SSA head’s 3-month plan touts workforce reductions while calling for identity and AI investment

The acting leadership of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, wants the agency to ramp up identity proofing and leverage more artificial intelligence, he told staff in an email Tuesday outlining a three-month plan for the agency. 

Dudek has been leading the agency since mid-February, when he was installed after the previous acting leadership left following clashes with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency over access to sensitive SSA data. Dudek was being investigated at the time for improperly sharing information with DOGE. 

“I have made some mistakes,” he wrote in the email, obtained by Nextgov/FCW. “I will continue to make mistakes, but I will learn from them.”

The agency has made headlines as it has shed employees, closed offices and worked with DOGE. Trump and Musk both have spread unsubstantiated claims about fraud in SSA.

On Tuesday, Dudek touted SSA’s enhanced data sharing across other agencies like the IRS to prevent improper payments, as well as the “successful processing” of buyouts — or voluntary separation incentive payments — as the agency looks to cut its workforce by about 7,000 employees. So far, about 2,700 employees have opted for the program, over 2,000 have been deemed eligible to do so and 1,400 have signed agreements to leave, Dudek wrote.

The agency is in a “good position to avoid reliance on involuntary reductions in our workforce for this fiscal year,” wrote Dudek, although he added that “we will continually assess our ability to meet our top priority to serve the public and use strategies such as reassignment to meet demand.”

Now, Dudek’s plans include beefing up on anti-fraud efforts, such as “leading with establishing state-of-the-art methods for identity proofing, which enables the public to securely interact with us online or over the phone.”

The agency already uses the government-provided Login.gov and private company ID.me for identity proofing for its online accounts. It’s reportedly considering changes to require anyone applying for benefits over the phone to first verify their identity online — or in person if they can’t complete the process digitally. It’s a move that could send thousands of customers to field offices.

The agency is also working on ending "non-essential contracts,” focusing IT contracts on “mission-critical work” and looking at “opportunities to streamline IT contracting,” according to the three-month plan, which also includes plans to use AI for online forms and signatures — the latter of which was also a focus of the Biden administration — and to “augment administrative/technical writing.” The agency is also “exploring ways to implement AI — in a safe, governed manner in accordance with OMB’s FedRAMP guidance — to streamline and improve call resolution.”

Trump has tapped a financial tech executive, Frank Bisignano, to lead the agency. The Senate Finance Committee will hold a nomination hearing for him next week. 

SSA didn’t immediately return a request for comment.