l United States General Accounting O;L”Iice ) Report to Congressional Requesters iiA0mI - March 1987 SOCIAL SECURITY Staff Reductions and Sertice Quakilyy 132662 538+23> GAO/HRD-8766 unitedstate5 General Accountind Office Wa&in#on,D,C.Ulbae Iiuman Re5ource5 Dlvidon B-2264$4 March lo,1987 The Honorable Lawton Chiles, Chairman Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Eklucation Committee on Appropriations United States Senate The Honorable William H. Natcher, Chairman Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives This is the first of three required reports on Social Security Administration (SSA) staff reductions and the quality of service SSAprovides to the public. The other two reports will be forwarded to you later this year. This report (1) discusseschanges in traditional SSAservice level indicators, such as payment accuracy and claim processing time; (2) analyzes current and past SSA staffing levels; (3) presents the views of 9s~employees, managers, and clients on the quality of SBAservice; (4) analyzes workloads and processing times for 16 SSAfield offices that experienced significant staff reductions; and (6) examines ss~ staff reduction actions in implementing its fiscal year 1987 budget. As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from its issue date. At that time, we will send copies to other interested congressionalcommittees and members; the Secretary of Health and Human Services;the Director, Office of Management and Budget; the Commissioner, @IA;and other interested parties. We will also make copies available to others upon request. zYb--Ja- I Richard L. Fogel Assistant Comptroller General . i Executive Summary In January 1986, the administration announcedits intention to reduce Social Security Administration (8s~) staff by 17,000, or 21 percent, through fiscal year 1990. Becausesuch cuts could adversely affect SSA service, the House Appropriations Committee asked s9~to report quar- terly on its service levels. In the summer of 1986-because of concernsexpressed about the objec- tivity of a’s selfevaluation-the Senate and House Appropriations Commlttee!sasked GAO to report on SSAservice. This is the first of three reporb to be prepared for the Committees in 1987. This report examines: (1) the quality of 88~service, (2) the effect of staff reductions on service, and (3) the nature and extent of past and planned staff reductions. Bt$ck@ound The terms “service” and “quality” are broad and mean different things to different people. For this reason, GAO examined 88~quality of service from a number of different perspectives. Firat, 0~0 examined the data ~BAregularly accumulates to measure per- , formance. These data show how accurately BBApays and processes claims; how long it takea to process initial claims and appeals of 88~ decision& the amount of work waiting to be processed;and how long clients wait in 88~field offices before being served, CIAOalao surveyed SWclients, managers, and employees.89~ clients were asked their opinions on the quality of 88~sex-v& 88~employees and mid-level managers were questioned about the quality of 88~service and the effect of staff reductions. To determine whether there was any indication that staff reductions have had a significant adverse effect on service quality, GAOalso visited 16 88~district and branch offices that experienced an ‘average26- percent reduction in staff over the last 3 years. At thqae offices, GAO obtained employees’ perspectives and reviewed data on processing times and workloads. To identify the extent of actual staff reductions, GAO detmmined where the reductions took place and the types of positions affected. GAO also examined 88Aplans for carrying out staff reductions for fiscal year 1987. SSA’Straditional performance measuresthrough December 1986 gener- Resultsin Brief ally show stable performance since fiscal year 1984-the year before the start of the staff reduction program. Similarly, about 80 percent of SSAclients GAO surveyed said that overall the quality of SSAservice was l3@xl* Most SSAemployees and SSAmanagers said service or performance was good, but most in both groups said staff reductions have had an adverse effect on operations. In the 16 offices GAO visited, the data analyzed gen- erally indicated service levels comparable to the levels provided by all SSAoffices nationally, with one exception-a significant increase in mean processingtime for claims for Supplemental Security Income for the blind and disabled. The increase however does not appear to be related to field office staff reductions. Concerning staff reductions, in fiscal year 1987-because of reductions in its budget-m is planning to reduce work-year use significantly below the levels suggestedby the Congress.Overall, the 6 year staff reduction program is on schedule. Principal Findings Traditiona, Performance Accuracy rates have generally remained stable since fiscal year 1984, Indicators GeneralllyShow according to ss~ data. Payment accuracy for the Retirement and Survi- Stability vors Insurance program, for example, was 99.6 percent of the total dol- lars paid in fiscal years 1984 and 1986 and increased to 99.6 percent in fiscal year 1986. b Processingtime for initial claims and appeals have generally improved, except for disability-related claims. Times for disability claims have increased becauseof the additional time required by state disability agenciesto implement 1984 legislative changesfor mental impairment cases. With few exceptions’ nationally the backlogs for SSA’Smajor workloads are down substantially from 1984 levels. According to SSA,the average time claimants wait in SSAfield offices before being interviewed declined steadily from the January-March 1986 quarter through the December 1986 quarter-from a reported 12.3 \’ . i Esacutlva summuy to 7.2 minutes. GAO,however, believes that wait times are understated becausenot all waiting time is measured and some field offices give spe- cial attention to reducing wait times when they are measured for study purposes. (Seech, 2) S&i Clients View Service as The preliminary results of a November 1986 GAO survey show that about 86 percent of SsAclients view SsAservice overall as good to very good. These results are comparable to the results of an identical survey I done by GAOin 1984. (Seech. 3) St&+Personnel Say Service About 88 percent of managers GAO surveyed in 1986 said that the per- W but ReductionsAre formance of their units had improved or was comparable to service Hahg Adverse Effect levels 3 years earlier. Similarly, 87 percent of employees said that ser- vice was the same or better than it was 3 years earlier. For those who said their units lost staff (66 percent of employees and 66 percent of managers), most said the staff reductions have causedprob- lems. Fifty-six percent of these employees said that staff reductions have had a negative effect on the ability of their units to produce quality work, citing in particular lower morale and increased stress. For the managers who lost staff, 71 percent said the reductions had a nega- tive effect on their operations, citing in general decreasedquality of work and decreasedproductivity. Further, 64 percent of all managers said they were understaffed. (Seech. 3) 16 @eldOffices-Service For the 16 field offices, GAO examined data on processingtune for four Detjeriorationin OneAspect types of benefit claims and data on pending workloads. GAO found signif- b Noted icant deterioration in service for the time to process Supplemental 1 Security Income claims for the blind and disabled, which on average 1 increased about 23 days-from 74 to 97 days. For all offices nationally, the increase in time for these claims was only 4 days. The principal reason for the larger increase in the 16 field offices is the relatively higher processing tunes of two state disability agencies(New York and New Jersey) which make medical determinations for S of the 16 offices. (see ch. 4) Since fiscal year 1984, SSAreduced its total work-year use about 8 per- cent. Staff reductions were largest in the Office of Disability Operations (14 percent) and the Program Service Centers (13 percent). In 88~field offices, data review technicians were reduced the most-about 23 percent. From fiscal year 1984 through fiscal year 1986, sq~field office staffii declined 3.3 percent. While 68 percent of @A’Sapproximately 1,300 field offices had a net loss of staff for the period, 28 percent had a net staff gain, and 14 percent did not have any change. Most offices losing staff through fiscal year 1986 lost less than 10 percent of their staff. (See ch. 6) SSAIncreasing 1987 Staff Becauseof budgetary shortfalls totaling $284 million, &A plans to signif- Reductions icantly reduce its fiscal year 1987 work-year use by about 6,300 below the 78,680 suggestedby the Congress.SSA has stated, however, that it will monitor service closely and increase work-year use if necessary. (See ch. 6) Staff Rdu($,ion on &he&& &IA’sproposed fiscal year 1988 budget would reduce staffiig by an addi- tional 2,464 full-time equivalent positions. Such reduction would bring the total for the first 4 years of the 6-year staff reduction program to 10,606, or 13.3 percent below 1984 levels, and put the reduction on schedule through the first 4 years. Recommendations GAO is making no recommendations. I Concerning waiting time in field offices, SSAacknowledged that reported