The Social Security Administration’s Disability Determination
Services are having trouble managing the personnel responsible
for determining who gets disability benefits. The DDSs say
their assessors are backlogged with requests to the point
that they cannot find the time to get the additional training
they often need, and that non-competitive wages make it hard
to hold onto to employees, the General Accounting Office
has said.
It interviewed 52 of the 54 DDS directors as well as SSA
officials, and found that the DDSs face three main
challenges:
high turnover (about twice the rate of federal employees
doing similar work); recruiting and hiring difficulties
(something that increases backlogged case loads); and
gaps in skill levels (DDS directors said a quarter of their
workers needed additional training).
However, the larger problem is that SSA does not link its
objectives to a workforce plan, according to GAO, which
reviewed key SSA planning documents but did not find a
personnel plan addressing current and future DDS needs.
Further, SSA has not provided human capital assistance in
a consistent manner across the DDSs, said GAO.
While it acknowledged difficulties such as state budget
problems and personnel rules in carrying out such a plan,
GAO said that SSA has not used its authority to establish
uniform personnel standards, such as minimum qualifications
for examiners, which would address, on a nationwide basis,
some of the DDS challenges.
