[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE
AT THE TONE:
ADDRESSING POST-PANDEMIC BACKLOGS
AND DELAYS AT FEDERAL AGENCIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
AND THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 21, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-825 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
____________________________________________________________________________
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
Alex Rankin, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce
Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman
Gary Palmer, Alabama Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Ranking
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Minority Member
Andy Biggs, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Byron Donalds, Florida Columbia
William Timmons, South Carolina Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Greg Casar, Texas
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Russell Fry, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Becca Balint, Vermont
Eric Burlison, Missouri Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Jasmine Crockett, Texas
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 21, 2023.................................... 1
Witnesses
----------
The Honorable Rena Bitter, Assistant Secretary of State for
Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Mr. Scott Levins, Director, National Personnel Records Center
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Mr. Chad M. Poist, Deputy Commissioner for Budget, Finance, and
Management, Social Security Administration
Oral Statement................................................... 11
Written opening statements and the statement for the witness are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Article, New York Times, ``The Government Agencies That
Became Smaller, and Unhappier, Under Trump''; submitted by Rep.
Balint.
* Article, WJZ, ``Rep. Mfume Helps Man Collect $86K In
Disability Benefits''; submitted by Rep. Mfume.
* Statement, Social Security Administration; submitted by Rep.
Mfume.
* Statement, National Federation of Federal Employees, re: U.S.
Department of State's passport backlogs; submitted by Rep.
Mfume.
* Statement for the Record: submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Bitter; submitted by Rep.
Sessions.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Bitter; submitted by Rep.
Donalds.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Bitter; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Bitter; submitted by Rep.
Higgins.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Poist; submitted by Rep.
Sessions.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Poist; submitted by Rep.
Higgins.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Poist; submitted by Rep.
Donalds.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Poist; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Levins; submitted by Rep.
Sessions.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Levins; submitted by Rep.
Higgins.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE
AT THE TONE:
ADDRESSING POST-PANDEMIC BACKLOGS
AND DELAYS AT FEDERAL AGENCIES
----------
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Subcommittee on Government Operations
and the Federal Workforce
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:23 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Pete Sessions
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Sessions, Palmer, Higgins, Biggs,
Donalds, Timmons, Burchett, Boebert, Fry, Edwards, Burlison,
Mfume, Norton, Frost, Casar, Connolly, Stansbury, Robert Garcia
of California, Balint, Lee of Pennsylvania, and Crockett.
Also present: Mr. Raskin of Maryland.
Mr. Sessions. Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on
Government Operations and the Federal Workforce will come to
order. And we would welcome everybody to this important
hearing.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Before we go too far, I would like to, if I can,
acknowledge that, even in formal settings like this, we
recognize that it is important to remember that we are all
people and that we have families. And I understand that some of
the people who have business today have been visited by some
hard luck in their life with a loved one. And I wanted to,
without saying anything in particular, to let those know--
perhaps many of us, more than one or two, may be affected, but
that it is my wishes for them and their family in these coming
days that can be difficult to families. So, I want to offer
that, and we will just let that ride there. But, when you
receive information like this, I feel like it is the right
thing to wish everybody the best.
Today's hearing is on customer service issues at selected
Federal agencies. The COVID pandemic provided a stress test to
Federal agencies in many ways, and earlier this year, we heard
in detail how fraud prevention measures failed in COVID release
programs. That was a Subcommittee hearing that we did that was
a bipartisan basis where we universally heard about the
frailties of not only some of government's actions but also the
impact that prevented measures from being fully understood and
billions of dollars--hundreds of billions of dollars being
lost.
But another stress test was the ability to deliver services
to the American people. And, as a person who worked in the
private sector for a number of years that had a public opening
to them, I will tell you I do recognize how difficult it is to
not only match manpower with incoming needs of customers, but
also to do so in a difficult time.
But, with that said, we are here today to make sure that we
have a clear understanding about not just what is behind us but
what lies in front of us and the daunting challenge for each of
the Members of Congress as we attempt to also do business with
the government on behalf of many constituents that we have.
I want to try and be fair, and it would not be fair to look
back without the benefit of hindsight of recognizing what our
Nation would be through, but today we also all recognize that
there is some bit of experience that we have been through that
we need to recognize that we must do better. And I know it is
impossible and impractical for us to manage every single
circumstance that we have ahead of us. Nonetheless, it is our
duty and my duty, my duty not just as a Member of Congress but
as the Chairman of this Subcommittee, to ask sometimes tough
questions to make sure that we get straight answers, to know
that we will report back to our constituents but also to work
with you on making sure that we move forward better.
First are the backlogs. Are they being retired? Are they
behind us? Are they ahead of us? Disruptions, inefficiencies,
uncertainty, all these things are questions that will be asked
today. But overwhelmingly this Congress has asked--and I
believe we did it at the end of last Congress--for you to be
prepared with a master plan about how you intend to catch up,
what your plan is on moving forward. In some way, we want to
ask how that is going. It is not a measuring stick. It is an
expectation. It is not a measuring stick that will tell us that
we know the problems that you have encountered, but rather how
we work together.
As Members of Congress, we hear the frustrations of those
unable to access government services, and they have come to
rely on the government, and you are a part of the daily life
too many times of people who need to do business, need to
interact with government, and it needs to be done correctly and
on time.
So, on behalf of our constituents, each one of us up here--
and there will be others who join us today--we are eager to
learn about these things and also about how you as the manager
of the business are going to fix them.
The second lens is, are we prepared for the next emergency?
And, while COVID, by and large, we had heard about, that
something may happen, when it did, it seemingly took us at a
disadvantage.
I think being behind is one thing. I think catching up is
another, and I think being prepared for what is tomorrow is
also important. Perhaps your answers will be better technology.
Perhaps your answers will be help with more people. Perhaps
your answer will be we have learned a lot, and we will be
prepared. But this should be a part of what I hope, today, is
that you will be able to talk about.
The processes that are required in work, obviously, are
ones that proved most fragile during COVID. We have seen those.
We know them. But I would remind you that, in most people's
mind, COVID was over 2 years ago.
The Federal Government needs to get back to work. The work
rules and regulations that have been the past few years are old
and do not meet today's marketplace. And I believe government
employees, while they are entitled to their opinions, if they
are going to take an honest day's pay, they should work an
honest day within the work structure that is best for the
American people. It is not just a telework debate. It is the
efficiency ratio that the Federal Government needs to demand at
a time for all of its employees.
So, we are looking at three agencies today: the National
Personnel Records Center, the State Department's Consular
Affairs Bureau, and the Social Security Administration. I know
that there are different circumstances, and yet there are some
common denominators about this, and that is your people do the
work. Your people, professionals as government employees,
experienced people, determine the success or failure of your
department. But the American people expect you, them, and us to
make this work.
So, we will enjoy hearing from all three of you. As you may
know, I have extended from 5 minutes to 10 minutes for each of
you. You do not have to use all 10 minutes, but I do expect you
not to run out of time by saying you really want to say
something else. We sincerely want to hear from you today. We
sincerely want you to admit the things that need to be said,
and we will not hold back in understanding that from you, nor
you understanding where we are. But I am eager to hear the
specifics about the agency plans, and I want to thank each of
you for taking time.
And, before we swear you in today, I wish to yield to the
distinguished gentleman, the Subcommittee Ranking Member, Mr.
Mfume.
The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
the opportunity. I want to thank you for convening this
hearing, thank our witnesses who are seated before us and,
obviously, the other Members of this Committee who feel very,
very deeply about this issue.
I think it is fair to say for all of us that Americans
deserve nothing short than top-tier, customer-focused,
accessible and efficient services from their government.
Today we convene to discuss a topic that impacts veterans;
it impacts grandparents; and all of those who rely on our
Federal agencies as a lifeline. And there are quite a few
people who rely in that way, and so we owe it to our
constituents, to the American public, to keep our commitment to
improving government work for the people.
And, when discussing agency backlogs, I think it is pretty
important to take note of the timeline leading up to our
current crisis.
In 2017, the previous administration implemented a nearly
3-month government-wide hiring freeze. Some agencies maintained
that their hiring freeze was substantially longer, such as the
State Department, where the freeze lasted for 16 months. The
freeze constricted, as we all know, the job market and
destroyed employee morale and employee welfare in many
respects.
However, since then, we, I think, have been playing a game
of catchup, and most agencies have struggled to hire enough
staff even in the midst of record low unemployment. The
American Federation of Government Employees reports that, in
Fiscal Year 2022, the Social Security Administration's
workforce was one of the smallest it has been in 25 years. And
yet, we know that the number of people on Social Security,
people who rely on those benefits to pay for food and to pay
for medicine, has increased by more than 10 million people in
the past decade. This increase in beneficiaries and a lack of
staff has extended wait times to where they unfortunately and
regrettably are today.
The Social Security Administration is headquartered in my
district in Baltimore County. And, for example, in the state of
Maryland, processing times for disability claims increased by
roughly 105 percent, and that is in the period from 2019 to
2022, further extending processing times from 106 days to 218
days.
The issues of low staffing and long processing times are
shared across almost all customer-service-focused Federal
agencies, and I am sure all of you can attest to that.
The passport demand is still at record high, putting
significant stress on the agency. Last month, Secretary Blinken
testified before the Congress, specifically the Appropriations
Committee of the House, noting that the State Department is
getting 500,000 applications a week for passports and noting
that that is 30 to 40 percent higher than it was last year.
So, these are really alarming statistics, no matter how we
look at them, when it gets back to whether or not we are
delivering the kind of customer service that we should be.
Demand is skyrocketing, and yet staffing and resources remain
static. And the most vulnerable communities are the ones that
usually are disproportionately affected by these types of
issues.
If we look at our veterans, a stifling backlog at the
National Archives and Records Administration's National
Personnel Records Center says it could be the difference
between receiving military benefits and not receiving them at
all. It could be the distance or the difference between
receiving assistance in a homeless shelter for a vet or living
out on the street.
And what really pulls at my heart are the countless
constituent stories that, in particular, my district team
relays to me each and every week as we go through our weekly
staff meetings. There is one case I would like to just quickly
call to the attention of those who are here, and we will just,
for lack of a better term, say that this is Andrew's story.
Andrew has multiple sclerosis. He contacted our office in
February 2020--filed his disability claim in 2019, 3 years
prior, and received a favorable decision in 2021. And yet the
Social Security Administration would not release his benefits.
So, my district staff and myself got involved. We were able to
work with the agency and to, finally, after all of that time,
secure Andrew the benefits that he not only desperately needed
but that he was entitled to. But that process extended nearly a
year after he had already received a favorable decision from
the agency. In the end, the Social Security Administration
provided him with $86,000 in retroactive benefits that he was
owed.
And I would ask, Mr. Chairman, unanimous consent to submit
to the record the CBS article that details Andrew's case and
further details how we were able to successfully intervene with
the Social Security Administration.
Mr. Sessions. Without objection, it will be entered in the
record.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you.
My office alone--and I am sure every Member up here could
give you a set of stories about what they have been receiving
on the ground with real people every day who are reaching out.
My office alone has closed 544 Social Security Administration
cases and 683 passport cases since July of last year, and that
demonstrates not just the service, but it demonstrates, I
think, a tremendous need on behalf of our constituents for
Federal agency service and for the diligence of Federal
employees.
One of those employees I have come to appreciate because of
the way she has helped intervene in matters like that, and that
is Mrs. Lauren Hughes, who serves as a public affairs
specialist and is a phenomenal asset to the Social Security
Administration and to the congressional offices in that region.
And so, I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that
that is why Democrats and Republicans have set aside parties'
differences, and did so several years back, to pass the
Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017 to authorize the
Technology Modernization Fund and secured nearly $1 billion in
investment into the fund.
But the issues here are more than just funding and more
than just staffing. The issue really becomes vision. Do we have
the vision as a government to be able to empower all of our
agencies to carry out their tasks and their missions with
respect to the constituent services and with respect to being
able to make sure that what they are set up to deliver they do
deliver? I have got a lot of faith in agencies. I do know that
sometimes it may be a little unwarranted, particularly if there
is an agency that is deliberately not doing what they should.
But, by and large, I really believe that we have got to find a
way to empower our Federal agencies, to encourage them, to hold
them accountable, and then to be able to measure progress at
some point in time.
So, Mr. Chairman, there is certainly more work that can be
done, and I believe that much of that work will take place in
this very Subcommittee. Again, I want to commend you for
convening us today. I look forward to hearing the facts,
strategizing further action needed at the congressional level
and, hopefully, at the end of the day making a real and lasting
difference.
I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. I appreciate the comments from the
distinguished Ranking Member and will tell our guests today
that we would like to approach this from this side of the dais
in the same way that Mr. Mfume spoke about, and that is from a
perspective of we care very much about the agencies and the
work that they do, but they have found themselves in the
circumstance where people who we represent also need them, and
we will work together to get this done.
Thank you very much.
I would like to introduce our three witnesses that have
been asked to testify today and thank them all for being here:
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter;
Mr. Scott Levins, Director of the National Personnel Records
Center; Mr. Chad Poist, Deputy Commissioner of Social Security
for Budget, Finance, and Management.
As I introduce all three of them, I want to thank them for
allowing our staff to come onsite and to learn more about their
operations to see firsthand about not just the circumstances
that might be the things that they deal with but, more
importantly, to establish that relationship to where we learn
about the Federal employees' jobs and how they help the
American people.
Assistant Secretary Rena Bitter. Assistant Secretary Bitter
has headed the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs
since August 2021, where, among other roles, she oversees the
administration of the United States' passport system. She
brings decades of diplomatic experience to her role, having
previously served in several overseas posts, including the
United States Ambassador to Laos. I also had an opportunity, in
speaking with her, where I reconnected with one of my friends,
two of my friends, who I had been to college with who I knew
had a State Department career.
Assistant Secretary Bitter, thank you for expecting me to
follow up with them as I know you did, and thank you.
Mr. Scott Levins. Mr. Scott Levins has served as Director
of the National Personnel Records Center, a division of the
National Archives and Records Administration, since 2011. At
NPRC, Mr. Levins oversees the central repository of personnel-
related records for both military and civil services of the
U.S. Government. Mr. Levins brings over 20 years of service at
the National Archives to his role in leading the NPRC.
Mr. Chad Poist. Mr. Chad Poist was named Director, a Deputy
Commissioner of the Social Security for Budget, Finance, and
Management this past May. Well, welcome to the job. Mr. Poist,
congratulations on this new role in this capacity. He serves as
the Social Security Administration's Chief Financial Officer
and Performance Improvement Officer. Mr. Poist brings decades
of experience in government, finance, and management roles and
similar roles at Social Security Administration, as well as the
United States Department of Commerce and the Department of
Defense.
So, thank you very much.
I would now ask that all three of you rise to be sworn in
as witnesses.
I would ask that you please raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that all three of our witnesses have
answered in the affirmative. And thank you very much.
You may be seated. Thank you very much.
I am going to be calling on you here, but as you know, you
will be given the time that we have spoken about. We have a
clock system which is easy for you to understand. It is kind of
like a traffic light.
And we would move first to the gentlewoman from the State
Department for her opening testimony. The gentlewoman is
recognized for 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RENA BITTER
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR CONSULAR AFFAIRS
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. Bitter. Thank you so much, Chairman Sessions, Ranking
Member Mfume, and other esteemed Members of the Committee.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to discuss the work of
the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs and to
express my appreciation for the support we receive from Members
of Congress and staff for our mission.
It is a tremendous honor for me to be here today to
represent the work of the 13,000 people in the Bureau of
Consular Affairs to the Subcommittee with oversight of the
Federal workforce. The public servants of this Bureau serve
your constituents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in 29 passport
agencies and centers domestically and 240 embassies and
consulates overseas. We are home to nearly one in five Civil
Service employees in the State Department, and our
geographically diverse Bureau serves U.S. citizen interests and
supports the U.S. economy across the United States and around
the globe.
Mr. Chairman, 253 constituents across the great state of
Texas are employed in passport agencies serving your and my
home state. Ranking Member Mfume, last fiscal year alone we
issued nearly 415,000 passport books and cards to Marylanders.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs is funded by the fees
collected for the services we provide to the traveling public.
Though our funding does not come from appropriations, we adhere
to the same budgeting and oversight regulations as if it did.
That is to say, our revenue stream is treated for all intents
and purposes as if it were appropriated. So, while our
operations are funded by the significant revenue we generate
through our fee-funded passport and visa services, we are very
much a part of the State Department and reliant upon its
platform.
COVID-19 provided challenges in this arrangement. At the
onset of the pandemic, the State Department, including the
Bureau of Consular Affairs, was beginning to rebuild from a 16-
month hiring freeze that had reduced the size of our public-
facing staff across the globe. When the pandemic hit and
international travel ground to a halt, it took our passport and
visa services and our fees with it. We saw an immediate drop in
revenue by 50 percent.
It was thanks to Congress' support and partnership during
those very dark days that enabled the Bureau of Consular
Affairs to stay afloat. Thanks to stopgap appropriations, we
were able to pay our staff and to, again, freeze hiring rather
than having to let staff go.
The expanded spending authorities you granted to us during
that time also enabled us to be able to use consular revenue
more flexibly. It has been the most important factor in our
ability to rebuild. Extending those flexible authorities
permanently would ensure that we avoid similar fiscal collapse
in any future contingency.
That said, despite yours and our best efforts, the pandemic
hiring freezes and budget shortfalls left many posts and
passport agencies significantly understaffed. When travel
restrictions were lifted in late 2021 and international travel
began to resume, our fee revenue rebounded, and we were able,
again, thanks to expanded spending authorities, to begin
hiring.
At that point, years of hiring freezes had taken a toll on
our staffing. Our domestic passport adjudication staff was down
25 percent from where it had been just 4 years earlier, and our
overseas visa adjudication staff was equally impacted.
We have been working very hard to make up these deficits.
On the passport side, we have increased our staff by 10 percent
in the last year, with another 10 percent in the pipeline.
Overseas we anticipate most positions will be backfilled by the
end of this fiscal year. However, it does take time both to
onboard and to train new staff for these national security
positions. As a result, our processing times are still longer
than we would like.
We are also experiencing unprecedented demand. In Fiscal
Year 2022, we issued 22 million U.S. passport books and cards.
That was a record. We are on track to surpass that achievement
this fiscal year by a projected 15 percent.
We believe these numbers represent a trend and not an
anomaly. Today 46 percent of Americans have passports, up from
30 percent in 2008 and up from five percent in 1990.
In our Fiscal Year 2023 operating plan, which was approved
yesterday, we asked for an increase in the number of passport
specialists, as well as increased investment to modernize our
IT. Our Fiscal Year 2024 budget request reflects similar
investments in our growth.
With respect to inbound travel to the United States, which
supports hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs in sectors across
the country, today more people can travel to the United States
than at any time in our history. Since travel restrictions were
lifted in 2021, we have streamlined visa processing and
dedicated more resources to reducing wait times consistent with
national security.
So, while having fewer staff at our overseas posts, our
teams are issuing 22 percent more visas now than at the same
period during pre-pandemic 2019.
Despite our challenges and thanks to the hard work of our
teams in the field and domestically, we are currently issuing
more U.S. passports and visas than at any other time in our
history. Ultimately, this is great news for the U.S. economy,
businesses, family reunifications, and people-to-people ties.
We plan to continue our aggressive rebuilding efforts to be
able to meet the demand today and into the future while
rigorously safeguarding our national security.
We are striving to build a more agile and optimized Bureau
of Consular Affairs to be able to serve your constituents. To
do so, we are investing in the IT and human resources we need
to ensure 21st century Federal customer experience.
For example, new parents overseas can now electronically
register the births of their U.S. citizen children. American
citizens caught in crisis abroad can use a new online interface
to directly communicate with Department officials in life-and-
death situations. And, before the end of the year, we
anticipate that up to five million Americans annually will be
able to renew their passports entirely online.
Finally, I would like to say a word about the people of the
Bureau of Consular Affairs. I could not be more proud of this
team of public servants. We take very seriously our long
history of serving our fellow citizens. Diplomats have been
protecting the interests of Americans overseas since before our
Nation had a Constitution. The people of Consular Affairs
worked in person, both domestically and overseas, during the
pandemic to continue to serve the public, often at personal
peril. Our teams overseas supported the repatriation of 100,000
Americans at the start of the pandemic.
Our passport adjudicators returned to in-person work in
June 2020. They did so because the nature of our work is to
provide direct services to the traveling public. Often that
means the work is extra rewarding. We can issue a visa to a
student going to their dream school in the United States or a
passport to someone so they can bid farewell to an ailing
family member. We can help finalize an adoption for a U.S.
family or help an American in crisis overseas.
As the public face of the State Department domestically and
of the United States overseas, we are proud of our partnership
with Congress, and we are very grateful for its support. Your
constituents are our constituents.
As we navigate this current period of high demand, I want
to say thank you to all Members and to your constituent
services staff. You are invaluable partners in helping us to
serve our shared constituents, and we are very grateful to you
for your support.
Thank you. And I look forward to our discussion today.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Levins, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT LEVINS
DIRECTOR
NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER
Mr. Levins. Good afternoon, Chairman Sessions, Ranking
Member Mfume, and Members of the Committee. My name is Scott
Levins, and I am the Director of the National Personnel Records
Center, a component of the National Archives and Records
Administration. Thank you for inviting me to testify about our
ongoing efforts to eliminate the backlog of requests for
military service records.
The NPRC stores and provides access to more than 2 million
cubic feet of records documenting U.S. military service of
veterans. It also stores and provides access to more than 2
million cubic feet of civilian personnel records. Our mission
is to provide access to these important records to government
agencies, military veterans and their families, former civilian
Federal employees, and the general public.
We are the physical custodians of over 4 million cubic feet
of analog or paper records and the access point for a rapidly
growing volume of electronic records. The NPRC employees 824
Federal employees and contractors.
During the first 2 years of the pandemic, NARA
significantly curtailed onsite production due to limitations on
building occupancy that were imposed to protect staff from the
spread of COVID-19. As a result, NARA accumulated a large
backlog of requests. NPRC never closed entirely during the
pandemic. Although little was known about the spread of COVID-
19, NPRC still maintained limited onsite operations to ensure
that we responded to the most urgent requests for records, such
as those necessary to support funeral services, emergency
healthcare, and homeless veterans seeking shelter. As the
country gained a better understanding of COVID-19 protections,
NPRC continuously implemented new workplace safety protocols
and incrementally increased facility occupancy levels.
Occupancy limitations were ended in March 2022. By then,
the total count of unanswered requests for military records was
604,000. Since then, NPRC has added 73 new Federal employees
and 60 additional contractors to address the backlog.
NARA used funds generously appropriated by Congress to add
these staffing contractors, deploy laptops to staff, modernize
our call center, and improve our systems for fulfilling
military records requests. NARA is partnering with the
Department of Veterans Affairs to digitize military service
records to expedite our responses where possible.
As of June 20, 2023, yesterday, the backlog of unanswered
requests for military service records is 266,000. It is a
little bit different than my written testimony because I
submitted the written testimony last week, but updated it
yesterday based on the current backlog. We define the backlog
as the number of requests received that have not been fulfilled
within the 20-workday deadline. Since April 1, 2022, the NPRC
has responded to almost 1.8 million requests for military
service records, including both new and backlog requests. The
NPRC has continued to receive new requests throughout the
entire period, and the volume of new requests has increased.
Prior to the pandemic, we received approximately 21,000
requests each week. Today we are receiving over 24,000.
The NPRC has already eliminated the backlog of requests for
separation documents, the DD forms 214 and equivalent, and
returned to its pre-pandemic level of servicing 90 percent of
those requests in less than 10 days and 95 percent in less than
20 days. DD-214 requests represent approximately 60 percent of
the requests that we receive. It is the record most often
needed by veterans and their dependents to prove eligibility
for benefits. NPRC prioritizes these requests ahead of other
requests for military service records.
Other requests are more complex and often require extensive
redaction of third-party personal data, analysis of documents
and extraction of verification of information contained
therein, or the research of secondary sources. Therefore, these
requests take longer to service than requests for a DD-214.
Despite the increase in demand, we have a plan in place to
eliminate the entire backlog by December of this calendar year.
NPRC is performing its work today in ways that were
unimaginable before the pandemic. NARA has asked a great deal
from the NPRC workforce, many of whom are veterans themselves,
and they have delivered. Response times on its most frequent
and urgent requests have been restored, and unprecedented
backlog reductions have been achieved.
Earlier this month, NPRC hosted an onsite congressional
open house. More than 50 congressional staff from all over the
country traveled to St. Louis to learn about NPRC holdings,
observe its work processes firsthand, tour the facility, and
meet directly with its workforce. During the event,
congressional staff reported significant improvement in
responsiveness.
During the pandemic, with each passing week, the center
experienced backlog growth. Today, with each passing week,
another significant stride is made in the right direction and
the backlog is further reduced. However, there remains much to
be done. NARA's senior leadership, as well as its workforce,
are committed to eliminating the backlog as quickly as possible
and providing America's veterans with the service they have
earned and deserve.
The newly confirmed Archivist of the United States, Dr.
Colleen Shogan, has made this her top priority, receiving a
briefing on the backlog within hours of being sworn-in and
visiting NPRC in person during her first official travel as
Archivist of the United States less than 2 weeks later.
Throughout the pandemic, NARA provided recurring updates to
Congress regarding the situation at NPRC. NARA will continue to
provide quarterly updates to Congress and looks forward to soon
reporting the permanent elimination of the entire backlog and
the restoration of prompt service on all types of requests.
We thank the Committee for its interest in this important
matter and welcome any suggestions to improve service to
America's veterans.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
Also, I would like to express our thanks to your staff for
making sure that our investigators were able to come in and see
firsthand not only the work that is performed but to make sure
that they understood the processes and some of those
impediments.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Levins. You are welcome.
Mr. Sessions. We now move to Mr. Poist. The gentleman is
recognized for 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CHAD M. POIST
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER
FOR BUDGET, FINANCE, AND MANAGEMENT
U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Poist. Chairman Sessions, Ranking Member Mfume, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thanks for inviting me to discuss
the status of customer service at the Social Security
Administration. I am Chad Poist, the Deputy Commissioner for
Budget, Finance, and Management.
Social Security's programs and services touch the lives of
nearly every American, and we appreciate your oversight of our
important work. I hope to convey four main points.
First, our budget directly determines the quality of
customer service the public receives from us.
Second, the challenges we face did not happen overnight,
and it will take time to reverse them.
Third, we are working to reduce backlogs and wait times by
rebuilding our workforce and modernizing our technology.
Fourth, we are successfully modernizing and expanding our
digital services to meet the growing demand for convenient
self-service options.
Each day, our dedicated employees serve field office
visitors, answer questions by phone, hold hearings, pay
benefits, and complete numerous other workloads. Our priority
has always been and continues to be providing mission-critical
services to the public.
During the pandemic, we made the unprecedented decision to
implement maximum telework and close our offices to walk-in
visitors, except for limited critical situations by appointment
only. This allowed us to keep our employees and the public safe
while continuing to deliver critical services. We also greatly
expanded our digital and online services, as I will discuss
later in this testimony.
We successfully reentered our offices and expanded in-
person services in April 2022. However, after the disruption of
the pandemic, we continue to face significant challenges in
restoring service delivery to the standards the public expects
and deserves. This is largely due to our staffing levels.
After years of tight budgets, in Fiscal Year 2022, we
dropped to our lowest staffing level in 25 years. Meanwhile,
the number of beneficiaries and recipients we serve have
increased by over 8 million in the last decade. We simply do
not have enough staff to timely serve everyone who needs our
help.
The current tight labor market also makes it challenging to
retain experienced staff and attract talented new ones. This
year we expect to complete around 50,000 more retirement claims
than last year, 2 million more Social Security number requests,
and almost 130,000 more initial disability claims. We also
expect to handle 2 million more phone calls on our national 800
number.
Initial disability claims are our biggest challenge. Over 1
million people are waiting more than 7 months for an initial
disability decision, which is far too long. These delays are
largely concentrated in the State Disability Determination
Services, or DDSs, which make the medical determinations for
certain steps of our disability claims.
Wait times increased during the pandemic because the DDSs
had less access to recent medical evidence due to reduced
doctor visits and a shortage of consultative examination
providers. DDSs have also faced record high attrition among
their staff and challenges hiring replacement staff.
To increase DDS capacity, we have deployed cadres of
technical experts to help work down the backlogs. These cadres
are already showing results. So far, this fiscal year, they
have completed nearly 20,000 cases. We are also working with
DDSs to improve employee recruitment and retention. This
includes encouraging states to make DDS pay more competitive
and recruiting new consultative examination providers. It will
take time, however, to see improvements in our service delivery
metrics.
We also face challenges with telephone services on our
national 800 number. In spite of these challenges, millions of
customers successfully use the 800 number as a primary method
of contacting us. Due to our outdated phone technology and
understaffed call centers, some callers have experienced busy
signals, long waits, and dropped calls. We are addressing these
issues with better technology and increased staffing.
Prior to the pandemic, our outdated phone system was slated
for necessary updates that turned transition into a modern
platform. The pandemic redirected in-person service to
telephone service, so we were forced to develop an interim
phone system to answer calls outside of our physical
infrastructure. This temporary solution allowed us to serve the
public safely and continue our essential customer service, but
it did not provide some of our prior critical functions, such
as the ability to provide estimated wait times and a call-back
feature. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress
and to improve our 800 number.
With the funding we received this year, which we do
appreciate, we are beginning to rebuild our workforce. Once new
hires are fully trained and gain experience, starting in Fiscal
Year 2024, they will help us to reduce backlogs and improve
service to the public. For instance, with the Fiscal Year 2024
President's budget, we plan to reduce wait times in the
national 800 number from 35 minutes this year, down to 20
minutes in Fiscal Year 2024.
Technology is another important tool to improve customer
experience. More and more customers are choosing to use our
online services, and we are successfully modernizing and
expanding our digital services to meet that demand. This also
shortens wait times for those who need or prefer to connect
with us in-person or over the phone.
I will highlight just a few of our recent accomplishments
with digital and IT modernization. Online My Social Security
transactions have grown by about 25 percent each year since
2018. These transactions include tasks like checking the status
of an application, getting an estimate of future benefits, and
managing the benefits someone already receives.
We also launched our redesigned ssa.gov website in December
2022. After incorporating user feedback, many of the most
visited pages now have a more user-friendly and test-based
approach that provides customers with a clear path to the task
they need to accomplish.
We also expanded remote hearing options during the pandemic
to hold disability hearings via telephone and video for
customers who choose those options. Even post-pandemic, these
remote options have proven a strong success with our customers.
So far, in Fiscal Year 2023, more than 80 percent of our
customers have chosen to participate in their hearings by phone
or video.
It is worth noting that, while our online services and
technology improvements are important, they do not replace the
need for trained staff. Even when a customer chooses to follow
an online application, which occurs about 60 percent of the
time, we still need employees to process the online application
and conduct follow-up interviews.
So, to end where I started, to truly improve customer
service, we need sufficient funding sustained over multiple
years. The Fiscal Year 2024 President's budget request of $15.5
billion for administrative expenses will help us restore
staffing to process increasing workloads, continue to modernize
technology, and reduce backlogs and long waits.
If supported with sustained funding and sufficient
staffing, our efforts will put us on the path to significantly
improve our essential service delivery to the public in coming
years. We are working diligently to improve customer service,
but we need your support. We stand ready to work with you.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and
look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, Mr. Poist.
We will go to our first Member, and that would be the
gentleman from Alabama, Chairman Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks for holding
this hearing. I think it is extremely important.
Obviously, all of us in our district offices get a lot of
requests for assistance with your various agencies,
particularly with Social Security. And, Mr. Poist--is that the
correct pronunciation--you mentioned having some staffing
issues, and I am just wondering how your staffing issues might
be impacting improper payments. This is an area that I have
done a lot of work in over the years that I have been here,
particularly on this Committee, and found that well over half
of the issues with improper payments have to do with antiquated
data systems, administrative errors, failure to verify
eligibility, things like that, which are a staffing issue. And
it could be staff that are not able to process the workload as
quick as they need to. It could be people who are not as well
trained as they need to be.
Is that an issue? And is that something that you have
looked into?
Mr. Poist. We have not seen any noticeable differences in
our payment accuracy rates. We rely heavily on data exchanges
with other Federal agencies and other entities, so we have not
seen any difference in payment accuracy rates.
Mr. Palmer. OK. I will try to go back and look at the GAO
report and--if I had thought of that before I came in here, I
got that listening to your testimony.
The other thing I wanted to ask is, how is your staffing
issues impacting your productivity? Obviously, it is. I mean,
you would not have brought it up.
Mr. Poist. So, staffing alone does not affect the
productivity. You know, we saw productivity decline quite
significantly during the pandemic due to business processes
workarounds. But, in the first half of 2023, we have actually
seen productivity rebound quite nicely.
Mr. Palmer. So, didn't you mention that you are having some
worker shortage issues?
Mr. Poist. Correct.
Mr. Palmer. But your productivity is up even though you do
not have an adequate workforce?
Mr. Poist. So, productivity is not up. So, again, there is
productivity, and then there is production. Total volume would
be production. So, again, productivity itself has many
variables that go into it. It could be new business processes
implemented. It could be new systems that are implemented. It
could be employees in training and then several things like
that. You know, productivity is not where it was pre-pandemic,
but it has rebounded in 2023 compared to 2022.
Mr. Palmer. Well, what percentage of your workforce is
working remotely?
Mr. Poist. So right now--and so, in our public-facing
sites, our field offices, we have almost all of our employees
working in the field offices, and they are also almost all
eligible for telework.
Mr. Palmer. But that was not my question. What percentage
of your employees--and you can break it out by field office, or
you can break it out here inside the beltway. What percentage
of your workforce has not returned to the office?
Mr. Poist. So, we fully reentered our offices in March
2022.
Mr. Palmer. So, 100 percent of the employees are back in
the office?
Mr. Poist. They are also all eligible for telework.
Mr. Palmer. What percentage of your employees are in the
office?
Mr. Poist. So, again, we look at it by type of office. So,
like, in our field offices, again, 100 percent or almost 100
percent of those employees are working in the office.
Mr. Palmer. What percentage of the employees that are D.C.-
based are in the office?
Mr. Poist. So, I would say D.C.-based, which would be
mostly like an office-based environment, not our frontline
employees, it is a small percentage.
Mr. Palmer. How about you, Mr. Levins? What percentage of
your workforce has returned to the office?
Mr. Levins. If you drive by our facility, our parking lot
is full. That has been the biggest difference in our ability to
get our backlog down has been returning people to work. I would
estimate 85 percent of our workforce is working onsite. We have
three small teams that we transitioned to offsite work during
the pandemic, and it is deliberate because what we wanted to do
was--we have repurposed the space they occupy in the building
to add more employees to address the backlog. Those three small
teams are our Data Input Section. So, prior to the pandemic,
when a request was received, we would digitize it, and then we
would transcribe it into our production system. And we did that
work onsite. What we do now is we digitize them in batches, and
people working remotely--it is about 20 people--will transcribe
those into our system.
Mr. Palmer. So about 20 people are working----
Mr. Levins. In that one team.
Mr. Palmer. How about you, Assistant Secretary Bitter?
Ms. Bitter. All of our public services--our passport
adjudicators have been back in the office since June 2020.
Mr. Palmer. OK. But overall, in the State Department--one
of the things that I am concerned about is--and, Mr. Chairman,
we have some information that indicates that a fairly
substantial percentage of Federal employees have not returned
to the office. That is part of what I am trying to find out.
And, by the way, I think overall your productivity, working
with the State Department in particular, has been pretty good.
You have been consistent with what is advertised anyway and how
long it takes to get things done. We would like to see that
timeframe shortened, and if you need more people, we would like
to know that.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, again, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Bitter, I would like to just go back to the State
Department for just a moment.
The Inspector General published, as I think you may be
aware, a report in 2021 that found real delays in IT
modernization initiatives for passport services. I do not think
they were trying to lay blame. They were simply reporting there
were serious delays here. Those delays kept staff working
essentially in a paper-based environment and an inconvenience
in many respects for customers by requiring the submission of
paper applications rather than the ability to apply online.
Does that sound correct?
Ms. Bitter. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mfume. OK. So, based on the Inspector General's report,
could you tell the Committee what the current status is now of
these IT initiatives and how, hopefully, they will improve
processing times but, more importantly, customer service?
Ms. Bitter. Yes, sir. Thank you.
Maybe I will start with talking about exactly what you
highlighted, which is online passport renewal. The State
Department, we see OPR actually, online passport renewals, as
the future of our services. We piloted this program to the
general public from August to February of this last year. And,
during that time period, 565,000 Americans got their passports
online efficiently and securely.
We asked everyone to submit a survey once they got their
passport back. 12,000 people did, and 99 percent of them said
that they were satisfied with the service. It was a pilot.
There were pieces of it that we wanted to work on. We took the
pilot offline in February, and we anticipate rolling it out
more broadly at the end of this year. And, when we do, five
million Americans should be able to use that system and apply
online to renew their passport from the comfort of their own
home in a secure and quick way. So, we are looking forward to
that.
Broadly speaking, one of the things when we talk about the
consular affairs of the future and the services that we want to
be able to provide to people, we look at this in two different
ways. One is we want to hire people. We want to make sure that
we have enough people in place to do the work, but, you know,
we do not want to force people to do overtime. We do not want
to surge our way out of backlogs and processing times. We want
to be able to invest in our technology so that we can
anticipate needs and we can use technology to our advantage to
solve problems before they arise.
So, we are grateful for the feedback and the inspection
reports that we have gotten on our consular systems. We have
taken them very seriously, and we are working closely with our
teams to make sure that the recommendations are implemented.
And, with respect to passports in particular, online passport
renewal is a project that we are very proud of, and we are
looking forward to rolling it out.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much.
Mr. Poist, I am going to get back over to the Social
Security Administration for just a second.
Can you describe to the Committee what you believe to be
are the main contributors to the disability claims backlog that
exist at Social Security?
Mr. Poist. Sure. So, thank you for that question.
So, we were seeing the pending and the average processing
time grow prior to the pandemic in the initial disability
claims. So, I would like to call this a bit of a perfect storm
that hit us. Right? So, we had a pending that was growing prior
to the pandemic. We hit these pandemic challenges that forced
us to pull some workloads. We had trouble getting medical
records from the medical community. We saw our consultative
examinations that--a number of providers kind of fall off. And,
at the same time the DDSs in the states were having recruitment
and retention challenges. So, we are facing now the third year
of historic levels of attrition in these states. In 2021, we
saw about 20 percent attrition for the disability examiners. In
2022, we saw that rise to about 25 percent for disability
examiners. And here in 2023, we are experiencing right around
20 percent again. So, we have fallen back to that 2021 level.
However, historically, we have seen attrition there average
between 12 and 15 percent.
So, at the same time, we also implemented a new national
case processing system that was going to make us more
efficient. So, any time you implement a new system, there is
going to be a small learning curve. So, again, it is really
just a perfect storm of those recruitment retention challenges,
not being able to replace all of those employees due to budget,
and then some of those pandemic workarounds.
Mr. Mfume. So, essentially, the difficulty in getting
medical records, if I heard you correctly, recruitment and
retention issues, attrition, which has continued to go up, is
there any contribution to that backlog because of telework
practices?
Mr. Poist. I do not believe there is any contribution due
to telework.
Mr. Mfume. And has telework assisted in what you are doing,
or has it slowed the process?
Mr. Poist. So, telework during the pandemic really allowed
us to continue our mission. Without telework, you know, I do
not even like to think of what might have happened.
Mr. Mfume. And what about now that the pandemic is over? Is
that--would you consider that to be, as these other three
areas, a contributor to the backlogs or an asset to doing away
with backlogs?
Mr. Poist. I do not really believe it is either an asset or
a contributor. In each state--and, again, there is 52 separate
DDSs across the country, so each of them have their own
telework policies.
Mr. Mfume. Well, I am always reminded, and I remind others,
of the last four letters in telework is work. People who are
teleworking are, in fact, working. The question becomes, are
they being monitored in such a way that their product is
productive or even more productive than it had been? But I will
leave that up to the agencies. That is just me kind of giving
an observation here.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
The distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, is
recognized.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poist, is it your testimony that you are saying that
telework has not impacted the backlog that Americans are
currently experiencing through your perspective in your
jurisdictional authority?
Mr. Poist. I do not believe that telework has contributed
to our backlog.
Mr. Higgins. You do not believe it has?
Mr. Poist. I do not.
Mr. Higgins. Well, that is stunning testimony because
virtually every American watching has been impacted in some
way, in our immediate family or those that we serve in our
community and our state. We have been subject to very long wait
times that have coincided with COVID when telework largely
began. I am not saying it was created at that time, but surely
you know what I am referring to, where massive numbers,
percentages of our workforce was determined--I disagreed with
that determination at the time, and I think history will prove
men like me correct, but our Nation most certainly shifted to a
large percentage of its workforce being forced to work at home,
including this body. It was not nearly as functional in
Committee participating remotely as it is when we are here and
engaged and in person, involved.
So, are you seriously telling this Committee that you are
satisfied with telework as compared to onsite, in-person office
work, and a level of performance that you have received from
each? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Poist. So, there are many contributing factors here,
and, again, budget and staffing are probably two of the largest
ones. I do not believe that telework is the main contributor to
any of our service challenges.
Mr. Higgins. OK. We are going to agree to disagree because
I only have 5 minutes to undo that knot.
Let me ask you, sir, regarding the wait times that we are
dealing with, how is it that Social Security can move so fast
when the spouse of an elder dies to decrease their benefits,
but they have got to wait 250 days for a response on an
application, you know, through the very efficient telework
force that we have in place? How can it move so fast when
someone dies?
Mr. Poist. I mean, I am not an operational expert. I mean,
I would have to defer that back to our operations expert.
Mr. Higgins. That is just the way it is. And Americans
watching know what I am talking about. We have an elder in our
family that the spouse dies, it is almost immediate they
receive a letter that their benefits are being reduced by a
certain amount, and if they dare to have collected for an
additional month or so, they get billed for that. The agency
seems to work very fast in that case, but across the country,
we have waiting times of over 200 days.
Ms. Bitter, I would like to commend some of your workforce,
ma'am, in operating under challenging conditions, and I would
ask you as well--do you think telework has impacted? But I am
going to say that my office's interaction with your office,
especially in the New Orleans office, those guys just bend over
backward to help Americans that find themselves in a bind with
a passport application, and they seem to work miracles. And I
want to extend my gratitude for that.
But the larger picture is that I am concerned about
workforce presence in the office, across your jurisdictional
authority. Would you address that as compared to telework,
ma'am?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you, sir. And thank you for the kind
words about our New Orleans Passport Agency. We are very proud
of them.
For our public facing staff, over season, in Washington,
people have been working throughout the pandemic, the passport
adjudicators, since June 2020. Throughout this--I cannot speak
to the broader State Department and what folks are doing. I
think in our office we see plenty of people around. There are
days where some people work from home, but for the most part,
certainly----
Mr. Higgins. Do you know what the numbers are----
Ms. Bitter. I do not, sir.
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. Ma'am, what the percentages are?
Ms. Bitter. We can get back to you.
Mr. Higgins. Could you maybe get back with us?
Ms. Bitter. Yes, of course.
Mr. Higgins. And I would ask the same of Mr. Levins and Mr.
Poist, if you could respond to the Committee, in a given period
of time, what the numbers or percentages are for onsite work
versus telework.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields
back his time.
The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. Lee, is recognized.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As Members of Congress, we have a duty to ensure that our
government is both funded and functional. We need to make sure
that everyone can easily renew a passport, access their Social
Security benefits, or apply for veteran's benefits. It is our
most vulnerable populations, the low income, the people of
color, and the elderly, who suffer the most when our agencies
cannot do their jobs. But we cannot hamstring those agencies
and then cry foul when they do not work.
Republicans have starved these agencies' resources for more
than a decade, and the current backlog is turning routine
applications into emergencies. One of my constituents is a
dental student at the University of Pittsburgh. He planned to
go on a dental mission trip to Honduras and lead a team to help
the people there. Although he applied well in advance, the
backlog meant that my district team had to help him to travel
to another state to get a same-day passport at the Buffalo
passport office.
With the current backlog, only those who can afford to
travel out of state to take a one-day appointment and pay the
increased cost can obtain a passport to travel abroad in time.
For my district in Pittsburgh, the two closest locations are
Buffalo and D.C., a 3-hour and a 4-hour drive, respectively. I
am extremely appreciative of my district team's hard work, but
situations like this should not be the norm.
Ms. Bitter, are there any plans to expand the number of
locations offering same-day services so that people do not have
to travel hours away?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question. I appreciate it. We
absolutely understand why it is very important to have as many
opportunities for people to be able to apply for a passport in
person. Across the United States, there are 7,000 acceptance
facilities where people can go and apply in person for a
passport.
We do a lot of monitoring and data to see exactly whether
we are able to meet the needs of people across the United
States. Our data shows that 95 percent of our customers reside
within 25 miles of an acceptance facility, and that 90 percent
of Americans live within a 5-hour drive of a counter, which is
where you can get same-day service.
So, it is--what we think we need to do is invest more in
ensuring that we have the technology, that our systems are
modernized, and that we are able to meet service demands.
That said, with respect to acceptance facilities in
particular, we are always looking for more places where we can
provide service to people, and we are happy to work with your
staff to see if there are more places within your district or
close by where we can ensure that people can be seen in person.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. And I hope that that also means a
commitment to working more with our district offices to better
expedite that process.
Another--turning over, my Republican colleagues seem to
conveniently forget that a big part of how we got here were
Trump-era policies that decimated the workforce at our
agencies.
Last year, Social Security Administration saw its smallest
workforce in 25 years, while also increasing the people they
serve by more than 10 million in the past decade. A 2018 Trump
executive order gutted the collective bargaining power of its
workers. Luckily, President Biden has since reversed this
policy, but SSA workers are now stuck with the contract made
during that time. These workers are essential for getting
millions of Americans the benefits they rely on to live. Yet,
SSA was ranked as the worst Federal agency to work at in
Partnership for Public Service's annual ratings.
Mr. Poist, why has SSA not reopened contract negotiations
with AFGE after President Biden reversed a Trump-era policy?
Mr. Poist. Thanks for that question. So, we have great
partnership with, actually, all three of our unions, including
AFGE. We actually, last summer, we did come to terms with six
contract articles with AFGE, and we are actually in
negotiations with AFGE right now for another six articles.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Often it is the frontline workers who
get the most flak, yet the hardest work. One of my constituents
was mistakenly listed as deceased by SSA, and in the process of
fixing the issue, some Medicaid payments were made in error.
Ms. Hill lost some of that vital money. My district team was
able to work with SSA to quickly fix the issue, and they issued
them a reimbursement check. But again, if SSA had the resources
and funding they need, my district team would not need to step
in. Despite all of this, we do have some positive steps being
taken.
Mr. Levins, can you briefly explain what the Technology
Modernization Fund, or TMF, is?
Mr. Levins. Yes. The TMF was a vehicle that we were able to
leverage to basically get a loan to fund the development of our
replacement production system. The production system that we
use at NPRC is about 20 years old, and it is out of date and in
need of replacement. It is one of NARA's high value assets.
With those funds, we were able to begin development, and we are
targeting deployment in December of this year.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. I will be respectful of my time. I did
want to add, my Republican colleagues seem so invested in
fixing the backlog on our agencies, but I think they need to
understand that cutting funding is not the answer. We need to
invest in the people and tech needed to ensure that our
constituents get the service they are owed from their
government.
I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
We now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Florida,
the gentleman, Mr. Donalds.
Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Quick comment on
spending levels. The Federal agencies are spending more than--
up over 40 percent from where they were in pre-COVID spending
levels. COVID-19 is now over. Not sure what additional work the
agencies are having to do, except for backlog work that the
agencies were not able to get to because a lot of Federal
workers were at home and not actually in the office going
through the practices that they are hired to do.
And look, I get it. It was COVID-19. You are not quite sure
what you are dealing with. That made sense in year one. But
year 2 and year 3, that made little sense to continue to leave
the offices closed or on partial schedules. And from what we
understand from previous testimony from the Director of Office
of Personnel Management, that there are still members of the
Federal workforce who have not returned to the office still
today. Like, that is a significant problem.
Cutting money from the Federal agencies because we continue
to overspend drastically is a good and healthy fiscal thing
that we should be doing in our country, and if that means that
there are services that our people need and are going to need,
then maybe Washington should rethink its policy overall to make
sure that we can address the needs of the American people while
not wasting the money of the American people.
To the witness panel, thanks for being here. Going to pose
a couple of questions here. Really just, you can answer whether
it is acceptable or not.
Ms. Bitter, I am going to start with you. A government that
enforces an essential business-only policy, while
simultaneously paying its employees full salaries, while
millions of Americans wait inexcusable amounts of time for
basic required services, is that acceptable or not?
Ms. Bitter. I am sorry, sir. The question is broadly
speaking?
Mr. Donalds. If we develop an essential businesses-only
policy, but everybody is still getting paid full-time, full
benefits, while Americans are having to wait exorbitant amount
of times, and, frankly, they have to call their Member of
Congress to help them--help weed through the bureaucracy, is
that acceptable or is it not acceptable?
Ms. Bitter. I just want to make sure I understand the
question, sir, please forgive me.
Mr. Donalds. Sure.
Ms. Bitter. So essential businesses only, I think what I
hear you asking is about parts of the government that were
closed except to essential services. Is that correct?
Mr. Donalds. Yes, ma'am. Is that acceptable or not?
Ms. Bitter. I can speak only for my organization and for
the passport services, which I think is what people are most
interested in. We have been, again, open since June 2020. And
while the pandemic certainly disrupted our operations, we never
stopped serving the public throughout for the entirety of the
time.
Mr. Donalds. I would argue it has been very delayed.
Mr. Levins, what about you? Is that acceptable or not?
Mr. Levins. Thank you for your question. I will never
forget March 2020, and the day that the pandemic hit----
Mr. Donalds. Mr. Levins, I agree. I was there too. We all
remember March 2020. The question is: In September 2020, in
March 2021, in September 2021, in March 2022, is it still
acceptable for the American people to require services of their
government only to not be able to get them in a timely fashion
because we have members of the Federal workforce who are not at
their posts doing their job? Is that acceptable or not?
Mr. Levins. I will speak for our office. We never entirely
closed.
Mr. Donalds. Never entirely closed. OK.
Mr. Poist?
Mr. Levins. From day one, we had people there to perform
essential services.
Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Levins.
Mr. Poist, is that acceptable or not?
Mr. Poist. So, like the other two panelists, our offices
never closed to the public. They were by appointment only.
Mr. Donalds. Mr. Poist, let me ask you a question. What
percentage of your workforce is actually in the office in the
calendar year of 2021? I am going to excuse you for 2020. I get
it. Early pandemic, everybody is trying to figure out what was
going on. Was your office fully open in 2021?
Mr. Poist. They were not fully open in 2021.
Mr. Donalds. Were they fully open in 2022?
Mr. Poist. They were.
Mr. Donalds. They were fully open; everybody was back to
work 100 percent in 2022? Obviously, not 100 percent. We know,
people get sick, people call out, but you had, essentially,
your entire workforce available to you in the year 2022?
Mr. Poist. At the end of March 2022, we had fully reentered
our offices.
Mr. Donalds. So, it took about a year and a half for
everybody to kind of come back in SSA. Is that correct?
Mr. Poist. That is correct.
Mr. Donalds. And there is no problem with that delay in
people coming back to work?
Mr. Poist. I do not see a problem.
Mr. Donalds. That is the problem, Mr. Poist, is that you do
not see a problem with that. But I tell you right now, the
American people see a big problem with that. When people call
my office--and listen, this not a partisan thing. It can be one
of--it can be an office of a Republican Member or a Democrat
Member of Congress. It does not matter. But when people call in
looking for help from Social Security or passport services and
trying to figure out how to get something done, they are not
getting an answer, they got hung up on on the phone, so they
call our offices; and when we call--and I get it, when we call,
everybody is jumping through hoops to answer the call of a
congressional office; you guys do not think there is a problem
with that? Because I do.
Listen, we will take care of every constituent request. It
does not matter who the constituent is. But when the only
answer a constituent gets is from their Member of Congress to
basically rattle the cages of the bureaucracy, that is a major
problem, and it is unacceptable.
I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
The gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Stansbury.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to say thank you, first of all, to our Federal
agencies and employees who are here with us today.
And I want to just start by saying that casework and
helping New Mexicans is the bread and butter of my
congressional office. It is a huge percentage of the work that
we do on behalf of my constituents. That includes everything
from helping our veterans, to helping our elders and seniors
with Social Security, helping with immigration issues with the
State Department. And these are very serious issues, and
obviously, all of us and all of our constituents are
experiencing real-life impacts that are affecting their
families and their lives.
But I do want to take a moment, because it really bothers
me when my colleagues bring folks in front of this Committee,
which is an oversight Committee, and then attack our Federal
public servants, folks who literally are working for us every
single day to try to address these issues. And the facts are
that when you freeze hiring, when you cut pay, when you do not
backfill jobs, and when you consistently attack Federal
employees, it affects their morale, it affects Federal hiring,
and it affects the services that our agencies are able to
actually provide to the American people.
So, the facts show that when we are not adequately funding
our agencies, when we are not adequately staffing our agencies,
and when we do not support our Federal personnel, we see the
kind of issues that we are seeing here today. So, obviously, we
want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that the
constituents across the U.S., but in my district in particular,
are facing.
New Mexico is a place where a disproportionate number of
our families are low income. Our seniors depend on their access
to Social Security to live, in some cases, check to check, and
we also have one of the highest percentages of the number of
individuals who are veterans and who have served in our
military, and we are very grateful for their service.
And I have to tell you that I actually, in preparation for
this hearing, spoke in depth with our staff about their
casework and what they have been seeing in each of our Federal
agencies. And, in fact, we have a Social Security service
center in my district in Albuquerque.
Now, first of all, when it comes to Social Security, I
actually agree with my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle on this issue. Folks who are on Social Security, many of
them obviously are elders. Many of them do not feel comfortable
using some of the technologies that the Federal Government is
trying to transition to.
And when they call our regional offices or they call the
800 number, and they get a runaround by an employee who is not
physically in the office, it means that they are not going to
be able to get their check. It means they are not going to be
able to pay their rent. It means they are not going to be able
to go grocery shopping and put food on the table. And for many
of our folks who are also living with disabilities, it means
that they are also not able to get qualified for their
disability support systems.
So, one of my asks, and I hope that you will take this
back, Mr. Poist, to the Social Security Administration and to
those who are up the chain who are listening today, is, we do
need those offices reopened. We do need more staff physically
in person. And we need to not be leaving our elders, seniors,
and people with disabilities standing in long lines outside of
Social Security offices trying to get their Social Security
checks and benefits approved. So, I do want to make that point.
Second, Ms. Bitter, I am very appreciative of your work. I
will tell you, I think everyone here is having this experience
right now. The passport backlog, the backlog on immigration and
other issues that we are seeing is really just astronomical
right now. And we have not received an adequate answer in my
office about why we are suddenly hitting a wall.
Like some of my colleagues, you know, normally, our
regional folks are fantastic. They help us solve problems when
we call, or we ask for help. But even now we are really running
into some huge problems. So, can you please explain why are we
seeing this backlog, and when do you hope to actually get it
resolved?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I
just want to clarify, we are talking about passports?
Ms. Stansbury. Yes.
Ms. Bitter. Yes. Thank you. So just to--for the big picture
and to back up and explain a little bit about where we are. We
are fee-funded, and our revenue comes from fees paid for the
services that we provide. And like the rest of the State
Department, we went into the pandemic at a deficit from hiring
freezes in prior years. And then, because we are fee-funded and
travel stopped, our fees dropped, and we had to implement
further hiring freezes.
So, by the time travel came back and our fees rebounded
about 18 months ago, we were starting 25 percent down from
where we had been.
Ms. Stansbury. And, Ms. Bitter, I am so sorry to interrupt
you, but we are short on time. Can you tell us when you can
expect to be caught up on this backlog?
Ms. Bitter. Sure. We anticipate that by the end of the
calendar year we will be at pre-pandemic waiting levels, and
that later in the summer and then throughout the fall, wait
times will continue to fall incrementally.
Ms. Stansbury. And, Mr. Chairman, I know I am out of time,
but I do want to just say one quick thing.
Mr. Levins, I am grateful that you are here today. We are
also seeing significant backlogs in getting those Federal
records for our veterans, and, in fact, one of my constituents
was unable to get a veteran's home loan because he did not get
his paperwork in time. So, please let us know how we can help
support your agencies. We know that you need support and
funding and staffing, and we just really are grateful for all
the work that you do. So, thank you.
I yield back
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
The distinguished gentleman from South Carolina, the
gentleman, Mr. Timmons, is recognized.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As everyone is aware, we just had a long debt ceiling
fight, and the outcome was determined by 11 percent of the
budget. Our leaders preemptively removed 89 percent of spending
from any conversation. We have $32 trillion of debt. We are on
an unsustainable path, and it is a national security threat to
this country.
The solution lies in three areas: Healthcare, immigration,
and Social Security. And so, I am going to talk about Social
Security right now, and I am going to begin this by saying that
I am not proposing that we take away anyone's Social Security
that has paid into the system. But we have structural
deficiencies. We have problems.
And, Mr. Poist, I am going to go over those with you real
quick. So, what year was Social Security created?
Mr. Poist. 1935.
Mr. Timmons. And what was the retirement age in the Social
Security Act of 1935?
Mr. Poist. Actually, I am not aware of that answer.
Mr. Timmons. 65 is the answer.
Do you know what life expectancy was in 1935? No? 59. That
math works. It does not take an actuarial model to see that if
most people are living to 59 and you do not get Social Security
until 65, that math works.
What is the retirement age now?
Mr. Poist. I think it varies based on your date of birth.
Mr. Timmons. 67 is generally the earliest that most people
can retire at this point. Is that fair?
Mr. Poist. Sounds fair.
Mr. Timmons. OK. And do you know what the life expectancy
is in 2023?
Mr. Poist. I do not.
Mr. Timmons. 76. 76. So, we have a problem. We have a
problem. I have here the 2003 annual report of the board of
trustees of the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance and
Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds. They are required to
do an annual communication to Congress and to the President.
And in this communication, it says--I will summarize it--
basically, we got 10 years at best until we go into austerity
measures, where individuals that have paid in that are due
benefits from these programs, we will not be able to meet our
obligations.
Do you know what happens when we go into austerity measures
for Social Security?
Mr. Poist. I do not. We have to get back to you on that
one.
Mr. Timmons. OK. So, the report here says that if nothing
is done, 80 percent of benefits--so if you are supposed to get
a dollar, you get 80 cents--will occur in 2023. There is also
discrepancy as to what year this is. A couple of models say it
is going to be sooner, almost 3 years sooner.
So, the challenge here is that the people that are
responsible for administering these benefits are saying that
there is a problem. And I am actually just going to read the
end.
The trustees recommend that lawmakers address the projected
trust fund shortfalls in a timely way in order to phase in
necessary changes gradually and give workers and beneficiaries
time to adjust to them. Implementing changes sooner rather than
later would allow more generations to share in the needed
revenue increases or reductions in scheduled benefits. Social
Security will play a critical role in the lives of 67 million
beneficiaries and 180 million covered workers and their
families during 2023. With informed discussion, creative
thinking, and timely legislative action, Social Security can
continue to protect future generations.
So, the people that are responsible for administering the
programs that we all hold dear are saying that they have a
problem, and they want Congress to do something about it. And
our leaders preemptively said we are not going to discuss
Social Security, healthcare, and immigration when resolving our
$32 trillion in debt. There was brief talk of a commission the
day of the vote, but that never has materialized.
So, I just think that this is a major problem. I think that
the longer we wait, the worse it will get. And I think that it
is incredibly irresponsible for us to not begin conversations
on how to save Social Security, because the people responsible
for administering the program are saying that there is a major
problem, and we are doing nothing. And the American people
deserve better.
And I hope that this Congress can get together and find a
path forward, because the alternative is very bad for the
American people, and we were sent here to solve problems, and
this is a big problem, and it is past time that we give it the
attention it is due.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you
very much.
The distinguished gentlewoman from the District of
Columbia, Ms. Norton, is recognized.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For more than a decade--I say this to our witnesses--
congressional Republicans or their Majorities have sought to
severely constrain the Federal budget, causing lasting harm to
agencies. So, this is a question for all of the witnesses here
today. Is your agency able to function properly if it is
underfunded, yes or no?
Ms. Bitter. No.
Mr. Levins. No.
Mr. Poist. No, we are not.
Ms. Norton. In 2017, congressional Democrats signed a
letter expressing concern to then President Trump that the
Social Security Administration's declining budget would affect
services to some of America's most vulnerable citizens.
I ask unanimous consent to insert this letter into the
record, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sessions. Without objection, that letter will be
entered.
Ms. Norton. Thank you.
That year, the Social Security Administration's declining
budget led to the closure of 64 field offices nationwide, a
burgeoning in disability hearings backlog with an average of
540-day waiting period, increased wait times at every point of
contact and extended durations for retirement and disability
appointments. Because of the dire underfunding, Social Security
Administration has had to impose an agency-wide hiring freeze
multiple times, forcing fewer employees to serve more
constituents.
Mr. Poist, in 16 out of 20 last appropriations cycles,
Social Security received significantly less than it told
Congress that it needed. How has this consistent underfunding
affected your agency's ability to serve older Americans and
those with disabilities?
Mr. Poist. Thank you for that question. So, the history of
underfunding at Social Security has led to some of the
challenges we have talked about, right. I mean, staffing being
one of them, right. We hit our lowest level of staffing in 25
years in Fiscal Year 2022. Again, we did receive an increase in
our appropriation in 2023, so that has allowed us to rebuild
some of our staffing. Pleased to report, as of today, we are up
about 2,000 people from where we ended Fiscal Year 2022.
But the underfunding that you were asking about, it also
has hindered our ability to implement new IT initiatives across
the agency. It has also limited our ability to fund overtime
for our frontline operations to work down some of these
critical backlogs.
Ms. Norton. All right. Mr. Poist, this is another question
for you. In fiscal 2022, the Social Security Administration
reported its smallest workforce in 25 years, the result of
insufficient funding. But the number of beneficiaries the
agency served increased by more than 10 million people in the
past decade. Field offices, payment centers, and disability
determination services agencies throughout the country continue
to operate under the effects of decreased staffing while also
helping more people at some of the most vulnerable and
sensitive moments.
Sustained funding cuts have chopped the Social Security
Administration's current budget. When adjusted for inflation,
its funding has decreased more than 17 percent over the last 17
years. At the same time, largely because of an aging
population, the number of people qualifying for benefits has
increased 21 percent.
So, Mr. Poist, how would sufficient funding and staffing
affect your agency's ability to provide customer service to
older Americans and those experiencing a disability?
Mr. Poist. So, with support of our fiscal--of the Fiscal
Year 2024 President's budget request, I think we would see
significant improvements to almost all of our customer service
metrics. And I mentioned some in my oral testimony, we would
see the national 800 number wait time decrease from 35 minutes
this year to 20 minutes next year. We would also see all parts
of the disability process; the production of volumes improve as
well in 2024. We would also be able to continue modernizing
some of our IT systems and developing those online suite of
services to help customers reach us both online and in person.
Ms. Norton. Congress needs to provide adequate funding to
Federal agencies to bolster their workforce and by providing
workers adequate compensation, offering comparable benefits,
and exploring other steps to attract the next generation of
Federal workers. Otherwise, it may be very difficult for
agencies to make progress on backlogs and improve customer
service.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank
you very much.
The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Edwards, is
recognized.
Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I certainly
appreciate you convening this hearing.
I think it is important for us to understand how our
Federal agencies are working, how they are failing, and how we
can better provide service to the Americans that pay their
taxes and expect a high level of services.
There is an awful lot to unpack here with three
distinguished folks like this, but I would like to focus just a
bit on passports. That seems to be one of the issues that my
office deals with the most. And do not get me wrong, I am
excited to be in a place and my staff certainly is eager to
help those with passport issues. And we get all kinds of calls
with folks that need to go to weddings and honeymoons and have
business trips and sales calls and mission trips and vacations
of a lifetime, and seem to not be able to get service from the
State Department on passports.
In fact, while I see the role of a congressional office as
being one to help break loose a logjam with bureaucracy, I feel
that my office is now often the first point of contact. In
fact, there have been situations where constituents would call
and ask for help with a passport--to a passport agency, and
then be told by that agency, you need to call your Congressman.
And then my staff takes in the information and turns around and
calls the agency back. It seems to be a very awkward,
inefficient way to run things.
And so, I have just a few questions on that. Ms. Bitter, I
think I heard you say that 100 percent of the employees in--I
am going to call it Department of State--are back at work live.
Is that correct?
Ms. Bitter. All of our passport--our public facing passport
offices are open and have been open since June 2020 with their
staff in the office.
Mr. Edwards. And so, I get reports--because there is so
many folks that are told they have to go visit an office,
sometimes in Charleston, sometimes in Atlanta. I represent
North Carolina in the southeast. Folks have driven all the way
to Charleston to see locked doors.
Is that something you would be aware of, or can you think
of a reason that that passport office might have doors closed?
Ms. Bitter. Sure. Thank you for the question. I should also
say, first of all, we are grateful for the partnership of your
constituent services staff. That is really important to us to
be able to work with your staff to be able to draw to our
attention problems that people may be having.
Most of our passport centers and agencies have public
counters. They see 23,000 people per week on an emergency
basis. We try to publicize widely our service expectations,
which is 10 to 13 weeks right now, so that people can plan for
their trips.
It happens that Charleston is not one of our agencies that
has a public counter. So--but I think the closest one to your
constituents would be in Atlanta.
Mr. Edwards. We have sent a number of folks to Atlanta.
What are the performance metrics for your agency? How do
you measure success? How do you measure productivity of
employees?
Ms. Bitter. There are--how do we measure productivity?
Overall, what we want to see is a reduction in wait times. We
are disappointed with the wait times. We think they are high.
And we anticipate that they will be going down later in the
summer, back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the calendar
year. There are negotiations with the union service
expectations and production standards, but I do not know off
the top of my head what they are.
Mr. Edwards. And that is a bit vague to me as a business
person. And I hear you saying that you are looking for
reduction in wait times. What are the wait times right now?
Ms. Bitter. Right now, it is 10 to 13 weeks is the service
expectation for a regular passport, and I think it is seven to
9 weeks for an expedited passport.
Mr. Edwards. Those are the times right now?
Ms. Bitter. Uh-huh.
Mr. Edwards. Do you have a goal for your agency what it
should be?
Ms. Bitter. Pre-pandemic, wait times typically, although it
is seasonal, were 6 to 8 weeks and 2 to 3 or 4 weeks per
expedite. We anticipate we will be back there at the end of the
calendar year. We were there at the beginning of this fiscal
year. We were, I think, 7 to 9 weeks. We are experiencing
unprecedented demand. Last year, we issued 22 million passport
books and cards, which was the most ever. And this year, we are
on track to do 15 percent above that, and that accounts for the
wait times.
Mr. Edwards. And so that lends another question. Could we
have anticipated, should we have anticipated the pent-up
demand, which appears to me what we are experiencing after
COVID? Now folks are traveling and trying to make up for lost
trips. Could we--is there something we could have done to
anticipate that demand?
Ms. Bitter. What we have been doing is continuing to
aggressively hire passport adjudicators. We came out of the
pandemic after hiring freezes that we were rebuilding from and
then hiring freezes because of the loss of the fees that we
collect for travel. We were 25 percent below where we had been
4 years before. So, we have been working very hard to rehire
people, to hire as much staff as possible. We have hired 10
percent of our staff within the last year. We have 10 percent
in the pipeline now. We submitted a plan, an ops plan, that was
approved yesterday by Congress for Fiscal Year 2023, requesting
more positions and more investment in technology.
Mr. Edwards. Today, how many positions are not filled to
deal with passports that are funded?
Ms. Bitter. I think we have about a 10 percent vacancy
rate, but I will have to confirm that.
Mr. Edwards. About a number?
Ms. Bitter. I think we probably have--I do not know the
answer to that, where we have requested 177 more in the ops
plan.
Mr. Edwards. All right.
Ms. Bitter. And I think we probably have about a hundred
that we need to fill right now, 100, 110. But we will have to
confirm that.
Mr. Edwards. So, I would just like to say, Mr. Chair, if I
might, because I see my time is expiring, my staff is mostly
complementary about the interaction that they have with those
folks dealing with passports, once they are able to make
contact. But my staff spends an inordinate amount of time on
hold and calling back to make that contact. And it just seems
as though we could do, we should do better by the American
people with a service that only government can perform. Thank
you.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. I also
want to thank the gentleman for requesting this hearing several
weeks ago, and I hope that this meets some of that expectation
of getting answers. Thank you very much.
The distinguished gentleman from Maryland, the Ranking
Member of the Committee, my friend, Mr. Raskin, is recognized.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very kindly for
recognizing me.
The philosophy in my office is that everything we do is
about constituent service, whether it is helping people get
their Social Security checks, helping people get their
passports, getting PPP loans. And when I go to vote on
something like expanding America's infrastructure investment or
lowering prescription drug costs that, too, is in service of
our people. So that ethos informs everything we do.
I agree with my friend from New Mexico who said that, as
politicians, we cannot defund the government and then rail
against the government. We need to make sufficient resources
available so we can actually serve our people. But I am
speaking as someone who supports funding the government to get
the work done, and I have had some problems.
And I want to start by referring to a constituent who is
immunocompromised and applied for disability benefits from SSI
in spring of last year. And she quickly got a denial for a
nonmedical reason. It took more than 6 months for the Social
Security Administration to tell her that she had simply checked
the wrong box about obtaining her records, and had she checked
the correct box, she was told, it would have changed the
determination in her case.
So, she reapplied. She waited another 6 months to get her
case assigned to a different examiner. And in April of this
year, she contacted me for help getting a status update on
where things stood, and then she got another denial a month
later.
She had been unable to work since before the pandemic, and
now needs a Social Security determination once again, which
could take yet another year. Despite being immunocompromised,
she finally had to get a part-time job because she was flat out
broke. She then caught COVID-19 on the job.
This story about seeming bureaucratic indifference and
lethargy in responding to one of our fellow citizens is not
unique. My district office hears hundreds of cases like this
every year from desperate constituents who have been waiting
and cannot get a status update from Federal agencies, like
Social Security, which is probably not the worst, from my
experience.
Mr. Poist, what is causing these delays, and what can
Congress do to help to remove the logjam?
Mr. Poist. Sure. Thank you so much for that question. And,
you know, we have got a lot of challenges with the initial
disability process, and we feel deeply for that, the delays
that that constituent waited. So, a lot of problems leading
into the pandemic relating to long wait times, pendings
growing, have been led mostly by recruitment and retention
challenges in our states. Again, that worsened during the
pandemic.
I think we got a good plan in place to reverse course here.
Really what can Congress do? That is support the Fiscal Year
2024 President's budget request that allows us to rebuild
staffing at both the agency and our State DDS partners. You
know, staffing is probably the No. 1 concern in those State
DDSs. I mentioned previously that we have seen record high
attrition the last 3 years in those State DDSs.
We are also working on a comprehensive plan for the initial
disability backlog that we hope to release sometime later this
year.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I hope you do that sooner rather than
later. We do not want a backlog in the plan to deal with the
backlog. You know, if we can move that quickly. And I
appreciate your hard work on this, and if there is anything we
can do to help, let us know. It is hard to think of anything
more important to us.
You know, for passport help, my office has opened a
thousand cases in the first 6 months of this year, which is
double what we opened in all of last year. And it is impossible
to manage our constituents' expectations because the Office of
Passport Services continues to change the processing times, and
that is not an acceptable way for us to be doing business.
Recently, the Washington Passport Agency, which is the
passport office closest to my district, announced it can no
longer help with congressional inquiries on behalf of our
constituents. We are told that only in cases of life or death
emergency can we work to schedule our constituents for
appointments. But if the constituent is on the phone all day
and randomly manages to get through to the National Passport
Information Center themselves, the call representative can then
schedule a local appointment, even without a life or death
emergency.
So, Ms. Bitter, why are the congressional offices
encountering such radical discrepancies in policy and
inconsistency about whether and when and how we can actually
help our constituents get their passports?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you, sir. I am surprised to hear that
your staff received that feedback. I really appreciate it. Now
that we know, we can fix it. That is not our policy.
Mr. Raskin. Can we contact you?
Ms. Bitter. Yes.
Mr. Raskin. Because I have got people working full time on
this now.
Ms. Bitter. We would be grateful, actually. We work very
closely with constituent services staff. We would be grateful
to be in touch with you.
Mr. Raskin. OK. My staff is very nice, and they are very
good.
Ms. Bitter. So is mine, I promise.
Mr. Raskin. We will get in touch with you. All right. Good.
Then we will be able to remove some of the obstacles here. And
I appreciate that.
And I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
calling this important hearing.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir. And I thank the distinguished
gentleman for taking time, not only to join us, but for his
specific information that would be aimed at helping those
organizations achieve a better viewpoint. Thank you, sir.
The gentlewoman from Colorado, Mrs. Boebert, is recognized.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Levins, as director of the NPRC, how many
unanswered requests do you currently have?
Mr. Levins. As of yesterday, there were 338,000 unanswered
requests, of which 265,000 are considered backlogged.
Mrs. Boebert. And how many unanswered requests are too
many?
Mr. Levins. We service about 30,000 a week, and generally
speaking, prior to the pandemic, our customer service standard
we were trying to achieve was 10-day turnaround times. So, more
than 60,000 would be too many to serve in 10 days or less.
Mrs. Boebert. So, I know for a fact that my congressional
office has contacted the NPRC multiple times to help veterans
obtain a copy of their records to verify eligibility and
receive their benefits. We saw the backlog of requests
skyrocketed to over 600,000. And this is oftentimes too late
for a veteran to receive lifesaving care because bureaucrats
were refusing to show up for work.
So, I see that number is about half now, but are your
employees back at work full-time?
Mr. Levins. Yes.
Mrs. Boebert. In person?
Mr. Levins. Yes, since March 2022.
Mrs. Boebert. March 2022. And from what I understand, the
backlog has decreased significantly after the NPRC returned to
in-person work, after multiple requests from Congress to do
exactly that.
You said you came back to work in 2022, everyone came back
in person. Why did that take so long?
Mr. Levins. So, I want to be clear. First of all, we never
closed entirely. We always maintained a skeletal crew there to
make sure we handled the most urgent requests, such as those
involving funerals, medical emergencies, homeless veterans
seeking shelter. Throughout the pandemic, as local health
conditions improved, we were able to bring additional people
into the building. We worked with the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health to review our building
blueprints, our HVAC systems, and inform our leadership on what
the safe amount of occupancy in the building was.
At the time, our records were analog, not digital. We were
not able to work remotely. We have made a lot of changes since
then.
Mrs. Boebert. Correct. Yes. Agencies are transitioning away
from paper records, but NPRC still stores millions of records
in two facilities in St. Louis. When a veteran or former
civilian employee needs a copy of their records often to verify
these eligibilities for benefits and whatnot, the NPRC staff
has to pull and file those and process the requests. So, it is
clearly impossible to do that remotely, so that would explain
why your backlog reached 600,000. I am happy to hear that it is
down, but I think there is still a lot of work to do because
this is certainly impacting my constituents back home.
Deputy Commissioner Poist, how did the SSA's transition to
exclusively remote customer service during COVID negatively
impact elderly citizens who previously relied on in-person
service?
Mr. Poist. Thank you for that question. So, in the early
days of the pandemic, we definitely recognized some challenges
that we experienced as we transitioned from that in-person
service to mostly telephone and internet service in the early
days of the pandemic. I think once we were able to, and I call
it find our footing, I think service did improve to the
American public. We did experience also some challenges with
our 800 number. I think we have since kind of overcome those
challenges. We see a stable system today, and we are hoping to
implement our new Next Generation Telephony Project system by
the end of this fiscal year.
Mrs. Boebert. Can the SSA expedite disability
determinations for applicants who do not have over 200 days to
receive the benefits that they are entitled to?
Mr. Poist. Once they give them back for the record, I will
have to get our operational experts to weigh in on that one.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you.
Assistant Secretary Bitter, if your family had planned a
trip and they needed their passports, they needed them issued,
renewed, would you prefer to have your appointment before or
after the trip is scheduled?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question. We publish our
service standards widely so that people do not have to make
that choice, so that they can renew their passport before they
make their plans.
Mrs. Boebert. So, in my district, due to the backlog of the
Department of State, several of my constituents and their
families did not receive their passports on time. And when they
requested appointments, they were scheduled for after their
trips. This certainly has caused many families to have to
cancel their trips whether, you know, that is for pleasure or
something serious. And this is an issue that comes up in all of
our offices regularly. And so, we would love to work with you
to expedite all of these services that are provided and that
are represented here today.
Ms. Bitter. We would love to work with your constituent
services staff.
Mrs. Boebert. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you.
Mrs. Boebert. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank
you very much.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Frost, is recognized.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am proud to represent central Florida here in the U.S.
Congress. Central Florida is home to Orlando, one of the top
tourist destinations in the entire country. The closest
passport agency to Orlando, Florida, is actually in Miami. It
is about 235 miles away, about a 4-hour drive, an expensive
plane ticket or train ticket to get there. The Miami Passport
Agency is only open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. until 2 p.m.
I am concerned about the people who work Monday through
Friday, the working class people who have a hard time taking
off to go travel 4 hours to Miami for their passport
applications.
Assistant Secretary Bitter, I understand the Miami Passport
Agency staff are working extremely hard under the constraints
that they have and the hours that they are open. The problem
for my constituents is it is not always possible to take time
off to get down there. Are there any solutions that come to
mind on ways that we can address this problem?
Ms. Bitter. Yes. Thank you so much for the question,
Congressman. We have 7,000 acceptance agencies across the
United States where people can apply in person. For renewals,
of course, people can send them in by mail.
When we do our geographic surveys, we find that 95 percent
of our customers live within 25 miles of an acceptance agency,
and 90 percent of Americans live within a 5-hour drive of a
counter.
What we are aiming to do, of course, is to ensure that our
service standards are widely publicized so people can plan
their trips and they do not have to go to a passport agency,
and also to invest in technology so people can have more access
to the ability to apply from their own homes.
We would love to work with you if there are more
opportunities to increase the number of acceptance facilities
so people can apply in person in your district. We would love
to work with you on that.
Mr. Frost. OK. Perfect, perfect. I would love to work with
you on that well.
Assistant Secretary Bitter, yesterday I sent a letter to
Deputy Assistant Secretary Arndt, asking if the Department of
State would consider accepting appointments on Saturday at that
office.
Would you be able to commit to taking a look at that letter
and exploring that option, just so that way working families,
who have a hard time getting there during the week, they have
an opportunity to go to a counter and see somebody?
Ms. Bitter. Certainly. And, in fact, our counters across
the network have--each of them have opened some weekend hours,
but I would love to look at that letter and will certainly work
with you on that.
Mr. Frost. Perfect. Thank you so much.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you.
Mr. Frost. Thank you to committing to taking a look at the
letter, looking at how we can accommodate working families on a
Saturday, and also looking at how we can probably get a counter
in Florida's 10th congressional District. My constituents have
family reunions, business trips, honeymoons to get to, and so
we just want to make sure we are doing everything we can to
advocate for them.
I was just this morning rallying with AFGE with a lot of
our workers. One of my colleagues brought this up earlier, but
the Social Security Administration currently ranks as one of
the worst Federal workplaces.
Mr. Poist, what is being done to support our government
employees who are currently working under some pretty severe
constraints in terms of capacity?
Mr. Poist. Thanks for that question. So, you know, again,
staffing is really the No. 1 reason that our employees are
reporting they feel overworked. So, again, with the Fiscal Year
2023 appropriation that we received--and again, we are grateful
for the increase we received over Fiscal Year 2022--we have
implemented a pretty aggressive hiring plan for this year. I
already mentioned that we reported about 2,000 net gains so far
this fiscal year, so kind of a help is on the way for those
employees out there on our front lines who are working day in
and day out for us.
So, I think that is the biggest challenge that we see, is
they need staff. They need the additional support in their
offices next to them.
Mr. Frost. For the next fiscal year, Social Security
Administration requests additional funding to improve customer
service and field offices and hot lines, address processing
center backlogs, and reduce the disability claims backlog. I
know you have been expressing that capacity is really the main
root cause of a lot of the problems we are seeing.
Which Federal body is in charge of funding the Social
Security Administration?
Mr. Poist. I am sorry. I am not sure I understand your
question.
Mr. Frost. Which Federal body is in charge of funding the
Social Security Administration? Who approves your budget?
Mr. Poist. Oh, Congress.
Mr. Frost. U.S. Congress. What percentage of the funding
your agency requested has actually been authorized?
Mr. Poist. So, for like 14 of the last 20 years, we have
not received the President's budget level of requested funding.
So, again, we have been severely underfunded for multiple
years.
Mr. Frost. Yes. Well, there you have it. I mean, the reason
why disability claims are slower than molasses is not, you
know, just a fact of life; it is because Republicans in
Congress repeatedly have chosen to defund the Social Security
and the Social Security Administration.
What was the effect of telework during the pandemic?
Mr. Poist. So, really, telework allowed our operations to
continue during the pandemic when our service transitioned to
mostly a telephone-based service, again, during the early parts
of the pandemic. Again, our offices never fully closed to the
public. They were limited to appointments only to protect both
our employees and the visiting public who often, you know, met
some of those vulnerability criteria with the pandemic.
So, really, telework allowed us to continue our operations.
And now that we have fully reentered back in March 2022--again,
we do have telework still within the agency itself. It is
mostly driven by a business decision. Managers decide who is
telework eligible and who is not telework eligible, and also
the flexibility to recall or suspend telework in our field
offices if there is an expected high demand day or something
like that.
Mr. Frost. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you
very much.
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Burlison, is recognized.
And I want to thank him for sticking out through this entire
hearing.
Mr. Burlison. I am the clean-up hitter.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for coming. Appreciate the work that
you do for the citizens of the United States. I would be remiss
if I did not convey--you know, and it is not anyone's
particular fault, but the frustration that our constituents
have when they call, whether it is they are canceling their
family vacation, or, you know, someone is not getting their
information timely from--as a veteran, or people cannot get
into the Social Security office. I mean, our offices are
fielding those calls, and so we appreciate the work that you do
to work with our office staff.
And so, I kind of want to go this route of questions. I
come from the private sector, worked in IT. We had tickets.
Whenever you have somebody call in, we had software that
managed those tickets. We managed--because of that, we were
able to look at particular employee data, look at a department,
be able to identify ticket turnaround time, how that compares,
how that is normative compared to other departments. We were
able to identify employees that were exceptional.
And then we would send out surveys. And then you would be
able to determine, not only is an employee fast, but people are
happy. People like talking to that employee. They are very
pleasant to deal with.
So, I am asking this question because I want to know: Is
your agency going about the process of doing the same thing,
collecting information about the productivity of your staff?
And we can start with Honorable Bitter, and then move on.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you. Absolutely, we have a very
productive staff. The challenges that we are experiencing--
frankly, not unlike--I mean, we are coming out of a pandemic
that has challenged sectors across the United States. Where our
challenges are is we have not enough employees right now to
handle what is record setting, unprecedented----
Mr. Burlison. Do you have a system in place where you are
able to keep track of the volume that they are taking on, the
tickets, their turnaround time, the satisfaction scores? So,
you are keeping that?
Ms. Bitter. We keep that for the agency and also for our
call center and for all parts of our organization.
Mr. Burlison. Do you use that data for individuals on their
annual report? It there any kind of merit pay based on their
success or satisfaction?
Ms. Bitter. I do not know the answer to that, actually. It
is certainly part of the performance review of people. I do not
know specifically how the data is used.
Mr. Burlison. Because coming from the private sector, that
is what we do. Your performance--a portion of your merit
performance or pay increase is dependent upon data, as opposed
to, you know, whether or not people at work like you or your
manager likes you. So----
Ms. Bitter. Understood. Understood.
Mr. Burlison. So, something to consider.
Same question, Mr. Levins.
Mr. Levins. Thank you for your question. Yes, we are a very
numbers-driven organization, and we have a pretty sophisticated
production system, so every transaction does get assigned a
number to it. All of our employees have performance plans. Most
of the jobs lend themselves to quantitative production and
qualitative standards as well, and that is how they are
evaluated. And there is also incentive programs based on your
productivity achievements. And then----
Mr. Burlison. That is good. So, you do have incentive
programs?
Mr. Levins. Yes, yes.
Mr. Burlison. That is great. Go ahead. I stopped you.
OK. Let us move--Mr. Poist, same question.
Mr. Poist. Sure. I think your original question was about
surveys. I do appreciate the question. So, we do extensively
survey some of our employees. We do a Federal Employee
Viewpoint Survey each year.
Mr. Burlison. So, you are asking the employes if they are
satisfied. I am asking if the people that you serve, the
taxpayers, if you are surveying them?
Mr. Poist. Yes.
Mr. Burlison. OK.
Mr. Poist. So, we also survey our customers pretty
extensively as well. So, we have an ``always on'' online
survey, so any member of the public can go online at any time
they choose and fill out a survey.
Mr. Burlison. And then are you using any kind of merit pay
or performance pay?
Mr. Poist. I would have to get back to you on whether we
use that in performance management.
Mr. Burlison. OK. I would encourage you to do that.
My next question, I have got little time, has to do with
how do we improve. So, Ms. Bitter, how do we digitize and
streamline and improve the process of getting a passport,
renewing a passport?
And then I would ask Mr. Levins same thing. How do we
streamline the ability for someone, a veteran, to just--they
should be able to login and just download all the documents
that belong to them.
Go ahead.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question.
We piloted earlier this year our online passport renewal
system. 565,000 Americans renewed their passport online; 12,000
filled out a survey saying that they were very satisfied. It
was a pilot where we were consolidating the lessons that we
learned before we roll it out before the end of the year, and
five million Americans should be able to take advantage of it.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Mr. Levins. As I testified earlier, the majority of the
holdings in our facility are analog or paper records. In the
late 1990's, early 2000's, the military departments began
setting up electronic personnel systems, but on a point-forward
basis. They did not go back and digitize all of the paper that
is going back to the Spanish-American War in our building.
However--and that is why we struggled during the pandemic
because we did not have access to electronic records. However,
the VA is aggressively digitizing at a rate faster than I have
ever seen in my lifetime. They are digitizing more and more
electronic records. We have built technology to enable our
production system to be accessed outside of the office in case
there is another event like this, or even more common, weather
emergencies, people can now be productive remotely by accessing
those electronic records. And we have total functionality to
send them to veterans in a secure manner as well.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Casar, you are now recognized.
Mr. Casar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. This is an
important hearing, and I appreciate so many of the Members all
working to solve challenges for their constituents and wanting
these Federal agencies to work.
And we have stories about veterans' records and about
Social Security benefits. I want to focus on some stories about
what folks have been dealing with their passports and then
thinking about how we can move forward from there, because this
is not just about people going on trips. We have heard from
constituents who--a single mother who sacrificed so much for
months so that her daughter could get on a study abroad trip
and that almost all falling apart, but we had to do the
necessary work so that she could get on the trip; a constituent
who was a recently naturalized citizen needing an emergency
passport to see her father who was severely ill, and we were
not able to help her to get to see him in time before his
passing. I mean, these are very serious challenges that people
face in their daily life, and we want to be able to be
responsive. And so, I appreciate the questions around how is it
that we can fix these backlogs.
I want to focus on the State Department because we do not
have enough time to cover everyone. But, Ms. Bitter, folks have
brought up the surge in demands that you are facing. People
have brought up telework, and then there has also been
conversation about staffing shortages.
Amongst those three, or any other, what percentage would
you say of what you are facing in the backlog is the surge in
demand for passports, a surge in requests, how much has to do
with telework, and how much has to do with staffing shortages
at the agency?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question.
Just to zoom out a little bit, I just want to also
emphasize again--first of all, thanks to your constituent
services staff. We understand these challenges. We work very
hard to publicize our service standards, so people do not fall
into that trap. Our counter services receive 23,000 people a
week. We have extended hours. We are working very hard to try
to keep up with what is record demand and record staffing
shortages.
If I could zoom out and say that there are really two
things that the state--that we need in order to be able to meet
the demand of your constituents. No. 1 is fully funding the
State Department. While we are fee funded, everything that we
do relies on the State Department platform--hiring, contracts,
IT. All of it sits on the State Department. So, when the State
Department platform is not fully funded, it is very difficult
for us to hire the people that we need, to make sure that we
have the technology we need to roll out these systems. So that
is No. 1.
And then the second thing that we need is something that
Congress already gave us, which was expanded expenditure
authority so that we can move the fees that we receive to
emerging challenges more efficiently. We got the expanded
spending authority, but just on a year-to-year basis. For us to
be able to make the kinds of investments that we want to make
to be able to meet the demand and serve your constituents,
investments in IT and hiring, we need the certainty to be able
to strategically plan into the future, to be able to know that
we will be able to expend those funds in as flexible a way as
possible.
Mr. Casar. And so, your sense or your testimony here is
that it is really though increasing demand and the staffing
shortage that have caused that backlog and that the President's
budget has requested additional funding, but my assumption here
is--but you can confirm--that if indeed we actually went and
cut back on agencies that that would make the backlogs worse,
not better?
Ms. Bitter. It will make it much more difficult for us to
meet your constituents' demands.
Mr. Casar. And, according to Secretary Blinken, the Trump
Administration caused a loss of about a thousand jobs at the
State Department because of the 16-month hiring freeze. Is it
correct that that Trump hiring freeze impacted staffing levels
at the State Department?
Ms. Bitter. The State Department had a 16-month hiring
freeze, which we were recovering from when the pandemic hit. We
had to further freeze positions because our fees were reduced.
So, we came out of the pandemic 25 percent below where we had
been 4 years prior.
Mr. Casar. Thank you for your testimony. I appreciate
everybody today talking about how we want to help our
constituents and clear these backlogs, but I want to advocate
for us funding these agencies, funding these hardworking staff,
making sure that there is adequate hours, holding agencies
accountable, being effective with those dollars. But we cannot
break the government and then complain about how the government
is broken. That cannot be our strategy moving forward if we
want people to be able to get to their family funerals. If we
want people to access their veteran records, if we want people
to be able to get their disability check, we have to be
realistic about adequately staffing these programs, supporting
hardworking staff, and then not having a strategy of breaking
the government and then complaining about how government is
broken.
Thank you so much. And I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
The distinguished gentleman, Mr. Burchett, is recognized.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
allowing me to be here.
I do not know why we always thank you all. You all are just
supposed to do your daggum job, and we appreciate that. So, I
guess I am thanking you for that and your expert coaching
skills in the baseball game, Mr. Chairman; appreciate you on
that.
Mr. Sessions. Big win.
Mr. Burchett. Big win, yes, sir.
Thank you all for being here. I am the 435th most powerful
Member of Congress, so, by the time they get to me, all the
good questions have been asked. So, as I tell most of these
folks, if the question has already been asked multiple times,
act like it is a very thought-provoking question and that it is
the most incredible question you ever heard because we will be
playing this back for my constituents, and I would like them to
think I was on top of my game. So, thank you all.
My first question, though, how do you all intend--and I
guess this is Ms. Bitter, Assistant Secretary, Ms.--is it Ms.
Bitter? Is that Mrs., Ms., whatever? All right.
How do you intend to improve the communications to help
Americans get prompt passport status updates, provide payment
information, or get details on problems with their
applications, like a bad photo or a missing photo application?
A number of our constituents have called my office complaining
about difficulties getting timely updates on their passport
applications. Either they cannot get through the national
passport line, or they wait at the 1-877 literally for hours
and to be read the same status update available online at
travel.state.gov.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for--that is actually a question that
has not been asked, so thank you very much.
Mr. Burchett. Well, I need to thank Madison Heinshon and
Jennifer Lingenfelter in my office who actually handle these
all the time.
Ms. Bitter. We are grateful to them.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Bitter. So, we have been working really closely with
our contractor to increase the capacity, and we have seen
improvement, but we absolutely need to see more. Our call
center handled like 3.5 million customer inquiries in the first
4 months of this year, I think about a million just in April.
So, what they have done is they have tripled the number of
phone lines, and they have hired for operators. They have
expanded their hours. They have included weekend hours. They
have opened up a third facility to be able to handle these
calls, and they have also introduced new technology to improve
responsiveness. We also have gotten volunteers together on a
surge team to support them.
And you mentioned one thing that we are working on, which
is the passport status check on travel.state.gov. We are
working to improve that. We recognize that that is something
that is lacking, and it does not give robust enough
information. We anticipate rolling that out, I think, in the
next couple of months.
Mr. Burchett. All right.
Ms. Bitter. So, that will take pressure off our call
center.
Mr. Burchett. Let me follow up with that.
Are the congressional district offices being used as
buffers for the Bureau of Consular Affairs? Because my office
has opened up 112 passport cases in 2022, from January to June.
For the same timeframe this year, the number is 304.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you. Yes, I think we--and thank you for
that.
We tend to think of your constituent services staff as
partners, rather than buffers. Although we are grateful anytime
someone can draw to our attention challenges that a constituent
is having; it is important to us because, if we do not know
about it, we cannot fix it.
And I would go further, we want to work with your
constituent services staff. We want to partner on outreach into
your district to make sure that people do not miss trips, that
they understand what the service standards are so that they can
plan their travel accordingly.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, ma'am. But, when they are on hold for 3
hours, that--I hate to say it, but those words are very hollow,
I guess I should say because that does not--when I get an angry
constituent--and I can tell you it happens a lot. If I am in a
church parking lot or going to the store, I can generally tell
by the tone of their voice that it is going to be a question
dealing with something like this, because it seems to be the
real hot button right now.
And my office--the ladies in my office do an excellent job
of it. So, I am pretty sure our Senator is calling them--or
push them off on us as well. And a lot of times I know they are
dealing with folks that are not even our constituents, and so
it is very troublesome to me that this just keeps happening.
But you are telling me that they are doing something to fix
this problem?
Ms. Bitter. We anticipate that our wait times will be back
to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this calendar year and
that, through the late summer and fall, that they will decrease
incrementally.
Mr. Burchett. And what measures, real quickly, are being
implemented to catch up on the backlog?
Ms. Bitter. We have surge teams in place across the
Department of volunteers. We have called back retirees. We have
kept people from their--new employees are working on passports.
Surge teams across the Department actually and across the
network and across the world are working to make sure that we
can stay within our service standards, 10 to 13 weeks. And we
recognize that we work very hard to publicize those service
standards so people can plan their travel. People pay
attention--unfortunately, people do not pay attention until
they have a trip planned. So, we are working, again, our
counters across the network see roughly 23,000 people per week.
We have extended those hours, and these are for emergency
appointments, and we have included weekend hours as well.
Mr. Burchett. OK. I am out of time. But, ma'am, if there is
ever something that we need to be doing on our end, I sure
would like to know because this is really a hot button in
Tennessee. I am sure it is across the country.
Ms. Bitter. Thank you.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you
very much.
The gentlewoman from Dallas, Texas, Ms. Crockett, is
recognized.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And much like my colleague, a lot has already been said, a
lot that I can reiterate. I think that this is probably one of
the times we are a little bit more bipartisan in that our
constituent work is being comprised of a lot of the same
issues.
I do want to say that we are having to work overtime
because of passports specifically. I got a text message from my
chief right before the weekend saying that he was going to have
someone work over the weekend because last week alone we got 30
passport cases that came in. We are kind of overwhelmed with
passports. And, much like it has already been said, we have
been told that, when people call the passport office, they are
told to call your Congressperson. So, it feels as though we are
doing the heavy lifting, and I do not want to beat up on you,
but I do want to be real in this setting because this is what
oversight is about. And, while I can appreciate advertising and
telling people that this is the timeframe that it is taking, we
have got emergencies that are arising as well.
Now, because I am in Dallas, my constituents do not have to
travel far because we do have a location there that can help
them same day. That has definitely proven to be really
beneficial to my constituents. And I do want to say that they
really do appreciate the help, and so I know that they would
send you the type of love that I am about to read from one of
my constituents, Shawn, because I want people to understand it
is not just summer vacations, even though those are spiking as
well. It is other opportunities. Shawn contacted us
frantically. He contacted my office. He contacted me directly.
He contacted another elected official because he really needed
help with a passport. But, ultimately, he emailed me back, and
he said, ``My passport application had encountered unexpected
delays, which left me uncertain about receiving it in time for
a great academic achievement of my life, an internship in
Oxford.''
Oxford University. He was about to miss this because he
could not get his passport. That is not something that everyone
gets an opportunity to do. And so, I am excited that we were
able to help him. He was excited that we were able to help him.
But I do want you to understand truly the depths of the issues
that exist as it relates to passports.
I am going to move on to Social Security, though, because
something that really has not been highlighted is something
that was said by one of my colleagues from across the aisle,
and I feel as if he was saying the quiet part out loud. He
started talking about Social Security, and he started talking
about life expectancy, and he talked about the fact that
basically most people would die before they would ever get to
Social Security. That is just summarizing it.
Do you remember that questioning?
OK. And so right now, he has a problem with Social Security
because right now most people will live to see Social Security.
So, essentially, we want to say that we are offering Social
Security on paper, but we do not ever want to have to see a
payout for that is what I got out of that questioning, and that
is unfortunate.
And I am curious to know if my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle are expressing this faux outrage about this
because, when we look at the cuts that have been taken--and, in
fact, that particular colleague was upset because there were
not cuts to Social Security.
If I understand your testimony to be correct, you have
testified that you have never been fully funded, or at least
for the last--did you say 14 years?
Mr. Poist. That is correct. 14 of the last 25 years we have
not received the President's budget request.
Ms. Crockett. So, you have not even been fully funded, and
that particular colleague was upset about the fact that there
is no negotiation that is going to take place about cutting the
funding even more, but this does have real-life consequences.
I do have a constituent; we are working on her case right
now. She is a mother of three small children. She reached out
to our district office for help because she has been unable to
work since August 2020 after an illness attacked her muscles
and nervous system. She is also unable to drive, and some days
even struggles to move. She applied for disability with the
Social Security Administration, but is still waiting to hear
back to get approved. And, because she has not heard back, she
has reached out to various community organizations throughout
my district to see if they can help her with rent and
utilities.
This should not be the story of America, but I am alarmed
when I hear people say the quiet part out loud. It seems like
what we want to do is say: Hey, we are going to fight against
you all because that is what we need to do for our
constituents, but at the end of the day, if Social Security is
not getting through the cases, guess what? That means that we
are saving money because we are not getting money to people
that really need that money.
And so, you know, I hope that my colleagues across the
aisle take this seriously as we are about to endure a fight as
relates to the budget. And, if we really do want to prioritize
our shared constituencies, as our stories are the same on both
sides of the aisle, and the solution that I have heard from
each of you is funding, funding so that you can modernize.
Do I have that wrong?
Mr. Poist. That is correct. For Social Security, we need
funding to hire staff, to maintain staff, to increase our IT
investments, to fund our overtime to support our backlogs.
Ms. Crockett. So, if we are all having the same problems,
it sounds like we all know what the solution is: fully fund
your agencies. Thank you to your commitment to the people of
the United States of America.
And, with that, I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
I am going to yield myself time.
Thank you to each of you who were here. This is not my
closing statement. I am sure we expect others to come.
Part of the discussion I would like to have, is there is a
misnomer that I think we get wrong--you are entitled to answer
it the way you do, but it is not unusual for reports to be
heard in this city about some of the largest buildings that
have Federal employees almost exclusively, but Federal
employees. It has been reported that some 17 percent of
employees, only 17 percent at one time or another reported to
one of the major buildings here in Washington, DC, that were
government workers.
Those are the kinds of things that fuel the questions about
when do you go back to work, what is that percent. I do
recognize, or at least I think I do, the State Department does
need to be on the job for issuing a passport. That is kind of
hard to do over the phone. But I would just say that that is
what fuels some of the conversation on our side about not being
at work because the reality is some of the companies that own
these badges offer that feedback. Some people in this city have
complained about--and we held a hearing on it--how the city of
Washington needs to get Federal workers back to work because
they are having problems economically not only in small
business, but the need to do their job.
I would like to provide some feedback, if I can. There was
a conversation that we had, Ambassador, where there was a
conversation about online systems that were tried and evidently
successful and now being looked at pending making that an
online system. Good gosh, it seems like to me if it worked and
you have got 12,000 people that said thank you, that that would
be enough for the management of the organization to help us
out, because primarily the people that we run across in Waco,
Texas, and across central Texas already have passports. It
seems like that they would be awesome candidates for that.
Next point. A good number of companies across this country,
I could say American Express, I could say American Airlines,
they have people who, when you log on, they have a system that
says: May we call you back, rather than you waiting online. May
we call you back? And the time--sometimes the times are not
advantageous or something you can plan for, but can we call you
back between 47 and 52 minutes?
Some of these same companies offer an opportunity for you
to go online and actually engage a person who texts, what I
would call text. It may be regular email, but it looks like
texts to me, and they text back and forth to where you can see
the conversation, ask a question, get the answer, ask for
information. And it seemingly, to me, is a more effective way,
not to somebody that is not computer literate. But someone who
chooses to do this. And it seems like, to me, that there are
other tasks which could be expanded from all three of your
agencies.
Next point--if I were to count these out, I have probably
have 15 of them, I admit. And it is just feedback from watching
the process. People generally send it in, and they hear back,
let us say, 10 weeks later. And many of the times, maybe most,
maybe all, the passport does arrive by Fed Ex or UPS the day
before they go. But, pending that, it may have taken three
phone calls back and forth. There is bound to be a burden off
that process that you have of somebody answering the phone. It
seems like to me that there could be the identification of a
cell phone, an address that you would have that would be
available to where you could engage someone and say: ``Hi. This
is the passport office. You presented your passport on or about
May the 25th. Please be advised that we anticipate it is going
to be about 7 weeks. We are not trying to engage you. We are
trying to keep you informed. Please do not respond back.''
And then, as that passport is being worked or maybe put in
maybe a week before that you would get back to them, because a
number of our work calls--once again, this is Texas, do not
know everything--are repeat questions. Are you sure you got it?
Is it going to come back? They have got this plane that is this
Friday. Are they supposed to cancel the flight? They have got
three children with them. What do they do with the one child if
they--I mean, you can imagine the enormous questions that
evolve from that.
My point is, is that if we--I think if you took into
account some things that I think would be market based or that
others do, I think your satisfaction would go up. I think your
call volume would reduce. I think, even if you just texted back
or called back--I would text--back to each congressional office
and say, ``Please advise your constituent,'' then they would
have a better contact. I am saying something, in my opinion,
needs to be done that would reduce frustration and calls.
All right. I have gone past my time. I am sure I will get
time again here in just a minute, but I want to just provide
that feedback myself.
OK. The gentlewoman from Vermont, Ms. Balint, is
recognized.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being
here. I am sure at this point you are feeling a little weary.
I want to just start by saying you just cannot get blood
from a stone. That is what I am getting from this hearing here.
In 2017, then President Trump issued an executive order to
freeze hiring across the government to reduce the Federal
workforce. It was one of his very first actions after taking
office. Although this order lasted just under 3 months, some
Federal agencies experienced much longer hiring freezes. At the
State Department, the hiring freeze lasted for 16 months.
So, Ms. Bitter, how many people did the State Department
lose during the Trump Administration from policies to reduce
the size of the Federal workforce, including hiring freezes?
Ms. Bitter. Thank you for the question.
I will zoom out a little bit and answer sort of globally
what happened was absolutely we were recovering when the
pandemic hit from those hiring freezes, and then we instituted
more hiring freezes, putting us at 25 percent below where we
had been in 2017.
So, to give you a sense--I am going to get these numbers a
little bit wrong, but at the beginning of the last
administration, I think there were probably around 1,450 people
doing this work, and by the time we were able to begin hiring,
there were just around 1,100.
Ms. Balint. OK. So, you said a 25-percent decrease.
Ms. Bitter. We were at 25 percent deficit when we were able
to begin hiring again.
Ms. Balint. OK. Significant.
Ms. Bitter, how did staff attrition affect the State
Department's ability to serve constituents? Just briefly, just
tick them off, yes.
Ms. Bitter. Right. Thank you.
And I am just speaking just with respect to passport
services. So, in addition to having much reduced staff, last
year we received unprecedented demand for passport services, 22
million passport books and cards. This year we are
experiencing, it will be probably 15 percent above that. We
have been able to grow our staff by 10 percent. But, again,
this accounts for the wait times that are longer than we would
like.
Ms. Balint. And is the staff attrition you have experienced
easily reversible at this point?
Ms. Bitter. It takes a while to hire for national security
positions. All of the people that work for us go through--the
passport is the most important document that any American will
hold and probably the most important document in the world for
identity and citizenship. People go through rigorous screening
to be able to work for us. And, even when we begin hiring, it
does take time to bring people on board.
Ms. Balint. And I imagine that losing significant staff
also impacts institutional knowledge. Would you say?
Ms. Bitter. That is fair.
Ms. Balint. And we do not just experience that in, you
know, departments and state governments. That is true for any
organization. Right? You lose institutional knowledge, you lose
key relationships, and it impacts the work on a day-to-day
basis in any work setting.
So, at this point, I ask unanimous consent to insert into
the record a New York Times article that stated, quote,
``President Trump's politicalization of normally neutral
positions and frequent criticism of his own bureaucracy hurt
the public's faith in government, the morale of employees who
remain, and the prospects that a new generation will even enter
public service,'' end quote.
Ms. Balint. The Trump Administration's hiring freeze
negatively affected welfare and morale for years. Even after it
was lifted, the damage had been done. The Trump
Administration's misguided efforts to shrink Federal agencies
caused a mass exodus of knowledge, as I was just talking about,
and know-how from agencies responsible for helping regular
Americans, providing disability benefits, supplemental security
income, access to lifesaving care, resources for veterans, it
goes on and on, and as we have heard so much in this hearing
around passports and visas.
Mr. Poist, one of the most critical issues the Social
Security Administration faces is the significant number of
people waiting for months, even years, for a decision on their
disability application or appeal.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Poist. That is correct. Currently people are waiting
over 7 months for an initial disability decision.
Ms. Balint. Seven months for an initial decision.
What is the root cause of your customer service challenges?
Mr. Poist. Mostly staffing in our State DDSs.
Ms. Balint. So, like I said when I started, you cannot get
blood from a stone. We have Americans suffering because we have
starved government of the resources it needs to take care of
our constituents, and then we sit here wringing our hands
wondering why we are not meeting the needs of constituents. We
have to pay for the staff to do this work. We need to make sure
that those staff have the resources necessary to meet
constituent needs. And, you know, this is not rocket science
here. If you starve agencies, they cannot do the work.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Garcia, is recognized.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much.
I want to thank all of you for your service. I know that it
is very hard work, and I have constituents reach out to the
Federal Government, not just in our district but across the
country, every single day. I have been in Congress for about 6
months, and I have seen just the hard work that our Federal
employees are doing every single day.
Right before I took this job, I was mayor of Long Beach,
California, for 8 years. We had 6,000 hardworking municipal
employees who I respected and uplifted through very difficult
times, including during the pandemic. And I think it is
important to remember that most folks are in government or
working in government because they actually want to help
people. And so, I think first it is really important to
recognize that, yes, there is a lot of work to do in all of our
departments, but we have hardworking people behind those desks
and on the phones and out in the community working to make our
country a better place and to provide the best services
possible under sometimes very difficult budget conditions.
I personally have just been very impressed with just the
level of feedback that we have received from working with a lot
of the agencies across Federal Government. The passport and
State Department issues have been brought up, which we are all
aware of. I would also say that the response in helping us
facilitate some of these difficult cases has been phenomenal in
our office with passports. Yes, there is a huge challenge. We
are very aware. We get the same emails and calls every day. But
the response of those folks that are on the ground working with
our office have been really something really great to see.
And so, I want to thank the team that are working on--the
passport team and the team that is there based in L.A. and
California helping us through our process. I do want to give,
just to take this moment, a shoutout to both Bryan Bravo and
Isaac Romero on my team in the district office that are working
on the passport issue and all of these issues every single day
and to the countless residents that are contacting us that we
can assist, whether it is for passports, whether it is to help
with Medicare and Social Security issues or the other issues
that our constituents are facing.
And I think it is important, something I recognize that,
you know, as mayor, it was all about the budget. It is all
about ensuring that our agencies have enough to do the job that
we are asking them to do.
Now, the Federal Government is on a completely different
scale, and I am learning that every single day, but I also--you
know, I think it is important as we talk about cuts and even
some of the attacks I heard earlier about some of our agencies
and the hardworking folks in them, that we have also been
under--the last few years we have been trying to clean up what
I view as a mess by former President Donald Trump and his
sabotage efforts, quite frankly, against some of our
departments.
If you look at the State Department, which we have been
discussing, we had extremists within the Trump Administration
constantly attacking the State Department and pushing back on
any sort of additional support there as an agency.
So, I personally am proud of the Biden-Harris
Administration, the work that they have done to rebuild and
support our agencies. There is still a lot more work to do, in
fact, a lot more support that has been needed, but there has
been really good progress that has been made.
I want to note an executive order prioritizing customer
service for those that rely on these services within the Biden-
Harris Administration, and I want to quote the order. And that
is delivering excellent, equitable, and secure Federal services
and customer experience. And I think that really says it all.
And I commend both the President and the Vice President for
leading an Administration that is focused on people.
I also want to just make a quick note with the remaining
time I have. Another great of example of this that I have been
reading about with my staff is the National Personnel Records
Center, which is part of the National Archives and Records
Administration, they have done a great program for military and
Civil Service personnel record requests, and I know you guys
have been involved in that.
Mr. Levins, briefly, can you just summarize for us in just
this last minute the Administration's investments, as well as
those from Congress, that have helped the National Personnel
Records Center address veterans' records backlogs?
Mr. Levins. Thank you for your question.
Yes, Congress generously appropriated COVID relief funds
for us, which we used to hire additional staff, contractors.
Prior to the pandemic, our workforce did not have laptops. We
used the funding to buy laptops. We also made information
technology improvements to support the ingest of electronic
records. The VA is digitizing records from our paper holdings,
and we are able to now ingest those into our production system
and work those using electronic delivery services to veterans
instead of paper.
Mr. Garcia. And I think it has been about a 50-percent
reduction in the backlog of requests, approximately, and so I
think--I just commend you and your team overall for the work
that has happened there.
And just, finally, I just want to thank all of our
employees across all of our agencies for their hard work, and I
hope we continue to invest not just in the departments but also
in them and to constantly look at them in competitive
marketplaces and that they are also being paid the fair wage
that they deserve.
Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
I want to thank our witnesses and this Committee for their
feedback to us that authorized and set up this hearing.
I want to thank our witnesses who have taken time to
include us in their business decision-making. I want to thank
them for their time and their study to come before this
Subcommittee.
I hope you will take seriously every single Member who
spoke today throughout the highs and throughout the lows of
some of the personal attacks that were made. But I think that
the truth of the matter is that we need to continue to work
together.
All three of your specific agencies have been discussed on
a regular basis by Members of this body. Much of the discussion
is by people who were not here today because they are not part
of this Committee, and we did not read them in. But that does
not take away or diminish the need for us to be engaged with
you, to speak with you, and to work with you.
So, I believe that you will hear the Ranking Member say
here in a minute that he wishes to do exactly that. So, before
we close today, I would like for Mr. Mfume to be able to offer
his thanks to you also.
I think that it is important before you leave as our guests
to say to you we would like to have you back. We would like to
gain a perspective on the ideas that you heard today because I
think each one of you received some bit of information and to
find out how we can transmit to our colleagues and respond
back, because I believe both Mr. Mfume and I do owe that to
this body. We will write all of our Members. We will give them
specific feedback. We will tell them what we have done, and we
will also give them best wishes for the information which you
provide us back about how you would like to take today's
hearing.
So, Mr. Mfume, the gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It has been several hours, so we all got through it
together. I want to thank you again, as I said before, for
convening this hearing. I want to thank the Members of this
body who thought it was important enough to raise the issue,
and, hence, here we are.
I really want to thank the three witnesses who have been
here for, as I said before, several hours--Secretary Bitter,
Deputy Commissioner Poist, and Director Levins. The information
you have shared regarding the State Department, the NPRC, and
Social Security will, I hope, go a long way at providing
direction for all of us and for others who may visit these
issues.
Allow me, if I might, just to kind of in my own mind
summarize what I am walking away with here. It is clear to me
that policies such as the hiring freeze that we have heard
about over and over again contributed to some extent to this
whole issue of a customer service crisis. When you have got
fewer people, you tend to do less work. And, if you are doing
more work, you do not have those people for long because they
get burned out. I think my colleague said something about
getting blood out of a rock. We have just got to recognize that
workers have limits. They are going to do all that they can do
and should do, and we ought to all hold them to that. But
because we have an ever growing population in this country, I
mean, it is just booming, we have got to at some point realize
that we cannot allocate the previous amount of resources to a
mountain that is growing, crying out for help. We know that
staff attrition, no matter how much we target it, cannot be
quickly reversed. It takes a minute, as I have heard from some
of you say today, to allocate resources to deal with Social
Security's backup, with the backup at the State Department.
Whether it is training a new person to be a passport
adjudicator or a disability claims examiner, it takes a minute.
And so, while we are looking at attrition and while we
certainly believe that we ought to find a way to fund what you
are doing, the real truth of the matter is it is going to take
us a little bit of time to dig out of this hole. And, Ms.
Bitter, I think I heard you say earlier that it will be the end
of the calendar year until we get back to pre-pandemic levels.
So that is the reality, and that is on us to be able to
share it with our colleagues here. There is no magic wand or
silver bullet. There is going to be just a lot of good,
determined effort, I hope, at supporting our Federal workforce.
I do know that the Biden-Harris Administration and
Democrats are committed to assuring that agencies that serve
the public are indeed funded by investing in them and in the
workers and the technologies, all of which hopefully at the end
of the day will put customers first. And providing the
resources that these agencies need for what we should call
optimal staffing levels and to acquire updated technology to
improve how the government can deliver those services to our
constituents has to be priority No. 1.
I said earlier that the National Archives is a good example
of how leadership and Congress together prioritize improving
government services by championing an investment from the
Technology Modernization Fund to help eliminate the veterans'
records request backlog and to have that done by the end of the
year. And I know vets all over this country who hear this,
hopefully will know that there is some real help on the way.
The other thing for me is that I have never considered
telework to be the problem. I have always considered it to be a
bridge to get to where we want to be. And, because of the
pandemic, which we sort of overtalked about and referenced,
there were delays and backlogs that brought about the need to
telework. We were teleworking here in the U.S. Congress for
committee hearings for well over a year. So, I understand it is
not ideal, but it does not necessarily equate to poor quality
if and when it is done right and overseen in the sort of way
that makes sense. In fact, telework in many instances is a
solution for avoiding increased backlogs and fostering some
sort of continuity of work.
We know that those backlogs, as has been said earlier, are
attributable to a number of things; medical records as we spoke
about earlier, retention and recruitment, attrition, and
probably three or four other things that I cannot think of and
has not come up today, not to mention the little things that
break up continuity of work, like emergencies and inclement
weather and all sorts of other things.
So, there is a lot to be taken into consideration. I am
going to certainly continue to urge my colleagues on this
Committee on both sides of the aisle to follow the path that we
are on. It is a path of bipartisanship and hopefully trying to
find a way to deal with an issue that affects all of us. It
does not mean that any Member of this Congress cannot express
themselves. It is just that, at the end of the day, we are
searching for consensus, because most people are not on the
left or the right. Most are in the middle. We are trying to
govern from there, and to govern effectively, we have got to
make sure that everyone is heard, but, at the end of the day
that there is real progress, that there ss a real effort to
alleviate these problems that constituents are crying out
about.
You heard over and over again from Members of Congress
about how they are approached in the street and at church and
in community hearings by constituents who just feel like they
are helpless, that agencies do not hear them, that they are put
on hold and nobody cares. That is a painful thing when you do
not have the ability to correct that yourself. If everybody was
a Member of Congress, we would not have the problem, but we
should not be the ones that have to rattle the cages to bring
about good service for the people who need it most.
So, Mr. Chairman, I am going to conclude there.
I do have and would ask unanimous consent that two
statements be entered into the record. A statement from the
Social Security Administration, it is the AFL-CIO's American
Federation of Government Employees that developed this, and I
also have the statement about the Department of State's
passport backlogs from the National Federation of Federal
Employees that represent about 110,000 individuals. AFG
represents about three-quarters of a million people. And as I
said once on the floor, Federal workers are everywhere. They
are not just in Washington, DC.
Mr. Sessions. Without objection, they will be entered into
the record.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will yield
back.
I want to thank, again, the witnesses for participating
today.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Mfume, I want to thank you very much. We
all have our own sayings. You have heard them today. I spent 16
years vigorously in the free enterprise system, and we had a
saying that by and large was, either it works or it does not
work. If it is working, you are OK. But if it is not working,
you have got to continue to do something different. And I think
today you had an opportunity to receive feedback. I think it is
important for you to listen to us, and we wait to hear back
from you. I would like to engage each of you individually on
the feedback from what you have heard from us today that I
think came from both sides of the aisle.
With that said, without objection, all Members will have
five legislative days within which to submit materials and to
submit additional written questions for the witnesses, which
will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
At this time, I see no other requests for time. So, without
objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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