The Social Security administration, National Archives, and state department testify on post Pandemic Services backlogs before a House Oversight and accountability subcommittee. Live coverage on cspan three. 22 more visas now than at the same period during prepandemic 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 any other time in our history. Ultimately, this is great news for the u. S. Economy, businesses, family reunifications, and people to people ties. And 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 optimize bureau of affairs to be able to serve your constituents. To do so we are investigating the ante in Human Resources we need to ensure federal coverage experience. New parents overseas can now electronically register the birth of their u. S. Citizen children. American citizens caught in crises abroad can use a new online interface to directly communicate with Department Officials in life and death situations. Before the end of the year, we anticipate it up to 5 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 counselor affairs. I could not be more proud of the scheme 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 Council Affairs work in person both domestically and overseas during the pandemic to continue to serve the public often at personal peril. Our teams overseas support of the repatriation of 100,000 americans at the start of the pandemic. Our passport adjudicated return to inperson work in june of 2020. They did so because the nature of our work was to provide direct services to the traveling public. Often that means the work is extra warning. We can issue a visa to a student going to their dream school in the United States. Or a passport to someone who can bid farewell to an ailing family member. We can finalize an adoption for u. S. Families are helping 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 their support. Your constituents are our constituents. As we navigate this current period of high demand, we want to say thank you to all members and to your Constituents Services staff. You are Invaluable Partners in helping off to serve our shared constituents. We are grateful for your support. Thankful, i look forward to your support today. Good afternoon chairman sessions Ranking Member information Ranking Members of the committee. My name is scott lebanese. I am a director of the National PersonnelCenter Component of the National Archives and component menstruation. Thank you for inviting me to testify about our ongoing efforts to eliminate the backlog of requests for military Service Records. The npr sea stories and provides access to over 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 are access its bride to government agencies, military veterans and their families, former civilian federal employees and the general public. We are the physical custodians over 4 million cubic feet of analog, or paper, records. The Access Points and any growing electronic records. Employees in under 43 federal blazing contractors. Norah significantly curtailed on site production due to limitations on Building Occupancy that were imposed to protect staff from the spread of covid19. Other law, norah accumulated a large backlog of requests. It never closed entirely during the pandemic. A little was known about the spread of covid19 we still maintained a limited onsite to make sure we responded to urgent request for records and cases of funeral services, Emergency Health care and Homeless Veterans seeking shelter. As the country gained a better understanding of the covid19 protection, the nprc increased occupancy levels. Occupancy regulations were ended in march, 2022. By then, the total count of unanswered requests for military records with 604,000. Since then, nprc has added 73 federal employees and 63 federal contractors to address the backlog. Nara use funds, generally appropriated by congress, to add the staff and contractors, deploy laptops to staff, modernize our call center, and improve our systems for fulfilling military record requests. Nara is partnering with the veteran affairs to expedite our responses were possible. As of june 20th, 2023, yesterday, the backlog of unanswered requests for military Service Records its 266,000. It is a little bit different than my written testimony. I submitted the written testimony last week but i updated as today based on the current backlog. We define the backlog as the number of requests receive that have not been fulfilled within the 20 workday deadline. Since april 1st 2020 to be nprc has responded to almost 1. 8 million request for military Service Records including both new and backlogged requests. The nprc has continued to receive new requests throughout the entire period. 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 already eliminated a backlog for request for separation documents, forms 214, and equivalent. They have returned to the prepandemic level of servicing 90 of those requests in less than ten days. 95 in less than 20 days. The d. O. D. To 14 requests are approximately 60 other quest that we receive. It is the record most often needed by their veterans and dependence to prove eligibility for benefits. Nprc prioritizes these requests that of other requests for military Service Records. Other requests are more complex and often require extensive redaction of thirdparty personal data. Analysis of documents and extraction a verification of verification thing chained there in. Or the research of secondary sources. Therefore, these requests take longer to service then request for a didi to 14 despite the increase in demand we have a plan in place to eliminate the entire backlog by december of this calendar year. Nprc it is performing its work today in ways that were unimaginable before the pandemic. Nara as asked a great deal by the nprc work forth many films are veterans themselves and they have delivered. In Response Time and the most frequent and urgent requests have been restored and then president backlog reduction has been achieved. Earlier this month, nprc hosted an onsite congressional open house. More than 50 Congressional Staff from all over the country travel to st. Louis to learn about nprc holdings, observe the work processes firsthand, tour the facility, and work directly during the event, Congressional Staff reported significant improvement in responsiveness. During the pandemic, with each passing week, at the center experienced backlog growth. Today, with each passing week, another significant stride is made in the right direction. The backlog is further reduced. However, there remains much to be done. Naras senior leadership, as well as workforce, are committed to eliminating the backlog as quickly as possible. Providing americas veterans with the service that they have earned and deserved. The newly confirmed archivist of the United States, dr. Kailyn shogan, have made this her top priority. Receiving a briefing on the backlog within hours being sworn in. Visiting and prc in person during her First Official travel as archivist of the United States less than two weeks later. Throughout the pandemic, nara provided updates into Congress Regarding situation at the nprc. Nara well continue to provide quarterly updates to congress and looks forward to soon recording the permanent elimination of the entire background and the restoration of prime service on all types of requests. We think the committee for its interest in this important matter. We welcome any suggestions to improve service to americans veterans. [inaudible] 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 they understood the processes and some of those impediments. Thank you very much. It. Welcome we now move to mr. Boise. The gentleman is recognized for five minutes. Chairman sessions. Ranking member, members of the subcommittee. Thanking you for discussing the status of the Deputy Commissioner for budget. Social security programs and services tantalize of nearly every merrick and we appreciate oversight of our point and work. I hope to convey four main points first our budget directly determines the quality of Customer Service the public received from us. Second, the challenges we face do not have an overnight and they will take time to reverse them. Third, we are working to reduce backlogs and wait times by rerouting outwork fourth and modernizing our technology. Fourth, we are successfully modernizing and expanding our Digital Services to meet the growing demand for convenience selfservice options. Each day are dedicated employees and field officers a answer questions by phone to hold hearings pay benefits incomplete numerous other work loads 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 walkin visitors except for a 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 expanded our digital an Online Services as i will discuss later in this testimony. We successfully ranted our office and expanded inperson services in april of 2022. However after the destruction of the pandemic we continue to face significant challenges to return to Service Delivery to the public standards and what they deserve. 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 have served has increased by over 8 million in the last decade. We simply do not have enough staff to timely serve everything that needs or help. The current tight labor market also makes it challenging to maintain staff to attract new staff. We expect to claim 50,000 more than last year almost 130,000 more initial claims. We also expect to handle 2 million more phone calls an 800 number. The disability claims are based talent. Over 1 Million People are waiting over seven months for the initial disability decision. That is far too long. These delays are largely concentrated in the state disability determine jarviss which make the medical determination for certain steps or a disability claims. Late times lengthened during the pandemic due to a lack of medical evidence do to reduce doctor visits and a shortage of concentrated ddss faced higher attrition among their staff and challenges facing hiring new staff. During the dds capacity has hired cadres of professional actors to help the backlog. Theyve already showed results. So for this fiscal year theyve completed nearly 20,000 cases. We are also working with ddss to improve employee employment and retention. This includes making dds more competitive and it will take time, however, to see improvements in our Service Delivery metrics. We also faced challenges with Telephone Services on our national 800 number. In spite of these challenges, millions of customer 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 experience busy signals, long waits, and dropped calls. We are addressing these issues with Better Technology and increased staffing. Prior to the pandemic, are outdated phone system was slated for necessary updates to transition into a modern platform. The pandemic redirected inperson service to telephone service, 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 to continue our central Customer Service. But it did not improve our critical phone suncheon. Such as our billety to provide estimated wait times in a call back feature. We look forward to keeping you updated on a progress to improve our 800 number. The funding that we receive this year, which we do appreciate, we are beginning to rebuild our workforce. Once new hires are fully trained and gain experience gaining 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 it down to 20 minutes in fiscal year 2024. Technology is another to improve customer experience. We are successfully modernizing and expanding our deterrence its meet that demand. This also shortens wait times for those who needed prefer to connect with us in person or the phone. I will highlight just a few of our recent accomplishment with digital and modernization of i. T. Online Social Security transactions have grown by about 25 each year since 2018. Each transaction includes tests like checking the status of an application. Getting a estimate of future benefits and managing the benefits someone already received. We also launched our redesigned sa website in the summer after incorporating used a feedback many visited the pages and not have a user friendly approach that provides a clear path that users need to accomplish. We also expanded our hearing options are in the pandemic. To hold disability hearings via telephone and video for customers to choose those options. Even post pandemic, these remote options have proven a strong success with our customers. In 2023 more than 80 of our customers have chosen to participate in the hearings by phone or video. It is worth noting that while our Online Services and Technology Requirements 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 of the time, we still need employees to process the online application and conduct followup interviews. To end where i started. To prove the improve Customer Service we need sufficient funding sustained over multiple years. The sustained president budgets requests sustained president budget which could help us restore the staffing increasing work loads and continue to modernize technology, reduce backlogs, and lower. Waits if supported with sustained funding insufficient funding our path will be to significantly improve our path to the public in the 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. Thank you very much, mister poist. We will go to our first member, that would be the gentleman, chairman palmer. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing. I think it is greenport. And obviously all of us in the District Offices get a lot of requests for citizens with your various agencies. Particularly the Social Security. And, mr. Poist, is that the correct pronunciation . You mentioned having some staffing issues. Im wondering how youre staffing issues might be impacting improper payments . This is an area that ive done a lot of work. In over the years and ive been here in particular on this committee. We have found that well over half of the issues with improper payments have to do with integrated data systems. Administrative errors, failure to verify eligibility, things like that. Those are staffing issues. It could be stuff that are unable to process workload as quickly as they need to. People who may not be about to enter the need to be. Is that an issue . Is that something that you have looked into . We have not seen any notable differences in our human accuracy rates. We have relied heavily on other agencies and we have not seen any differences in payment accuracy rates. I will try to go back and look at the report and if i thought that before i came in here i got that listening to your testimony. The other thing i want to ask is, how are your staffing