The Online Newsletter of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, Inc.

President's Message

By Ron Buffaloe

NCSSMA President

“Social Security reform”, “private/personal accounts”, “solvency”—every day newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and the Internet are full of stories about our program and possible changes in its future. By now are there any of us who have not been asked by some family member, friend, or neighbor to explain what it all means and to try to make sense of what is being proposed? I suspect not. I know that just recently I visited a family at a local funeral home one evening and before I left had been asked by five different acquaintances to give the “inside scoop” on the proposed changes and to predict what would ultimately happen, if anything, to the Social Security program.

As a Social Security manager I wish I knew the answers to all the questions I get. Heck, I even wish I knew enough about all the proposals and counter proposals being thrown about to know all the right questions to ask. As President of the National Council I find myself in that same situation.

The National Council is well known and well thought of on the Hill. We've gotten that reputation because we are professional, reasoned, knowledgeable, and thoughtful members of Social Security management. We do our research and come to the Hill well prepared—usually in support of appropriate funding to do the agency's work and appropriate legislation to allow us to do our jobs as managers and stewards of the public's funds effectively and efficiently.

As a result of the reputation and respect we've earned over the years the National Council is already being asked by both Hill staffers and the national press to weigh in with our opinions on Social Security reform. We could have already given press conferences, been quoted in newspaper and magazine articles, written editorials, and probably testified on the Hill, but we have decided that is not what is best for our organization or our members.

While each of us employed by the agency may well have our personal opinions on this subject, the National Council, and its Executive Committee, are in a different position. We represent each member of the 10 regional associations, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of how they voted in the last election, and regardless of whether they support, oppose, or have no opinion on the changes being talked about.

The Executive Committee has spent a great deal of time deliberating over how best to uphold the reputation we have earned, how best to represent our members, and how best to position ourselves to work with both political parties on the Hill in the future, after the current Social Security battles are over and the political parties move on to new issues. We have decided that, for now, our best strategy is to educate ourselves but to take no position on the various proposals being tossed about. We have concluded this is a philosophical and political discussion not directly pertaining to our mission of promoting field–based service delivery. In effect, at this point, we don't believe we have a dog in this fight.

We recognize that President Bush has not proposed any legislation but only offered general principles, some of which are already being modified as the American public reacts to those principles. We realize that while the honorary title of “HR1” is being reserved for the bill containing the Social Security changes, so far that bill has not been introduced or even written. We recognize that new ideas are being proposed, debated, modified, and in some cases, tossed aside almost daily.

We believe that this “battle” is not going to be over quickly, with some leaders of both parties indicating it may take two or more years to work through to a resolution, if at all. It now appears that it will get nasty as well. Within the last few weeks outside interest groups heavily involved in the 2004 presidential campaign, from the consultants responsible for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth effort to the Campaign for America's Future, have announced fund raising campaigns for support of their position on Social Security reform and attack ads against their opponent's position. Social Security reform has become the political battle of the year and a battle in which our organization has much more to lose by taking a position at this time than it has to gain.

To ensure consistency in the message we give to outsiders, the National Council Executive Committee has adopted a set of talking points for use by its officers when dealing with the subject of Social Security reform, either on the Hill or with the press. In these talking points we point out that “we are a non-partisan professional organization whose primary concerns are service delivery and securing an adequate budget to carry out the duties and responsibilities of the agency.” We also point out that “traditionally…we have not taken positions on political issues, such as solutions to the Social Security solvency question.”

We know that some members want specific guidance on how to answer any reform or solvency questions they may get from the press or members of the public. The Executive Committee believes that our members are experienced enough to be able to handle such inquiries with the guidance we already have, including the specific language from the Commissioner and the talking points on Social Security's Public Affairs Resource Center intranet web page.

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Meet Rachel Emmons: NCSSMA's Representative on the Hill

By Rick Warsinskey

Since 1999, Sara Garland has been our lead representative for NCSSMA on the “Hill”. But all through that period, Sara has had her very able assistant, Rachel Emmons, working with her. On March 1, Sara Garland became the Minority Staff Director for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and had to leave her position as our representative. And on that date, Rachel Emmons took over as Government Relations Consultant for NCSSMA and the proud new owner of the Greystone Group.

I recently had an opportunity to spend a day and half on Capitol Hill with Rachel as we visited one key Congressional committee after another .And in that day and a half I was quite impressed with how well-known Rachel was on the Hill. This made our contacts go very smoothly.

In November, I interviewed Sara Garland for FrontLine so the members could get to know her better. So I decided to take this opportunity to do the same with Rachel so you could know more about her!

I was quite surprised to learn that Rachel was actually Dr. Rachel Emmons. What does Rachel have a doctorate in? Musical Arts. It turns out that Rachel is quite a clarinet player. She grew up in the small town of Ogden, Iowa. If you know anything about Iowa, you know they take their bands very seriously. So Rachel was quite a band member in high school and went to Iowa State University and earned her bachelor's degree in music. She played in Iowa State's Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, Clarinet Choir and Orchestra.

After getting her Bachelor's, Rachel headed to the Catholic University of America in Washington to work on her Master's and Doctorate. To put herself through school, Rachel always had 2-3 jobs working nearly 24/7! And one of the part time jobs she got while in Washington in 1993 was working for a lobbying firm. Rachel soon learned that she really loved this work. It turns out that the lobbying firm she was with was located next door to the Greystone Group. Sara Garland noticed how hard she worked and invited her to work for her too so she was working for two firms at one time.

Rachel completed her doctoral work in 1996 and decided that she loved working on the Hill so much that she gave up her music career. By 1998, the work at Greystone had grown so much that Sara Garland asked Rachel to come on full time with her. In 1999, Sara Garland became the NCSSMA representative and Rachel immediately started working on SSA issues with Sara.

I asked Rachel how one becomes a successful lobbyist. Rachel said you have to be very persistent. You have to learn to constantly follow-up and keep adjusting to the constant turn over on the Hill to keep up your contacts. As the days pass into years, you get very well-known on the Hill. Rachel said that the Greystone Group has always had a good reputation on the Hill. They are known for their soft sell. They aren't pushy.

Rachel said representing NCSSMA was a good fit for the Greystone Group because their area of expertise has been representing groups that have a strong grassroots base. And that is NCSSMA for sure. Sesame Workshop, tribal colleges and universities, Midwestern colleges and universities, and some public television stations are examples of other organizations Greystone represents.

I asked Rachel since she was now the ‘chief honcho' at Greystone, would there be a new “Rachel” coming with the firm? Rachel was very excited to tell me that she was bringing in Aaron Hunter on April 1. Aaron was the personal assistant to the Chief of Staff for Senator Conrad (D-North Dakota). He was often Senator Conrad's point person while traveling and was responsible for assisting in following up on issues that came to the Senator's attention. Rachel said that is the kind of background you need for the type of position Aaron will hold with the Greystone Group.

Changing subjects a second, I asked Rachel about her husband Bruce. Bruce also has a Doctorate in Musical Arts from Catholic University. And what does Bruce play? Bass Clarinet. So it is does not take a doctoral degree to figure out how they met. Of course they both played in the orchestra at Catholic University!

It turns out that Bruce has quite a history as a bass clarinet player and recently retired from the United States Army Band. He has played many times at the White House and at Presidential Inaugurations.

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Greg Heineman

FrontLine-Its Role in NCSSMA and Beyond

By: Greg Heineman, Chairman, NCSSMA Communications Committee

NCSSMA has published a newsletter for as long as I can remember. I received my first “Mass Media” (the printed predecessor to “FrontLine”) as a new supervisor at the Chicago SE DO in 1984, and have been receiving such a newsletter off and on ever since. Like many of you, I've wondered how NCSSMA decided what went into the newsletter, and was anybody else looking at the articles besides our membership. Now that I have been named Chairman of the NCSSMA Communications Committee, I've come to learn the answers to these questions, and I thought I would share them with you.

1. FrontLine as NCSSMA's Unfiltered Voice: NCSSMA prides itself as being “The Unfiltered Voice of Management”. FrontLine is one of the most significant ways that voice is heard. FrontLine articles written by the National Council President, the Frontline Editor, and other National Council Officers express the sense of the organization on major issues related to Social Security Management. This voice is distributed to you, our members, so you are aware of NCSSMA's position on issues. FrontLine is also distributed to a wide list of agency executives, included the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioners, Regional Commissioners and Associate Commissioners. These executives get first hand information concerning NCSSMA's positions on, and possible solutions to, agency problems.
2. FrontLine as NCSSMA's External Voice: In addition to our distribution to agency leaders, NCSSMA is widely distributed on Capitol Hill to Senators, Representatives, and key committee staffers. These movers are interested in our perspective on SSA service delivery issues. This background aids our Washington Representative, Rachel Emmons, and Executive Committee members in pursing our agenda in the legislative arena.
3. FrontLine as a Reporter of NCSSMA Events: The fall edition of FrontLine has traditionally been devoted to a report from the NCSSMA Annual Meeting. We report on speakers at the meeting, major resolutions passed, and the result of elections of our new national officers. One feature we have run many years is the reflections of delegates attending the Annual Meeting for the first time. We'll be looking for contributors to our Annual Meeting edition again this year, from the Annual Meeting that will be held in San Diego. If this will be your first meeting, we hope you will consider adding your impression to the fall FrontLine.
4. FrontLine as a Manager's Forum: This is not a new role for FrontLine, but is one that we wish to reemphasize as the role of the Communications Committee grows. FrontLine is interested in brief articles, letters to the editor, etc. which give the perspective of our membership on issues SSA field and TSC managers face every day. They could be work related, such as conversion issues involving e-DIB, or general management topics. In future issues, we will run book reviews on management related books that will be of interest to our members. We are also aware of articles being developed for Regional Association newsletters, and we may ask for permission to rerun these articles for national distribution in FrontLine.

One of our goals is to continue to make FrontLine meaningful to our members. And we want to encourage members who have insights on management issues facing Social Security to consider writing about them in FrontLine. The Communication Committee will be working with the FrontLine editor to find these articles over the next several months. If you haven't heard from your Regional Communications Committee member in the meantime, and have an issue you'd like to send to FrontLine, feel free to contact our editor, Phil Walton at phil.walton@ssa.gov , or me at greg.heineman@ssa.gov . We'd love to add your voice to the next FrontLine!

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Phil Walton

Editor's Corner

By Phil Walton

Organizational Dissonance

Dissonance is defined as the inconsistency between the beliefs one holds or between one's actions and one's beliefs.

The mismatch between events and what we value or believe can be found in an organization as well. It's when there is an inconsistency between organizational culture, history or mission and actual events driven by decisions. Organizational dissonance happens when frontline staff know in their gut what they are all about, but sense certain organizational decisions constitute a disconnect. Small, short-term disconnects are common and pass without much notice, but large, long-term disconnects cause considerably more harm. They can leave scars for years. They eat into and away at the sinew, the muscle that holds the organization together. They make trust tentative instead of automatic. They make frontline staff cautious about agency motives when they should be immediately recognizing decisions as mission-driven.

Decisions and initiatives tightly aligned with the culture and mission strengthen organizations. It's like taking vitamins and exercising regularly to keep muscles strong and in tone. But organizations are weakened by decisions and initiatives that do not jibe with the culture and mission. At best, frontline staffers scratch their heads and move on. At worst, the dissonance grates much deeper than a mere scratch of the head.

In the past few years we've had a couple of instances of long-term organizational dissonance that are eating away at frontline management in SSA. One involves staffing, the other classification.

SSA often states a common sense goal of getting staffing to the front lines to serve the public. But actions speak louder than words. During the time that field office staffing in general has been hammered and field office management positions have been reduced to thread bare levels, dissonance has become all too evident. Staffing has grown in components charged with monitoring and coordinating field offices versus field offices themselves. Area Directors' Offices have doubled or more during the same time field offices have been told to work “smarter not harder” or that SSA is under onerous budget constraints. Onerous for whom? New positions have been created out of whole cloth. These positions generate more reports, more phone calls, more emails for the field office management to reply to. Shadow reporting is commonplace. Yet SSA continues to espouse the position that staffing is driven by public service needs. What public service need prompted the creation of the Deputy Area Director position? Meanwhile the Assistant District Manager position ceased to exist in a number of field offices. Area Director Offices existed for decades with a staff of three. What changed? The point is plain and simple: staffing should be driven by direct public service needs, not by how close one sits to those holding the staffing purse strings.

Then there is the dissonance found in field office management grade structure. This issue started nearly a decade ago now. Some positions have been left completely out of any consideration. Most recently the TSC Supervisors, after years and years of effort, may have been left short once again. Operations Supervisors have had a few false starts at reclassification. Since many of them supervise people of their own grade level the inequity is all too obvious. The field office managers in the largest metro areas have never been even considered for reclassification. In fact, the leadership has indicated that there will never be a GS-15 position in the field.

That sort of unconditional, absolutist declaration does not reflect a reasoned, equitable approach toward classification management for the field. Field managers see hubris in these words. After all, GS-15 positions are in headquarters and being creatively written into existence in the RO's. If one acknowledged the work of field managers on an equal plane, one might think SSA actually recognizes the complexity of the field office manager job. Instead, sudden upgrade eruptions take place in the regional office. Boom! More GS-15's in the RO.

And yet SSA remains dramatically low in the percentage of GS-15 positions versus other agencies. It does not make sense. Against this backdrop, the agency's stated objective of “valuing employees” rings very hollow.

When the leadership seems to have an ongoing game plan for those who sit closer to the classifiers' bosses, but virtual silence for the field, the dissonance is deafening.

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