olio

[aljhunter]

I have a couple of questions that experienced ALJs (or others, I don't want to exclude anyone. . .) may be able to answer.

1. I heard from a friend who is an ALJ that once OPM scores all those who sat for the WD and SI, OPM will allow the candidates to add/subtract from their initial geographical preference list. True? False? Unable to confirm?

2. Has anyone been able to assess validly the number of people who sat for the WD and SI? Did OPM run the WD five days a week for five or so weeks? Or, did OPM run an abbreviated schedule?

3. Does anyone know if OPM followed past protocol by scheduling those who scored highest on the AQ/AR for the early days of the WD and SI? Or was scheduling simply random?

4. Is it absolutely true that Region I will not be hiring any new ALJs?

5. Is there any validity to the rumor that SSA plans a huge office in Falls Church and will staff the office with a majority of the new ALJs?

Thanks much!

[workdrone]

aljhunter said:

1. I heard from a friend who is an ALJ that once OPM scores all those who sat for the WD and SI, OPM will allow the candidates to add/subtract from their initial geographical preference list. True? False? Unable to confirm?

Under the old system, you could decline additional cities at the SSA hiring stage, but doing too much might remove you from the list. Under the new system, only OPM and SSA knows what's going to happen and the rest of us are just guessing.

aljhunter said:

2. Has anyone been able to assess validly the number of people who sat for the WD and SI? Did OPM run the WD five days a week for five or so weeks? Or, did OPM run an abbreviated schedule?

WD should be done now. SI is still going since there are people I know scheduled through the end of September.

aljhunter said:

3. Does anyone know if OPM followed past protocol by scheduling those who scored highest on the AQ/AR for the early days of the WD and SI? Or was scheduling simply random?

People in my office that got scheduled early all tried to move their dates back (and I think OPM accomodated everyone in my office that I know). So with all the schedule changes, it'd be random now even if it wasn't before.

aljhunter said:

4. Is it absolutely true that Region I will not be hiring any new ALJs?

Not sure. Someone else might have better insight on it.

aljhunter said:

5. Is there any validity to the rumor that SSA plans a huge office in Falls Church and will staff the office with a majority of the new ALJs?

That was the original conventional wisdom. Now I think the latest is that the Falls Church VTC office is only going to have 15 ALJs or so.

[nonamouse]

I just read the application instructions again this weekend. It said that once an applicant chose their cities that no changes would be allowed until the announcement was reopened the next time. The plain language did not appear to allow for later changes, but anything is possible in bizarro world. I'm trying not to worry about my short list of cities unless or until I get a call from an agency.

[chris]

1. Absolutely False.
2. 650
3. No evidence of scheduling by score. More likely that some scheduling was done by geographical location.
4. It seems likely that region 1 will hire fewer than some other regions next year. That is not saying that they won't hire at all.
5. I don't know

[zero]

good questions and good answers by Chris. Thanks Chris.

[odarite]

aljhunter said:

4. Is it absolutely true that Region I will not be hiring any new ALJs?

5. Is there any validity to the rumor that SSA plans a huge office in Falls Church and will staff the office with a majority of the new ALJs?

4. This is a federal agency. Nothing is ever absolutely true or absolutely false. However, I was told by someone pretty high in the food chain that the current plan is not to add any new ALJs in Region 1

5. If (or perhaps more accurately when) they open the video hearing center (which has been scaled back significantly from initial estimates), it will qualify as a new office and currently sitting ALJs will be allowed to request transfers unrelated to the regularly maintained transfer list. If that does not result in enough ALJs to fill the slots, then new hires will be placed there. Note: this is not going to happen in time for the next class hired to be affected.

[aljhunter]

Thanks to all who responded. I am despondent now that I know that I will sit for a very, very, very long time--perhaps forever--whereever I fall on the register because I listed few realistic geographical preferences. . . Oh, well. One lives and learns! I will know better if I choose to torture myself with the process again in the future. . . .

[odarite]

I can think of at least one ALJ off the top of my head who put one location on the geographic preference sheet, so no particular answer is necessarily the right answer.

[chris]

aljhunter said:

Thanks to all who responded. I am despondent now that I know that I will sit for a very, very, very long time--perhaps forever--whereever I fall on the register because I listed few realistic geographical preferences. . . Oh, well. One lives and learns! I will know better if I choose to torture myself with the process again in the future. . . .

But you can add cities when the test reopens and lots of people think that will be next spring, so you would only be about 6 months behind those who get called up in the first group.

[learnedhand]

According to the OPM person I spoke with, the register will likely reopen a year or so after this register is established. Based on what she said, my guess is that the earliest it would reopen is October 2008.

[cinderella]

Learned- did she hint at how many hires between now and October 2008?

[Pixie]

cinderella said:

Learned- did she hint at how many hires between now and October 2008?

Someone at OPM won't know the future ALJ requirements of the various agencies. That will be determined by the needs and the budget constraints of the individual agencies. In SSA it is a strategic decision made by the Commissioner and his deputies. Those of us down the food chain will just have to wait and see what word leaks out, if any, about the plans for new judges.
Pix.

[learnedhand]

Pixie is correct about this. My own theory, which is likely worth what you are paying for it, is that Astrue is trying to appease both Congress and the President. He is appeasing the President by lowballing the budget so there is very little money to hire staff. He is appeasing Congress by giving lip service to everything they want. Legislators have complained about the backlog so he reinstituted the sr atty program at a very small level. It looks good but will be unlikely to have any effect. Legislators have been very direct about the lack of ALJs so I believe there will be a maximum hiring of aljs after OPM has done its job of creating a new register. However, I think new hires (esp. those outside SSA) will be surprised-to-shocked at how little staff there is and how much the alj may have to cover for that in generating adequate production numbers. Knowing how little gets done between Thanksgiving and shortly after the New Year in ODAR, my hunch is that there will not be new hiring this fall because there may not be time to do it before the holidays.