MADISON, Wis. — If you report misconduct at the Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, you will be ignored — or punished.
That’s the allegation from multiple ODAR sources who tell Wisconsin Watchdog they have been retaliated against for fulfilling what is expected of federal employees: that they report any waste, fraud, or abuse they witness.
“It was a nightmare the whole time I was there,” said a senior case technician who previously worked at the office, part of the Social Security Administration’s Region 5, based in Chicago.
“Just about anyone who had prior ODAR experience has been forced out. They make life a living hell,” another source said.
The ODAR employees spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing more retaliation from supervisors they claim have excelled in punishing would-be whistleblowers.
Their allegations are similar to several other employees — some of them official federal whistleblowers in Region 5 – who have claimed their ODAR facilities have been marred by corruption, cover-up and retaliation.
PROFFER PROBLEMS: Sources at the Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, ODAR claim supervisors have turned a blind eye to employees who fail to send legally required information to claimants.
Wisconsin Watchdog has detailed the growing number of complaints in its investigative series “Deadly Delays.”
In Mt. Pleasant, ODAR insiders allege employees repeatedly have been caught throwing away medical records rather than sending them to proper destinations.
“They absolutely refused to proffer any medical records that came in,” one source said. “That’s when I started getting vocal. That’s when I started getting into trouble.”
“I told them (supervisors) that they were not giving (claimants) their due process rights. I said, ‘You’re not following the law.’”
An administrative law judge must send a letter to a claimant or her representative providing evidence updates to the case. Claimants have the right to know how much time is available to object to, comment on, or refute proffered evidence, and to “submit a written statement as to the facts and law that the claimant believes apply to the case…” If time permits, a claimant may seek a supplemental hearing, including the opportunity to cross-examine the authors of any post-hearing evidence.
“If a claimant is represented, (Hearing Office) staff will send the proffer letter to the appointed representative, with a copy of the proffer letter to the claimant,” Social Security Administration policy states. The letter also is to include a copy of the new evidence if the information cannot be received online.
“If a claimant is unrepresented, HO staff will usually prepare a proffer letter to the claimant (modifying the letter as necessary) and send the original proffer letter and a copy of the new evidence to the claimant.”
The SSA is legally bound to include any additional evidence in a disability claims case in the file and, by law, it must send a copy of those records to the claimant.
Sources say supervisors turned a blind eye to employees who repeatedly failed to follow the law.
“At first I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they didn’t know how to do it when the office started in 2011,” an ODAR insider said. “After two years it was plain they just weren’t doing it. It was added work and it also slowed the process time down, and that just doesn’t happen. You know Mt. Pleasant always meets their goals, just not the right way.”
Even after a quality review the office has cases moving through that haven’t been proffered, the source said. They are generally caught, but on remand.
Mt. Pleasant’s ODAR, like so many other SSA offices nationally, are dealing with mountainous case backlogs. Sources tell Wisconsin Watchdog that paper cases would collect dust for two years or more.
“We would have claimants pass away because of what we didn’t do,” an ODAR source said, referring to claimants dying waiting for their cases to be resolved.
“(The cases) just sat there. Nothing was ever done to them,” the source added. “I’d run a couple of reports to see what was going on. I couldn’t believe it. I’d bring it up and they’d say, ‘Don’t worry about it … I was told to mind my own business.”
The claim is similar to that of Ron Klym, a former Milwaukee ODAR senior case technician who first publicly told of his concerns about due process violations in May.
Klym, an official federal whistleblower, was fired in August, more than three months after he told Wisconsin Watchdog he was retaliated against for reporting lengthy delays in Milwaukee.
“Absolutely. I am being punished because I am a whistleblower,” said Klym, who early on alleged harassment, additional work assignments and unreasonable deadlines.
Klym found dozens of cases on appeal have taken more than 700 days to complete. One Green Bay case clocked in at 862 days to dispose of. Another request for benefits hit 1,064 days, and another was completed in 1,126 days.
In 2011, the inventory for the Milwaukee region’s disability claims appeal office was at approximately 2,200 cases; earlier this year it was running at about 12,000, Klym said.
And Klym alleges a kind of “shell game” was being played with cases.
The Milwaukee office’s case disposition numbers have at times drastically improved because managers in the chain have dumped off scores of cases to other regional offices, he said.
“They are wholesale shipping cases out,” the senior legal assistant said. “When you ship 1,000 cases to somewhere else, then you do an audit, it looks better.”
The same is going on in Mt. Pleasant, the ODAR sources assert.
“They are fudging the numbers to make sure we don’t have a backlog of over 100 days,” an insider said.
In Madison, ODAR whistleblowers have alleged widespread misconduct, including bribery, nepotism, sexual harassment and continuous retaliation.
On Monday, multiple sources told Wisconsin Watchdog that Administrative Law Judge John Pleuss, accused of sexually harassing staff and writing grossly inappropriate comments about claimants, was removed from the office by armed guards.
RELATED: Sources: Social Security judge accused of sexual harassment removed from Madison office
A spokesman from the Chicago region said SSA does not comment on personnel matters. He did not return a request for comment Tuesday on the latest allegations involving the Michigan ODAR.
Since Wisconsin Watchdog’s investigation broke, the agency’s Office of Inspector General has launched investigations into the Milwaukee and Madison offices, and the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has opened an inquiry into ODAR. Johnson and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, has each warned the Social Security Administration not to retaliate against whistleblowers.
The ODAR sources in Michigan say they fear they will lose their jobs for speaking out.
“They pick and pick and pick at people until they literally can’t take it anymore,” one source said. “If you bring a problem to them about another employee, then you become the target. They forced out an employee who had 40 years of experience, they force out the ones with any knowledge, the ones who don’t play their game.”