Confirmation of Hiring timeline by COSS

[kingfisher]

In the event this helps any ALJ Candidates, according to today's Commissioner's Broadcast, the time frame for hiring 150 ALJs is the Spring of 2008. The last part of the statement read:

"As another key part of its plan, the Social Security Administration is establishing a National Hearing Center (NHC) so that a centralized cadre Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) can use video hearing technology to hear cases in the most backlogged parts of the country. The technology now is in place, and the recruiting process for the first NHC judges has begun. The agency also plans to hire about 150 ALJs and some additional hearing office support staff in the spring of 2008 – the only new hiring in FY 2008 as the agency continues to contract through attrition due to many years of congressional budget cuts far below what the President has requested."

[judicature]

"The agency also plans to hire about 150 ALJs and some additional hearing office support staff in the spring of 2008 – the only new hiring in FY 2008"

This would seem to be good news and clarifies the previous statement of the Commissioner

[learnedhand]

One of the unions that met with the commissioner reported that there were to be 92 staff hires in FY08. That comes out to just over 1/2 person per office. And that is if the NHC is on a separate hiring budget.

[workdrone]

learnedhand said:

One of the unions that met with the commissioner reported that there were to be 92 staff hires in FY08. That comes out to just over 1/2 person per office. And that is if the NHC is on a separate hiring budget.

Wow. That's probably not even enough to replace the people leaving the agency through natural attrition. Or is the 92 hires in additional to replacing departing/retiring staff members?

[odarite]

Think about this: these are ODAR hires. The operations side (think DOs) get bupkiss.

[learnedhand]

Drone, it's not in addition. It's the total unless there are extras for the national unit.

[learnedhand]

COSS is speaking this morning, apparently to management. Our managers are watching. I saw a small bit, but wonder whether he said anything to add to this discussion. I also wondered whether he addressed the soon-to-fail sr atty program.

[ruonthelist]

Here was the COSS' statement to the House SS subcommittee on May 1:

waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=5843

In the next to last paragraph he said:

"Second, we need more ALJs, and we’re aiming at a net increase of about 150 ALJs. With support staff, we’re looking at about 750-850 FTEs, a significant reallocation of our discretionary FTEs. With rising numbers of appeals being filed, we simply cannot reduce the backlog with fewer ALJs than we had in 1997. "

Then he was talking about 600-700 new support staff, and now, less than six months later, he is talking about "some." This is sad, but predictable in light of OHA/ODAR history.

The statistic that the agency focuses on is dispositions per ALJ. This is understandable. ALJs are the obvious source of dispositions. The angry congressional constituents waiting for the hearing are told that they will eventually get to see a judge. When they get their hearing it is a judge that they see, and when they get the decision it is issued over the name of a judge. They don't see the people whose hard work pulling cases and drafting decisions makes it possible for that judge to issue dozens of dispositions every month.

Unfortunately, focussing on dispositions per ALJ has led the agency, and Congress, into a confusion of cause and effect. If you had X dispositions per ALJ for a year, it is all too easy to believe that if you hire, say 150 judges next year, you will (allowing for the learning curve) get 150X additional dispositions.

The truth is that without an increase in staff, not only will the new judges not produce X dispositions apiece, the old judges won't produce as many as they used to. This is because the same number of case techs and writers will be spreading their work over more judges. They can keep working harder as the backlog increases, and in my experience they do, but eventually diminishing returns set in when you keep stretching the judge to staff ratio.

"150 new judges" makes for a better sound bite to Congress than "150 new judges plus the support staff to make them productive, and to redress the problems caused by past hiring of judges without staff." The latter phrase doesn't fit as well on a bumper sticker, but it describes what ODAR needs.

I don't know if the figure of 92 that learnedhand quoted is accurate, but even if it is, that won't even restore judge to staff ratios that are already out of whack, much less accomodate newly hired judges.

Mr. Astrue's comments in May indicated that he understood the staffing problem. I like to think the best of people as long as I can, so I assume that he tried and will keep trying to provide adequate support staff, but his recent statement seems to be preparing everybody for the results of his inability to do so this time around.

[workdrone]

Ru,

Very well put. I totally agree that hiring 150 ALJ without the additional increase in support staff is setting the agency up for a big fall. Hope someone will inject some sanity into it before the mess becomes obvious in about a year or so.

[learnedhand]

To provide even a basic level of support for new aljs, ODAR would have to hire at least 300 staff. One clerk and one staff attorney to draft the decisions is an absolute minimum to be able to function at all effectively.

I don't know if the 92 number is accurate either, but that is what NTEU is reporting it was told by COSS when he met with its board recently.

[workdrone]

learnedhand said:

To provide even a basic level of support for new aljs, ODAR would have to hire at least 300 staff. One clerk and one staff attorney to draft the decisions is an absolute minimum to be able to function at all effectively.

Concur. And that's if the ALJ is a normal producer. A highly productive ALJ that holds hearings all day can put out enough cases to keep 2 AA and 2 clerks busy.