[Senate Hearing 113-902]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 113-902

                       REDUCTION IN FACE-TO-FACE
                         SERVICES AT THE SOCIAL
                        SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             WASHINGTON, DC

                               __________

                             JUNE 18, 2014

                               __________

                           Serial No. 113-23

         Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
         
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-914 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                      SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

                     BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri           BOB CORKER, Tennessee
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      MARK KIRK, Illinois
JOE MANCHIN III West Virginia        DEAN HELLER, Nevada
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana                TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      TED CRUZ, Texas
JOHN E. WALSH, Montana
                              ----------                              
                  Kim Lipsky, Majority Staff Director
               Priscilla Hanley, Minority Staff Director
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Opening Statement of Senator Bill Nelson, Chairman...............     1
Opening Statement of Senator Susan M. Collins, Ranking Member....     3
Opening Statement of Senator Tim Scott, Committee Member.........     4

                           PANEL OF WITNESSES

Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social 
  Security Administration........................................     5
Scott Hale, President, National Council of Social Security 
  Management Associations........................................     7
Tammy DeLong, Aroostook Area Agency on Aging.....................     9
Brenda Holt, Commissioner........................................    11

                                APPENDIX
                      Prepared Witness Statements

Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social 
  Security Administration........................................    29
Scott Hale, President, National Council of Social Security 
  Management Associations........................................    37
Tammy DeLong, Aroostook Area Agency on Aging.....................    43
Brenda Holt, Commissioner........................................    50

                        Questions for the Record

Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social 
  Security Administration........................................    55

                       Statements for the Record

Senator Benjamin L. Cardin.......................................    63
Max Richtman, President and CEO, National Committee to Preserve 
  Social Security and Medicare...................................    64
Witold Skwierczynski, President, National Council of Social 
  Security Field Operations Locals, AFGE, AFL-CIO................    67
Special Committee on Aging Staff Investigation Report--Reduction 
  in Face-to-Face Services at the Social Security Administration.    78

 
                       REDUCTION IN FACE-TO-FACE
                         SERVICES AT THE SOCIAL
                        SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2014

                                       U.S. Senate,
                                Special Committee on Aging,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:19 p.m., Room 
562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson, Chairman 
of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Nelson, Collins, and Scott.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR 
                     BILL NELSON, CHAIRMAN

    The Chairman. Good afternoon. Thank you for all gathering 
here on an important topic today.
    We have held several hearings highlighting the importance 
of Social Security and laying out some of the rather staggering 
statistics about how many seniors rely heavily on Social 
Security benefits. About a quarter of married couples and about 
half of single people depend on Social Security for at least--
and this is astounding--at least 90 percent of their retirement 
income, so given that important role of Social Security 
especially for the quality of life of our seniors, we are 
holding this hearing today to ensure that all the services 
supporting this program continue to serve this important 
demographic population.
    You know, the way I was raised was that it was the 
responsibility of a society to take care of the very young and 
the very old.
    Now, for most Social Security beneficiaries, the field 
office is still the source not just for clearing up issues 
having to do with their monthly payments or filing for benefits 
at the very outset, but for a whole range of services that can 
help them verify their identity or obtain critical social 
services.
    Like so many Federal agencies, Congress in recent years has 
asked the Social Security Administration to do more with less. 
At a time when the younger part of the baby-boom generation is 
reaching its most disability prone years and the older part is 
hitting retirement age of that baby-boom generation, the Social 
Security Administration received a total of nearly $3 billion 
less than the President requested over a three-year period.
    They have lost 11,000 workers, and we will enter into the 
record a statement from the American Federation of Governmental 
Employees that talks about how its workers have been impacted 
and the concerns moving forward, so it was no wonder that SSA 
decided to look for other ways to cut back. They reduced the 
amount of time offices are open to the public--the equivalent 
of a full day every week. They stopped mailing benefit 
statements to educate the public about their earned benefits. 
They introduced plans to stop providing other key services that 
help low-income Americans to get public supports like housing 
subsidies or heating assistance.
    I think it is a legitimate question: Is this a death by a 
thousand cuts that an agency known for its great service could 
be undercutting its mission?
    Most of this has been done with very little consultation of 
the Congress, or I might say the reverse as well, and most of 
this has been done without consultation with the impacted 
communities, so we are going to focus on the field office 
closures, and over the last five years, SSA has shut down more 
field offices than at any other five-year period in the 
agency's history, so this Committee, thanks for the leadership 
of Senator Collins, undertook a bipartisan investigation--
notice I said ``bipartisan''--why the closures. We hoped to 
learn more about Social Security's process and how it decides 
which field offices to close and which ones serve a vital role 
in their communities. We asked for all the documents explaining 
each of the 63 closures since 2010, but all the SSA was able to 
provide us were the documents for offices that were closed in 
the last year and a half, and that was 25 of the 63 offices, so 
I am entering into the record today the investigation that is 
reported by the staff.
    Now, here is what we learned: The Social Security 
Administration is not talking to the people on the ground in 
these communities, including the field office managers, the 
employees, and the other stakeholders. Sometimes they talk to 
them, but it is after they have made the decision to go ahead 
and close it. They do not do any kind of analysis on what would 
happen to a community when their field office closes, including 
figuring out how the most vulnerable populations would make 
their way to the next closest office. Certain pieces of 
information are not on record anywhere in the documents. And 
all of that is contained right here. SSA did not note in some 
communities that public transportation from the closed area to 
the existing open office, that that public transportation was 
virtually nonexistent, and at a time when the agency is pushing 
more people online to conduct their business--a good thing--but 
there was not an examination of whether people in the vacated 
communities actually use the Internet and in what numbers, and 
so it is a process that lacks rigor, transparency, and 
sufficient information to make a real decision.
    Now, we are going to hear from the SSA today, and it is my 
hope that when we leave here, there will be a plan to actually 
ensure that the most vulnerable populations are not left out in 
the cold. That is certainly the feeling that exists today in 
Gadsden County, Florida, where Social Security picked up shop 
with little notice and not a lot of thought about how to serve 
this particularly poor and rural community in North Florida, 
and we are going to hear from officials about that in the 
course of this hearing.
    Let me turn to my great co-leader, Senator Collins.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR 
                SUSAN M. COLLINS, RANKING MEMBER

    Senator Collins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
applaud your holding this hearing on a topic of great concern 
to all of us, and that is, the impact on the beneficiaries of 
Social Security of the Social Security Administration's 
reduction of person-to-person services. What we have seen 
instead is the closure of field offices and the restriction on 
the hours of operations.
    Despite an increased caseload resulting from the retirement 
of baby boomers and the expansion of the SSDI population, in 
the past five years the Social Security Administration has 
closed 64 of approximately 1,245 field offices--the largest 
field office reduction in its history--and has shuttered 533 
temporary mobile offices. It has also reduced field office 
hours and began closing field offices at noon on Wednesdays as 
of 2013.
    This has special significance in my State of Maine. Nearly 
one in four Maine residents--about 315,000 people--receives 
retirement, survivor, or disability benefits through the Social 
Security Administration. These citizens are now served by eight 
field offices located throughout our State, where trained staff 
help them get important documents and sort through the 
complexities of the Social Security and Medicare programs so 
that they can apply for and get the benefits to which they are 
entitled.
    Until recently, there were nine field offices in Maine. In 
2011, however, the Social Security Administration closed the 
Rumford office in western Maine, replacing it with a two-way 
video monitor located at the town library, connected to the 
nearest remaining Social Security field office, about 50 miles 
away, in Auburn, Maine.
    The SSA has been pushing for years to reduce the face-to-
face services it provides through its field offices and to 
force beneficiaries to interact with the agency online or over 
the telephone. While I do not object to providing services in 
this way when it is appropriate and where it is appropriate, I 
am concerned that the agency has not sought public input and 
that, as the Chairman has pointed out, it is not taking into 
account the impact on the beneficiaries that they are supposed 
to be serving.
    I am particularly troubled to learn of a draft strategic 
plan prepared for the SSA by the National Academy of Public 
Administrators called ``Vision 2025.'' This plan, which will 
not be published until this fall, proposes that the SSA shift 
from face-to-face services to online systems as the primary 
means of serving beneficiaries over the next 11 years.
    This is completely unrealistic. The fact of the matter is 
millions of seniors and disabled Americans are not accustomed 
to doing business online, and particularly in rural areas, such 
as northern Maine where I come from originally, many do not 
have access to computers or high-speed Internet.
    Even as computer and broadband technologies become more 
widespread, the idea that the Social Security Administration 
can serve beneficiaries primarily online ignores the very real 
needs of the senior and disabled populations, and that is why I 
am particularly pleased that Tammy DeLong will be here today to 
testify before us. Tammy serves as the Medicare specialist for 
the Aroostook Area Agency on Aging. That is located in Presque 
Isle, Maine, in northern Maine, where she works closely with 
the local SSA field office. Tammy estimates that she handled 
1,400 senior citizen clients last year alone. She knows our 
seniors and our disabled citizens from firsthand experience and 
can explain why the loss of face-to-face services imposes a 
real hardship for many of them.
    I am also, like the Chairman, concerned by the lack of 
transparency in the Social Security Administration's process 
for closing field offices or reducing their hours. The 2014 
appropriations omnibus legislation directed the SSA to report 
its policies and procedures for closing and consolidating field 
offices, and the agency submitted a report last month listing 
six major factors it claims to examine in making its decisions.
    In reviewing information about recent field office 
closures, however, our Committee staff was unable to confirm 
that the SSA had followed its very own procedures. Moreover, 
the agency does not appear to seek out or allow for public 
input until after a decision to close an office has been made--
essentially presenting the local community and its citizens 
with a fait accompli. This must change.
    Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this important 
hearing, and I look forward to hearing from all of our 
witnesses today.
    The Chairman. Now, this will be one of many ways that we 
will get into this issue. There will be an appointee later on 
as the Administrator of SSA, and, of course, from the 
standpoint of the confirmation process in the Finance 
Committee, we will get into this further at that point.
    Senator Scott.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR 
                  TIM SCOTT, COMMITTEE MEMBER

    Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make a brief 
opening comment, and then I will run to another hearing and 
come back.
    I wanted to say, first and foremost, to you, Senator Nelson 
and Senator Collins, thank you so much for holding such an 
important meeting, hearing. As opposed to trying to repeat what 
you all have already said so well, I just want to give an 
example to go along with your comments and perhaps that will 
distill and crystallize the importance of this very important 
hearing.
    My grandfather, who is 93 years old, and I, at 48 years 
old--I know you thought I was 28, Mrs. Collins, so that is 
okay.
    We both share one really important challenge. We like to 
have face-to-face conversations when doing business, and my 
grandfather still drives his pickup truck, and he enjoys 
driving to the office and having a meeting with folks, and this 
is a part of the life that he has always grown up with, and he 
passed it on to his younger grandson, and so when we heard 
about the Camden, South Carolina, office closing, I was 
chatting with some folks about that because folks called me 
about it. I thought to myself, well, my grandfather does not 
live in Camden, and I do not want to leave that impression. 
Thinking about men and women in his generation, some are at 88 
years old, 89 years old, one of his friends on Facebook, 
technological savvy beyond recognition. I am trying to catch up 
with those young fellas who are just enjoying the new world of 
technology. There are some within the generation who truly 
appreciate the individual interaction, and they have grown 
accustomed to it. I think that is something worth preserving.
    What I hope to hear is, A, answers to the question of 
transparency; B, a little deference to those folks, the 
Greatest Generation, who perhaps saved peace and liberty 
throughout the world, giving them a little more deference to 
how we respond to the transition to what is obviously a 
technological world that we are going to have to embrace, even 
I am going to have to embrace at some point. My staff wants me 
to get rid of my rotary phone, but I do not want to do that 
yet.
    The truth is, though, that so many folks are stuck quickly 
moving into a new world without real recognition that there are 
many of us who like the way things are, and I think finding the 
equilibrium on behalf of our seniors, on behalf of the greatest 
generation, is what I hope and anticipate that we will be able 
to, A, recognize; B, figure out how to do so; and, C, will do 
that in a way that is respectful and is cost-effective. 
Frankly, there are a lot of things that we can do in the back 
room that does not stop the interfacing with people to use 
technology in a way that reduces our cost while remaining open 
for business to those folks who want to come in.
    I hope we find a way to do all those things, and I 
understand the budgetary pressures are amazing and tough, but 
we also have to make sure that we remember who we serve and why 
we serve them.
    With that, I will be happy to come back if I have an 
opportunity. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    First, we are going to hear from Nancy Berryhill. Ms. 
Berryhill is Deputy Commissioner for Operations at the Social 
Security Administration.
    Then Scott Hale. Mr. Hale is the president of the National 
Council of Social Security Management Associations. He manages 
a field office in Mobile, Alabama.
    Then Tammy DeLong, and as Senator Collins has already 
introduced her, Medicare specialist for the Aroostook Agency of 
Aging in Presque Isle, Maine, and then Brenda Holt. Ms. Holt is 
a county commissioner in Gadsden County, Florida, which I 
mentioned in my remarks.
    We will start with you, Ms. Berryhill. Your remarks are 
entered into the record, if you would summarize them, and then 
we will get into questions after everybody.

                STATEMENT OF NANCY A. BERRYHILL,

              DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR OPERATIONS,

                 SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

    Ms. Berryhill. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and 
members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss 
Social Security's service delivery. I am Nancy Berryhill, the 
Deputy Commissioner for Operations.
    I am pleased to discuss our service delivery as someone who 
has experienced field operations firsthand. I worked over 30 
years serving the public, first as a student employee, and then 
a claims representative, operations supervisor, and district 
manager.
    I want to state up front that we are committed, now and in 
the future, to a field office structure that provides face-to-
face service for those who need it and want it. However, as 
customer expectations change, we must balance that need with 
the needs of those who prefer alternative service options. In 
response, we have expanded our service options in recent years 
to meet the needs and reality of today's world.
    As an agency, we continuously examine our field office 
structure to balance service across the country. Each year, we 
conduct an annual review of our field office structure to 
determine if the size, location, and service levels continue to 
be responsive to the needs of the community.
    When making these decisions, we review many factors, 
including impact on the public, stakeholders, and employees; 
demographics of the service area; proximity of the SSA offices; 
staffing; geography; and lease expirations.
    After conducting this thorough review, we may decide to 
make no changes, open a new office, expand an existing office, 
or consolidate an office. Even if we decide to consolidate an 
office, our service to that community does not stop. In 
addition to visiting the new office location, the public has 
several other options for convenient service. I would like to 
discuss three service delivery alternatives: the phone, online, 
and video services.
    Toll-free telephone service has been available nationwide 
for over 25 years. On June 10th, we set a new milestone when an 
agent answered our one billionth call. In fiscal year 2013, we 
served over 54 million callers through the national 800 number.
    In fiscal year 2013, we received nearly half of all Social 
Security retirement and disability applications via the 
Internet, up from 10 percent just a few years ago. This 
illustrates the changing expectations of the public I spoke 
about earlier.
    Today many people routinely conduct other business online 
and expect the same level of service from their Government. The 
number of people who choose to file online continues to grow. 
Our websites consistently rank among the top online Government 
services and either match or outperform highly rated commercial 
sites.
    In 2012, we created our My Social Security online portal, 
which customers can use to conduct their business. Since 
launching My Social Security, over 12.3 million individuals 
have registered, with 40 percent being age 62 or older.
    In addition, we have expanded our video service delivery. 
Video can serve applicants in areas who might otherwise have to 
travel long distances to reach a field office. In 2013, we 
conducted over 181,000 video interviews, double the amount held 
the previous year.
    I can personally attest to the advantages and benefits of 
video service. I initiated video service delivery 10 years ago 
in the Denver Region as an innovative way to serve many of the 
region's rural and underserved communities, including American 
Indian reservations.
    In summary, alternative options of video and online 
services increase self-service opportunities for individuals 
who prefer to do business in that manner. By increasing self-
service options, we are then freeing up resources to help those 
who prefer to conduct business in person or over the phone.
    I want to reiterate that we remain fully committed to 
providing face-to-face service both now and in the future. The 
President's fiscal year 2015 budget will allow us to balance 
service to the public and meet our program integrity 
obligations. Without timely, adequate, and sustained funding, 
we simply cannot maintain the quality of service the public 
expects and deserves.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify on SSA's 
multifaceted service delivery approach. I will be glad to 
answer any questions you have. Thank you.
    The Chairman. I agree with you, Ms. Berryhill. The Congress 
has got to do its part, so do you. Why no information on 38 of 
the 63 closures since 2010?
    Ms. Berryhill. Do you want me to respond now?
    The Chairman. Yes.
    Ms. Berryhill. Well, first of all, we have certainly shared 
the information. We share it in advance, usually 90 days in 
advance, to alert the public, to alert Congress that we are 
closing an office. We also offer alternative service--as I 
mentioned three of these--by phone, video, Internet.
    I have to tell you that video service delivery--and our 
very first rollout was in an Indian reservation, Turtle 
Mountain in North Dakota, and we connected that site 112 miles 
away to Minot, North Dakota. We had no idea if that was going 
to work.
    The Chairman. If I were you, I would be doing the same 
thing, and I think the video is a good idea, but that is not 
the question. The question is: You closed 63 offices, 38 of 
which had no documentation that was provided to us, and the 
question is: Why?
    Ms. Berryhilll. I became full-time in this position last 
August, and when I got this position, what I wanted to do is I 
reviewed the documentation. It was not consistent, and so we 
put in place a rigorous process that had consistent 
documentation and that also had a community outreach plan or 
communications plan, if you will, so I understand your 
question, and I agree with that, which is why it was important 
for me to put a process in place that I could review the 
documentation. It starts with our area directors who oversee 
multiple managers----
    The Chairman. Let me interrupt you, because I want to get 
on to the others, so the answer is, when you came in a year 
ago----
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes.
    The Chairman. [continuing]. There was no documentation for 
those 38 offices?
    Ms. Berryhill. There was some documentation, but not the 
documentation that was consistent, in my opinion.
    The Chairman. We would like for you to provide that to the 
Committee.
    Ms. Berryhill. Okay. I would be glad to do that.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Hale.

         STATEMENT OF SCOTT HALE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 
       COUNCIL OF SOCIAL SECURITY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATIONS

    Mr. Hale. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and 
members of the Committee, I am Scott Hale, president of the 
National Council of Social Security Management Associations, or 
NCSSMA, and a district manager of the Mobile, Alabama, Social 
Security office. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on 
behalf of the 3,300 NCSSMA members across the country. We share 
many of your concerns about the reduction in face-to-face 
services at the Social Security Administration.
    NCSSMA strongly believes the primary focus of SSA should be 
providing the best public service possible, regardless of how 
our customers contact us. Despite increased agency online 
initiatives, field offices served over 43 million visitors in 
fiscal year 2013, nearly the same number as in the previous 
four years. These numbers clearly demonstrate a significant 
portion of the American public still wants or needs face-to-
face service.
    NCSSMA understands that as the needs and service option 
preferences of the American public change, SSA must change as 
well. We also understand that SSA should consider field office 
consolidations where they make good business sense. However, 
NCSSMA firmly believes the American public should always have 
the option to visit a field office to speak face-to-face with 
an SSA representative if that is their preference. Hard-working 
Americans deserve the opportunity to discuss their options 
face-to-face with a well-trained, highly skilled Social 
Security Administration representative after working and paying 
taxes, often for decades.
    In fact, this was reflected in NCSSMA's response to the 
draft National Academy of Public Administration's long-term 
strategic vision and vision elements for the Social Security 
Administration document dated March 10, 2014. In the draft, 
NAPA indicated SSA should automate processes resulting in a 
smaller workforce and in reduced physical infrastructure. 
NCSSMA's response was, ``It may be possible to reduce the size 
of the workforce and physical infrastructure to some degree, 
assuming policy simplifications and significant systems 
enhancements are in place; however, we firmly believe there is 
still a demonstrated need for community-based services across 
the country.''
    NCSSMA also strongly advocates for involvement by local 
managers at the point an office is considered for closure or 
consolidation as opposed to after a decision is made. It makes 
good business sense to involve local management early in the 
process as possible. We believe local management's unique 
perspective is crucial to pre-decisional discussions. After 
all, who knows the local service area characteristics and 
challenges better than the manager of the local field office?
    NCSSMA understands the need for SSA to make changes in its 
business processes. In recent years NCSSMA has submitted a 
number of suggestions for program simplification and 
legislative changes. We support changes where they make sense 
and do not cause a hardship for the public we serve. However, 
online services still do not work for our most vulnerable 
clients, including the homeless, non-English-speaking, special 
needs populations, and those in rural areas where Internet and 
computer access is often nonexistent. Even when SSA employees 
assist clients with starting the registration process for MySSA 
accounts in field offices, a significant portion do not 
complete this process when they return home.
    NCSSMA's primary concern is public service, and we want to 
ensure no one falls through the cracks. SSA's programs are 
extremely complex and require highly trained and skilled 
technicians. Without major program simplification and 
legislative changes, complete self-service is not a reality.
    While many members of the public readily utilize 
technology, there remains a significant segment of the people 
that requires and deserves face-to-face community-based 
service. We should not exclude this vulnerable group from this 
mode of service delivery.
    On behalf of NCSSMA members nationwide and the American 
public we serve, thank you for the opportunity to be here today 
to present testimony. We greatly appreciate the Committee's 
focus on these very important issues and would be happy to 
answer any questions you may have.
    The Chairman. So you basically agree with the conclusions 
in the report?
    Mr. Hale. The--specifically?
    The Chairman. This is the Committee report.
    Mr. Hale. Right
    The Chairman. Perhaps you have not seen it.
    Mr. Hale. I saw it early.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Hale. But not the final report, no sir.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Ms. DeLong.

                  STATEMENT OF TAMMY DELONG, 
                 AROOSTOOK AREA AGENCY ON AGING

    Ms. DeLong. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and 
members of the Committee, I thank you for inviting me to appear 
before you today. My name is Tammy DeLong. I am the Medicare 
specialist for the Aroostook Agency on Aging in Presque Isle, 
Maine--a position I have held for nine years now. Before that, 
I was a call center benefits representative for the TRICARE and 
TRICARE for Life program for five years. With this knowledge 
and experience I have acquired over the years, as well as being 
born and brought up in Aroostook County, I feel this has made 
me a good advocate for those clients I assist, and that is why 
I am so thankful for the opportunity to be here today.
    Today I will be discussing how the reduction of face-to-
face services at the Social Security Administration would be 
detrimental to the residents of Aroostook County.
    As you already know, Aroostook County is not only the 
largest county in Maine, it is the largest county east of the 
Mississippi River--larger than the States of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island combined. Twenty percent of the residents are age 
65 and over. This huge area is being served by one Social 
Security office and one Agency on Aging, both centrally located 
in Presque Isle. These offices are approximately a 2-hour drive 
from the north end and the south end of the county.
    Last year at the Agency on Aging, about 2,500 people came 
through our doors for assistance related to Social Security and 
Medicare. About 80 percent of them are over age 65; the others 
are close to 65, thinking of retirement, or are disabled. We 
have a good working relationship with the Social Security 
office where the enrollment for Medicare often starts, but 
Social Security personnel cannot provide information or counsel 
beneficiaries on the 119 Medicare Supplement options, 10 
Medicare Advantage plans, and the 30 Medicare Part D drug plans 
that are offered in Aroostook County, so they refer people to 
the Agency on Aging for personal counseling.
    My job is Medicare education and insurance counseling, 
helping them to understand what Medicare is, how it works, what 
they need for coverage, what is available, and how they can pay 
for it.
    Going onto Medicare for most people is a life-changing 
event, one that scares and confuses even the most educated 
individual. They do not want to do the wrong thing. The comfort 
of having someone local that they can talk to is a huge stress 
reliever. I had a beneficiary in last week who had worked her 
whole life, was computer literate, tried to do everything 
online, and still was not sure she was doing the right thing 
with her benefits. She went to the local Social Security 
office, who then referred her to us. She had in hand all of her 
correct research papers for her insurance options, but just 
wanted a second opinion. She would not be able to gain that 
peace of mind on the phone, and she did not get it from the 
online education she had tried to do.
    I know you do not get that kind of service through 
telephone call centers. Having worked at a call center for five 
years, we were often told to keep our call numbers up and our 
call times down. There were no incentives for these people to 
go the extra step to go the extra step to find the source of 
the problem and fix it. They just Band-aid it for the time 
being and move on to the next call.
    Not only does the Social Security office have beneficiaries 
from Aroostook County, they also have a lot of individuals who 
worked in the United States and qualify for benefits, but live 
in Canada. Coordination of benefits between two nations is 
sometimes an issue, and the walk-in service available at the 
Presque Isle office is very important.
    I had a beneficiary who was living on $460 a month. She was 
married to someone for 20 years before she divorced him in the 
1970s. She had enough personal work credits through her Social 
Security to get a benefit check on her own, and she was trying 
to make ends meet. When she applied for her Social Security 
benefits, she did not disclose that she had been married 
because she did not think it was important because it was so 
long ago, and she did not have any other information other than 
his name and date of birth, so we worked with the local Social 
Security office. We were able to locate this gentleman. He was 
deceased, and she was able to collect a widow's benefit of over 
$1,000 a month, so that made a huge difference in her quality 
of life.
    People in Aroostook County are known for being hard 
workers. In our older generations, some had to drop out of 
school to help the family by going to work, but the farm and 
woods wages worked for years ago equal a very small Social 
Security check today. They cannot afford a computer and/or the 
Internet access fees, which just for a basic package run about 
$50 a month in the county. If they were able to access the 
Internet, often these websites are cumbersome and confusing for 
them to navigate.
    Unfortunately we have too many incapacitated seniors who 
lack an informal support system. Outmigration of younger people 
plagues rural America, and Aroostook County is no exception. 
Older parents are stranded with the loss of this support 
network, and few want to burden their children with their 
problems, and financial and health issues also go unaddressed, 
which is why the Social Security office is so important, 
because they understand that.
    Hearing loss is chronic in our aging population. Telephonic 
services are a challenge, especially to those with late-life 
hearing loss. Hearing aids are beyond affordability for many. 
They like to be able to walk into an office, sit down and talk 
to the person, and feel comfortable that communication is 
happening.
    If a beneficiary wants to know and understand something, 
they do not want to seek it out online or on the phone. They 
want to sit and talk to someone where they are a name and not a 
number, and that is why it is very important.
    In closing, I would like to thank you again for inviting me 
to testify. I would be very happy to answer any questions you 
may have. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. DeLong.
    Commissioner Holt.

             STATEMENT OF BRENDA HOLT, COMMISSIONER

    Ms. Holt. Thank you, and I would like to thank all of you 
for having me here to discuss the panhandle of Florida and the 
type of citizens we have there.
    My name is Brenda Holt. I am a county commissioner in 
Gadsden County in the panhandle. I am here today to talk about 
the closure of a field office in my county and a process that 
deeply frustrated and angered our rural community filled with 
low-income seniors.
    Gadsden County is home to about 60,000 people. Of those 
60,000, 10,000 of whom are senior citizens whose sole income 
depends on Social Security. Many citizens in Gadsden County 
live in a financial environment where, at times, their choices 
have to be made between medication and food to feed their 
families. Interfering or even delaying these seniors of their 
benefits can have catastrophic effects on their families.
    The Social Security field office was located in the Gadsden 
County seat of Quincy, Florida, which is located about 45 
minutes to 50 minutes from Tallahassee. Gadsden County has a 
poverty rate that is double the State average. We also trail 
the State average in education where only one out of seven of 
the residents has a college degree.
    As demonstrated by the demographics of the area, many of 
the citizens do not have computers at home or even Internet. 
They have a choice between a computer and food. They have a 
choice between the Internet and being able to pay the light 
bill. There are no other choices on a set income, so it is a 
real shock that the Social Security Administration announced it 
was shutting down the Quincy field office beginning at the end 
of March.
    I understand a few local people may have been informed last 
fall or winter, but the county most affected by this closure, 
Gadsden County, first learned of the plans just a few weeks 
before the doors were to close.
    That did not give us much time to try to rally support from 
the county to stop the shutting down of our office, so what I 
did, I called and set up a press release. I got together as 
many people as I could get to in my community, who included our 
chairman, Commissioner Hinson; Representative Alan Williams, a 
State representative; Sheriff Morris Young; and other leaders 
joined with us at the senior citizens center, and I polled the 
seniors that day of approximately 60 people. No one there knew 
the office was closing, and it was going to close within that 
month. Most of our seniors were worried about the closure, and 
they would have to go next door to Tallahassee. They would have 
to ride the shuttle. That is a service that I mentioned to the 
Social Security Administration. When they said could we use 
that shuttle, I told them, no, we could not because that 
shuttle is full every day. In the morning that shuttle is full. 
There are people sitting on the floor already in the shuttle 
trying to get to Tallahassee. There is no room for the seniors.
    The shuttle does not go to that side of Tallahassee where 
they would have to get another form of transportation, our 
metro, and then go across town. Now, these people have walkers, 
some of them; some of them have wheelchairs. They would not be 
able to get there.
    Our report shows that there was demand for transportation 
that we would not be able to provide for them. Obviously this 
is not a great or even real option for many of our seniors that 
are vulnerable.
    Our county leaders looked at ways to keep the Social 
Security office in Gadsden County, and with the help of our 
elected officials, including Senator Nelson, we got a 
conference call with the Social Security Administration 
Commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, and other agency officials on 
March 25th, just a few days before the office was to close. 
They told us that they were being cut 3.2--they would save $3.2 
million over a 10-year period if they closed the office. We 
told them that the amount they were paying for rent--$15,000 a 
month--was way too high for our area. After talking to the 
landlord, we offered them a deal: reduced rent at the same 
facility. They were not interested.
    Then we offered them a free facility, about 4,000 square 
feet of office space, an annex building of the sheriff's 
office. They were not receptive to that. We also offered free 
space at our local hospital. The sheriff's office also offered 
a free guard if they needed a guard for that facility. They 
would provide a deputy for that at no cost to the agency, and 
the city of Quincy said it would cut the utility bill by 25 
percent. All told, this would have cut SSA's costs more than 
half, but they refused to even negotiate or come to the table. 
Only after we pushed to keep services did SSA tell us that they 
could get a video unit that they later put into our libraries. 
There were also video icons put on the computers there also. 
This unit had been sitting in the back of the Quincy office, 
but there was no one trained, and none of the citizens had used 
that, and I was the first one in the county to use that 
computer, and that would have helped people to transition over 
to using that equipment before now.
    We recently conducted a survey to see what our community 
thought of the video unit, and nearly one-third said that they 
were not comfortable using it. Other concerns included lack of 
confidentiality with the space of getting faxes in that 
facility with a video camera.
    The whole process has been very sad to watch. We never had 
an opportunity to weigh in as a community to try to save our 
office.
    The Social Security Administration did not do much of 
anything to inform our community of the closure. There were 
people that did not know, and until this day, there are people 
that still go to that office because they think that the office 
is going to be still open, and I have stopped by there to let 
them know that it has been closed permanently.
    Our county is paying for advertisement and has paid in the 
past in the newspaper to alert people who still do not know 
about this closure. People are scrambling to figure out how to 
get the basic services they need. I am here today to see if 
anything can be done to restore our office back in the 
community, but if that cannot be accomplished, then I want to 
make sure that other communities like ours at least get a 
fighting chance. That is what we need. We need a fighting 
chance, and I want to make sure Social Security remembers that 
even if it no longer has a physical presence in our community, 
it still needs to find ways to serve us going forward. Our 
needs matter. We will not just be cast aside. Our seniors have 
paid their dues. Now it is time for this country to help them.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner.
    Senator Collins.
    Senator Collins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. DeLong, thank you so much for your excellent testimony. 
I was particularly struck by the case that you mentioned in 
which a woman who was living on just a little more than $400 a 
month actually was entitled to a widow's benefit of $1,000 
additional dollars. What a huge difference in her standard of 
living that must make.
    Do you believe that she ever would have discovered that if 
she had just tried to apply online? It sounds like she had done 
some work.
    Ms. DeLong. Not particularly, because by the time she had 
come to us, her children were not living here anymore, and she 
was referred to us by one of our people in the office, and she 
thought that was all she could get. She was trying to get her 
prescriptions paid for, is what the problem was, because she 
did not know she was entitled to any help with those either, so 
by just asking her a few questions, and then, of course, I am 
nosy by nature, so I just keep asking and asking and asking, 
and finally I said, ``Have you ever been married?'' She says, 
``Well, yeah, a long time ago.'' ``Well, how long ago were you 
married? How long were you married for? Why haven't you said 
this to anyone before?'' Consequently, I made that phone call 
to Social Security, and by the time we tracked him down, she 
was very happy when we got done.
    Senator Collins. Well, I think that is just such a perfect 
example of why the face-to-face encounter is so important, 
because it was your interaction with her that brought out that 
additional information, and had she been calling a call center 
or just going on--trying to go online, I doubt that ever would 
have come out, and what a huge difference in her standard of 
living to have $1,400 a month rather than $434 a month.
    I think you can really salute yourself for that, but I 
think you have just proved the point of why the face-to-face 
encounter can be so absolutely critical.
    You made another comment which I thought was very 
interesting. You talked about your experience working for a 
call center and how there was pressure to keep the calls short 
and keep your numbers up, and that also worries me. We have 
seen a little bit in the VA scandal of a variation of that that 
led in some cases to a falsification of numbers.
    I am curious what your experience has been dealing with 
your local Social Security office right there in Presque Isle, 
Maine, versus calling one of the national call centers. Do you 
find a difference in responsiveness and accuracy of information 
and the willingness to be helpful just because they are right 
down the street from you?
    Ms. DeLong. Yeah, I do, and a lot of them, there is that 
language barrier of the French as well, so when they usually 
come in, that is where we catch that
    Senator Collins. I was tempted to start out by saying 
``Parlez vous Francais?'' to you.
    Ms. DeLong. Un peu.
    Senator Collins. Un peu. Moi aussi.
    Ms. DeLong. When I call the local office, usually wind up 
with the same person. If you call the 800 number, usually you 
have talked to somebody, they have started something, and then 
when they come on again--when you call back to check on it 
because they do not call you back, you get somebody else: ``Oh, 
well, I do not know who that is. Let me start at the beginning 
again.''
    When you call the regular office, that helps a lot because 
you are dealing with the same person every time; they know the 
history, and you do not have to start from the very beginning.
    Senator Collins. So you get the continuity that you do not 
get. It is like all of us, whenever we are dealing with a call 
center or a large utility and have to start the tale all over 
again, which can be very frustrating, particularly to someone 
who is not well or cannot hear well, as you said.
    Commissioner Holt, I was fascinated to hear you say the 
kind of effort that the community stakeholders in your county 
made to try to save money for the Social Security 
Administration and yet keep that office going, and it is my 
understanding that that included offering reduced rent at the 
current facility, free alternative facility space, an offer to 
provide a security guard at no cost, and a reduction in utility 
bills. It sounds like you bent over backwards to try to reduce 
the costs for the agency.
    Did the Social Security Administration officials give any 
specific reasons why they could not accept some of those offers 
so that it could maintain the office at a reduced cost?
    Ms. Holt. Well, we were told that there was a Government 
agency that had to look over any properties for rent that you 
would be able to use for a Government agency, but the visiting 
team that came from Atlanta to Gadsden County from the SSA, 
they did say that the facility was a nice facility, and they 
thought it would work well, but they would not be able to bring 
the office back to Gadsden County, and it is 4,000 square feet, 
a very nice building.
    Senator Collins. In your opinion, was SSA just determined 
to shut the office no matter what?
    Ms. Holt. Well, we were told they were going to close the 
office, and at that time, when they came to look at the 
building, we also suggested that the hospital had space, has 
quite a bit of space there at that facility, to use that 
facility also, but they said that they would not be able to do 
that.
    As I put in my statement, we received the nicest ``No'' I 
have ever heard. It was very nice, but it means that we are not 
going to help people in Gadsden County, and what we really, 
really needed was for them to see the people that they were 
serving. There are people out there in the community that live 
15, 20 miles from town, from Quincy, so they would have to get 
to Quincy. Then they would have to get another 30 to 40 miles 
to Tallahassee, and they do not navigate through heavy traffic. 
You find the elderly cannot do that, so it is not like you are 
just going to get to the city limits. It is on the east side of 
Tallahassee Florida, and we are on the west side.
    Senator Collins. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Ms. Berryhill, we understand that you have a 
tremendous challenge, particularly in a rural area. You cannot 
put a Social Security office in every crossroad. You have got 
to figure out how you can allocate your services.
    You have heard a specific case about a poor county, a 
county seat, the office being closed, and that is one of the 
issues here in the hearing today, so can you address the issues 
about the closure of the office in Gadsden County, in Quincy? 
Do you believe that the closure process was a good one?
    Ms. Berryhill. We have worked very hard to have a process 
in place that looks at a variety of factors. Populations are 
shifting. Sometimes in many of our rural offices there is just 
a small number coming into the office, but when you read your 
opening statement, the phrase that resonated with me was 
``death by a thousand cuts.'' You know, it is my job to balance 
service across the Nation. That is a difficult chore. What we 
have used is the next best thing, which is our video service 
unit, and I want to thank Ms. Holt for all of her help in being 
able to place that video unit, which is similar, just like 
face-to-face service, but these are difficult times.
    If I may add, in the last three years, we have lost 11,000 
employees. To couple that, the workload is up, our staffing is 
down. We know for a fact that the baby boomers are retiring. We 
also know that they are entering into their disability-prone 
years, so at a time when the severe cuts--and I appreciate you 
saying that and acknowledging that, but the work is here and 
the staff is here, and----
    The Chairman. We understand, but the issue here in this 
hearing is the decision making that you made with regard to the 
closure of 63 offices of which 38 we have no documentation, and 
of the 25 that we do have documentation, we have testimony here 
about the one in Gadsden County.
    Now, you just made a statement that there were very few 
people that visit that office?
    Ms. Berryhill. Well, that is right, and many of the 
services can be performed----
    The Chairman. How many?
    Ms. Berryhill. Probably about half or two-thirds could be 
performed without ever going into a field office.
    The Chairman. Number. How many?
    Ms. Berryhill. If there were 60 visitors, perhaps 10 would 
have to come into an office, and that is just my best guess.
    The Chairman. How many visited that office?
    Ms. Berryhill. On a day, it average about 50.
    The Chairman. Fifty people a day.
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes.
    The Chairman. For 25 working days, that adds up with a lot 
of visits.
    Ms. Berryhill. It does.
    The Chairman. Okay. Now, you heard the testimony. 
Tallahassee is about 25 to 30 miles. Given the fact that the 
Social Security office is on the opposite side of Tallahassee, 
there is not a transportation service that can get them over 
there, except the transportation that leaves early in the 
morning for people that are going to Tallahassee to work, and 
it does not come back until late in the afternoon for the 
people that need to come back to Gadsden County to their homes 
after work in Tallahassee.
    It is a poor population. Those are the demographics. Were 
those items considered?
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes, they were.
    The Chairman. Were they in your documentation?
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes, they were.
    The Chairman. How did you conclude that Gadsden County 
ought to close as opposed to some place else?
    Ms. Berryhill. Well again, while the office is closed, 
while the brick and mortar is no longer there, we have video 
service, and I can tell you firsthand, from the poorest 
communities in this country--and I will give you an example. On 
the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of three poorest 
counties in this country, we added video service delivery, and 
in a few short weeks, we saw a 300-percent increase in the 
number of applications that were taken on that reservation.
    While it is not the traditional office, video just like you 
and I are seeing each other, we can connect service face to 
face.
    The Chairman. Is there somebody in the Quincy library who 
can help people who are elderly be able to queue up the video 
machine?
    Ms. Berryhill. Well, the beauty of video, in my opinion, is 
that it is on. Somebody turns it on in the morning. There is 
nothing else to do. There are no buttons to press. The 
individual sat down--I think Ms. Holt actually experienced 
that--and you start talking to a representative in another 
field office, in this case Tallahassee.
    I believe it is time to have Government bring services to 
the community and not for seniors to take a bus or take 
transportation when their business can be conducted right there 
in their home town, and that is what video delivers for us.
    The Chairman. Had you planned to have the video placed in 
Quincy before Commissioner Holt asked you for it?
    Ms. Berryhill. No, we did not. I think that is the value--
--
    The Chairman. Was that a mistake?
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes. We listened to the input, which is why 
we alerted the community 90 days in advance, and as 
individuals--and, again, I thank Ms. Holt and Sheriff Young for 
helping us to say, Are there alternatives? Do we have options 
here? And, again, the video service, which we are seeing 
individuals use it every single day now that it has been in 
place.
    Again, it is a different way to do business, but it is 
face-to-face service, and with these tight budget times, I am 
trying to survive.
    The Chairman. How many folks are using it per day?
    Ms. Berryhill. I think in the first week or two that it 
opened it was 83 individuals used it.
    The Chairman. Over a five-day period?
    Ms. Berryhill. I am not sure, but I can provide you that 
information.
    The Chairman. Okay, so that would be an average of 
something, what, like 15 a day, 15 out of the previous 50 per 
day that used to visit that office?
    Ms. Berryhill. Yes. Some individuals are going to the 
Tallahassee office, which would be the remainder or almost the 
remainder of that. Some are calling the 800 number.
    The Chairman. Ms. DeLong, if you have got a county that is 
as big as Connecticut and Rhode Island put together, how do you 
get out and find those seniors out in the very rural parts of 
your county?
    Ms. DeLong. Personally for my job?
    The Chairman. Do you have video?
    Ms. DeLong. No. We physically go. Like for Medicare D open 
enrollment season, we have 16 areas all over the county that we 
physically go to them and they come to us in their town, but we 
do not have a video like that.
    The Chairman. So yours is the person-to-person contact?
    Ms. DeLong. Yes.
    The Chairman. Would video work for you in another part of 
the county?
    Ms. DeLong. If somebody there was trained to help somebody, 
but my concern with that would be that if you are sitting 
talking to somebody and you have somebody who cannot hear them 
on the other end of the--how high does the volume go? I mean, 
because a lot of times they will just agree to whatever you are 
saying just so that, okay, they do not want to appear stupid or 
dumb, or they do not want, you know, to take up somebody's time 
if they cannot understand them, and if they want them to read 
any documents, you have a high population that cannot read that 
well, so they may not be able to read anything somebody is 
giving them.
    I do not know how it is set up because I have never seen 
them set up. I can just envision how it would work based on the 
people that come through my door, but I do not think it would 
be a good idea.
    The Chairman. Ms. Berryhill, now that you hear the 
testimony about the office in Florida, in shutting down that 
office, would you have done anything different in the way that 
you went about making the decision to shut it down?
    Ms. Berryhill. I would. I would certainly look at more 
involvement from the community. I certainly saw that in your 
report. We want to certainly involve the community to certainly 
obtain input from them. In this case the video service delivery 
really made a difference after the conversations, but let us be 
more thoughtful in the future.
    The Chairman. Nationwide, you have shut down 63. Is that a 
correct figure?
    Ms. Berryhill. 64.
    The Chairman. Okay. Senator Collins?
    Senator Collins. Ms. Berryhill, do you look at the 
demographics of a region in deciding what offices should be 
closed? I ask you this because both the Chairman and I happen 
to represent States that are disproportionately populated with 
people who are age 65 or older. In fact, Maine has the oldest 
median age in the country, and, of course, we all know that 
Florida has a substantial senior population, an older 
population. Do you look at that?
    Ms. Berryhill. We do. We look at a lot of factors. I could 
certainly tell you a few: obviously distance, nearby offices, 
walk-in traffic, phone traffic. We certainly look at Internet 
access, poverty levels, education, language barriers, 
geography, so we look at a whole bunch of factors. We also 
welcome some additional factors to look at, but we have a very 
comprehensive and rigorous process that starts with our area 
directors who supervise more than one office, to look at this 
from a more global perspective.
    It then is communicated to our regional Commissioners, in 
this case either the Atlanta or the Boston Region, before it 
even comes to me, so we have a lot of checks and balances. We 
certainly look at a lot of factors here, but if you have any 
suggestions for additional ones, I would be glad to take a look 
at that.
    Senator Collins. Obviously, I do not know what analysis was 
done in the case of Gadsden County or the case of the Rumford 
office in western Maine, but I do know a lot about what western 
Maine looks like. It has very small communities. It is very 
rural. It does have a large senior population proportionate to 
the population as a whole. It does not have public 
transportation available, and as I hear the description from 
the commissioner, it sounds like another area where you have to 
travel substantial distances. There is not a lot of public 
transit available. It is a senior population, so I am wondering 
how weighing those factors would ever lead to the closure of 
those two offices.
    Now, obviously I do not know all of the factors that you 
are looking at nor how they compare with other offices, but 
based on the testimony I have heard and what I know about 
Rumford, Maine, it is hard to understand why those particular 
offices would be closed.
    Ms. Berryhill. Again, we look at a variety of factors. 
There is no one factor that we consider that would decide on 
when to consolidate an office. What I am again going to say, we 
do not stop service. We continue that service, and my personal 
experience has been that video will allow us to do that. We 
have been using it for over 10 years right now, and I have to 
say that, again, it services the community without allowing--or 
forcing the members of the public to travel far distances, to 
pay for transportation, and I think that is the real difference 
here. It is a different way to do business.
    Senator Collins. Well, you have brought up video links many 
times, and video conferencing. I use it in my office to meet 
with constituents who cannot travel to one of my six offices in 
Maine or cannot travel at all, or I am in Washington and they 
are in Maine, and I would point out that video links are only 
going to be effective where broadband is available, and the 
State of Maine ranks 49th out of the 50 States in the 
availability of high-speed Internet services and broadband.
    In addition, even if you were installing video links, you 
have still got to have somebody present at the other end in 
order to serve the client, so I can see where you are saving on 
bricks and mortar. I do not see where you are really going to 
save on staff and be able to give the kind of service that Ms. 
DeLong is giving.
    Ms. Berryhill. The average savings from an office 
consolidation is about $4 million. I can hire a lot of 
employees for $4 million.
    Senator Collins. $4 million for one Social Security office?
    Ms. Berryhill. One Social Security office over a 10-year 
period.
    Senator Collins. I was going to say you are paying far too 
much to GSA for rent if that is what your costs are, and I mean 
that sincerely.
    Mr. Hale, you raised concerns in your testimony about the 
lack of transparency and engagement by SSA management during 
the office closure and consolidation process, so now is your 
chance. What feedback would you have provided if you had been 
consulted with?
    Mr. Hale. Well, I think for us, you know, the factors such 
as distance between offices, it can be actual--it takes X 
amount of time to get somewhere. It takes a whole lot more 
time--one of the other witnesses mentioned heavy traffic. I 
have an office with a branch office. They are less than 
probably 20 miles apart, but there is no way you are going to 
drive it in 20 minutes because of traffic and some of the other 
obstacles that exist, which can be difficult to navigate for 
seniors.
    I have a branch office, for example, where one of the 
special characteristics we have, seasonal traffic, Social 
Security number, original Social Security number applications 
because they come in and work in local industry there.
    I think that from our perspective, having local 
management's input prior to the decision being made would allow 
the agency to think about other factors, would allow us to 
provide input on factors that may not be obvious from a higher 
level, and maybe make planning, such as the video service 
delivery, earlier on in the process and maybe ease the burden 
on some of these communities.
    Senator Collins. Thank you. I think those are good 
suggestions.
    Ms. DeLong, I am impressed that the Aroostook Area Agency 
on Aging actually goes out to 16 different communities to 
deliver services during open season. Do you just go to town 
halls or city--there are not many cities where we are from, but 
where do you provide these services? Do you go to local 
libraries?
    Ms. DeLong. Let us see. We go to--we use health clinics. We 
use hospital spaces. We use libraries. We use housing units. 
Usually places like that. I beg, borrow, and steal wherever I 
can to find a place to go.
    Senator Collins. You do not have to pay, and you are just--
and you advertise that you are going to be in the region and, 
thus, provide the services, I assume. Is that correct?
    Ms. DeLong. Yes. How they usually are is that we have 
usually between 40 and 50 people scheduled a day, and I have a 
big staff of volunteers, thankfully, that will come assist us, 
and we do just their Medicare drug plan and any other problems 
that may come to light of that, and then when I go back to the 
office, any other issues, then I will contact Social Security 
if I need their assistance with them when I return.
    Senator Collins. I really commend you for that. Aroostook 
County is a very large, very rural area, and we have a lot of 
seniors who are homebound or cannot travel long distances, and 
the fact that you are making such an effort to get services to 
them is really commendable.
    Ms. Berryhill, is there anything that prevents Social 
Security from accepting free rent or collocating with another 
agency or working in some way to reduce that cost of $4 million 
in 10 years that you mentioned? I hear Ms. DeLong saying we go 
out into these rural areas and at all different places, health 
clinics, whatever is available, to serve the people of northern 
Maine. I hear Commissioner Holt tell me all the offers that 
were made to Social Security in recognition of the budget 
constraints. Are there legislative barriers, legal barriers 
that prevent you from accepting that kind of assistance or 
collocating with another agency where you might be able to 
share the costs?
    Ms. Berryhill. We are looking at all of those options to be 
as cost-effective and efficient as we have been for years. 
Certainly I will tell you that October 1st, our budget guy, 
Pete Spencer, said to me, ``We are beginning this fiscal year 
in a zero base budgeting format,'' which was keep the lights 
on, keep the doors open, that was it, so, again, our budget 
actually has been cut over the last three years $1 billion, so 
we did not start this year with the ability to work overtime, 
to travel distances, and we need your support to help us with 
the budget situation. It has been so devastating to us to not 
have 11,000 people that we have lost in just three years, and 
we are losing our most experienced employees, the ones that 
stay for 25 or 35 or 40 years, and we have managers like Mr. 
Hale, like Scott, that are personally serving the public 
because we do not have enough employees.
    We are grateful that we have the opportunity this year to 
hire, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of 
every Social Security employee in this country, but we have to 
hire them now. We have to train them. They have to be 
productive. We have to check their quality to make sure we are 
providing that great service when people come into an office. 
They get great service, and we know that, but we need your help 
with the budget.
    Senator Collins. I really am sympathetic to your budget 
constraints and the number of employees that you have lost at a 
time when your caseload is going up and is only going to 
increase further as the baby-boomer generation truly hits the 
age of applying for Social Security, but I also think that we 
have got to be more creative about this. As you were talking--
and I really did not hear an answer to my question whether 
there was a legal barrier to your accepting reduced rent or a 
free facility, but I could not help but think of the rural post 
offices that we have in States that are going through similar 
financial constraints. Well, maybe the Social Security office 
could collocate with the Postal Service, which would help both 
agencies, and both are serving the public. Now, maybe that is 
not a practical idea. Maybe there would not be enough privacy. 
Maybe it would not work, but I would just encourage you, with 
all due sympathy that I truly do have for your financial 
constraints, to be more open to offers of help, to collocating 
with other Federal agencies or with the Postal Service. The 
Postal Service does passports. Why couldn't it set up an area, 
if it has excess space and needs to reduce costs, where maybe 
there could be Social Security services provided?
    I would just encourage you to look at options like that, 
because while the Internet is wonderful and phone calls are 
useful, I think as Ms. DeLong's example tells us, there is just 
nothing that matches that face-to-face interview and 
interaction, and it is why I send my case workers out across 
the State, and they hold ``citizens' hours,'' is what we call 
them, and they do them in town halls, in small town halls, and 
they advertise that they are going to be there, and they will 
often be there in the evening or over the lunch hour or at the 
end of the work day so that people can easily stop, and we pick 
up all sorts of Social Security cases as we do that from people 
who just do not have the ability to travel long distances and 
who find it much easier to talk with someone than to try to do 
an e-mail, particularly if there may not be any broadband 
available in the area.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Commissioner Holt, what do you think about 
Ms. Berryhill's response?
    Ms. Holt. Well, her response deals with numbers, and I deal 
with people, so we are at two ends of the spectrum, two 
different ends.
    The GSA, I would like to work for them if they negotiated 
that rent in Gadsden County because I have never heard of 
anything like that type of rent there.
    The computer survey, I am a retired math teacher, and in 
Gadsden County, you do not give homework where it requires a 
computer a lot of times because the children do not have them, 
so if the children do not have them, the elderly are not going 
to have them.
    When we were talking, she was speaking earlier about the 
phone conversations when we had a meeting at the capital in 
Tallahassee, Representative Williams got a meeting with SSA, 
and the representative there was explaining how we could use a 
phone. Well, Mr. Robinson, an elderly gentleman, was called by 
the sheriff, and I had told the representative a lot of them 
cannot understand what you say on the phone. They do not know 
the terminology you are talking about, that you are using, so 
he called Mr. Robinson during that meeting at the Capitol, and 
Mr. Robinson listened, and we were on speaker phone, and we 
listened, and as soon as the representative stopped speaking, 
Mr. Robinson said, ``Can you tell me what he said? I do not 
understand what he said.'' There is no way that you are going 
to get those individuals that are not phone savvy, not computer 
savvy, definitely not Internet savvy, to do that, to come and 
talk to you.
    Now, there is another problem with that. Once you tell an 
elderly person no, they are normally not coming back, because 
you dishonored them by saying no to them on that level. I used 
an example in my writeup, that Mr. Alexander, who I knew very 
well, who was in Quincy, 15 miles from Quincy, approximately 45 
miles from Tallahassee, had to go to Tallahassee. He was a 
cancer patient. The doctor told him he could not get his chemo 
because he did not have the $3,000 deductible. Now, he has had 
his own insurance since he was 16 years old. He was 60 years 
old when he asked for his chemo treatment. He has always paid 
for his own insurance from 16 to 60. When they told him no in 
Tallahassee, his daughter took him back 45, almost 50 miles 
near the Georgia-Florida line up there, and I had already 
signed him up for affordable health care, and I told his 
daughter, I said, ``No, he has affordable health care.'' We 
called and got a member number, and the doctor said, ``Come on. 
Let us get the chemo done.''
    Well, he was as sick, as I say, as a puppy by then, 
throwing up and everything, and he got the chemo treatment but 
he said, ``They just do not want us,'' you know, and that is 
not something you tell an elderly person. You cannot tell them 
no. They will not come back.
    When you say you have done these surveys, it does not 
matter because if they say--if you tell them you already looked 
at them and they do not qualify, they do not know which form to 
get, that kind of stuff, they are not going to be able to get 
that ride back to town in order to get some help. It is not 
going to happen, and as they said before, ``Well, I will just 
have to starve to death. I will live on nothing.''
    We need our office back, and that is why I am here. I am 
not here because it is something pretty or we fit some numbers 
or we fit about $4 million. That is not why I am here. If you 
are paying $15,000 a month, then you paid $180,000 a year. 
Those are the numbers just in rent, but it does not match the 
10,000 people that need help. They cannot get the wheelchairs 
or walkers on a bus that is already overcrowded. They cannot. 
It is not going to happen.
    It sounds like something that the haves and the have-nots, 
that is how it sounds to me, and when I go back to Quincy, 
there will be people still going to that office, so what we 
have to do is try to help them. We cannot sit here and decide 
the numbers do not match, but that is what I would like to say. 
Thank you.
    The Chairman. Ms. Berryhill, this conversation is going to 
continue. When you go and brief the Commissioner, now the 
Acting Commissioner, of Social Security, you present this 
information in order that the Commissioner can make a decision. 
How does she know if the closing of an office is merited?
    Ms. Berryhill. Again, I would like to just answer the 
previous question by Senator Collins, if I may first very 
briefly. Working with GSA is where we rent our space. We have 
another Federal agency that works with us, and certainly we 
could talk with them about different variations of using 
different office space.
    We actually do look at opportunities. Up in Michigan, we 
have an office in a county office, for example, so we can share 
space, so we can look at that opportunity to do that, but when 
we have an office, we want to make sure that it is accessible 
for disabled employees, so there are criteria that are used to 
make sure that an office is accessible to the public, but I 
appreciate your advice.
    To your question, Mr. Chairman, on the criteria, again, we 
have had the same criteria apply to a variety of locations in 
the country. We have spent a lot of time obtaining input on the 
criteria from our regional commissioners, from our unions, from 
a variety of stakeholders, and so, again, we present the 
information in a summary format that talks about the 
demographics of the service area, the staffing, proximity to 
other offices, the use of other services, geography, and so 
forth, the impact on the public and the stakeholders.
    We present her--and, again, these decisions are made by me, 
and certainly I inform the Commissioner based upon a lot of 
discussions, a lot of staff time looking at this to make sure 
we are making careful decisions.
    The Chairman. I would recommend to you something that 
Senator Collins has brought up, that there is some similarity 
here on a disconnect with people that the Veterans 
Administration has experienced where, if there was not a direct 
personal contact, there was the chance of losing that veteran. 
First, when they were handed off from active-duty military to 
the medical care system in VA, four or five years ago we had 
veterans completely being lost, and the only way that some of 
them were being found, because our offices happened to 
accidentally find them and then got them into the system.
    The Veterans Administration has tried to correct that by 
having a lot of personal hands-on contact out in the community 
with veterans service organizations, working through that.
    There has been ample testimony here today about the 
examples of senior citizens that are just not going to 
understand unless you sit down and eyeball to eyeball, and 
sometimes holding their hand, explain to them what are their 
opportunities under Social Security, and a good example was Ms. 
DeLong's case of the lady that just did not have any idea that 
as a widow she had another benefit coming.
    It is up to you to make these recommendations to the 
Commissioner so that a decision can be made. What is the 
vulnerability of that population? Is that an educated 
population? Is it a rural population? Is it a poor population? 
How can the closing of this office affect the nearest office? 
What is going to be the impact upon that particular office?
    I think this is going to be a work in progress, and we are 
going to have to--I want to ask Mr. Hale, what do you think the 
future holds for face-to-face services?
    Mr. Hale. I think that probably as the years go by, we will 
have more online, automated services. I do not think there is 
any question about that. We have moved towards that over the 
last few years. However, I think there is still a large segment 
of the population that either does not have access to online 
services, they do not have the ability or they are not computer 
savvy, they are not comfortable with online services, and these 
are people that have paid taxes all of their life. I think they 
expect that personal contact. I think Senator Scott said 
earlier that, you know, his--he talked about his grandfather.
    I think, too, the experience in the field offices, I can 
speak in my large office, we have three self-help computers 
designed to allow individuals to walk in and not wait. You 
know, we have increased waiting times, so they walk in the 
office; they have the option to go to a self-help machine, and 
I have two people that run those three self-help computers 
every day because the public that walks in our office, most of 
them are just not capable at this point in time. That is why 
they walk in our office, and, you know, the people that are 
really computer savvy, that do it themselves, they are walking 
around with their iPads, and they have computers at home, and 
they would do that at home. I think at some point we will 
transition, obviously, but I think we still have a large 
segment of the population--I have a lot of rural contact and a 
lot of poverty in my service area. They just do not have 
access.
    I think between that and the elderly population, I think we 
still have a huge need for face-to-face service at this time as 
we transition and plan to transition.
    The Chairman. Senator Collins?
    [No response.]
    Well, I want to thank all the panelists. I want to 
particularly thank Ms. DeLong and Commissioner Holt for coming 
long distances to share with us. Thank you, Mr. Hale. You came 
a long distance, too.
    Thank you, Ms. Berryhill. I hope that before you close 
another office that you will have taken some of the 
recommendations that came out of this hearing into account, 
consulting with the local people, looking at the demographics, 
talking to them, what their needs are, and if the Congress does 
its job and we can get past this sequester, then you should 
have a little more relief there instead of the constant cuts 
that you have had, but this is affecting people's lives. This 
is affecting the most vulnerable of our population--our 
seniors, and we are not going to leave that vulnerable 
population without the critical services, so thank you to 
everyone. Senator Collins, with your permission, the meeting is 
adjourned.
    Senator Collins. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 3:47 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]     
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                                APPENDIX
     
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                      Prepared Witness Statements

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             Prepared Statement of Brenda Holt Commissioner

    Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and other members 
of the Committee:
    My name is Brenda Holt, and I am a Gadsden County 
Commissioner in the panhandle of Florida. I am here today to 
talk about the closure of a field office in my county and a 
process that deeply frustrated and angered our rural community 
filled with low-income senior citizens. It's been three months 
since our field office has shut down. I am both upset about 
what happened and hopeful that maybe we can get service 
restored in the future.
    Our community of about 60,000 people--and roughly 10,000 
seniors--has been served by a Social Security field office in 
the county seat of Quincy, which is about 45 minutes away from 
Tallahassee. The office serves both my county of Gadsden County 
and neighboring Liberty County. Both counties have poverty 
numbers that are much higher than the State average; in fact, 
Gadsden County's poverty rate is nearly double the Florida 
average. We also trail the state averages in education; only 
about one in seven of our residents has a college degree. Most 
of the people here don't have computers, let alone reliable 
Internet access. Our county is very spread out, so even though 
we had a field office in Quincy, a lot of our residents who 
live on the outskirts of the County struggle just to make it to 
the office, often getting a ride into town.
    The Quincy office was scheduled to be shut down at the end 
of March. I understand Social Security may have informed a very 
small number of local officials last fall or winter, but the 
county most affected by this closure--Gadsden County--first 
learned of SSA's plans on March 5th. That did not give us a lot 
of time to try to stop this shutdown from happening, and I 
sensed that was the point.
    I reached out to our senators and multiple members of 
Congress. I scheduled and held a forum at the Gadsden County 
Senior Center on March 18th. I invited all interested people in 
the community that I was able to reach. The county commission 
chairman Eric Hinson, State Representative Alan Williams, 
Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young's representative and many 
others came to help. Most of our seniors did not know about the 
planned closure. They were very worried. It is highly unlikely 
that many of these seniors will be able to get to Tallahassee 
or Marianna, the two closest offices. We have one shuttle, the 
Gadsden Express, which runs to Tallahassee once in the morning 
and returns to Quincy once at night, but that shuttle is 
overflowing with people who live in Quincy and work in 
Tallahassee. In the month of April, approximately 2,204 
residents of Gadsden County used this shuttle. Most of the 
time, people are standing or sitting on the floor. Seniors 
without their own transportation, who are able to get to Quincy 
to ride the shuttle, are stuck in Tallahassee all day. Several 
of these seniors need assistance walking or have walking 
equipment without adequate room on the overcrowded bus. Even 
for those with cars, Tallahassee is a much larger city than 
Quincy, and having to navigate traffic to get across the city--
because the office is on the east side and we are west of the 
city--is very tricky for older people. Later that afternoon 
State Representative Alan Williams scheduled a meeting with 
myself, Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young, Gadsden County 
Commission chairman Eric Hinson, local NAACP and SSA regional 
directors, and staff members at Florida's capital and presented 
our case. During this meeting, Sheriff Young called Mr. 
Robinson, an elderly man, and allowed the representative to 
speak to Mr. Robinson on speaker phone to explain the situation 
of the office closure in Quincy and services in Tallahassee. 
Mr. Robinson stated on the phone, ``I don't know what he is 
saying, can you tell me what he is saying''. How appropriate 
was Mr. Robinson's statement? It could not have been planned 
better. It clearly showed everyone listening in on the phone 
call, that he did not understand what was being told to him. 
This was a perfect example of why senior citizens and the 
disabled need personal face to face contact. After the phone 
call with Mr. Robinson and further discussion, still, we were 
given the nicest ``no'' I have ever heard.
    In my experience, elderly people, particularly those in my 
community may feel dishonored if they feel their basic rights 
have been taken away. Especially since they have worked hard to 
earn their Social Security Benefits. I can use the example of 
Mr. Kate Alexander, a gentleman whose cancer case is an example 
of how the elderly community in Gadsden County are treated. He 
had paid for his own insurance from the time he was 16 years 
old until he was 60. Mr. Alexander was told he could not get 
chemotherapy because of his deductible, and his insurance would 
not cover the costs. He had to travel 54 miles to Tallahassee, 
FL from his home in Gadsden County, embarrassed and ashamed. 
Eventually, Mr. Alexander was able to receive treatment for his 
cancer after being signed up for Affordable Healthcare. 
Unfortunately, due to the timing of the issue, Mr. Alexander 
passed away from lack of chemotherapy treatments while waiting 
on insurance to cover costs. When you tell the elderly ``No'', 
it sends the message that they are not worthy of your time or 
energy. It is embarrassing for them and they think you are 
dishonoring them. Mr. Alexander commented, ``They just don't 
want us.'' Well, that's why seniors and the truly disabled have 
people like us (community leaders) to fight for them in Gadsden 
County Florida.
    So county leaders, including my fellow County 
Commissioners, Representative Alan Williams, Gadsden County 
Sheriff Morris Young and other community partners discussed how 
the county could help Social Security stay in Gadsden County, 
and with the help of our elected officials, we got a conference 
call with SSA Commissioner Carolyn Colvin and other agency 
officials on March 25th, just a few days before the office was 
to be shut down. They told us they would be saving $3.2 million 
over 10 years if they closed the office. We told them that the 
amount they were paying for rent--about $15,000 a month--was 
way too high for our area. After talking to the landlord we 
offered them a deal: reduced rent at the same facility. They 
weren't interested. Then we offered them a free facility, about 
4,000 square feet of office space, an annex building of our 
sheriff's office, or free space at the local hospital. The 
sheriff's office offered to provide a guard at no cost to the 
agency, and the city of Quincy said it would cut their 
utilities bill by 25 percent. All told, this would have cut 
SSA's costs more than half, but they refused to even negotiate 
or come to the table. I asked the Commissioner and members on 
the conference call to please train us to help our citizens so 
that we may have the opportunity to make the transition 
smoother. The closing of the office is an insult to the members 
of our community and those who have offered their resources to 
keep the office open.
    A couple days later, a few officials from the SSA regional 
office in Atlanta came to Quincy to explore options for some 
continued service in the area. Even they conceded that the free 
building we offered was in good shape, but all they were 
willing to do, and only after we pressured them, was put in a 
video unit that seniors could use to talk to an SSA employee in 
another city and computer icons on the other computers at the 
three libraries. They told us this unit had been sitting in the 
back of the Quincy office unused. It would have been nice to 
have had that out working in the office somewhere so that 
actual SSA employees could teach our residents how to use it 
after they left, but at this point, there was no time for that. 
I was the first one to use it on the 27th, just a couple days 
before the Quincy office shut down for good.
    After a couple weeks of no in-person services in Quincy, 
the video unit was up and running in our library which is a 
couple of miles from the field office. The other libraries had 
icons installed as well. This video unit works pretty well, and 
I appreciate having something for our seniors to use. There's 
only one unit, though, so if you get there and a few people 
have arrived before you, you could be waiting a while, and the 
library staff there doesn't know the lingo or the forms, so 
they can only do so much. SSA gave us a fax machine for 
documents, but it is in a separate room from the computer. The 
library environment was not designed with confidentiality in 
mind, meaning that faxes containing personal information could 
easily be intercepted and compromised leading to possible 
identity theft. Many residents are unaware that all of their 
needs cannot be met using the video unit at the library in 
Quincy. This creates a problem where people are wasting time 
visiting the Quincy Library. They feel as if they have been 
misled in terms of what the Social Security Administration is 
offering them in lieu of the office closure.
    It is a fine resource, but it is no replacement for a field 
office, with staffers who can walk our residents through a host 
of issues they may be having. We have a lot of special needs 
citizens here, so that unit won't work for everyone. We have 
people who can barely read because of vision problems. Or 
people with hearing problems, or poor comprehension problems. 
The computer is not the answer for many of these people. In 
fact, many of these people do not have phones. Many of these 
people have worked hard their whole lives, but are still 
financially restricted. These issues are not going away any 
time soon. We still have a direct need.
    This whole process has been very sad to watch. We never had 
an opportunity to weigh in as a community to try to save our 
office. SSA did not do much of anything to inform our community 
of the closure. In fact, sometimes I still stop when I see 
people trying to get into the closed SSA building in Quincy to 
tell people that it is permanently closed. Our county is paying 
for advertisements in the newspaper to alert people who still 
don't know about this almost three months later, but this 
should not be our responsibility. It's unfortunate that their 
lives were disrupted by cutting this service. People are 
scrambling to figure out how to get the basic services they 
need.
    Gadsden County conducted a survey to get insight into how 
the community as a whole felt about the video conferencing 
service that was offered. Out of the total number of people 
surveyed, 31 percent said they did not feel comfortable using 
the video service at the library, and would not recommend the 
service to their family and friends. Some of those concerns 
include:

      Adequate space at the library. There have been 
212 visitors as of June 11, 2014. As the number of users grow, 
is the facility large enough to accommodate them all?
      The quality of service. The quality of services 
are expected to decline since citizens can no longer rely on 
hands-on or face to face services.
      The library environment was not designed with 
confidentiality in mind, meaning that faxes containing personal 
information could easily be intercepted and compromised leading 
to possible identity theft.
      Partial services--the video computer is only at 
one of the three libraries, the other two libraries only have 
SSA icons at those computer locations. Therefore for those that 
need the assistance of SSA staff, there is no video computer, 
they have wasted their time, and may still have to drive 30 
miles.

    I am here today to see if anything can be done to restore 
the field office to our community, but if that cannot be 
accomplished, then I want to make sure that other communities 
like ours at least get a fighting chance, and I want to make 
sure Social Security remembers that even if it no longer has a 
physical presence in our community, it still needs to find ways 
to serve us going forward. Our needs matter, and we won't just 
be cast aside. Our seniors have paid their dues, now it is time 
for this country to help them.      
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                        Questions for the Record

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                       Statements for the Record

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               Statement of Senator Benjamin L. Cardin

    I commend Chairman Nelson and the Senate Special Committee 
on Aging for convening this hearing today entitled ``Reduction 
in Face-to-Face Services at the Social Security 
Administration.''
    I am proud to represent Social Security's more than 12,000 
employees in my state, who provide services to a growing number 
of beneficiaries despite funding that has not kept pace. SSA 
has had to make some tough decisions in the face of budget 
constraints, and it is important to ensure that the negative 
effects of such constraints are minimized.
    This hearing, and the Aging Committee's Staff 
investigation, will shed light on the impact of service cuts--
particularly in the form of SSA Field Office closures--and what 
can be done to ensure that beneficiaries and prospective 
beneficiaries receive the services they need in a timely and 
efficient manner. I am concerned about the investigation's 
finding that SSA is not adhering to four of the six metrics it 
claimed were the major determining factors when closing a field 
office.
    We can and must do better in serving our nation's retirees, 
persons with disabilities, and surviving family members by 
ensuring that the agency takes into account community impact, 
access to Internet, impact on staff, and the consultation of 
stakeholders and local agency management before making any 
future decisions.
    I am committed to working with SSA, relevant Senate 
committees, and the American Federation of Government Employees 
(AFGE) to ensure that beneficiaries receive the highest quality 
service possible.
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