ALJ Production data - why?

[noah]

Taxpayers have an absolute right to monitor the progress and productivity of public employees who are financed by tax monies. It is an issue of good stewardship.

ALJs are paid a healthy salary. If they choose not to produce, they should relinquish those positions, and be replaced by those who will produce.

[privateatty]

Jan 24, 2010 15:02:05 GMT -5 noah said:

Taxpayers have an absolute right to monitor the progress and productivity of public employees who are financed by tax monies. It is an issue of good stewardship.

ALJs are paid a healthy salary. If they choose not to produce, they should relinquish those positions, and be replaced by those who will produce.

Its unseemly, this airing of laundry and it artificially elevates same.

[lawmaker]

tra nsp are n SEE

[deminimis]

I can't agree that it is unseemly to release productivity data. It is public information. It would be unseemly to withhold it from disclosure.

[gjf323]

See www.data.gov. Each agency must publish three high value databases within 45 days of 12/8/2009. That the ALJ's have snowed someone into thinking our disposition rates have value is another story.

Although the rates are on par with reservoir data from the TVA.

[deminimis]

How is it snowing somebody to believe that disposition rates have value? In fact, the information is very clearly a matter of public concern. It is always interesting to me to witness the rationalization of excuses to withhold public information.

[maxlaw]

I've got to agree. The mere fact that the newspapers previously have obtained and posted this information (see the Oregonian link among the stickies for one example, and there are others) would tend to show that there is a public demand. I think that the agency would be hard-pressed not to make it available given the mandate.

[phillydog]

While I have no problem with releasing productivity data, I think the value of the numbers is limited. This is not widgets in a factory. Quality matters along with quantity. It is very important to claimants that the backlog be dealt with but I wonder what the numbers mean. It doesn't seem like there is any way to know if ALJs are doing a good job applying the sequential evaluation as they try to get the backlog down.

[valkyrie]

I think the info could be very illuminating to a claimant. If the claimant had a hearing six months ago, still didn't have a decision, and then checked to find out that the ALJ who heard her case is one of the lowest producers in the nation, I think the claimant would have a great reason to call their Congressman and say, "What the Hell?" Or, if another claimant got a decision with no bearing on reality, and found out that the offending ALJ puts out 10 cases per day, I think the claimant would have some valid questions regarding the time spent on her claim.

[privateatty]

Jan 25, 2010 12:47:27 GMT -5 valkyrie said:

I think the info could be very illuminating to a claimant. If the claimant had a hearing six months ago, still didn't have a decision, and then checked to find out that the ALJ who heard her case is one of the lowest producers in the nation, I think the claimant would have a great reason to call their Congressman and say, "What the Hell?" Or, if another claimant got a decision with no bearing on reality, and found out that the offending ALJ puts out 10 cases per day, I think the claimant would have some valid questions regarding the time spent on her claim.

This makes sense from a moral perspective, but how would a Claimant have a proper yardstick? Maybe with a well researched journalistic piece.

Management is of course hoping that the peer pressure we learned so well on the school yard will kick in. For some maybe, others will get ticked and dig in their heels, IMO.

[jonmom]

Jan 24, 2010 15:02:05 GMT -5 noah said:

Taxpayers have an absolute right to monitor the progress and productivity of public employees who are financed by tax monies. It is an issue of good stewardship.

ALJs are paid a healthy salary. If they choose not to produce, they should relinquish those positions, and be replaced by those who will produce.

[jonmom]

I totally agree with this.

[pedaltone]

This thread raises the issue of how "production" should be measured.

Are all widgets equal?

Should unfavorable decisions count the same as favorables?

What role should quality play?

Should the editing required for various writers be taken into account?

Should the use of/access to experts to accounted for?

etc.

[decadealj]

No they aren't. In a prior life, the Commonwealth Attorney weighted cases; a capitol murder case was wieghted like 50X an auto larceny; a major drug conspiracy in federal court with 5 co-conspirators maybe 35X a credit card, bad check or fraud case. When I was appointed as an ALJ, I used to assign a value to each decision writing memo to let the Supervisory Attorney know what effort I thought the case would take to be properly written- maybe a 1 for a meet listing favorable to a 5 for an unfavorable where the writer was going to have to address a VA 100% rating for a drug addict/etoh/PTSD where the servicemember's greatest fear was wheter he picked -up VD in Olongopo. The Supervisory Attorney liked it, the writers liked it and then along came HPI with HS grad GS that didn't have any idea how difficult some cases were to write. As for some of our current priorities, my last wounded warrior case was some UA trooper who ran into a tree while DUI. It is not rocket science but you would think someone with some common sense had some impact on these "policy" absurdities. Did you know that not having insurance now qualifies a claimant for an expedited hearing?

[valkyrie]

Jan 25, 2010 15:37:19 GMT -5 pedaltone said:

This thread raises the issue of how "production" should be measured.

Are all widgets equal?

Should unfavorable decisions count the same as favorables?

What role should quality play?

Should the editing required for various writers be taken into account?

Should the use of/access to experts to accounted for?

etc.

It really comes down to an office by office basis. Most offices know which ALJs work, which ALJs don't work, and which ALJs make everyone else do all of the work. I would say a workload summary report, a random selection of ten sets of decision instructions, a random selection of ten hearing recordings, and interviews with the HOCALJ, HOD, GS, two writers, and two clerks will give you all you need to know about any ALJ, good or bad.

[privateatty]

I had heard of a Judge in an Agency before whom I used to practice who had trouble getting out Decisions and from time to time would get her/his cases assigned to others. Nothing will seemingly tick off a Judge more than that.

Each Agency is different, obviously. There is SSA and there is at least one Agency where a Decision can be like a law review article and take almost as long to write.

I have alot of respect for val, 'drone, Pixie, ALJDisc, decadealj, and a whole host of others on and off this Board who day in and day out do the work you do. Your business is misery, heaps of it. Folks who literally don't have a pot to pee in and hurt, on alot of different levels. Having represented folks like these from time to time I know it takes a hard heart not to be moved by these daily tales of woe (to the nth). If you're not careful it can get to you. It got to me until I found this GREAT job...

I have posted that it appears a bit unseemly to just post ALJ production numbers. I don't know that its "wrong", though. You folks, writers, clerks and ALJs have a solemn duty. The money has been deducted from the paychecks and now you have to ensure its spent wisely, a sobering task indeed. Making people wait and wait who are hungry and cold in this, the supposed greatest country on earth, well its a hard point to defend.

Every ALJ has a duty to get his or her decisions out. We certainly do at our office and no one questions it. Some get behind with illness and other legitimate problems. noah said bluntly that those who can't get the job done should get out of the way of these who can. I cannot subscribe to such bluntness, but I don't necessarily disagree. People die because they don't get help. What do you say to their families?

In the final analysis honey should be used over vinegar. Counsel the slow joes and if that doesn't work, then I think there has to be some mechanism to discipline or ease out the door those who have no excuse not to get it done. Uh-oh, did I just say that?

[Propmaster]

The data sets chosen to go on the website were based on "value." One measure of value is how much people ask for them. If there is data that people ask for, and the government provides it, then the government is giving people what they want and that boosts the concept of transparency.

In this case, the data was not chosen to accomplish an objective with the ALJs; it was chosen because of the frequent FOIA requests for this information, which indicates that it is a "high value" data set. Given that the numbers from previous years were published on the web, this was not a ground-breaking concept.

If you think about the data sets kept by SSA and which ones can be made public, and which ones the public actually wants, there are very few and everyone was searching very hard to find thos that would qualify for the President's initiative.