U.S. Commissioner of Social Security Michael J. Astrue recently came to St. Louis for the opening of the fifth National Hearing Center on North Goodfellow Boulevard in the federal center.
The St. Louis National Hearing Center is the largest in the nation and is located with two other new Social Security facilities, National Case Assistance Center and the Midwest Training Center. The three facilities brought over 200 new federal jobs to St. Louis.
The project was funded by the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Missouri received $500 million in stimulus funds, and the National Hearing Center was completed in 10 months. The facility used to be a vacant ammunition building.
“The new Social Security facilities in St. Louis are prime examples of Recovery Act dollars at work,” Astrue said.
The National Hearing Center will be staffed by 100 people – 18 administrative law judges and 82 support staff. It will use electronic video technology to hold disability hearings throughout the country to reduce backlogs of disability appeals.
“Eliminating the backlog of our disability hearings has been my number one priority since day one,” Astrue said.
Staff in St. Louis will hear disability cases from Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and Minneapolis, Minnesota; those cities currently have the most backlogged hearing offices in the nation.
Astrue said that 20 percent of Social Security cases nationwide are conducted by video. With the new technology, individuals may now appeal via a video hearing, which may cut down waiting time to resolve their case.
“We have worked hard to make a measurable and steady process,” Astrue said.
“All these new offices will substantially improve our weight time and reduce our pending cases.”
According to Astrue, 165,000 Social Security cases were handled in 2009.
“The longer a case waits, the longer things get complicated,” Astrue said.
“We’re always going to need this type of capacity,” he said about the new St. Louis hearing center.
The National Case Assistance Center and Midwest Training Center will employ another 102 people. The National Case Assistance Center will provide decision-writing assistance to backlogged hearing offices throughout the United States.
The Midwest Training Center will train Social Security staff. The center will cover four Midwest regions and reduce travel costs, which will save taxpayers money.
“Any time we can do a better job at serving and saving taxpayers money at the same time, that is a double win,” said U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay.
In addition to helping the Social Security Administration ease its caseload, the new facilities also will put some St. Louisians to work.
“The Recovery Act is very important,” said Stephen Leeds, senior counselor to the administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration.
“This shows that the Recovery Act works. There are signs of hope.”
Leeds explained how slowly but surely each state in America will receive some type of General Services Administration project funding and over $4 billion will be used to fund new “green” buildings throughout the U.S. These new projects will have solar energy lighting systems, solar-heated water and advanced utility metering technology.
For more information on Social Security, visit www.socialsecurity.gov or call 1-800-772-1213.