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SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

STATEMENT OF GWENDOLYN S. KING, COMMISSIONER

OPENING REMARKS

Senator HARKIN. We will now hear testimony from the Social Security Administration. And we welcome Gwendolyn King, the new Commissioner in her first appearance before the subcommittee.

For the first time in 5 years your agency is not requesting a staffing cut. Well, that is definitely a step in the right direction. But the bad news is the rate of telephone busy signals. Another piece of bad news is too many cases of wrongly removing SSI recipients from the roles and a persistent backlog in handling disability appeals-an area that you know I am very interested in.

It is not surprising that the survey your agency conducted last year revealed that most employees feel overwhelmed, that you face widespread morale problems. I can sure understand that. Projections of the elderly population indicate that the Social Security Administration's workload will continue to grow in the years ahead.

So, Commissioner King, welcome again to the subcommittee. Your statement will be made a part of the record in its entirety. I am going to ask you to highlight it, or to make those comments or statements that you think that we should pay the most attention

to.

SUMMARY OF REQUEST

Ms. KING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do have a brief statement I would like to read.

I am pleased to be here today to present the fiscal year 1991 appropriation requests of the Social Security Administration. These requests total $20.2 billion in budget authority. Those moneys will be utilized to administer the old-age, survivors and disability insurance programs, fund administrative costs and benefits under the Supplemental Security Income Program, provide special benefits for disabled coal miners and perform certain administrative functions for the Medicare Program.

In the full statement I have submitted for the record, I am providing the committee with the full breakdown of the appropriation requests. In the brief time I have I want to talk about the impact those funds will have on the Social Security Program and the millions of Americans who depend on it.

Social Security is unique among Federal programs because of the trust the public has invested in it, and because of the direct and vitally important effect it has on the lives and well-being of so many people. The Social Security Administration provides not only retirement support for Americans in their retirement years, but an entire package of social insurance protection. It provides protection

against the financial hardship which can accompany a disability or the premature death of a household breadwinner; and economically disadvantaged elderly, disabled and blind people look to SSA for basic minimum financial assistance.

We have the responsibility to provide every one of our beneficiaries the kind of compassionate, courteous, considerate, efficient and accurate service he or she deserves. We have the responsibility to protect the American people's investment in the Social Security trust funds, and to instill public confidence in SSA's programs.

We also have the responsibility to create an environment that assures an SSA work force that is highly skilled, motivated and dedicated to meeting the public's needs. Fulfilling those responsibilities, Mr. Chairman, is my goal as Commissioner of this Agency.

This appropriation request reflects the minimum resources necessary to achieve that goal. The budget request I am submitting will stabilize SSA's employment at about 63,000 full-time equivalents. This figure represents the culmination of 6 years of dramatic downsizing during which FTE levels dropped by more than 17,000. These employment reductions have saved the Government almost $2 billion and continue to save about $600 million annually. At the same time, though, public demand for service has increased, and new technology has been implemented to help meet those demands.

Mr. Chairman, Social Security numbers are now issued in about 10 days, down from 6 weeks just a few years ago. Annual earnings items are posted to workers' records in about 5 rather than 15 months. And, by processing 95 percent of all benefit claims through the modernized claims system, payments are made more efficiently and in a more timely way.

This budget requests that SSA's employment be stabilized at 63,000 full-time equivalents. It also reflects continuing productivity improvement and initiatives to control spending and find more efficient ways to operate. This budget also reflects the fact that I will be asking SSA's employees to reach farther and break new ground in the service we provide. One major priority will be SSI outreach. SSA's fiscal year 1991 systems budget focuses on critical needs, including improving the flexibility of the agency's programmatic software, automated data processing equipment and services for the State agencies which make disability determinations, and also basic support areas that have in recent years faced severe cutbacks.

And, Mr. Chairman, this budget enhances the nationwide tollfree telephone service SSA implemented in October of last year. While maintaining face-to-face service through our 1,300 field offices that people have trusted for so many years, the 800 number provides another option for people who like to make appointments to file claims, or handle other routine business.

SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUNDS

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a few words about the Social Security trust funds. Administrative expenses remain a small fraction of the overall trust fund operations. For fiscal year 1991, administrative expenses are estimated to be about eight

tenths of 1 percent of anticipated contribution income to the OASI and DI trust funds under current law and 1 percent of benefit payments.

The budget shows steadily increasing balances in the OASI and DI trust funds. To meet our obligation to tomorrow's elderly, and disabled and surviving families, the reserve level will be at $299 billion by the end of fiscal year 1991. On Monday, I testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the subject of trust funds and their relationship to the deficit.

I want to repeat something I said at that hearing. As Commissioner of Social Security, I have a unique responsibility to ensure that any discussion of Social Security and its reserves enhance and not erode public understanding of and confidence in the Social Security system. This appropriation request is intended to maintain a program that deserves the public's confidence.

It also reflects my commitment to the employees of the Social Security Administration whom I have asked to enter into a partnership with me to ensure the efficient operation of this program. Social Security has paid benefits each month on time for the last 50 years. It will continue to do so.

I also want to work in partnership with you and your colleagues, Mr. Chairman, to deliver quality public service and to safeguard the Social Security Programs for our current and future beneficiaries.

I would be pleased now to answer any questions you have.

Senator HARKIN. Thank you very much for your statement and for completing a good first year on the job.

Ms. KING. Thank you, sir.

SSI OUTREACH

Senator HARKIN. I want to talk a little bit about the SSI outreach program. The 1990 appropriation included $3.5 million for this new program. What have you done to implement this program?

Ms. KING. Mr. Chairman, SSI outreach, as you probably have heard, is one of my priorities. We have just published in the Federal Register a notice requesting ideas on the content of priority areas for grants and cooperative agreements to facilitate outreach to our most vulnerable citizens. In the interim we have been holding a number of forums with community organizations that are in a good position to be partners with us as we attempt to identify people in their local communities who are eligible for this very important program.

One of the things that we are very keen on is ensuring cooperation with our sister agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. To that end, we have effected a memorandum of understanding with the Administration on Aging, which I know was an agency you were interested in seeing participate in this effort, as well as with the Health Care Financing Administration. We have stated clearly what our individual and collective efforts should be, so that we are not duplicating effort. We want there to be a clear understanding of our outreach plans not only at central office in Baltimore, but out in each one of the communities we are

expected to serve around the Nation. We are working in cooperation with community groups already in place and eager to work with us.

What we are trying to put in place is a system that will be there long after the dollars for this outreach effort are gone. We hope that we will seed those communities so that they will blossom forth a number of activities geared toward identifying low-income elderly, blind, disabled adults and children, and homeless people-all those who may be eligible for this very important program. As long as one eligible person goes without help, then we have a lot of work to do.

Senator HARKIN. You will do all on this on $3.5 million?

Ms. KING. I believe that the important thing we are finding out-and I have been out there in the community, Mr. Chairman, and I have talked to people from Boston to Seattle-the important thing for us is not primarily the money. It is tapping into those points of light that exist in every community, that are reaching out to people in need, and making sure they know that we-Social Security-stand ready to take that application, ready to assist that person to get into the mainstream.

What we are doing with our dollars is simply removing barriers at this point, and encouraging as many people to participate in this program as possible. It is working. We will see at the end of this year a number of proposals from community organizations that we have invited to come in and try to help us. Then, by the end of next fiscal year, I think we will have a good bit of information about what else we need to do to ensure that we have tapped into all those resources in communities that have existed for a long time, but may not have known about SSI, and may not have known that, indeed, Social Security Administration employees do leave their offices to go to where people are, to take that claim, and to help people enroll in the program.

Senator HARKIN. By when did you say?

MS. KING. We are going to be letting contracts this year, and we will have a good deal of information about how we are doing in SSI outreach by this time next year.

Some of those projects that we will pay for may indeed need to go for more than a year's period of time. So that information may be coming in a little more slowly. But we are already gathering not only information, but a good deal of interest. We are tapping into the biggest resource that we could tap into, and that is those community organizations, our area agencies on aging, all those groups that are currently in place in communities. We are letting them know about us.

The other thing we have on the drawing board, that we will be launching very shortly, is an extensive public affairs campaign which is going out through our 1,300 field offices to let people know about SSI outreach. I, 2 weeks ago, launched an SSI outreach project in cooperation with AARP in Essex County, NJ, which I believe is really going to reach into that community and find people who are eligible for our program and bring them into the program. We are doing that all over the country, as you know.

RESOURCES FOR OUTREACH

Senator HARKIN. So, the $3.5 million that you got in fiscal year 1990 is sufficient to cover for fiscal year 1991 also?

Ms. KING. What I am saying is that we have yet to▬▬

Senator HARKIN. It is not in your budget request. That is what I am saying.

Ms. KING. We have yet to expend the $3 million provided to us this year. And with the resources AOA and HCFA are also putting into this effort, the Department of Health and Human Services is spending well over $3.5 million for outreach.

The bottom line though is that while we are getting ready to go flat out with this program, by the time we review those proposals that come in to us as a result of the notice we have published in the Federal Register and make awards, most of those activities will not be getting up and running until toward the end of this year. Then we will be working throughout the year with those grantees, to ensure that the outreach efforts are ongoing.

You will be hearing more from us later, Mr. Chairman, probably this time next year. Currently, we are on a good track. I think one of the things we have not done is that we have not flashed the bucks and encouraged people to come to us who have no interest in participating in this program.

We really do have people who are committed to working within their communities to identify people for this important program, and we want to work with them.

Senator HARKIN. Well, I hope you are right. But I feel like you have just sort of pushed your finger into a balloon. All those funds for those other agencies come through this subcommittee too. Ms. KING. Yes.

Senator HARKIN. They are strapped for personnel. You are telling me your workload is going up. And you are down to the bare bones in the number of people you have got, the same thing is true in a lot of those other human service agencies. Now, they say they want to do outreach for SSI, you want to shift the burden to them, and let those points of light go out there and do all the outreach, and they are going to come back to us and say we need more money.

Ms. KING. What we have done, I think, by our memorandum of understanding is quite to the contrary. What we have done is to identify for each agency exactly what it is we are doing, to cut down on duplication, to ensure that we are working in sync with each other. We are working cooperatively to get our message out in those communities, and I think you are going to see a better result. Senator HARKIN. I sure hope so. But I happen to know what it is like to go out for SSI outreach. That is not simply a matter of getting on the radio, or putting a nice poster some place and saying, if you are eligible for SSI call. These people do not know if they are eligible for SSI.

You've got to sit down with people. A lot of times it takes a case worker to actually go out to someone's house. A lot of times, these are people that do not come into community centers. They do not go to congregate meal programs. You have got to go out and actually get them. And a case worker has to sit down and find out if they

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