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Social Security Administration list of employees working with DOGE to sabotage the SSA
Since The Employees Of The SSA Have Been Cooperating With, And Working With Musk's Doge Employees (Goons) To Sabotage The SSA, Things Have Gotten Real Bad For Over 70 Million Social Security Recipients!
Social Security Administration list of employees working with DOGE to sabotage the SSA
By Lynda Carson - April 13, 2025
Since the convicted felon President Donald J. Trump was voted back into office recently, things have gotten really bad for over 70 million social security recipients, and the migrants now being falsely claimed as dead with the SSA https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/12/trump-immigrants-dead-social-security/ , through no fault of their own. The scheme cooked up by Elon Musk’s DOGE squad falsely lists thousands of migrants as dead in a Social Security database known as the “death master file.”
Further below is a list of Social Security Administration (SSA) employees cooperating with, and working with Musk’s DOGE to sabotage the SSA from a lawsuit court filing, including a list from the New York Times of Musk’s DOGE employees who have been sabotaging the SSA in recent months.
Meanwhile a few hours ago, the SSA released its first press release (see below) since March 27, 2025.
On Saturday, April 12, 2025, on its website https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/ the Social Security Administration released its first press release since April 27, 202, according to public records with the SSA.
According to the SSA, beginning April 14, 2025, SSA will allow individuals to complete all claim types via telephone, supported by new anti-fraud capabilities designed to protect beneficiaries and streamline the customer experience.
The updated policy reflects SSA’s broader commitment to customer service, program integrity, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources. SSA has worked around the clock to develop and deploy these improvements, driven by the return of employees to full-time in-office operations.
Surge capacity is being put in place to support higher demand starting on the 14th and last month, SSA spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide.
For more details, see the full press release below….
Press Release
Saturday, April 12, 2025
For Immediate Release
Social Security Administration Implements New Anti-Fraud Measures to Enhance Telephone Claim Processing
https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/#2025-04-12
The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently announced the implementation of enhanced fraud prevention tools for claims filed over the telephone, further modernizing the agency’s services and strengthening program integrity. Beginning April 14, 2025, SSA will allow individuals to complete all claim types via telephone, supported by new anti-fraud capabilities designed to protect beneficiaries and streamline the customer experience.
The enhanced technology enables SSA to identify suspicious activity in telephone claims by analyzing patterns and anomalies within a person’s account. If irregularities are detected, the individual will be asked to complete in-person identity proofing to continue processing their claim. These advancements allow SSA to maintain the security of its services while continuing to expand access for customers who may be unable to file online or visit an office in person. The agency will continue to conduct identity verification for all in-person claims.
“We are modernizing how we serve the public—enhancing both security and accessibility,” said Leland Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “These updates improve our ability to detect and prevent fraud while providing more flexible options for people to access their benefits.”
The updated policy reflects SSA’s broader commitment to customer service, program integrity, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources. SSA has worked around the clock to develop and deploy these improvements, driven by the return of employees to full-time in-office operations.
Surge capacity is being put in place to support higher demand starting on the 14th and last month, SSA spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide.
This update supports the Administration’s broader efforts to protect Social Security and ensure higher take-home pay for seniors by ending the taxation of social security. For more information on the President’s commitment to preserving Social Security, visit here.
For more Social Security news, follow the agency on X https://x.com/socialsecurity .
Questions About The Above Press Release:
The above press release fails to mention or reveal if it was released to the public by Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek who has repeatedly been sued https://www.wsaz.com/2025/03/08/unions-ask-court-stop-doge-accessing-social-security-data-millions-americans/ by AFGE https://www.afscme.org/press/releases/2025/afscmes-saunders-leland-dudek-is-willing-to-see-millions-of-senior-citizens-suffer-all-because-he-didnt-get-his-way-in-court , or AFSCME and its allies that have sued to block Musk’s Social Security power grab.
Or if it was released by any of Musk’s DOGE employees working at the SSA involved in sabotaging the SSA, or if it was released by any of the SSA employees working with and cooperating with Musk’s DOGE employees that have been involved in sabotaging the SSA in recent months. The press release appears to be hopelessly vague as to who is actually behind the latest press release.
AFSCME v SSA Administration (Last updated April 13, 2025)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69664313/american-federation-of-state-county-and-municipal-employees-afl-cio-v/
AFSCME sues to stop unlawful seizure of Social Security data
https://www.afscme.org/blog/afscme-sues-to-stop-unlawful-seizure-of-social-security-data#:
AFSCME and allies sue to block Musk’s Social Security power grab
COUNCIL 31 STAFF
FEB. 26, 2025
https://afscme31.org/news/afscme-and-allies-sue-block-musks-social-security-power-grab
https://afscme31.org/news/afscme-and-allies-sue-block-musks-social-security-power-grab
DOGE Goons Get Physical:
On April 12, 2025, it was reported on the AFP, that “DOGE Goons Physically Drag Social Security Worker From Desk.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/12/trump-immigrants-dead-social-security/
Reportedly, “A senior executive at the Social Security Administration was physically dragged from his office this week after clashing with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to The Washington Post.
Greg Pearre, a career civil servant who led an IT team working on the agency’s data systems, was removed over his opposition to a DOGE plan to cut off immigrants from key financial services, three people told the Post.
The scheme cooked up by Elon Musk’s DOGE squad falsely lists thousands of migrants as dead in a Social Security database known as the “death master file.”
Being entered into the death database cuts a person off from crucial financial services, like the ability to receive government benefits and access a bank account or credit card. The goal was to push migrants who were granted a temporary legal status under former President Joe Biden to “self deport.”
Jim Francis, a consumer law lawyer who is suing Social Security for wrongly entering a Maryland woman into the file, cast the repercussions in dire terms.
“It’s the source of that data that the whole world uses, which is why, if it’s inaccurate, it has such devastating impacts on people,” he told the Post. “Overnight, you literally become financially paralyzed.”
Tom Kind, a 90-year-old retiree in Colorado, told the Post that he had experienced being listed as dead, calling it a “nightmare.” In addition to losing benefits and health coverage, he faced a challenge convincing the agency that he was still alive. After jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops, he had to show up to an office in person for an interview, proving he was alive.
“That’s not any fun,” he said.
DOGE had been working on a strategy to push out immigrants since February. A group of about a dozen civil servants from Social Security were assigned to help Musk’s goons—and agents from the Department of Homeland Security—with the plot. Many career staff were worried that the project was wrong or illegal, a former senior official told the Post.
Leland Dudek, Social Security’s acting commissioner, who has signaled his willingness to carry out DOGE’s plans previously, worried that this scheme might be illegal, insiders told the Post.
Nevertheless, under pressure from President Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, he acquiesced, signing two memorandums on Monday that allowed the database change. More than 6,000 migrants were listed as dead despite being alive.
Pearre, the civil servant who had pushed back against the action, was removed two days later. He declined to comment to the Post, as did Dudek.”
Some of Musk’s DOGE Employees At The SSA:
Antonio J. Gracias - Private equity investor Mr. Gracias is one of Mr. Musk’s oldest friends; he was an early investor in SpaceX, Tesla and other companies, and he helped fund a pro-Trump super PAC started by Mr. Musk. Mr. Gracias said he was at Mar-a-Lago with Musk during the transition. He has now taken a role at the Social Security Administration. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration Company involvement: SpaceX, Tesla
https://www.valorep.com/team/antonio-gracias
3737 Collins AVE PH3
Miami Beach, FL 33140
https://www.redfin.com/FL/Miami-Beach/3737-Collins-Ave-33140/unit-3/home/42675662
https://www.compass.com/listing/3737-collins-avenue-unit-ph3-miami-beach-fl-33140/655027184081220857/
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202410099684835311
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202412059720737093
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202503059754054006
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202410159685491246
https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResults?InquiryType=EntityName&InquiryDirectionType=PreviousRecord&SearchTerm=3740%20A%20LLC&SearchNameOrder=3737FEDERALHIGHWAY%20L170000755840&ListNameOrder=3737CARIBBEANPARTNERS%20L090000791990&Detail=FL.DOS.Corporations.Shared.Contracts.FilingRecord
Jon Koval Private equity investor Mr. Koval is a vice president at Antonio Gracias’s company Valor Equity Partners, and he joined the Social Security Administration with Mr. Gracias. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration
Payton Rehling Data engineer Mr. Rehling is a data engineer at Antonio Gracias’s company Valor Equity Partners, and he joined the Social Security Administration with Mr. Gracias. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration
Scott Coulter Chief Information Officer, Social Security Administration Mr. Coulter is a private equity investor who has been one of the lead DOGE team members at the Social Security Administration. In March, he was named the agency’s chief information officer. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Michael Russo Senior Adviser, Social Security Administration Before joining the Social Security Administration, Mr. Russo was an executive at a tech company that processes payments for Mr. Musk’s Starlink. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration Company involvement: Starlink
Luke Farritor Software engineer Few of Mr. Musk’s aides have been spotted at as many federal agencies as Mr. Farritor, a prize-winning computer scientist who dropped out of college. He has spent a significant amount of time at the General Services Administration, interviewing tech staff members about their work. Agency involvement: General Services Administration, United States Agency for International Development, Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Social Security Administration, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, United States Digital Service, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Company involvement: SpaceX
Ethan Shaotran Software engineer Mr. Shaotran is part of the cadre of young coders. He founded an artificial intelligence start-up that received funding from OpenAI, a major player in tech and one of Mr. Musk’s chief competitors in A.I. Agency involvement: General Services Administration, Social Security Administration, Department of Education, Inter-American Foundation
Aram Moghaddassi Software engineer Mr. Moghaddassi has worked at X and Neuralink, and was part of the DOGE landing team at the Treasury. He was one of several staff members who were interviewed on Fox News with Mr. Musk in March. Agency involvement: Treasury Department, Social Security Administration Company involvement: X, Neuralink
Cole Killian Software engineer . Mr. Killian is among the young coders working at DOGE and is listed as a detailee at the Environmental Protection Agency, a designation often given to those on temporary assignment. Agency involvement: Social Security Administration, Environmental Protection Agency
Nikhil Rajpal Software engineer Mr. Rajpal is part of the group of young coders at DOGE who have gone into various federal agencies to carry out Mr. Musk’s directives. Agency involvement: Office of Personnel Management, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Akash Bobba Software engineer Mr. Bobba is among the young coders at DOGE. He interned at Palantir, which was founded by Peter Thiel, a longtime Republican backer who has a long, on-again-off-again history with Mr. Musk. Agency involvement: Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, Social Security Administration
AFGE Guidance email to Leland C. Dudek:
https://www.afge1395.org/?p=3057
AFGE - Make The Call from AFGE:
https://www.afge1395.org/product/T/
Organizational Structure of the Social Security Administration
https://www.ssa.gov/org/ocio.htm
Organizational Structure of the Social Security Administration
https://www.ssa.gov/org/agencyOrg.htm
https://www.ssa.gov/org/ssachart.pdf
https://www.ssa.gov/org/index.htm
Employees at the Social Security Administration who are cooperating with and working with Elon Musk & DOGE:
That’s right! A list Of Social Security Administration employees working with Elon Musk & DOGE, sabotaging the SSA recently, culled from the records of a recent lawsuit that was filed against the SSA:
Scott Coulter - Scott.Coulter [at] ssa.gov
56 Leonard Street, Apt., 47E
New York, NY 10013
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202404159627749074
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202401319601140710
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/03/ssa-tech-shop-be-led-another-doge-associate/404031/
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Leland C. Dudek - Leland.C.Dudek [at] ssa.gov
https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Leland+C.+Dudek
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/commissioner/
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Eddie Taylor - Eddie.Taylor [at] ssa.gov
https://www.ssa.gov/org/dchr.htm
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Dustin S. Brown, Acting Chief of SSA - Dustin.Brown [at] ssa.gov
https://www.oecd-events.org/global-forum-on-democracy/en/speaker/954e67fe-9b76-ef11-9c35-6045bd8cf406/dustin-brown
https://executivegov.com/2024/05/dustin-brown-named-ssa-chief-operating-officer-acting-chief-of-staff/
Betsy Beaumon - Betsy.Beaumon [at] ssa.gov
https://blog.ssa.gov/author/97ea3a31f370c6df4e45bffb0a2590ac5373d2f1/
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Chad Poist - Chad.Poist [at] ssa.gov
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Michael L. Russo - Michael.L.Russo [at] ssa.gov
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/03/ssa-tech-shop-be-led-another-doge-associate/404031/
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Mark Steffensen - Mark.Steffensen [at] ssa.gov
64 Trenor Dr
New Rochelle, NY 10804
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202501139740161026
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202412059737001832
452 5th Ave
New York, NY 10016
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202401319600711405
https://leadafi.com/executive-biography/mark-steffensen-empowering-organizations-through-integrity-strategy-and-expertise/
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Ben Gurga - Ben.Gurga [at] ssa.gov
Ben Gurga
Director, Office of Decision Support and Strategic Information Social Security Administration ben.gurga [at] ssa.gov
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Devin Fensterheim - Devin.Fensterheim [at] ssa.gov
https://govsalaries.com/fensterheim-devin-61992184
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Clare Mastramico -Clare.Mastramico [at] ssa.gov
https://govsalaries.com/mastramico-clare-a-60933588
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Kala Shah - Kala.Shah [at] ssa.gov
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Brian Peltier - Brian.Peltier [at] ssa.gov
https://fedscoop.com/ssa-acting-caio-brian-peltier/
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Timothy Monteleone - Timothy Monteleone [at] ssa.gov
https://govsalaries.com/monteleone-timothy-w-60936551
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Mickie Tyquiengco - Mickie.Tyquiengco [at] ssa.gov
https://contactout.com/Mickie-Tyquiengco-6508410
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Stephen Evangelista - Stephen Evangelista [at] ssa.gov
https://blog.ssa.gov/author/2aabe479dec55d301c841c3873ee13c10ecaacaa/
https://www.ssa.gov/org/dcrdp.htm
>>>>>>>>
Jessica Vollmer - Jessica.Vollmer [at] ssa.gov
>>>>>>>>
Djimy Chapron - Djimy.Chapron [at] ssa.gov
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Florence Felix-Lawson - Florence.Felix-Lawson [at] ssa.gov
https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Florence+Felix-Lawson
https://www.afge1395.org/product/P/
https://beta.chcoc.gov/content/florence-felix-lawson
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See Google News link below for the latest headlines about the Social Security Administration…
https://news.google.com/search?q=Social%20Security%20Administration&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
Lynda Carson may be reached at Newzland2 [at] gmail.com
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For The record: Some SSA emails that may be of interest...
One email reveals how many SSA employees split from the SSA or were forced out of the SSA since last Feb 28, 2025, showing how badly the SSA and its employees were sabotaged and abused by Leland C. Dudek (SSA Acting Commissioner who should resign.), and some of Musk's DOGE employees (GOONS) at the SSA.
For more about the SSA, see the link to the Tiffany Flick statement below.
See more bellow...
Posted by Lynda Carson
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Tiffany Flick statement
https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/AFSCME-et-al-v-SSA-Flick-Decl.-3.7.25.pdf
AFSCME v Social Security Administration
https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SSA-TRO-opinion.pdf
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From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 9:48 AM
To: Dudek, Leland C.
Cc: Felix-Lawson, Florence ; Taylor, Eddie
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Sunday, March 2, 2025 4:06 PM
Subject: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II EmailA Message to All SSA Employees
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2025 4:01 PM
Subject: Bargaining Unit Employees – Return to In-Person Work
From: Couture, Richard
To: MEMBERS
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 at 12:14:51 PM CST
Subject: RE: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
TO: MEMBERS
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 9:48 AM
To: Dudek, Leland C.
Cc: Felix-Lawson, Florence ; Taylor, Eddie
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Sunday, March 2, 2025 4:06 PM
Subject: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II EmailA Message to All SSA Employees
MEMORANDUM
Date: February 28, 2025
To: Senior Staff
From: Leland C. Dudek /s/
Acting Commissioner
Subject: Executive Personnel Assignments – INFORMATION
https://socsecnews.blogspot.com/2025/02/even-if-all-of-this-was-good-idea-it.html?m=1
From: Dudek, Leland C. To: ; ; Poist, Chad; Russo, Michael L.; Brown, Dustin S.; Steffensen, Mark Cc: Gurga, Ben; Fensterheim, Devin; Mastramico, Clare Subject: RE: Proposal for Death Data Improvement 100+ -- Memo Date: Friday, February 28, 2025 9:54:17 PM
From: Dudek, Leland C. @ssa.gov> Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 8:40 PM To: Russo, Michael L < @ssa.gov>; ^ @ssa.gov> Cc: Shah, Kala < @ssa.gov>; @ssa.gov>; Peltier, Brian < @ssa.gov>; Monteleone, Timothy < @ssa.gov>; Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov>; ^ @ssa.gov>
Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Poist, Chad < @ssa.gov>; Russo, Michael L < @ssa.gov>; Brown, Dustin S. < @ssa.gov>; Steffensen, Mark < @ssa.gov> Cc: @ssa.gov>; Gurga, Ben < @ssa.gov>; Fensterheim, Devin < @ssa.gov>; Mastramico, Clare
Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2025 5:08 PM To: Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Steffensen, Mark < @ssa.gov>; Evangelista, Stephen < @ssa.gov> Cc: Russo, Michael L. < @ssa.gov>
Mickie Tyquiengco Office of the Chief Information Officer
From: Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 9:22 PM To: Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Vollmer, Jessica OGC @ssa.gov> Cc: Russo, Michael L. < @ssa.gov>
From: Dudek, Leland C. To: ; Steffensen, Mark; Russo, Michael L.; Fensterheim, Devin; Chapron, Djimy Cc: Poist, Chad; Brown, Dustin S.
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Feb 28, 2025
Even If All Of This Was A Good Idea, It Would Still Be Insane To Do It All At The Same Time
MEMORANDUM
Date:February 28, 2025
To:Senior Staff
From:Leland C. Dudek /s/
Acting Commissioner
Subject:Executive Personnel Assignments – INFORMATION I have several announcements.
The following Senior Staff have announced their separations. I wish all of these dedicated employees the best after their many years of public service:
Christopher Ferris, Associate Commissioner for Security and Emergency Preparedness, Office of Budget, Finance, and Management
Joseph Lytle, Deputy Commissioner, Office of Hearings Operations
Craig Bedard, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Strategy, Learning, and Workforce Development, Office of Human Resources (OHR)
Kristen Medley-Proctor, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, OHR
Frank Barry, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Customer Service, Office of Operations (DCO)
Howard Bowles, Regional Commissioner, Denver/Seattle, DCO
Rose Mary Buehler, Regional Commissioner, Atlanta, DCO
Vikash Chhagan, Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support, Seattle, DCO
Sue Cumming, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Public Service and Operations Support, DCO
Ray Egan, Regional Commissioner, New York, DCO
Tonya Freeman, Deputy Regional Commissioner, Kansas City, DCO
Roderick Hairston, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Electronic Services and Technology, DCO
Rick Lenoir, Regional Commissioner, Chicago, DCO
Joe Lopez, Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support, Dallas, DCO
LeeAnn Stuever, Regional Commissioner, Philadelphia, DCO
Deon Wilson, Deputy Regional Commissioner, Dallas, DCO
Timothy Amerson, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Information Security, Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO)
Stephanie Hall, Senior Advisor, OCIO
Timothy May, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Information Security, OCIO
Joseph Stenaka, Executive Advisor for Cybersecurity, OCIO
Jeremy Weibley, Executive Advisor for IT Transformation, OCIO
Laura Haltzel, Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, Office of Retirement and Disability Policy
Dennis Foley, Deputy Associate General Counsel for Program Law, Office of the General Counsel
Natalie Lu, Senior Advisor
To support President Trump’s priorities to streamline functions, I am making the following organizational changes:
Historically, SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of ten regional offices. We can no longer afford to operate in this fashion. We will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions as follows:
Northeast Region – Current Boston, New York, and Philadelphia regions
Southeast Region – Current Atlanta region
Mid-West/West Region – Current Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and Seattle regions
Southwest Region – Current Dallas and San Francisco regions
In addition, we have an outdated, inefficient organizational structure at Headquarters, so I am reorganizing Headquarters components. We will now have seven Deputy Commissioner level organizations as follows:
1. Deputy Commissioner for Operations
2. Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication
3. Deputy Commissioner for Mission Support
4. Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs
5. Deputy Commissioner for Legal and Policy
6. Chief Information Officer
7. Chief Actuary
Deputy Commissioner for Operations
Doris Diaz will remain Acting Deputy Commissioner (DC).
Delma Cardona is Assistant Deputy Commissioner (ADC), DCO.
Sean Balser is Acting ADC, DCO.
Anatoly Shnaider is Regional Commissioner (RC), Northeast Region.
Darrell Sheffield is Acting RC, Southeast Region.
Linda Kerr-Davis is RC, Mid-West/West Region.
Travis Dodson is RC, Southwest Region.
In addition, I am realigning all Processing Centers to report to the Office of Central Operations and all Teleservice Centers to report to the newly formed Office of Telephone Services (OTS). Chris Chapple is AC, OTS and Tiffany Countess is Acting DAC, OTS.
I am also merging the Office of Public Service and Operations Support and the Office of Electronic Services and Technology to form the Office of Analysis, Integration, and Performance Oversight (OAIPO). Jeremiah Schofield is AC, OAIPO. Sam Richardson and Karen Girardeau are DACs.
Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication I am establishing the Office of Disability Adjudication (ODA), which will be comprised of the Offices of Hearings Operations (OHO), Appellate Operations, Disability Determinations (ODD), and Quality Review. Jay Ortis, will serve as the Acting Deputy Commissioner (DC), ODA, concurrently while serving as Acting Chief Administrative Law Judge. Jim Parikh is ADC, ODA.
Chad Poist will be ADC, ODA. Hank McKnelly will be AC for the Office of Hearing Operations (OHO). While Chad continues to serve as Acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Hank McKnelly will serve as Acting ADC, ODA. Monique Cephas will be DAC, OHO. Leroy Weeks is the Assistant Associate Commissioner (AAC) for the newly formed Office of Management. James Van Der Schalie will be AC, ODD.
Deputy Commissioner for Mission Support
I am combining our administrative support functions in the Office of Budget, Finance, and Management and the Office of Human Resources to form the Office of Mission Support (OMS). Sean Brune will serve as the Acting DC, OMS. His permanent position will be ADC, OMS, overseeing the Offices of Financial Policy and Program Integrity (OFPPI), Budget (OB), and Acquisition and Grants. Florence Felix-Lawson will serve as the Chief Human Capital Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, and ADC, OM. Florence will oversee the Offices of Human Resources, and the newly formed Office of Facilities and Security Management (OFSM), which merges the Offices of Facilities and Logistics Management, and Security and Emergency Preparedness. Jennifer Stevenson is AC, Office of Human Resources. Jenni Greenlee is AAC, Lauren Palguta and Mary Ann Jett are Deputy, AACs (DAAC).
Dan Callahan is AC, OFSM. Marc Mason is AAC, OFSM, Tim Beavers and Dawn McCrobie are DAACs. Christian Hellie is AC, OFPPI.
Also in OMS, I am reassigning all agency budget functions and employees to OB. Due to their unique nature, the ODD budget staff will remain with ODD.
I am also reassigning all agency facilities and security functions and employees to OFSM.
Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs: To improve our responsiveness to Congress, our stakeholders, and the public, I am merging the Office of Communications (OCOMM) and the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs (OLCA) to form the Office of External Affairs (OEA). Jeffrey Buckner will serve is Acting DC, OEA. His permanent position will be ADC, OEA/OCOMM. Dustin Brown will serve as Acting ADC, OEA/OLCA. Dawn Bystry will be AC, OCOMM. Erik Hansen is AC, OLCA. Kala Shah, currently the Executive Secretary, will be a Senior Advisor, OEA.
Stephen McGraw will be Acting Executive Secretary in the Office of the Commissioner.
Deputy Commissioner for Legal and Policy: To increase our effectiveness in implementing the Administration’s priorities, I am merging the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Retirement and Disability Policy (ORDP), and the Office of Labor Management and Employee Relations (OLMER), to form the Office of Legal and Policy (OLP). Mark Steffensen, currently a Senior Advisor in OC, is Acting DC, OLP and Acting General Counsel. Stephen Evangelista will be the ADC, OLP overseeing Policy. We will soon name an ADC overseeing Legal and OLMER.
Susan Wilschke is AC, ODP. Bob Weathers is DAC, ODP. Jessica Burns MacBride will remain AC in the Office of Income Security Programs (OISP) and Anya Olsen is Acting DAC, OISP. Eddie Taylor is AC, OLMER.
The Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics; the Office of Data Exchange, Policy Publications, and International Negotiations; and parts of the Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Support will be realigned to the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
Chief Information Officer
Joseph Cunningham, who has been serving as the Acting Deputy, AC for the Office of Information Security (OIS) since December 2024, is the Acting AC, OIS and Acting Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Consistent with other organizational changes that I have made to align like mission functions, I am reassigning all agency employees in the IT Specialist (2210) occupational series to OCIO.
Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on their new assignments. I will continue to update you as we move further along with our streamlining efforts, but please know that we will continue to review the agency structure and explore additional consolidations and elimination of redundant functions. I am counting on each of you for your support and continued collaboration during this transition.
Edited to make this memo a bit less unreadable than the original.
Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 3:07 PM
85 comments:
Unknown3:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Wow, and a RIF to follow.
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Anonymous2:52 PM, March 01, 2025
Moving the deck chairs around will certainly reduce waste, fraud and abuse. The Department of Government Efficiency at its finest.
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Anonymous3:57 PM, February 28, 2025
Operational leadership has been decimated. This will not be good to improve service to those who need it most.
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Anonymous4:08 PM, February 28, 2025
Improve? With this going on the only improvements is to the dump and it should have been known this would happen in November once the Commissioner who actually cared and fought for his employees resigned.
Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
Most of them decided to abandon ship rather than show executive leadership and help their employees through a most difficult time. I thought that was what the SES corps was built to do.
To some out here it looks a little like cowardice. Maybe their leaving is a good thing if they are not up to the challenge.
Anonymous4:50 PM, February 28, 2025
100%
Anonymous5:49 PM, February 28, 2025
@4:27 p.m. Cowardice? Its is apparent that you and your ilk have never managed anyone, had to inform someone that they are losing their job or had to explain devastating news to your staff who you lead. Federal employees are human too. But that seems to be lost on DOGE and MAGA folks. Don't worry, your time to suffer under this administration is coming!
Unknown9:49 PM, February 28, 2025
Many who are eligible to retire are leaving to hopefully ensure younger employees with families can stay by freeing up money. And don't think for a moment that these folks weren't going to be fired or subject to RIFs. Some would call these folks realistic.
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Anonymous4:02 PM, February 28, 2025
Just clearing the decks for the new COSS and, to be sure, with the concurrence of that new COSS. Frankly, for all of us who deal with the extremely poorly run agency for the past few years from phones not being answered to slow processing of every aspect of the process, this can only be a relief. Unquestionably staff shortages have been a problem but not the only problem. When telephones went down for weeks, and no heads rolled, that was a failure that was independent of short staff. While I hate Trump, if the new COSS can show his expertise in systems processing and get this Agency to function efficiently, I will sing his praises.
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Anonymous4:34 PM, February 28, 2025
There's no chance of that happening. Everything will be MUCH worse with these cuts. They won't be replacing anyone with new hires and there are no magic AI solutions despite what they seem to think.
Anonymous4:47 PM, February 28, 2025
This can’t be an employee, of Social Security and must be a maga/musk worshipper.
But if the above person were familiar with the agency, they would know, under O’Malley (who was Senate confirmed) we used data driven approach and actually got the agency operating with a 50 year employment low serving the highest number of people In history.
This just shows that you need to stop watching the headlines and the BS and realize that this will cause Social Security to be destroyed by a musk takeover. The person that clearly violated ethics and title 18 laws but was elevated by the only actual felon president to the acting commissioner position.
Anonymous5:05 PM, February 28, 2025
Lol. Imagine being this obtuse.
Anonymous7:40 PM, February 28, 2025
This is the wrong way to combat waste, fraud and abuse or make service better and more efficient. How do you know that the right folks are leaving or will get RIFed. Service will go further downhill. It will take years to rebuild or even outsource. Speaking of outsourcing, do you think the private sector will protect you. Think again..Next stop is to slow, reduce or even take away your retirement or disability benefits. Your parents will suffer, you family will suffer, your siblings will suffer, your friends will suffer. Slash and burn hurts everyone.
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Anonymous4:06 PM, February 28, 2025
Charles thank you so much for your time. Your blog is consistently foremost in getting news out, and provides an invaluable forum for discussion.
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Anonymous5:52 PM, February 28, 2025
Ditto. Thank you Charles!
Anonymous6:10 AM, March 01, 2025
And a lot of the execs not leaving are not listed with new roles. Every SES employee is potentially on the chopping block.
Trump plans to let the DOGE Youth take over.
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Anonymous4:14 PM, February 28, 2025
Notice that there are no permanent deputy commissioners
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Anonymous5:56 PM, March 01, 2025
Yep. All DCs will be political appointees.
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Anonymous4:18 PM, February 28, 2025
The real goal, after the chaos and fear tactics is to render SSA unsustainable and unfunded, leading to privatization...bingo!
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Anonymous7:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Hope the private takes good care of you. Think again. They are in it for the money and not to care about you. Financial institutions will steal your money. And by the way, there is no fraud, waste and abuse in the private sector. ;)
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Anonymous4:18 PM, February 28, 2025
what is the limit of change/ resignations where everything breaks? is this year zero crap? unbelievable.. I don't think this happens in the private sector like this--- unless it's a fire-sale by private equity.
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Anonymous4:21 PM, February 28, 2025
Pretty clear Dudek is not calling these shots, he is but a useful stooge. Let's see how welfare-MAGAts start reacting when the checks are late or never show.
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Anonymous5:32 PM, February 28, 2025
Useful stooge with a very limited 15 minutes of fame. He’s eventually going to be discarded, and nobody will remember him fondly. Way to go Lee.
Anonymous9:05 PM, February 28, 2025
Dude gonna be eating lunch by himself when he goes back to his old job. If it still exists.
Anonymous11:28 PM, February 28, 2025
Imagine thinking he'll ever show his face at SSA after butchering the agency. I'm sure Elon has a no-show gig "managing" one of his government grift contracts.
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Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
New press release. Goal is cutting 7,000 jobs. https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/#2025-02-28
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Anonymous5:34 PM, February 28, 2025
Guarantee you one of the execs asked him what leve of reductions he expected in that meeting and he said "50," to keep it ambiguous, without technically lying, and to induce panic, work just enough time for people to put in their paperwork before the end of the month. Wouldn't be shocked if 3,000 left just today.
Anonymous5:47 PM, February 28, 2025
@5:34, my money is on "50% HQ, at least 50% RO" was taken out of context by some snoozing exec who then ran to the media about it.
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Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
I am long time SSA employee.
Realistically they upper management was bloated and didn't do much.
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Anonymous5:14 PM, February 28, 2025
Your poor English is showing, Vlad
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Anonymous4:33 PM, February 28, 2025
It'll be fine. Regional leadership isn't that big a deal. There is still leadership. For the front line, the regional offices were often intrusive and an obstacle to getting things done. Especially in the smaller regions. The PSCs and TSCs remain. Long term, leaner management will be a vast improvement.
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Anonymous5:53 PM, February 28, 2025
Hot take. That tells me you don’t actually know what the ROs do. They keep thousands of cases out of the offices and actually directly process workloads. When they had to dig a WSU out of a 20,000 claim backlog, it was the ROs who took on the cases. When millions of people lost Extra Help from Medicaid unwinding, it was the ROs the took the redeterminations. One thing frontline doesn’t always realize is how much effort is put into keeping workloads AWAY from the frontline.
Anonymous8:13 PM, February 28, 2025
One would like to believe that RO's worked hard, but employees have seen zero evidence of that. The folks squawking now are the ones losing overpaid, cushy gigs. Sorry they're unhappy, but frontline employees have been subjected to sweatshop working conditions for ages, with none of these superfluous RO or HQ personnel losing any sleep over it.
Anonymous11:59 PM, February 28, 2025
You would likely be surprised that most of these RO staff that you decide started their careers in the FO PSC or DDS. Please give us an update how it's going s if/when they are gone. Better yet ask your ADO now about the potential effect.
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Anonymous4:38 PM, February 28, 2025
Just another step on the way to dismantling the entire agency and contracting everything out to private industry.
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Anonymous4:43 PM, February 28, 2025
My understanding is that all permanent Deputy Commissioner positions will be political appointees and is why there are only Acting DCs until the COSS is confirmed and decisions made about the DC appointees.
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Anonymous8:08 PM, February 28, 2025
Wow - that would be a very big deal. Do you have any further info/source you can share? SSA has always had only a handful of DC positions that were political. Also, by law (section 704 of the Soc Sec Act) SSA is limited to a grand total of 20 political appointees (whether execs, OC staff, senior advisors, etc), so if all DCs are political they'd probably crash right through that limit....
Anonymous10:55 PM, February 28, 2025
We were also told verbally today that the 7 DCs will be political appointees.
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Anonymous4:45 PM, February 28, 2025
work for the AC. Rif email today.
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Anonymous4:57 PM, February 28, 2025
Which part?
Anonymous5:50 PM, February 28, 2025
This appears to be a lie/trolling. Thats a pretty awful thing to do to people
Anonymous5:52 PM, February 28, 2025
What did it say?
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Anonymous4:46 PM, February 28, 2025
I have to hand it to Dudek. He out-Dorcas Hardy'ed Dorcas Hardy. She took a meat ax to the agency in 1986. He just dropped a nuclear warhead on it.
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Anonymous6:55 PM, February 28, 2025
Just because Leland's names is on these missives, doesn't mean they are his decisions. He is absolutely on board with them, but he isn't making these calls.
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Anonymous5:09 PM, February 28, 2025
The general population will not care about the Federal workforce until it impacts them and it will. If not through a program cut, or downsized, availability to the poor will be limited. What effects I see is the crime rate increasing, homelessness, and even more chaos in the future. Where is Congress??? Is this why the email gives the deadline it does. Look for Federal health benefits to be dramatically changed, Medicaid gutted at best, who knows about Medicare, oh and in my humble opinion CDRs in droves, most who will not be represented.
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Anonymous7:48 PM, February 28, 2025
Hand my retirements to a private company. I forgot that there is no waste, fraud and abuse in the private sector. Good luck with that. Send disability to STD/LTD companies. All they care about is profit. That is your tax money. I agree that we need to cut out waste, fraud and abuse.
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Anonymous5:11 PM, February 28, 2025
@ 4:46, this was quite obviously Bisignano and DOGE. Bisignano is known for streamlining and pushing bigger, central hubs. Fits this perfectly.
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Anonymous5:17 PM, February 28, 2025
“Edited to make this memo a bit less unreadable than the original.”
Lol just Lol.
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Anonymous5:24 PM, February 28, 2025
Our beloved President said he would not touch Social Security! How is that working out?
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Anonymous7:52 PM, February 28, 2025
Next stop, moving the trust funds to Wall Street where they will make money off your money and not give it to you. Are you really sure they will not commit fraud? Yea, right fraud has never occurred on Wall Street or financial institutions will steal. And think about this if they do, where are they going to get the money to pay your benefits, back to you not them by raising your taxes.
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Anonymous5:39 PM, February 28, 2025
Nothing like a mid level manager who was quite literally under investigation for disclosing information that was not allowed, going in and licking the feet of Trump and Musk. Congratulations Leland. You will be remembered as spineless once your TEMPORARY tenure ends.
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Anonymous6:01 PM, February 28, 2025
Congratulations to Lee Dudek and leadership team supporting him.
Consolidation of functions and removing
executives that are calcified is a great leap towards creating a modern functioning organization.
Did you get it 100% right? No but you made a decisive leap and can tweak from here.
All you folks who are reading this will say I’m Lee but I’m not. This was a long long time coming and I am thrilled that we have finally started to unshackle this agency.
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Anonymous6:27 PM, February 28, 2025
Out of curiosity, are you still with the agency and were/are you on the front line?
Anonymous7:01 PM, February 28, 2025
"I'm not Lee."
Okay, Leland. We believe you.
Anonymous7:59 PM, February 28, 2025
This will immediately reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Make the services better. Rearranging the deck chairs always seems to work. The new DCs that come will fix everything. It will be so mucked that all the folks coming in are from the financial world so far. What do you think they will do. Shift the Trust Fund to Wall Street. Take the billions from the SSA operating budget and give it to their Wall Street friends to run the Financial Institutions. By the way, they never commit fraud or lose money. Good luck with that.
Unknown9:54 PM, February 28, 2025
6:01 You clearly don't know many of these execs. But we'll see how this all goes!
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Anonymous6:29 PM, February 28, 2025
The RIFs go hand-in-hand with field office closures (already underway) and the already-accomplished firing of the IT employees who were improving the public's access online. The intent is not to help SSA but to kill SSA and, with it, Social Security. It's an underhanded way to accomplish that goal without DJT getting his fingerprints on it. IMO, upper management retired rather than kowtow to DJT/DOGE; don't blame them, there's no scenario where they could avert catastrophe given the DOGE steamroller.
To the person who thinks this is good for your clients: not in your dreams. This is not done to improve service.
Let's not forget that Social Security does not contribute a penny to the nation's deficit because the Trust Funds are still solvent and pay for all benefits and admin costs. So DOGE's mandate to get rid of the deficit does not apply to SSA. [I know SSI comes from general tax revenues, but that's another fight such as over Medicaid. Social Security itself does not contribute to the deficit.]
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Anonymous6:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Your putting the quality review function UNDER the very component that is BEING reviewed. Conflict of interest much? What genius thought of that, Elon Musk?
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Anonymous6:49 PM, February 28, 2025
I'm excited for where this can go. Clearly we were a bloated agency in some ways. With that said, its extremely hard to believe we arent going to need to hire a bunch of production workers in short order. Either that or I hope somebody has been hiding a bunch of amazing new tools which will allow us to super efficiently serve customers with far less people.
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Anonymous7:03 PM, February 28, 2025
The reorganization does not make sense. Consider the regions:
Northeast Region – Current Boston, New York, and Philadelphia regions
Southeast Region – Current Atlanta region
Mid-West/West Region – Current Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and Seattle regions
Southwest Region – Current Dallas and San Francisco regions
The Atlanta region remained the same. However, the servicing area for the Northeast and Southwest regions are huge. The population for the regions should be consistent. This is a disservice to the public! This is a nightmare!
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Anonymous11:31 PM, February 28, 2025
A nightmare the sleepwalking public brought upon itself.
Anonymous10:27 AM, March 01, 2025
Might it correspond to Red States / Blue States?
Anonymous11:14 AM, March 01, 2025
I wonder if it's because the Atlanta region has had some of the highest disability processing times. Maybe they have enough to deal with already? That's not to dismiss the craziness of combining the other regions and how much they're dealing with, just brainstorming possible explanations here. That is, assuming things are based on logic and facts, which may be a stretch for this era!
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Anonymous7:56 PM, February 28, 2025
I thought a reorganization above the Division level at SSA requires Congressional notification and publication in the Federal Register.
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Anonymous11:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Section 608 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act.
As if this administration cares about the law.
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Anonymous8:22 PM, February 28, 2025
This guy is an absolute clown. If you think for a second he's doing anything remotely resembling running SSA, you're a dolt. He's not taking a bathroom break without Elon's blessing. Shame on the RC's for not speaking out as they ealk...
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Anonymous8:28 PM, February 28, 2025
Lee DuDick should be investigated by the OSC for illegal activities. Lee, I know you’re reading this, you’re nothing but a slimy Quisling. One day when you’re unceremoniously relieved from your lackey position you’ll be all alone at night, friendless. Good luck.
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Anonymous8:31 PM, February 28, 2025
This is an abomination. DOGE and their henchmen take pleasure in ruining people’s lives, and the public is going to suffer for it. I know people who worked in OCREO who were unceremoniously let go with zero notice. And now this mid-level twerp has made a mockery of career civil servants who are not obviously leaving of their own volition. I hope Karma has extra special things in store for Dudek, Musk, and all the other goons.
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Anonymous9:17 PM, February 28, 2025
It's kind of you to support your bootlicker son, Mrs. Dudek.
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Anonymous10:45 AM, March 01, 2025
Lee, I hope you are reading this. I always admired your work and the work OPI did. I always wanted to work there but never got picked. I understand the need to consolidate operations across the agency. A lot of that makes sense. But I have two things to ask of you: 1) you know this isn’t about fraud, waste, and abuse. SSA and your team did a great job preventing it and getting the message out to us in operations. And those of us in operations are being villainized by the public for letting this fraud exist. Help us there. The reorg can be about efficiency, so make the case that way instead of waste and abuse. 2) Operational realignment can always bring great efficiency. But what I don’t understand is losing staff. Why do you or the admin think that will promote efficiency? We’ve been in SecurityStat. We know the challenges the agency is facing. We know the RTO was pushed to help increase service. But now we are at appointment only models, the phone lines and dib time are large, and pushing our frontline staff out and re-training existing staff to move to the frontline will only increase the backlog until the learning curve is over. Especially if the training team (OTT and OSLWD) are non-essential and gone and mission support is learning its new roles. So why the goal for 7,000 cut? Offer VERA and VISP and leave it at that. It will give people who aren’t performing and are ready to end their career a chance to leave who wernt eligible for the DRP, and that will give a boost to productivity. Let the new hires finish training and get up to speed and then reassess. But when you force people out the door with institutional knowledge the performance will suffer, just like when we lost so much HR staff to the VA. Go back over the STAT data. Make the case that we have a strong anti-fraud program and info sec program. Argue we can modernize IT with help and funding. Argue that we do our jobs but can be more efficient and that’s the goal. O’Malley is claiming we will have an interruption to benefits for the first time ever. I don’t think it has to be that way. But we need staff to do so.
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Anonymous11:27 AM, March 01, 2025
Dudek isn't making any of these calls. These are coming from the DOGE people and Bisignano. Leland is a willing participant happy to parrot what they tell him to.
Anonymous12:52 PM, March 01, 2025
11:27
Exactly. This is all part of the scheme. Dudek is just the puppet at the moment. Make the cuts, bring the pain to the agency. At first chance, he will be throw under the bus and Bisignano will be installed as Commissioner.
Anonymous2:50 PM, March 01, 2025
I honestly don't see Gauleiter Dudek getting the bus treatment unless everything hits the fan in the near term. If it doesn't, they'll reward him with some deputy commissioner position where he doesn't make any actual decisions.
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Anonymous7:52 PM, March 01, 2025
I am an SES who took the fork like many on the list. The decision was personal for me, and I had no insight as to what was going to follow with all of the crazy terminations as I'm walking out the door. Many of us were close to retirement and wanted to ease into it with help from the "fork." Personally, I thought it would free up an SES position for those ready to move up however, that does not appear to be the case. I hope for the best for the agency and with all of the political appointees coming into senior positions I would suggest that upheaval will be the norm. And don't blame Lee because he really is blinded by DOGE and the position of ACOSS. He believes in what he is doing - forgive them all, they are blinded by MAGA.
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Anonymous11:48 PM, March 01, 2025
Why are so forgiving? He’s pushing many SSA employees out the door before they want to leave and the agency was barely surviving. Leland, you better save your money since you will have many attorney bills coming up.
Anonymous1:45 PM, March 02, 2025
Things change. Very few people in this country really get to decide when to retire, let alone have opportunities for early retirement through FERS or CSRS. Restructuring and layoffs are familiar happenings to most Americans. Forgiving allows YOU to move forward, but change happens regardless.
Anonymous3:29 PM, March 02, 2025
@11:48 why would he need to save his money? Anything he does in his position as ACOSS are Agency actions, not personal ones, and would be defended by OGC. If you want to go at it from he is illegitimate and therefore all of the actions are void, then that would be something that the administration would fight with DOJ lawyers, not Leland personally.
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Anonymous8:13 PM, March 01, 2025
Which cities are going to get the 4 new regional offices? Figure they are ending leases at current regional offices.
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Anonymous10:18 PM, March 01, 2025
Did anyone else pick up on the reassignment of the IT Spec PD to OCIO? Does this mean that IT positions say in the former BFM or the regional centers for automation etc will all be pulled and reassigned to OCIO?
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Anonymous12:27 AM, March 02, 2025
While they will be reassigned to OCIO, I haven’t heard if they will be asked to relocate. It may just be a logical reassignment and not a physical one.
Anonymous12:45 AM, March 02, 2025
That's how I read it. All 2210s is all 2210s. Honestly CIO needs oversight on regional development. He is responsible for all IT, direct report or not, so better to create that direct chain oversight.
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Anonymous4:19 PM, March 02, 2025
@4:27 PM, February 28, 2025 As a member of the SES, I signed up to lead and uphold the constitution, and faithfully defend it. I committed to being a good steward of the taxpayer's dollars and their trust. Yesterday's "road ahead" email was enough to know that it is not MY road. The last decade has been a debacle on a spectacular scale and no one, no matter how noble or good-intentioned, could have unwound the havoc that a series of temporary Acting leaders and a few select career SES at the highest levels of the agency left in their wake. I've taken care of my team, but did not sign up to lose my soul, or work with a psychotic lunatic and a circle of sycophants.
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Anonymous8:25 PM, March 02, 2025
Makes no sense to put Seattle in the Mid West group or putting Dallas in the Southwest group. Seattle should be with San Francisco and Dallas should be with Chicago, Kansas City & Denver.
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Anonymous7:07 AM, March 03, 2025
We're in the age of it doesn't make sense. Unless there is some hiring in the field, the rest of the country is going to figure that out too when SSA starts operating at a crawl vs a slow and steady walk.
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Anonymous4:43 PM, March 03, 2025
SSA was established as an independant agency. It operates in the executive branch but is not under direct control of the President. Major changes must go through Congress. The employees in the field and those directly supporting them locally do not desrve this catastrophic upheaval.
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>>>>>>>
One email reveals how many SSA employees split from the SSA or were forced out of the SSA since last Feb 28, 2025, showing how badly the SSA and its employees were sabotaged and abused by Leland C. Dudek (SSA Acting Commissioner who should resign.), and some of Musk's DOGE employees (GOONS) at the SSA.
For more about the SSA, see the link to the Tiffany Flick statement below.
See more bellow...
Posted by Lynda Carson
>>>>>>>
Tiffany Flick statement
https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/AFSCME-et-al-v-SSA-Flick-Decl.-3.7.25.pdf
AFSCME v Social Security Administration
https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SSA-TRO-opinion.pdf
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 9:48 AM
To: Dudek, Leland C.
Cc: Felix-Lawson, Florence ; Taylor, Eddie
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Sunday, March 2, 2025 4:06 PM
Subject: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II EmailA Message to All SSA Employees
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2025 4:01 PM
Subject: Bargaining Unit Employees – Return to In-Person Work
From: Couture, Richard
To: MEMBERS
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 at 12:14:51 PM CST
Subject: RE: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
TO: MEMBERS
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: Couture, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2025 9:48 AM
To: Dudek, Leland C.
Cc: Felix-Lawson, Florence ; Taylor, Eddie
Subject: FW: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II Email
Importance: High
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Sunday, March 2, 2025 4:06 PM
Subject: SSA Guidance on What Did You Do Last Week? Part II EmailA Message to All SSA Employees
MEMORANDUM
Date: February 28, 2025
To: Senior Staff
From: Leland C. Dudek /s/
Acting Commissioner
Subject: Executive Personnel Assignments – INFORMATION
https://socsecnews.blogspot.com/2025/02/even-if-all-of-this-was-good-idea-it.html?m=1
From: Dudek, Leland C. To: ; ; Poist, Chad; Russo, Michael L.; Brown, Dustin S.; Steffensen, Mark Cc: Gurga, Ben; Fensterheim, Devin; Mastramico, Clare Subject: RE: Proposal for Death Data Improvement 100+ -- Memo Date: Friday, February 28, 2025 9:54:17 PM
From: Dudek, Leland C. @ssa.gov> Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 8:40 PM To: Russo, Michael L < @ssa.gov>; ^ @ssa.gov> Cc: Shah, Kala < @ssa.gov>; @ssa.gov>; Peltier, Brian < @ssa.gov>; Monteleone, Timothy < @ssa.gov>; Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov>; ^ @ssa.gov>
Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Poist, Chad < @ssa.gov>; Russo, Michael L < @ssa.gov>; Brown, Dustin S. < @ssa.gov>; Steffensen, Mark < @ssa.gov> Cc: @ssa.gov>; Gurga, Ben < @ssa.gov>; Fensterheim, Devin < @ssa.gov>; Mastramico, Clare
Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2025 5:08 PM To: Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Steffensen, Mark < @ssa.gov>; Evangelista, Stephen < @ssa.gov> Cc: Russo, Michael L. < @ssa.gov>
Mickie Tyquiengco Office of the Chief Information Officer
From: Tyquiengco, Mickie < @ssa.gov> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 9:22 PM To: Dudek, Leland C. < @ssa.gov>; Vollmer, Jessica OGC @ssa.gov> Cc: Russo, Michael L. < @ssa.gov>
From: Dudek, Leland C. To: ; Steffensen, Mark; Russo, Michael L.; Fensterheim, Devin; Chapron, Djimy Cc: Poist, Chad; Brown, Dustin S.
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Feb 28, 2025
Even If All Of This Was A Good Idea, It Would Still Be Insane To Do It All At The Same Time
MEMORANDUM
Date:February 28, 2025
To:Senior Staff
From:Leland C. Dudek /s/
Acting Commissioner
Subject:Executive Personnel Assignments – INFORMATION I have several announcements.
The following Senior Staff have announced their separations. I wish all of these dedicated employees the best after their many years of public service:
Christopher Ferris, Associate Commissioner for Security and Emergency Preparedness, Office of Budget, Finance, and Management
Joseph Lytle, Deputy Commissioner, Office of Hearings Operations
Craig Bedard, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Strategy, Learning, and Workforce Development, Office of Human Resources (OHR)
Kristen Medley-Proctor, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, OHR
Frank Barry, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Customer Service, Office of Operations (DCO)
Howard Bowles, Regional Commissioner, Denver/Seattle, DCO
Rose Mary Buehler, Regional Commissioner, Atlanta, DCO
Vikash Chhagan, Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support, Seattle, DCO
Sue Cumming, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Public Service and Operations Support, DCO
Ray Egan, Regional Commissioner, New York, DCO
Tonya Freeman, Deputy Regional Commissioner, Kansas City, DCO
Roderick Hairston, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Electronic Services and Technology, DCO
Rick Lenoir, Regional Commissioner, Chicago, DCO
Joe Lopez, Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support, Dallas, DCO
LeeAnn Stuever, Regional Commissioner, Philadelphia, DCO
Deon Wilson, Deputy Regional Commissioner, Dallas, DCO
Timothy Amerson, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Information Security, Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO)
Stephanie Hall, Senior Advisor, OCIO
Timothy May, Deputy Associate Commissioner for Information Security, OCIO
Joseph Stenaka, Executive Advisor for Cybersecurity, OCIO
Jeremy Weibley, Executive Advisor for IT Transformation, OCIO
Laura Haltzel, Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, Office of Retirement and Disability Policy
Dennis Foley, Deputy Associate General Counsel for Program Law, Office of the General Counsel
Natalie Lu, Senior Advisor
To support President Trump’s priorities to streamline functions, I am making the following organizational changes:
Historically, SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of ten regional offices. We can no longer afford to operate in this fashion. We will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions as follows:
Northeast Region – Current Boston, New York, and Philadelphia regions
Southeast Region – Current Atlanta region
Mid-West/West Region – Current Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and Seattle regions
Southwest Region – Current Dallas and San Francisco regions
In addition, we have an outdated, inefficient organizational structure at Headquarters, so I am reorganizing Headquarters components. We will now have seven Deputy Commissioner level organizations as follows:
1. Deputy Commissioner for Operations
2. Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication
3. Deputy Commissioner for Mission Support
4. Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs
5. Deputy Commissioner for Legal and Policy
6. Chief Information Officer
7. Chief Actuary
Deputy Commissioner for Operations
Doris Diaz will remain Acting Deputy Commissioner (DC).
Delma Cardona is Assistant Deputy Commissioner (ADC), DCO.
Sean Balser is Acting ADC, DCO.
Anatoly Shnaider is Regional Commissioner (RC), Northeast Region.
Darrell Sheffield is Acting RC, Southeast Region.
Linda Kerr-Davis is RC, Mid-West/West Region.
Travis Dodson is RC, Southwest Region.
In addition, I am realigning all Processing Centers to report to the Office of Central Operations and all Teleservice Centers to report to the newly formed Office of Telephone Services (OTS). Chris Chapple is AC, OTS and Tiffany Countess is Acting DAC, OTS.
I am also merging the Office of Public Service and Operations Support and the Office of Electronic Services and Technology to form the Office of Analysis, Integration, and Performance Oversight (OAIPO). Jeremiah Schofield is AC, OAIPO. Sam Richardson and Karen Girardeau are DACs.
Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication I am establishing the Office of Disability Adjudication (ODA), which will be comprised of the Offices of Hearings Operations (OHO), Appellate Operations, Disability Determinations (ODD), and Quality Review. Jay Ortis, will serve as the Acting Deputy Commissioner (DC), ODA, concurrently while serving as Acting Chief Administrative Law Judge. Jim Parikh is ADC, ODA.
Chad Poist will be ADC, ODA. Hank McKnelly will be AC for the Office of Hearing Operations (OHO). While Chad continues to serve as Acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Hank McKnelly will serve as Acting ADC, ODA. Monique Cephas will be DAC, OHO. Leroy Weeks is the Assistant Associate Commissioner (AAC) for the newly formed Office of Management. James Van Der Schalie will be AC, ODD.
Deputy Commissioner for Mission Support
I am combining our administrative support functions in the Office of Budget, Finance, and Management and the Office of Human Resources to form the Office of Mission Support (OMS). Sean Brune will serve as the Acting DC, OMS. His permanent position will be ADC, OMS, overseeing the Offices of Financial Policy and Program Integrity (OFPPI), Budget (OB), and Acquisition and Grants. Florence Felix-Lawson will serve as the Chief Human Capital Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, and ADC, OM. Florence will oversee the Offices of Human Resources, and the newly formed Office of Facilities and Security Management (OFSM), which merges the Offices of Facilities and Logistics Management, and Security and Emergency Preparedness. Jennifer Stevenson is AC, Office of Human Resources. Jenni Greenlee is AAC, Lauren Palguta and Mary Ann Jett are Deputy, AACs (DAAC).
Dan Callahan is AC, OFSM. Marc Mason is AAC, OFSM, Tim Beavers and Dawn McCrobie are DAACs. Christian Hellie is AC, OFPPI.
Also in OMS, I am reassigning all agency budget functions and employees to OB. Due to their unique nature, the ODD budget staff will remain with ODD.
I am also reassigning all agency facilities and security functions and employees to OFSM.
Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs: To improve our responsiveness to Congress, our stakeholders, and the public, I am merging the Office of Communications (OCOMM) and the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs (OLCA) to form the Office of External Affairs (OEA). Jeffrey Buckner will serve is Acting DC, OEA. His permanent position will be ADC, OEA/OCOMM. Dustin Brown will serve as Acting ADC, OEA/OLCA. Dawn Bystry will be AC, OCOMM. Erik Hansen is AC, OLCA. Kala Shah, currently the Executive Secretary, will be a Senior Advisor, OEA.
Stephen McGraw will be Acting Executive Secretary in the Office of the Commissioner.
Deputy Commissioner for Legal and Policy: To increase our effectiveness in implementing the Administration’s priorities, I am merging the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Retirement and Disability Policy (ORDP), and the Office of Labor Management and Employee Relations (OLMER), to form the Office of Legal and Policy (OLP). Mark Steffensen, currently a Senior Advisor in OC, is Acting DC, OLP and Acting General Counsel. Stephen Evangelista will be the ADC, OLP overseeing Policy. We will soon name an ADC overseeing Legal and OLMER.
Susan Wilschke is AC, ODP. Bob Weathers is DAC, ODP. Jessica Burns MacBride will remain AC in the Office of Income Security Programs (OISP) and Anya Olsen is Acting DAC, OISP. Eddie Taylor is AC, OLMER.
The Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics; the Office of Data Exchange, Policy Publications, and International Negotiations; and parts of the Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Support will be realigned to the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
Chief Information Officer
Joseph Cunningham, who has been serving as the Acting Deputy, AC for the Office of Information Security (OIS) since December 2024, is the Acting AC, OIS and Acting Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Consistent with other organizational changes that I have made to align like mission functions, I am reassigning all agency employees in the IT Specialist (2210) occupational series to OCIO.
Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on their new assignments. I will continue to update you as we move further along with our streamlining efforts, but please know that we will continue to review the agency structure and explore additional consolidations and elimination of redundant functions. I am counting on each of you for your support and continued collaboration during this transition.
Edited to make this memo a bit less unreadable than the original.
Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 3:07 PM
85 comments:
Unknown3:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Wow, and a RIF to follow.
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Anonymous2:52 PM, March 01, 2025
Moving the deck chairs around will certainly reduce waste, fraud and abuse. The Department of Government Efficiency at its finest.
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Anonymous3:57 PM, February 28, 2025
Operational leadership has been decimated. This will not be good to improve service to those who need it most.
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Anonymous4:08 PM, February 28, 2025
Improve? With this going on the only improvements is to the dump and it should have been known this would happen in November once the Commissioner who actually cared and fought for his employees resigned.
Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
Most of them decided to abandon ship rather than show executive leadership and help their employees through a most difficult time. I thought that was what the SES corps was built to do.
To some out here it looks a little like cowardice. Maybe their leaving is a good thing if they are not up to the challenge.
Anonymous4:50 PM, February 28, 2025
100%
Anonymous5:49 PM, February 28, 2025
@4:27 p.m. Cowardice? Its is apparent that you and your ilk have never managed anyone, had to inform someone that they are losing their job or had to explain devastating news to your staff who you lead. Federal employees are human too. But that seems to be lost on DOGE and MAGA folks. Don't worry, your time to suffer under this administration is coming!
Unknown9:49 PM, February 28, 2025
Many who are eligible to retire are leaving to hopefully ensure younger employees with families can stay by freeing up money. And don't think for a moment that these folks weren't going to be fired or subject to RIFs. Some would call these folks realistic.
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Anonymous4:02 PM, February 28, 2025
Just clearing the decks for the new COSS and, to be sure, with the concurrence of that new COSS. Frankly, for all of us who deal with the extremely poorly run agency for the past few years from phones not being answered to slow processing of every aspect of the process, this can only be a relief. Unquestionably staff shortages have been a problem but not the only problem. When telephones went down for weeks, and no heads rolled, that was a failure that was independent of short staff. While I hate Trump, if the new COSS can show his expertise in systems processing and get this Agency to function efficiently, I will sing his praises.
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Anonymous4:34 PM, February 28, 2025
There's no chance of that happening. Everything will be MUCH worse with these cuts. They won't be replacing anyone with new hires and there are no magic AI solutions despite what they seem to think.
Anonymous4:47 PM, February 28, 2025
This can’t be an employee, of Social Security and must be a maga/musk worshipper.
But if the above person were familiar with the agency, they would know, under O’Malley (who was Senate confirmed) we used data driven approach and actually got the agency operating with a 50 year employment low serving the highest number of people In history.
This just shows that you need to stop watching the headlines and the BS and realize that this will cause Social Security to be destroyed by a musk takeover. The person that clearly violated ethics and title 18 laws but was elevated by the only actual felon president to the acting commissioner position.
Anonymous5:05 PM, February 28, 2025
Lol. Imagine being this obtuse.
Anonymous7:40 PM, February 28, 2025
This is the wrong way to combat waste, fraud and abuse or make service better and more efficient. How do you know that the right folks are leaving or will get RIFed. Service will go further downhill. It will take years to rebuild or even outsource. Speaking of outsourcing, do you think the private sector will protect you. Think again..Next stop is to slow, reduce or even take away your retirement or disability benefits. Your parents will suffer, you family will suffer, your siblings will suffer, your friends will suffer. Slash and burn hurts everyone.
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Anonymous4:06 PM, February 28, 2025
Charles thank you so much for your time. Your blog is consistently foremost in getting news out, and provides an invaluable forum for discussion.
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Anonymous5:52 PM, February 28, 2025
Ditto. Thank you Charles!
Anonymous6:10 AM, March 01, 2025
And a lot of the execs not leaving are not listed with new roles. Every SES employee is potentially on the chopping block.
Trump plans to let the DOGE Youth take over.
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Anonymous4:14 PM, February 28, 2025
Notice that there are no permanent deputy commissioners
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Anonymous5:56 PM, March 01, 2025
Yep. All DCs will be political appointees.
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Anonymous4:18 PM, February 28, 2025
The real goal, after the chaos and fear tactics is to render SSA unsustainable and unfunded, leading to privatization...bingo!
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Anonymous7:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Hope the private takes good care of you. Think again. They are in it for the money and not to care about you. Financial institutions will steal your money. And by the way, there is no fraud, waste and abuse in the private sector. ;)
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Anonymous4:18 PM, February 28, 2025
what is the limit of change/ resignations where everything breaks? is this year zero crap? unbelievable.. I don't think this happens in the private sector like this--- unless it's a fire-sale by private equity.
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Anonymous4:21 PM, February 28, 2025
Pretty clear Dudek is not calling these shots, he is but a useful stooge. Let's see how welfare-MAGAts start reacting when the checks are late or never show.
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Anonymous5:32 PM, February 28, 2025
Useful stooge with a very limited 15 minutes of fame. He’s eventually going to be discarded, and nobody will remember him fondly. Way to go Lee.
Anonymous9:05 PM, February 28, 2025
Dude gonna be eating lunch by himself when he goes back to his old job. If it still exists.
Anonymous11:28 PM, February 28, 2025
Imagine thinking he'll ever show his face at SSA after butchering the agency. I'm sure Elon has a no-show gig "managing" one of his government grift contracts.
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Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
New press release. Goal is cutting 7,000 jobs. https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/#2025-02-28
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Anonymous5:34 PM, February 28, 2025
Guarantee you one of the execs asked him what leve of reductions he expected in that meeting and he said "50," to keep it ambiguous, without technically lying, and to induce panic, work just enough time for people to put in their paperwork before the end of the month. Wouldn't be shocked if 3,000 left just today.
Anonymous5:47 PM, February 28, 2025
@5:34, my money is on "50% HQ, at least 50% RO" was taken out of context by some snoozing exec who then ran to the media about it.
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Anonymous4:27 PM, February 28, 2025
I am long time SSA employee.
Realistically they upper management was bloated and didn't do much.
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Anonymous5:14 PM, February 28, 2025
Your poor English is showing, Vlad
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Anonymous4:33 PM, February 28, 2025
It'll be fine. Regional leadership isn't that big a deal. There is still leadership. For the front line, the regional offices were often intrusive and an obstacle to getting things done. Especially in the smaller regions. The PSCs and TSCs remain. Long term, leaner management will be a vast improvement.
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Anonymous5:53 PM, February 28, 2025
Hot take. That tells me you don’t actually know what the ROs do. They keep thousands of cases out of the offices and actually directly process workloads. When they had to dig a WSU out of a 20,000 claim backlog, it was the ROs who took on the cases. When millions of people lost Extra Help from Medicaid unwinding, it was the ROs the took the redeterminations. One thing frontline doesn’t always realize is how much effort is put into keeping workloads AWAY from the frontline.
Anonymous8:13 PM, February 28, 2025
One would like to believe that RO's worked hard, but employees have seen zero evidence of that. The folks squawking now are the ones losing overpaid, cushy gigs. Sorry they're unhappy, but frontline employees have been subjected to sweatshop working conditions for ages, with none of these superfluous RO or HQ personnel losing any sleep over it.
Anonymous11:59 PM, February 28, 2025
You would likely be surprised that most of these RO staff that you decide started their careers in the FO PSC or DDS. Please give us an update how it's going s if/when they are gone. Better yet ask your ADO now about the potential effect.
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Anonymous4:38 PM, February 28, 2025
Just another step on the way to dismantling the entire agency and contracting everything out to private industry.
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Anonymous4:43 PM, February 28, 2025
My understanding is that all permanent Deputy Commissioner positions will be political appointees and is why there are only Acting DCs until the COSS is confirmed and decisions made about the DC appointees.
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Anonymous8:08 PM, February 28, 2025
Wow - that would be a very big deal. Do you have any further info/source you can share? SSA has always had only a handful of DC positions that were political. Also, by law (section 704 of the Soc Sec Act) SSA is limited to a grand total of 20 political appointees (whether execs, OC staff, senior advisors, etc), so if all DCs are political they'd probably crash right through that limit....
Anonymous10:55 PM, February 28, 2025
We were also told verbally today that the 7 DCs will be political appointees.
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Anonymous4:45 PM, February 28, 2025
work for the AC. Rif email today.
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Anonymous4:57 PM, February 28, 2025
Which part?
Anonymous5:50 PM, February 28, 2025
This appears to be a lie/trolling. Thats a pretty awful thing to do to people
Anonymous5:52 PM, February 28, 2025
What did it say?
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Anonymous4:46 PM, February 28, 2025
I have to hand it to Dudek. He out-Dorcas Hardy'ed Dorcas Hardy. She took a meat ax to the agency in 1986. He just dropped a nuclear warhead on it.
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Anonymous6:55 PM, February 28, 2025
Just because Leland's names is on these missives, doesn't mean they are his decisions. He is absolutely on board with them, but he isn't making these calls.
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Anonymous5:09 PM, February 28, 2025
The general population will not care about the Federal workforce until it impacts them and it will. If not through a program cut, or downsized, availability to the poor will be limited. What effects I see is the crime rate increasing, homelessness, and even more chaos in the future. Where is Congress??? Is this why the email gives the deadline it does. Look for Federal health benefits to be dramatically changed, Medicaid gutted at best, who knows about Medicare, oh and in my humble opinion CDRs in droves, most who will not be represented.
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Anonymous7:48 PM, February 28, 2025
Hand my retirements to a private company. I forgot that there is no waste, fraud and abuse in the private sector. Good luck with that. Send disability to STD/LTD companies. All they care about is profit. That is your tax money. I agree that we need to cut out waste, fraud and abuse.
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Anonymous5:11 PM, February 28, 2025
@ 4:46, this was quite obviously Bisignano and DOGE. Bisignano is known for streamlining and pushing bigger, central hubs. Fits this perfectly.
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Anonymous5:17 PM, February 28, 2025
“Edited to make this memo a bit less unreadable than the original.”
Lol just Lol.
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Anonymous5:24 PM, February 28, 2025
Our beloved President said he would not touch Social Security! How is that working out?
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Anonymous7:52 PM, February 28, 2025
Next stop, moving the trust funds to Wall Street where they will make money off your money and not give it to you. Are you really sure they will not commit fraud? Yea, right fraud has never occurred on Wall Street or financial institutions will steal. And think about this if they do, where are they going to get the money to pay your benefits, back to you not them by raising your taxes.
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Anonymous5:39 PM, February 28, 2025
Nothing like a mid level manager who was quite literally under investigation for disclosing information that was not allowed, going in and licking the feet of Trump and Musk. Congratulations Leland. You will be remembered as spineless once your TEMPORARY tenure ends.
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Anonymous6:01 PM, February 28, 2025
Congratulations to Lee Dudek and leadership team supporting him.
Consolidation of functions and removing
executives that are calcified is a great leap towards creating a modern functioning organization.
Did you get it 100% right? No but you made a decisive leap and can tweak from here.
All you folks who are reading this will say I’m Lee but I’m not. This was a long long time coming and I am thrilled that we have finally started to unshackle this agency.
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Anonymous6:27 PM, February 28, 2025
Out of curiosity, are you still with the agency and were/are you on the front line?
Anonymous7:01 PM, February 28, 2025
"I'm not Lee."
Okay, Leland. We believe you.
Anonymous7:59 PM, February 28, 2025
This will immediately reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Make the services better. Rearranging the deck chairs always seems to work. The new DCs that come will fix everything. It will be so mucked that all the folks coming in are from the financial world so far. What do you think they will do. Shift the Trust Fund to Wall Street. Take the billions from the SSA operating budget and give it to their Wall Street friends to run the Financial Institutions. By the way, they never commit fraud or lose money. Good luck with that.
Unknown9:54 PM, February 28, 2025
6:01 You clearly don't know many of these execs. But we'll see how this all goes!
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Anonymous6:29 PM, February 28, 2025
The RIFs go hand-in-hand with field office closures (already underway) and the already-accomplished firing of the IT employees who were improving the public's access online. The intent is not to help SSA but to kill SSA and, with it, Social Security. It's an underhanded way to accomplish that goal without DJT getting his fingerprints on it. IMO, upper management retired rather than kowtow to DJT/DOGE; don't blame them, there's no scenario where they could avert catastrophe given the DOGE steamroller.
To the person who thinks this is good for your clients: not in your dreams. This is not done to improve service.
Let's not forget that Social Security does not contribute a penny to the nation's deficit because the Trust Funds are still solvent and pay for all benefits and admin costs. So DOGE's mandate to get rid of the deficit does not apply to SSA. [I know SSI comes from general tax revenues, but that's another fight such as over Medicaid. Social Security itself does not contribute to the deficit.]
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Anonymous6:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Your putting the quality review function UNDER the very component that is BEING reviewed. Conflict of interest much? What genius thought of that, Elon Musk?
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Anonymous6:49 PM, February 28, 2025
I'm excited for where this can go. Clearly we were a bloated agency in some ways. With that said, its extremely hard to believe we arent going to need to hire a bunch of production workers in short order. Either that or I hope somebody has been hiding a bunch of amazing new tools which will allow us to super efficiently serve customers with far less people.
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Anonymous7:03 PM, February 28, 2025
The reorganization does not make sense. Consider the regions:
Northeast Region – Current Boston, New York, and Philadelphia regions
Southeast Region – Current Atlanta region
Mid-West/West Region – Current Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and Seattle regions
Southwest Region – Current Dallas and San Francisco regions
The Atlanta region remained the same. However, the servicing area for the Northeast and Southwest regions are huge. The population for the regions should be consistent. This is a disservice to the public! This is a nightmare!
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Anonymous11:31 PM, February 28, 2025
A nightmare the sleepwalking public brought upon itself.
Anonymous10:27 AM, March 01, 2025
Might it correspond to Red States / Blue States?
Anonymous11:14 AM, March 01, 2025
I wonder if it's because the Atlanta region has had some of the highest disability processing times. Maybe they have enough to deal with already? That's not to dismiss the craziness of combining the other regions and how much they're dealing with, just brainstorming possible explanations here. That is, assuming things are based on logic and facts, which may be a stretch for this era!
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Anonymous7:56 PM, February 28, 2025
I thought a reorganization above the Division level at SSA requires Congressional notification and publication in the Federal Register.
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Anonymous11:43 PM, February 28, 2025
Section 608 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act.
As if this administration cares about the law.
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Anonymous8:22 PM, February 28, 2025
This guy is an absolute clown. If you think for a second he's doing anything remotely resembling running SSA, you're a dolt. He's not taking a bathroom break without Elon's blessing. Shame on the RC's for not speaking out as they ealk...
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Anonymous8:28 PM, February 28, 2025
Lee DuDick should be investigated by the OSC for illegal activities. Lee, I know you’re reading this, you’re nothing but a slimy Quisling. One day when you’re unceremoniously relieved from your lackey position you’ll be all alone at night, friendless. Good luck.
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Anonymous8:31 PM, February 28, 2025
This is an abomination. DOGE and their henchmen take pleasure in ruining people’s lives, and the public is going to suffer for it. I know people who worked in OCREO who were unceremoniously let go with zero notice. And now this mid-level twerp has made a mockery of career civil servants who are not obviously leaving of their own volition. I hope Karma has extra special things in store for Dudek, Musk, and all the other goons.
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Anonymous9:17 PM, February 28, 2025
It's kind of you to support your bootlicker son, Mrs. Dudek.
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Anonymous10:45 AM, March 01, 2025
Lee, I hope you are reading this. I always admired your work and the work OPI did. I always wanted to work there but never got picked. I understand the need to consolidate operations across the agency. A lot of that makes sense. But I have two things to ask of you: 1) you know this isn’t about fraud, waste, and abuse. SSA and your team did a great job preventing it and getting the message out to us in operations. And those of us in operations are being villainized by the public for letting this fraud exist. Help us there. The reorg can be about efficiency, so make the case that way instead of waste and abuse. 2) Operational realignment can always bring great efficiency. But what I don’t understand is losing staff. Why do you or the admin think that will promote efficiency? We’ve been in SecurityStat. We know the challenges the agency is facing. We know the RTO was pushed to help increase service. But now we are at appointment only models, the phone lines and dib time are large, and pushing our frontline staff out and re-training existing staff to move to the frontline will only increase the backlog until the learning curve is over. Especially if the training team (OTT and OSLWD) are non-essential and gone and mission support is learning its new roles. So why the goal for 7,000 cut? Offer VERA and VISP and leave it at that. It will give people who aren’t performing and are ready to end their career a chance to leave who wernt eligible for the DRP, and that will give a boost to productivity. Let the new hires finish training and get up to speed and then reassess. But when you force people out the door with institutional knowledge the performance will suffer, just like when we lost so much HR staff to the VA. Go back over the STAT data. Make the case that we have a strong anti-fraud program and info sec program. Argue we can modernize IT with help and funding. Argue that we do our jobs but can be more efficient and that’s the goal. O’Malley is claiming we will have an interruption to benefits for the first time ever. I don’t think it has to be that way. But we need staff to do so.
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Anonymous11:27 AM, March 01, 2025
Dudek isn't making any of these calls. These are coming from the DOGE people and Bisignano. Leland is a willing participant happy to parrot what they tell him to.
Anonymous12:52 PM, March 01, 2025
11:27
Exactly. This is all part of the scheme. Dudek is just the puppet at the moment. Make the cuts, bring the pain to the agency. At first chance, he will be throw under the bus and Bisignano will be installed as Commissioner.
Anonymous2:50 PM, March 01, 2025
I honestly don't see Gauleiter Dudek getting the bus treatment unless everything hits the fan in the near term. If it doesn't, they'll reward him with some deputy commissioner position where he doesn't make any actual decisions.
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Anonymous7:52 PM, March 01, 2025
I am an SES who took the fork like many on the list. The decision was personal for me, and I had no insight as to what was going to follow with all of the crazy terminations as I'm walking out the door. Many of us were close to retirement and wanted to ease into it with help from the "fork." Personally, I thought it would free up an SES position for those ready to move up however, that does not appear to be the case. I hope for the best for the agency and with all of the political appointees coming into senior positions I would suggest that upheaval will be the norm. And don't blame Lee because he really is blinded by DOGE and the position of ACOSS. He believes in what he is doing - forgive them all, they are blinded by MAGA.
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Anonymous11:48 PM, March 01, 2025
Why are so forgiving? He’s pushing many SSA employees out the door before they want to leave and the agency was barely surviving. Leland, you better save your money since you will have many attorney bills coming up.
Anonymous1:45 PM, March 02, 2025
Things change. Very few people in this country really get to decide when to retire, let alone have opportunities for early retirement through FERS or CSRS. Restructuring and layoffs are familiar happenings to most Americans. Forgiving allows YOU to move forward, but change happens regardless.
Anonymous3:29 PM, March 02, 2025
@11:48 why would he need to save his money? Anything he does in his position as ACOSS are Agency actions, not personal ones, and would be defended by OGC. If you want to go at it from he is illegitimate and therefore all of the actions are void, then that would be something that the administration would fight with DOJ lawyers, not Leland personally.
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Anonymous8:13 PM, March 01, 2025
Which cities are going to get the 4 new regional offices? Figure they are ending leases at current regional offices.
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Anonymous10:18 PM, March 01, 2025
Did anyone else pick up on the reassignment of the IT Spec PD to OCIO? Does this mean that IT positions say in the former BFM or the regional centers for automation etc will all be pulled and reassigned to OCIO?
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Anonymous12:27 AM, March 02, 2025
While they will be reassigned to OCIO, I haven’t heard if they will be asked to relocate. It may just be a logical reassignment and not a physical one.
Anonymous12:45 AM, March 02, 2025
That's how I read it. All 2210s is all 2210s. Honestly CIO needs oversight on regional development. He is responsible for all IT, direct report or not, so better to create that direct chain oversight.
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Anonymous4:19 PM, March 02, 2025
@4:27 PM, February 28, 2025 As a member of the SES, I signed up to lead and uphold the constitution, and faithfully defend it. I committed to being a good steward of the taxpayer's dollars and their trust. Yesterday's "road ahead" email was enough to know that it is not MY road. The last decade has been a debacle on a spectacular scale and no one, no matter how noble or good-intentioned, could have unwound the havoc that a series of temporary Acting leaders and a few select career SES at the highest levels of the agency left in their wake. I've taken care of my team, but did not sign up to lose my soul, or work with a psychotic lunatic and a circle of sycophants.
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Anonymous8:25 PM, March 02, 2025
Makes no sense to put Seattle in the Mid West group or putting Dallas in the Southwest group. Seattle should be with San Francisco and Dallas should be with Chicago, Kansas City & Denver.
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Anonymous7:07 AM, March 03, 2025
We're in the age of it doesn't make sense. Unless there is some hiring in the field, the rest of the country is going to figure that out too when SSA starts operating at a crawl vs a slow and steady walk.
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Anonymous4:43 PM, March 03, 2025
SSA was established as an independant agency. It operates in the executive branch but is not under direct control of the President. Major changes must go through Congress. The employees in the field and those directly supporting them locally do not desrve this catastrophic upheaval.
Reply
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