disability Investigation Units, and Special Office of the General Counsel prosecutions. The Commissioner would be authorized to fund initiatives that would yield at least a 150 percent return on investment within a 10-year time period. This proposal would link budgeting for cost-effective program integrity activities with their results. ...

The OIG has not performed any audit work to confirm whether funding shortfalls and diminished staffing levels have impacted SSA's ability to operate effectively.

The big story here is that Social Security is working on a proposal to partially exempt the agency from the budget process. That would be important. However, I cannot get over OIG admitting that it has failed to conduct any audit work to confirm whether Social Security's ability to get its work done has been affected by funding shortfalls and diminished staffing levels. I cannot imagine a non-political reason for turning a blind eye to what has long been a major issue.