*This letter was sent to Rep. Obey, Rep, Walsh, and Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations bill conferees

October 29, 2007

United States Senate
Washington , DC 20510

Dear Senator :

On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, I am contacting you about provisions of particular importance to us in the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

We urge you to accept the Senate recommended level for the Social Security Administration's (SSA) administrative funding of $9.872 billion, which represents a $275 million increase over the President's Request, during conference negotiations.  It is critically important that SSA receive the additional funding to avoid further office closings and an increasing disability backlog.

Disability backlogs continue to increase at an alarming rate. Currently, over three-quarters of a million individuals are waiting for a hearing decision, and that number is projected to grow to one million by 2010.  Furthermore, the time that an applicant must wait for a hearing continues to rise. The average processing time for a hearing is currently about 513 days and is projected to increase to 541 days next year. There are nearly 275,000 hearings nationwide in which claimants have been waiting over one year to receive a decision on their appeal.

In recent years, Congress has increased SSA's responsibilities as a part of Medicare and Intelligence Reform legislation, and field offices are averaging over 850,000 visitors a week this year.    Meanwhile, SSA continues to downsize its labor force, reaching the lowest staffing level in over 30 years. As a result, waiting times for constituents visiting Social Security Field Offices have significantly increased and will only be exacerbated as SSA continues to close field offices across the country. Likewise, Field Offices are receiving an unprecedented number of phone inquiries, about 61 million business-related telephone calls per year, but are not adequately staffed to answer the calls.   Consequently, the telephone busy rate in Field Offices averaged 51.0% in Fiscal Year 2006. 

Again, we urge you to adopt the Senate recommended level for SSA administrative expenses of $9.872 billion. This additional funding would enable SSA to dramatically reduce the backlog in five years and prevent any disruption of benefits and services.

The National Committee also supports increased funding for Older Americans Act programs including congregate and home-delivered meals, senior centers, transportation, in-home services and support for family caregivers.  We urge conferees to accept the higher of the House- or Senate-passed amounts for programs which allow many seniors to remain as independent at possible in their homes and communities.  These increases are very important given our nation's growing elderly population.  Therefore, we support the following:

• $358 million for Title III-B Supportive Services and Senior Centers , as passed by the House;
• $420 million for Title III-C1 Congregate Meals and $199 million for Title III-C2 Home-Delivered Meals, as passed by the Senate;
• $159 million for the Title III-E Family Caregiver Support Program, as passed by the Senate; and
• $531 billion for the Title V Community Service Employment Program, as passed by the House, so that funds are available to pay for the 2008 increase in the federal minimum wage.

We applaud you for your continued leadership in providing the necessary funding to enable SSA to serve beneficiaries in a timely manner and to ensure that home and community-based services are available for our growing elderly population.  We look forward to continuing to work with you to help older and disabled Americans.

Sincerely,

Barbara B. Kennelly
President and CEO