Coalition calls for more Social Security funding and oversight

The American Federation of Government Employees and advocacy groups representing progressives and senior citizens called on Congress Tuesday to increase funding for the Social Security Administration and to pass legislation that would give lawmakers greater oversight of the agency's staff levels, office closures and budgets.

"In fiscal 2008, we received a slight increase over the president's budget, but the previous 10 years, Congress appropriated less than the president asked for, and the president asked for less than what we need to service the country," AFGE Council of Social Security Administration Operations Locals President Witold Skwierczynski said. "Our staffing levels are the lowest they've been since 1972; we have slipped below 60,000 employees."

SSA officials did not return requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.

President Bush proposed an $8.4 billion budget for the agency in fiscal 2009, a 5 percent increase from his fiscal 2008 proposal, but Skwierczynski said the groups would like to see $11 billion in funding to make up for staff cuts and the closure of 17 field offices last year. Ed Coyle, executive director for the Alliance of Retired Americans, said the latest budget proposal was $100 million less than Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue requested.

Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, a liberal advocacy group in Washington that grew out of opposition to Bush's failed attempts at Social Security reform in 2005, said budget cuts and office closings amounted to a covert attempt to change the nature of the agency.

But the president's fiscal 2009 budget request would target the extra funds to areas directly impacting beneficiaries. For instance, the proposal would fund efforts to expedite benefits to the neediest applicants and to hire more administrative law judges and support staff to improve processing of disability appeals. H.R. 5110, a bill introduced by Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., and supported by AFGE, Americans United and ARA, would require the Social Security commissioner to submit a budget directly to Congress and the president, but eliminate the president's power to change that request, notify Congress 90 days before revising the agency's workforce plan and justify office closures 180 days before they would go into effect.

The provision related to closing offices is particularly important to AFGE, Skwierczynski said.

"Populations affected by these closings are seniors, widows, the disabled or the poor who are least likely to possess alternative means of transportation and less likely to use Internet services," he said. "SSA emphasizes that bricks and mortar are expensive, security guards are expensive, but the union says people deserve the option of face-to-face service when filing complex claims for benefits that will affect their financial security for the rest of their lives."