SSA’s organizational culture has been most evident in the low priority it has often placed on verifying recipients’ initial and continuing eligibility for benefits, recovering SSI overpayments, and addressing program fraud and abuse. 1). The SSI program continues to be vulnerable to fraud and abuse. However, SSA has begun to take more decisive action to address SSI fraud and abuse since the program was designated high risk. Recent Changes in Management Approach May Improve Program Direction

In addition to long-standing problems attributable to SSA’s organizational culture, our work suggests that SSA’s management of the SSI program has often led to untimely and flawed program policies and inadequate program direction. In prior reports, we have noted that program direction and problem resolution at SSA have been hindered by SSA’s continued reluctance to take a leadership role in SSI policy development before major program crises occur. SSI Strategic Planning

Our earlier work has also shown that SSI program direction has suffered as a result of SSA’s failure to develop program-specific goals, priorities, and plans for addressing program weaknesses. The persistence of the long-standing problems discussed today demonstrates SSA’s inability to focus on its most critical program challenges. Conclusions

Because the SSI program is essential to the financial health and well being of millions of low-income aged, blind, and disabled recipients, it is essential that the program is adequately protected from fraud, waste, and abuse. To a large extent, the problems we have discussed today are attributable to an ingrained organizational culture that has historically placed a greater value on quickly processing and paying claims than on controlling program costs, and a management approach characterized by a reluctance to address SSI problems requiring long-term solutions and/or legislative changes. SSA has acknowledged the important role of management in defining organizational priorities and the need to strike a better balance between serving the public and fiscal accountability for its programs.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, focusing on: (1) the problem areas that currently pose the greatest risk to the SSI program; (2) the Social Security Administration's (SSA) recent efforts to improve the SSI program; and (3) additional actions that should be taken.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the SSI program suffers from program abuses and mismanagement, increases in overpayments, and SSA's inability to recover outstanding debt; (2) in February 1997, GAO designated SSI a high-risk program because of its susceptibility to fraud, waste, and abuse, and because of insufficient management oversight of the program; (3) to a great extent, SSA's inability to address long-standing SSI program problems is attributable to two underlying causes: (a) an organizational culture that places a greater priority on processing and paying claims than on controlling program expenditures; and (b) a management approach characterized by SSA's reluctance to fulfill its SSI policy development and planning role in advance of major program crises; (4) as a result, SSA has continued to experience significant difficulties with regard to verifying recipients' initial and continuing eligibility for benefits, recovering SSI overpayments, combating program fraud and abuse and providing adequate program direction; (5) since SSI was designated high risk, SSA has taken a number of actions to improve the financial integrity of the program and revise its traditional approach to program management; (6) however, several of SSA's initiatives are now in the early planning or implementation stages, or require the passage of new legislation before they can move forward; (7) in other areas, SSA's actions have been insufficient; and (8) thus, it is important that SSA sustain and expand its efforts to address problem areas and strike a balance between meeting the needs of SSI recipients and fiscal accountability for its programs.