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Washington, D.C.—More than half the members of the U.S. Senate have urged their leaders to restore substantial proposed funding cuts to the fiscal 2007 budget for the Social Security Administration (SSA)—a move strongly supported by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

In a letter advanced by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)—both members of the Senate Finance Committee—54 senators warned that a proposed cut of some $401 million in SSA funding for administrative expenses in this fiscal year would only worsen staffing shortages and related problems that have “seriously lessened the quality of service our constituents have come to rely on.”

Their letter was sent to Senate leaders William Frist (R-Tenn.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and to Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In October, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley sent a letter to senators expressing her deep concern that unless SSA is funded at a higher amount than has been allocated by the Appropriations Committee, SSA will be forced to furlough its employees for ten days and make other harmful cutbacks in hiring, overtime and agency operations. NTEU represents SSA employees in its Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, which formerly was called the Office of Hearings and Appeals.

The full Senate has yet to take up the Labor-HHS-Education 2007 Appropriations bill, which includes SSA funding. The committee’s proposed allocation for SSA this fiscal year is not only $401 million less than the administration’s request, it is $54 million less than provided for the agency in fiscal 2006.

The Snowe-Conrad letter stressed that SSA funding shortages in recent years have allowed the agency to replace departing staff members only on a one-for-three basis, which—when combined with increasing workloads relating both to the Medicare prescription drug program and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act—have slowed processing times for disability claims and reduced the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations.

“Beneficiaries depend on the Social Security Administration and its staff to answer their questions and provide access to the benefits to which they are entitled,” the senators wrote. “As we prepare for the retirement of the first ‘baby boomers’ in just two years, it is critically important that we provide SSA with sufficient resources to hire, train and retain an adequate number of field office staff available to help constituents,” they added.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments.