Martin O'Malley resigned his post as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. His last day is Nov 29. Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images
O'Malley: SSA’s 2024 progress refutes government doubters
Under the commissioner’s tenure, Social Security has seen marked improvements in its customer service metrics despite continually mounting workloads and dwindling funding.
Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley on Wednesday described his nearly a year in charge of the embattled agency responsible for administering Americans’ retirement and disability benefits as one of the “greatest honors” of his career in government and politics.
Tapped by President Biden last fall–and confirmed by the Senate that December–to turn around an agency in the midst of a customer service crisis, borne mostly by decades of budgetary neglect, O’Malley quickly implemented SecurityStat, the latest iteration of his approach to performance management at the state and local levels, and solicited more than 16,000 suggestions from agency employees for process improvements through a new EngageSSA web portal.
Following Donald Trump’s election earlier this month, O’Malley announced he would resign his post at the end of November and seek the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. His last day is Friday.
O’Malley told Government Executive on Wednesday that he was “enormously proud” of the agency’s beleaguered workforce, which was able to find significant customer service improvements despite operating at a 50-year staffing low and serving the most beneficiaries in history. Average wait times on the agency’s 1-800 number fell from more than 40 minutes last November to 12.8 minutes last month; the ratio of people receiving retirement, survivor or Medicare benefits within two weeks of applying hit a four-year high; and the time it takes to receive a disability hearing has fallen from 368 days last November to 280 days last month.
“My high-end message is this: anyone who says that the federal government can’t work is wrong,” he said. “We proved them wrong, despite enormous constraints . . . At a time when trust in public institutions is in decline, to witness what we did up there will always be one of the greatest honors of my life. I’m very proud of what the employees of Social Security did in such a short period of time.”
At least some of that progress is sustainable, regardless of funding levels or whether the next commissioner chooses to retain O’Malley’s SecurityStat performance management system and biweekly meeting structure, he said. He pointed to the migration to a new service provider for the agency’s 1-800 number, which he said provides much better–and faster–data analytics and has allowed Social Security to implement tools like automatic callbacks and chatbot assistants, both standard practices in the private sector.
And the public’s preference for telephonic and video disability hearings–with 90% of new requests being through those avenues–has made it easier to optimize administrative law judges’ workloads regardless of geographic location.
The agency’s focus this year on making improvements wherever possible has seen marked results in its performance in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Though OPM has yet to release its full report on the 2024 survey, O’Malley said Social Security saw a 50% increase in survey participation, and a 3-point increase in its employee engagement index.
Jim Borland, the agency’s assistant deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, said he will be retiring after a 40-year career in the federal government next month, and that this final year was “the most fun” he’s had at work in those four decades.
“In my 40 years, this is as close to what good government looks like as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The turnaround, particularly on the 800 number, was a matter of taking a measured risk and not doing things the way we’ve always done them. Getting access to that commercial call center technology allowed us to take advantage of efficiencies built into it . . . and it’s had a significant impact on agency operations.”
But continued improvements will require Congress to set aside more money for the agency. The current continuing resolution, which runs until next month funded the agency at fiscal 2024 levels, which is already hamstringing those efforts. Fixed costs, such as employee salaries, health care premiums and rent, increase by around $600 million per year for the agency.
“We’re constantly trying to sprint up a downward escalator,” O’Malley said. “When Congress only gives us a three-month budget [at last year’s level] that’s effectively putting us in a position of a hiring freeze across much of the agency, with very limited ability to backfill against attrition.”
O’Malley said he believes lawmakers are beginning to understand that Social Security needs more attention in the budget process–this year marked the first in more than a decade that committees in both the House and Senate held hearings to discuss the agency’s funding needs. But Federal News Network reported that Alabama Republican Robert Aderholt, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, continues to insist that the agency overuses overtime and telework.
“First of all, we’ve used less overtime than we ever had, and we use it like a police department does–to respond to spikes, because we don’t think it’s right that people should die waiting for their benefits,” he said. “[And] it’s hard to look at all of the productivity gains and customer service improvements and conclude that somehow we’re all lazy [while on telework]. The biggest drag on our performance isn’t our telework/on-site balance, it’s reducing staffing to a 50-year low.”