U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

33–365 WASHINGTON : 2019

SOCIAL SECURITY’S REPRESENTATIVE PAYEE 

PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 22, 2017 

Serial No. 115–OS02 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 

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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas, Chairman 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

DIANE BLACK, Tennessee 

TOM REED, New York 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

JIM RENACCI, Ohio 

PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

KRISTI NOEM, South Dakota 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

JASON SMITH, Missouri 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts 

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

DANNY DAVIS, Illinois 

LINDA SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

TERRI SEWELL, Alabama 

SUZAN DELBENE, Washington 

JUDY CHU, California 

DAVID STEWART, Staff Director 

BRANDON CASEY, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida, Chairman 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

SUZAN DELBENE, Washington 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas, Chairman 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

JIM RENACCI, Ohio 

JASON SMITH, Missouri 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

LINDA SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of March 22, 2017 announcing the hearing ........................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Marianna LaCanfora. Acting Deputy Commissioner, Office of Retirement and 

Disability Policy, Social Security Administration ............................................. 10 

Gale Stallworth Stone, Acting Inspector General, Social Security Administration ........................................................................................................................ 19

Marty Ford, Senior Executive Officer, Public Policy, The Arc, on behalf of 

the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force ..... 31 

(Truth in Testimony) ............................................................................................... 41 

Brenda Uekert, Principal Court Research Consultant, National Center for 

State Courts .......................................................................................................... 44 

(Truth in Testimony) ............................................................................................... 54 

David Slayton, Administrative Director, Office of Court Administration, Texas 

Judicial Branch .................................................................................................... 57 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Questions from The Honorable Vern Buchanan, Sam Johnson, Jim Renacci, 

John B. Larson, John Lewis and Danny K. Davis to Marianna LaCanfora ... 88 

Questions from The Honorable Vern Buchanan and John B. Larson to Gale 

Stallworth Stone ................................................................................................... 110 

Questions from the The Honorable John B. Larson to Marty Ford .................... 118 

Questions from The Honorable Vern Buchanan and John B. Larson to Brenda 

Uekert ................................................................................................................... 122 

Questions from The Honorable Vern Buchanan and Sam Johnson to David 

Slayton .................................................................................................................. 133 

MEMBER SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

The Honorable Linda Sa ́nchez, opening statement .............................................. 137 

PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Bread for the City, testimony ................................................................................. 139 

Consultants in Educational and Personal Skills (CEPS), letter .......................... 145 

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SOCIAL SECURITY’S REPRESENTATIVE PAYEE 

PROGRAM 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2017 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in 

Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Vern 

Buchanan [Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight] presiding. 

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. The Subcommittee will come to order. 

Welcome to the Ways and Means Committee joint hearing of Oversight and Social Security Subcommittees on ‘‘Examining the Social 

Security Administration’s Representative Payee Program: Who provides Help?’’ 

During our last hearing on this topic, we examined how the Social Security Administration determines when someone needs a 

representative payee. Today we are examining how the SSA oversees these payees, why the SSA has made some recent efforts to 

improve how it monitors more than 6.5 million payees in the program. I believe that there is still significant room for improvement. 

I am a big fan of continuous improvement. 

Historically, SSA has relied on annual accounting forms, and 

conducted limited onsite reviews. In 2004 Congress strengthened 

SSA’s monitoring effort by requiring additional mandatory onsite 

reviews for some payees. 

In addition, the SSA used a predictive model to identify high-risk 

payees for discretionary reviews. The SSA recently selected a new 

contractor to conduct 5,000 discretionary onsite visits, almost double the number 2,590 conducted last year. 

However, the number of oversight visits appears to be far too few 

to effectively oversee the millions of payees in this program, or to 

assess the adequacy of the model. Other concerns have been raised 

by the agency’s watchdog, such as the SSA inspector general, who 

continues to uncover example after example of payees taking advantage of the beneficiaries. 

One such example is from my home state of Florida, in 

Hillsborough County, Achievement and Resource Center, HARC, a 

non-profit serving the greater Tampa Bay area, was established to 

assist Florida residents with development disabilities. HARC 


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served as a representative payee for Social Security beneficiaries 

who needed help—helped manage their finances. 

However, between 2001 and 2011, HARC employees diverted 

over 600 million in Social Security benefits, using them for their 

own personal gain. HARC employees also annually filed fraudulent 

accounting reports with the SSA to conceal their action. A victim’s 

relative noted to our local NBC news station that if it hadn’t been 

for their reporting, WFLA reporting, and also their effort in terms 

of the behalf of the U.S. attorney, probably nothing would have 

been—taken place. 

And while this example is particularly concerning because it occurred in my local community, similar stories exist across the country. Stories such as this raise serious questions about where the 

SSA for the past decade was, in terms of fraud that has been occurring. Unless the SSA improves its program monitoring, I worry 

that these problems will only worsen, as the population ages and 

numbers of individuals who need payee increases. 

Nevertheless, I am encouraged by some of the progress being 

made through state programs. We have a number of witnesses here 

today to speak to the unique and innovative approaches that states 

are taking in areas of guardianship, much of which may be applicable to the representative payee program. 

I also look forward to hearing from the SSA about ways in which 

Congress can assist you in better administrating and overseeing 

these programs. 

Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I look 

forward to your testimonies on this important topic. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. And now I yield to the distinguished 

ranking member, Mr. Lewis from Georgia, for the purposes of an 

opening statement. 

Mr. LEWIS. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank all the witnesses for 

being here today. 

This morning we will study the representative payee program. As 

you know, the Social Security Administration can appoint a person 

or organization to manage their benefits for some beneficiaries. 

These representatives must ensure that those with serious mental 

and physical disability receive good quality care. 

A rep payee is expected to do all they can to protect the most vulnerable among us. SSA must carefully select and regularly monitor 

payees. In the past, Social Security Administration worked with 

each state’s protection and advocacy agency, known as P&As, to 

perform this oversight. They knew what they were doing. But most 

rep payees do a good and necessary job. Some do not. 

In my home state of Georgia, the P&A reviewers worked on behalf of the SSA to discover a horrible case of the neglect and abuse 

of multiple persons with disabilities. They live in terrible housing 

run by an unlicensed board and care operator. The buildings smell 

of rotten seafood, and they live in condition horrible. 

The local P&A immediately sound the alarm to SSA to order— 

to adult protective service, and to the agency that regulate health 

care facility. The P&A took no chances. They waste no time. 

Many of us are concerned that the Social Security Administration selected a contractor which does not appear to have the critical 

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skills. Perhaps this was due to the extreme budget situation facing 

the agency. Perhaps SSA thought that they could cut corners and 

save money with this contract. Respecting the dignity and the 

worth of every human being is not about a price tag. It is about 

doing what is right, what is fair, and what is just. 

Mr. Chairman, we cannot strengthen this program by starving 

Social Security. You simply cannot squeeze blood from a turnip. 

Congress must give the hardworking staff the support and resources they need to protect and serve the most vulnerable among 

us. All of us agree that those who prey upon our brothers and sisters must be caught. They must be dealt with. They must be held 

accountable. 

I know that each and every one of us will be paying close attention to this situation. On this issue there is no room for error. 

There is no space for failure. There is no time to delay. We are here 

today because we have a moral responsibility and an obligation to 

leave no stone unturned on this issue. 

Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I look 

forward to their testimony. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I now yield to 

the distinguished chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee, 

Mr. Johnson from Texas for an opening statement. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, 

and welcome to the second of 2 joint Social Security and Oversight 

hearings on Social Security’s representative payee program. While 

the first hearing focused on how Social Security decides who needs 

help managing their benefits, today’s hearing is going to focus on 

how Social Security selects and oversees those who provide the 

help. 

Today there are about 6.5 million representative payees managing benefits for about 8 million Social Security beneficiaries and 

Supplemental Security Income recipients. The number of representative payees is expected to increase as the population ages 

and more people need help managing their Social Security benefits. 

According to a 2015 study from Social Security, the number of 

adults who need a representative payee will increase by more than 

20 percent over the next 2 decades. Furthermore, the number of 

people receiving help from someone other than a family member 

will increase by more than a quarter. 

Who Social Security selects as a representative payee is a really 

important decision, since it is their job to make sure that benefits 

are used for the individual’s basic needs. Folks who need a representative payee deserve to know that the person serving as their 

payee is up to the job. And while Social Security has some rules 

in place to help, those rules aren’t always followed. 

Commonsense would say that someone who relies on a representative payee themselves shouldn’t be the representative payee for 

someone else. Can you believe that is happening? How can you 

manage someone else’s benefits when you can’t manage your own? 

Yet in 2016 the IG found that Social Security had people serving 

as representative payees, even though Social Security knew these 

folks had representative payees of their own. 

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The IG has even found people serving as representative payees 

that Social Security has no record of selecting. Worse, for nearly 20 

years the IG has repeatedly found that Social Security continued 

to pay payees they knew were dead. 

And the list goes on. This is simply unacceptable. You can have 

all the rules in place that say all the right things, but if these rules 

aren’t followed, what good are they? There has to be a better way. 

At our first hearing in this series Social Security said that the 

greatest challenge they face is monitoring representative payee behavior. Although Social Security has increased its monitoring of 

payees, the IG and others continue to find cases of representative 

payee fraud. Chairman Buchanan provided an example of why it 

is so important that Social Security get this right. 

And, as we will hear today, some states, like Texas, are taking 

steps to get a better handle on managing their guardianship programs. While representative payees and guardianships are not the 

same, there are things we can learn from what our states are 

doing. 

As I said at the previous hearing, the Congress has not made 

changes to the representative payee program since 2004 and now 

it is time to take a fresh look. I look forward to working with Social 

Security, stakeholders, and all my colleagues to make sure this 

very important program is working like it ought to. The American 

people deserve no less. 

I thank our witnesses for being here today and I look forward to 

hearing your testimony. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I now yield to 

the Ranking Member Larson for his opening statement. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to also 

thank both of you for holding this hearing. And I want to associate 

myself with the remarks of Mr. Lewis and join with our other colleagues in welcoming our panelists. We look forward to hearing 

from you. 

We, of course—something I think all of you know—that 10,000 

people a day turn 65 years of age. And so, I think it is constructive 

that our colleagues here across the board, Democrat and Republican, are concerned, especially about preserving a program that 

Dwight David Eisenhower brought into existence to make sure that 

we were taking care of those amongst us who have disabilities. 

That only continues to grow. 

Unfortunately, in the same difficult times, the budget for Social 

Security continues to remain stagnant. And while we applaud the 

efforts—and we should do everything possible to route out any kind 

of fraud and abuse in any program, and they should face the most 

severe penalties, because they are detracting from the American 

citizens who need it the most, but we also have to make sure that 

we are strategic in the way that we handle this, and how we function. 

I don’t think it is strategic to take money out of an existing budget to focus on fraud and abuse, and then not leave the very agencies that are dealing with disability and Social Security with fewer 

dollars. 

In fact, consider that 10 million new beneficiaries have entered 

the system since 2010, and that Social Security’s operating budget 

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has fallen by 10 percent in the same period. With Baby Boomers 

coming in, as I indicated, at 10,000 a day, you would think that, 

in order to address this issue, this is not the time to be cutting the 

budget. This is a time that we should be expanding in these areas. 

And so, we are together in terms of wanting to route out the 

fraud and abuse and waste. And one of the things that we are concerned about, though, especially with the long waiting periods and 

lines, also, is the various mechanisms that you are bringing. 

We are particularly concerned on this Committee—and part of 

my questioning will focus on this area, as well—the hiring of the 

Information Systems and Network Corporation, ISN. And their 

contract calls for them to do 1,300 reviews by this August. They 

have done 11 to date. So we would like to get to answers with respect to that. 

And we are also concerned in general—and I would like to submit for the record, if I might, Mr. Chairman, this LA Times article 

that Trump budget director revives a fact-free conservative attack 

on disability recipients, because I think it is very pertinent to the 

enormous stress that the agency is under in its ability to provide, 

obviously, the most successful governmental program in the history 

of the Nation. And to put it under further stress, or to discount 

what people on disabilities are going through, and to make allegations that are fact-free are something that need to be corrected for 

the record, and I will be asking our various panelists about that, 

as well. 

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back my time. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Larson. Without objection, other members’ opening statements will be made part of the 

record. 

Today’s witness panel includes 5 experts: Ms. LaCanfora, acting 

deputy commissioner, office of retirement and disability policy for 

the Social Security Administration; Ms. Stone, acting inspector 

general, Social Security Administration; Mr. Ford, senior executive 

officer, public policy, The Arc, who is testifying on behalf of Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force; Ms. 

Uekert, principal court research consultant, National Center for 

State Courts; Mr. Slayton, administrative director, Texas Office of 

Court Administration. 

The subcommittee have received your written statements, and 

they will all be added to the formal hearing. You will both—all of 

you will have 5 minutes to deliver your oral remarks. 

And let us, start with you, Ms. LaCanfora. 

STATEMENT OF MARIANNA LACANFORA, ACTING DEPUTY 

COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY 

POLICY, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Ms. LACANFORA. Chairman Johnson, Chairman Buchanan, 

Ranking Member Larson, Ranking Member Lewis, and members of 

the subcommittees, thank you for inviting me to discuss how the 

Social Security Administration monitors its representative payee 

program, and to describe our recent accomplishments. I am 

Marianna LaCanfora, acting deputy commissioner for retirement 

and disability policy. 

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We appoint representative payees under our Social Security and 

Supplemental Security Income programs for minor children and for 

adults who are incapable of managing monthly benefits. We currently have around 5.7 million payees who assist about 8 million 

beneficiaries with their payments. Today I would like to describe 

our oversight of these payees. 

First, I should note that being a payee requires a significant commitment of time and attention with few rewards beyond the satisfaction of helping someone in need. Yet millions of Americans rise 

to this challenge every day. Our reviews show that representative 

payees generally manage beneficiary funds appropriately. Even so, 

we must strive to protect our most vulnerable beneficiaries. 

By law, we conduct reviews for all fee-for-service payees, organizational payees who serve more than 50 beneficiaries, and individuals serving 15 or more beneficiaries, as well as state mental institutions. We also conduct additional site reviews of organizational 

and individual payees beyond those that are required in the Social 

Security Act. 

We select these payees for review using a misuse predictive 

model that is based on common characteristics in known misuse 

cases. Recently we redesigned and strengthened our onsite review 

program, and we are phasing in these changes over a several-year 

period. The most notable improvements are as follows. 

First, we will use a skilled contractor to conduct all reviews. 

Most onsite reviews were previously conducted by our field office 

employees, a task that they were not always prepared to handle. 

The contractor will also handle follow-up activities, such as ensuring corrective action by the payee on such issues as record-keeping 

or titling of bank accounts. This will allow our field office employees to focus on programmatic issues, such as changing the payee 

when needed. 

Two, we are targeting more high-risk payees, including those 

that live in a different state from the beneficiary. 

Three, we are conducting face-to-face beneficiary interviews at 

the place of residence for the first time. These reviews were largely 

done by phone in the past. 

Fourth, we plan to more than double the number of annual onsite reviews over several years, budget permitting. Our goal is to 

conduct 5,000 reviews annually. We believe that increasing the 

number of reviews is important to the integrity of this program. 

And lastly, we have created a new, centralized monitoring team 

to ensure consistent application of our policies and procedures. We 

are also developing a new database to track all cases, detect trends, 

and quickly identify misuse. 

While onsite reviews are the cornerstone of our oversight program, I would like to mention just a few other improvements that 

we have made to the rep payee program. 

In February of 2014 we implemented a criminal bar policy, which 

prevents applicants who have committed serious crimes from serving as payee. 

In 2015 we enhanced our business process with the Department 

of Veterans Affairs to share information that helps us with our 

misuse investigations. 

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In addition, we launched our electronic representative payee system in April of 2016. The new system ensures consistent application of policies and procedures and better access to data that will 

help us improve our predictive model. 

And earlier this year we strengthened our capability determination policy based on our internal quality reviews and recommendations from the National Academies of Medicine. 

Lastly, we have commissioned research through our retirement 

research consortium grant program to explore outcomes for individuals served by representative payees, focusing on those with dementia, to learn more about their experience with the rep payee 

program, and where we might make improvements. 

Thank you for the opportunity to describe the ways in which we 

continue to strengthen the payee program. We look forward to our 

ongoing collaboration with your committee. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Marianna LaCanfora follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Stone, you are next up. 

STATEMENT OF GALE STALLWORTH STONE, ACTING 

INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Ms. STONE. Thank you, Chairman Buchanan, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Lewis, Ranking Member Larson. Good morning to you and the subcommittee members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and to continue our conversation about 

SSA’s representative payee program. On an annual basis, about 6 million payees manage $70 billion 

in benefits for about 8 million beneficiaries. Most payees are the 

beneficiary’s family members, and SSA maintains that the vast 

majority of payees properly manage beneficiary funds. 

However, with limited in-person monitoring of payees, the threat 

of misuse persists. We investigate cases of individual and organizational payee fraud, as well as conduct audits and make recommendations to improve payee selection and monitoring. 

To investigate questionable payees, we rely on allegations from 

SSA, citizens, public and private organizations, and other sources. 

We carefully review every allegation to determine the appropriate 

actions to take. 

In one case, based on an allegation from SSA, we investigated a 

Texas man who served as the payee for a disabled friend. The man 

had a criminal history, but SSA selected him to serve as the payee 

because the beneficiary did not have family members or other 

friends willing to serve. Soon after, the man received a $64,000 retroactive payment intended for the beneficiary. However, he used 

some of those funds to buy himself a truck and a motorcycle. As 

a result of our investigation, the man pled guilty to theft of government funds, a judge sentenced him to prison, and ordered him to 

repay $29,000 to Social Security. 

In another case, based on allegations made to SSA, we investigated the owner of an organizational payee in Minnesota. This 

payee served more than 300 people. Beneficiaries complained that 

they could not contact the organization for assistance, they could 

not obtain funds for their personal needs, and their bills were not 

being paid. The owner, it turns out, used the beneficiaries’ funds 

to pay for personal and business expenses. Because of our investigation, the owner pled guilty to representative payee fraud. A 

judge sentenced him to prison, and ordered him to repay $485,000 

to SSA. 

On the audit side, we have conducted several reviews of SSA’s 

actions as it relates to payee misuse. When SSA identified misuse 

we found the agency did not always reissue benefits to beneficiaries 

in a timely manner; did not obtain restitution from payees; did not 

explain why payees that had misused benefits continued to serve 

as payees. And, in some instances, they did not refer all allegations 

to the OIG. We believe SSA should comply with its policies and 

procedures for resolving payee misuse issues. 

Our audit work has identified several data anomalies in SSA’s 

systems, some of which have been referred to today. 

We found instances in which beneficiaries with payees actually 

serve as payees for others. This is against SSA policy. 

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We have also identified millions of dollars of payments provided 

to deceased payees, payees without Social Security numbers in 

SSA’s systems, and payees identified in SSA’s systems as either 

terminated or not selected. 

To improve program integrity and payment accuracy, SSA should 

consider developing systems enhancements that, one, alert employees to these discrepancies or anomalies; and two require employees 

to resolve these discrepancies before continuing to process payee 

actions. 

To conclude, the population of beneficiaries with payees includes 

some of our most vulnerable citizens. SSA has many service responsibilities, but it must prioritize careful administration and 

monitoring of the payee program. We will continue to work with 

SSA and your subcommittees to address these challenges. 

Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Gale Stallworth Stone follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. Well, thank you. 

Ms. Ford, please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MARTY FORD, SENIOR EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

PUBLIC POLICY, THE ARC, ON BEHALF OF THE CONSORTIUM FOR CITIZENS WITH DISABILITIES SOCIAL SECURITY 

TASK FORCE 

Ms. FORD. Thank you. Chairmen Buchanan and Johnson, Ranking Members Lewis and Larson, members of the committee, thank 

you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the CCD Social Security Task Force. We appreciate your ongoing oversight of the representative payee program. 

For beneficiaries, payees, or monitoring, there is no one-size-fitsall. Roughly 80 percent of non-elderly adults with payees have a 

mental impairment, including intellectual disability, autism, or a 

mental illness. Because payees handle a critical source of income 

for vulnerable Americans, I will focus on several concerns. 

Over the decades the CCD task force has considered whether 

there should be more formal procedures in the program to 

strengthen protections for the beneficiary. At the end, we felt that 

flexibility in determining need and appointment of payees is beneficial, and that the current framework is largely appropriate. 

The need for support can change over time. Often older people 

see their financial skills diminishing over time, while some younger 

people may be gaining those skills over time, starting out with a 

payee and developing financial abilities until they no longer need 

one. We encourage Congress to continue to balance flexibility and 

individualization with protections and oversight, and to avoid turning the payee program into a process like guardianship, that is 

more rigid or formal and restrictive, further limiting individual 

rights. 

The vast majority of payees perform their duties well under difficult circumstances. However, a small percentage have misused 

benefits and violated fiduciary duties. Some have even abused and 

neglected beneficiaries. 

As you heard earlier, a recent case in Georgia illustrates the importance of in-depth, onsite monitoring. Ten beneficiaries were 

found living in social isolation and extreme poverty in a dilapidated, dirty personal care home run by the rep payee. A gate across 

the kitchen was locked at night to keep residents out. Women living on the second floor had access to first-floor common areas, including the kitchen, only through an outside staircase. The protection and advocacy system was reviewing the use of beneficiary 

funds, observed the deplorable conditions, and contacted adult protective services for that home, as well as other residences on the 

same property run by the same payee. 

Monitoring the rep payee program must be robust and vigorous, 

particularly for people who are non-verbal or face other barriers to 

advocating for themselves. Monitoring agency must have extensive 

expertise to ensure that reviews will detect problems and uncover 

hidden abuse. The monitors must have on-the-ground presence in 

all 50 states, and familiarity with a range of local service providers 

and government agencies. They must have experience with the full 

range of settings where beneficiaries receive housing, treatment, 

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services, supports, and other assistance. And across persons with 

different types of disabilities. 

They must have experience monitoring community facilities and 

representative payees and identifying fraud and abuse. They must 

be able to integrate across disability focus and understanding of 

disability rights, not limited to representative payee financial responsibilities, and have partnerships with national and state coalitions, including self-advocacy groups. 

Organizational payees, or those who serve large numbers of individuals, are in a unique role of trust, handling government benefits 

for people who can be quite vulnerable. In some cases, they are also 

creditors who operate the place where a person lives, providing 

basic services and supports, and have significant influences—influence over many aspects of a person’s life. Creditors especially require careful consideration before being appointed, and ongoing 

monitoring, because the role as payee may conflict with the role as 

creditor. 

Adequate monitoring requires, among other things, home visits 

for all beneficiaries selected for review, and interviews of a sample 

of beneficiaries to confirm information provided by the payee, and 

to assess whether the payee is meeting the individual’s needs. 

Monitors must be prepared for and expected to take appropriate action to protect vulnerable people whom they have learned are in 

need of additional assistance. 

Given the necessary and appropriate scope of the monitoring, we 

believe that Congress should designate one or more statutorily authorized government entities to conduct this type of robust monitoring of large payees, and additional wild card monitoring. 

Finally, the CCD Task Force has been alarmed by the impact of 

net reductions in SSA’s operating budget since fiscal year 2010, on 

SSA’s ability to adequately serve beneficiaries and the public. Congress must ensure that any new initiatives to enhance the representative payee program are adequately funded and staffed, so as 

not to further erode other agency services. 

I appreciate this opportunity to testify, and would—I am happy 

to answer any questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Marty Ford follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Uekert, we will hear your testimony next. 

STATEMENT OF BRENDA K. UEKERT, PRINCIPAL COURT RESEARCH CONSULTANT, NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE 

COURTS 

Ms. UEKERT. Good morning, Chair Buchanan and Chair Johnson, Ranking Members Lewis and Larson and members of the subcommittees. Thank you for inviting me here to discuss the intersection of conservatorships and the Social Security representative payment program. My name is Brenda Uekert, and I am the principal 

court research consultant and director of the Center for Elders in 

the Courts at the National Center for State Courts. The National 

Center is a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Williamsburg, Virginia, whose mission is to improve the Administration of 

justice through leadership and service to state courts and courts 

around the world. 

My areas of expertise include aging issues, elder abuse and exploitation, and adult guardianships and conservatorships. Because 

terminology varies from state to state, we use generalized terms. 

Guardianships refer to those cases in which the court has appointed an individual to handle the medical and well-being issues 

of an incapacitated person, while conservatorships refer to those 

cases in which an individual has been appointed by the court to 

manage the finances of another person. The following remarks 

focus on conservatorships, which are the most pertinent to the Social Security representative payment program. 

We estimate that there are approximately 1.3 million active 

adult guardianship or conservatorship cases, and that courts oversee at least $50 billion of assets under adult conservatorships, nationally. My written testimony addresses issues that can dramatically improve efficiencies and oversight of conservatorships, including the modernization of processes and professional auditing, the 

use of differentiated case management strategies to prevent and 

address exploitation, the development of interactive online training 

programs to provide basic education for non-professional guardians 

and conservators, and improvements in information sharing between state courts and the Social Security Administration. For this 

hearing, I will focus on this last item, information sharing. 

Data on the overlap between conservatorships and the Social Security representative payment program do not exist. But given the 

fact that persons under an adult conservatorship are elderly or disabled, a sizeable proportion of conservators are likely to be representative payees. The Social Security Administration, under the 

Code of Federal Regulations section 401.180(d), states that, ‘‘SSA 

will not honor state court orders as a basis for disclosure.’’ Consequently, one of the biggest complaints we hear from judges is 

that SSA does not recognize an official state court order that removes a conservator for cause. 

In practice, this means that a conservator who misappropriates 

or steals funds from the protected person may continue to serve as 

his or her representative payee. The Social Security Administration 

may address the issue through its own internal investigation, but 

their policy deems the official state court order to have no standing. 

43 

In 2014, the National Center conducted a survey of state court 

judges and staff to address collaboration between state courts and 

the Social Security Administration. When asked to provide recommendations for improving coordination, a number of judicial respondents suggested that SSA local or regional offices designate 

staff to act as a liaison to state courts. But such designated contacts, even if appointed, do not resolve the limitations placed on 

SSA by the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which limits the sharing 

of information about beneficiaries and representative payees with 

state courts. 

The Privacy Act works to the detriment of protected persons. For 

example, if SSA finds that a representative payee has misappropriated funds and is also a conservator, they are forbidden from 

sharing such information with the court. 

Despite these challenges, the level of collaboration between state 

courts and SSA has improved substantially, primarily as an outcome of the creation of Working Interdisciplinary Networks of 

Guardianship Stakeholders, otherwise known as WINGS. WINGS 

groups currently exist in 17 states and territories to advance 

guardianship reform, improve coordination, address abuse, and promote less restrictive alternatives. SSA has initiated a structured 

set of contacts with state WINGS groups by appointing a regional 

SSA WINGS representative for each of the participating states, and 

has indicated willingness to adopt additional representatives to upcoming new state WINGS programs. 

In sum, state courts have increasingly embraced collaborative approaches that introduce multi-disciplinary perspectives to specific 

problems, such as conservatorships. Yet for state court judges who 

strive to protect all assets, including Social Security checks, the 

SSA’s interpretation of federal privacy law, and its refusal to honor 

state court orders—affects the court negatively. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Brenda K. Uekert follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Slayton, you may proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID SLAYTON, ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COURT ADMINISTRATION, TEXAS JUDICIAL 

BRANCH 

Mr. SLAYTON. Chairman Buchanan, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Lewis, and Ranking Member Larson, thank you for 

the opportunity to be here today to talk about some of the work we 

are doing with adult guardianship and minor guardianship in 

Texas. My name is David Slayton, and I work for the judicial 

branch in Texas. 

In our state there are over 51,000 active guardianships, and the 

number of active guardianships has increased by 37 percent in just 

the last 5 years. The value of the estates under guardianship in our 

state exceeds $5 billion. 

Texas law requires professional guardians in our state to be certified and continuously regulated by the state. A certified guardian 

is required to meet certain age, experience, and education requirements, along with passage of an examination and no disqualifying 

offenses on a criminal background check. The criminal background 

check continuously monitors the certified guardian and notifies the 

state if the guardian has an event appear on his or her criminal 

record. 

There is currently no registration or regulation of guardians who 

are licensed attorneys, family members, or friends. These individuals are appointed in the majority of cases in Texas. However, in 

2015 the legislature enacted a requirement that judges must obtain 

a criminal background check prior to the appointment of family 

members and friends, and a bill pending in the legislature at this 

point in Texas would add some registry of all these individuals to 

the registry. 

Seeing what he referred to as the ‘‘silver tsunami’’ approaching 

in Texas, where the population over age 65 will double in the next 

20 years, Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht established 

a WINGS group and called for the Texas Judicial Council, which 

has representation from the—the WINGS group has representation 

from the Social Security Administration to make several key recommendations, including ensuring that all appropriate alternatives 

to guardianship were explored. Those provisions were enacted in 

2015. 

The new law requires applicants for guardianship, attorneys in 

the case, and judges certify that all alternatives to guardianship 

have been explored, and that none are feasible. Texas became the 

first state in the Nation to authorize an additional alternative to 

guardianship: supported decision-making agreements. 

A supported decision-making agreement is an agreement between an adult with a disability and another adult that enables the 

adult with the disability to make life decisions with the assistance 

of an adult supporter. This type of agreement has been used and 

promoted as an appropriate alternative for minors with developmental or other disabilities who are reaching the age of majority, 

and other adults with disabilities. Since Texas’s passage of this alVerDate Sep 11 2014 08:09 Mar 12, 2019 Jkt 033365 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\33365.XXX 33365
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ternative, Delaware has also enacted a supported decision-making 

agreement law, and other states are considering it, as well. 

In addition to these, the legislature provided funding to assist 

courts in adequately monitoring guardianship cases. Since 2015, 

the pilot project has reviewed over 13,600 guardianships in our 

state. The pilot project has made disturbing discoveries. 

For instance, the project reported that almost half of the cases 

were found to be non-compliant with statutory reporting requirements, including 48 percent of the cases which did not contain required annual accountings. The vast majority of the cases were out 

of—that were out of compliance were cases where the guardian was 

a family member or friend. While the numbers tell a disturbing 

story, each specific case paints a more horrific picture. 

The project regularly found unauthorized withdrawals from accounts, unauthorized gifts to family members and friends, unsubstantiated and unauthorized expenses, and a lack of back-up data 

to substantiate the accountings. 

Take Ms. Comacho, an elderly woman who is currently missing, 

and whose estate has been drained by the guardian, or Ms. Thomas, who was sexually assaulted by her guardian’s husband and remained under the guardian’s control, even after the husband went 

to prison, and for whom no well-being report of the person has been 

filed for the past 2 years. In my written testimony I provided several other examples. 

When lack of compliance is found, we work with the court to get 

those cases back into compliance. Most have been resolved. Some 

have not been responsive. 

While Social Security has been a partner to Texas as we have 

proceeded with reforms, concerns remain regarding the representative payee program. Most representative payees selected by the Social Security Administration are the same person appointed by the 

judge as the guardian for the ward. However, this is not always the 

case. 

When the judge considers the criminal background and appropriateness of an individual seeking to be a guardian, the judge may 

find that person to be inappropriate to serve as the guardian. 

When 2 separate individuals are appointed to manage the affairs 

of the guardian, difficulties may arise. 

In addition, since the Social Security Administration representative payee is not the subject of the judge’s oversight the way the 

guardian is, the judge has little he or she can do to protect the 

ward from any abuse that might occur from the representative 

payee. Greater collaboration between SSA and the courts and 

guardianship proceedings would be beneficial. 

For instance, if a judge appoints an individual as a guardian and 

there is an existing representative payee, it would be beneficial for 

the representative payee to be substituted with the guardian appointed for the—by the judge. 

And I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of David Slayton follows:] 

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Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you for your excellent testimony. 

We will now proceed to the questions and answer session. 

In keeping with past precedent, I will hold my questions until 

the end. I now want to recognize the distinguished gentleman, Mr. 

Johnson, for any questions he might have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. LaCanfora, after the Weston case, the Social Security Administration piloted a criminal policy that prohibited individuals 

who have committed certain crimes from serving as representative 

payees. This pilot is now nationwide. Can you give me some examples of the types of crimes that would keep someone from being selected as a payee? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Sure, I would be happy to do that. There are 

12 crimes that are really very severe crimes, like first-degree homicide, rape, forgery, things like that, that are basically indicators 

that the individual would not serve as a good payee, in which case 

we will bar them from being a payee. To this point we have barred 

approximately 1,000 people from becoming representative payees 

as a result of that bar policy. 

Chairman JOHNSON. How do you get that information? 

Ms. LACANFORA. We do criminal background checks, and we 

have a contractor from whom we obtain the information. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is that nationwide, or by state? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Nationwide. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Those are serious crimes. 

However, the policy is only applied to new payees, and Social Security has never checked existing payees. Is that true? And, if so, 

what is stopping you? 

Ms. LACANFORA. So it is partially true. Part of the challenge 

that we have, as you know, is that the scope of the representative 

payee program is enormous. We have got around 6 million people 

serving as payees. And in order to do a criminal background check, 

we have to actually get the consent of the individual to access their 

criminal background information. So you can imagine the task we 

would have, going out and getting consent from around 6 million 

payees. 

That said, every time we change a payee, we will do the criminal 

background check. And approximately 300,000 payee changes are 

done every year, in addition to the new ones that we select. So, 

while we are not doing a wholesale check on the 6 million, we are 

getting to those folks, little by little. 

Chairman JOHNSON. How many, in your estimation, are sitting 

out there that are unchecked? 

Ms. LACANFORA. It is hard to tell. I think, if we are doing 

300,000—that is an approximation—each year, and we have been 

doing it for a few years, we should be close to about a million now 

that we have done, out of the 6 million. And that doesn’t include 

the ones that have been newly selected, which are all checked. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Slayton, Texas uses background checks to screen guardians. What types of crimes would 

keep someone from being a guardian? And do you screen everyone? 

Mr. SLAYTON. So, we basically look at any sort of theft, any serious offense. It is—there is a matrix of offenses, mostly the serious 

offenses, but anything that would also call into question the integVerDate Sep 11 2014 08:09 Mar 12, 2019 Jkt 033365 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\33365.XXX 33365
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rity of the individual to appropriately manage funds for the protected person. 

We do check—the law requires every new guardian to be 

checked. And for individuals who are certified by the state, it is 

continuously checked. So we require them to submit fingerprints, 

which then allows there to be a continuous check. And if there is 

a hit on the criminal background check, it notifies the state where 

we can then take action in those cases. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is Texas Tech providing you facilities out 

there? 

Mr. SLAYTON. Say that again, I am sorry. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is the university providing you facilities 

out there? 

Mr. SLAYTON. They are not, but it is a really great university. 

Chairman JOHNSON. You know, Texas has made some changes 

to background checks for state guardians. One of those changes is 

to collect fingerprints to allow for ongoing monitoring. Why did you 

all think that was a necessary step? 

Mr. SLAYTON. Well, I think there are 2 main reasons. There is 

basically 2 ways to get the criminal background check. There is a 

name check and a fingerprint check. Obviously, with name checks, 

we can often times have names that are very similar, and so it is 

hard to be able to tell exactly if this is the individual we are looking at. And those are 1-time checks. So we run it today, we see if 

the person has a criminal issue on their background today, but it 

doesn’t provide any continuous monitoring. 

The fingerprints allow us to, of course, ensure that the person 

that we are monitoring is the right person we are looking at, and 

it provides, any time something shows up on the record in the future, we will immediately be notified that there is a criminal history issue on their background. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. I appreciate that work. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. I now recognize the ranking 

member, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Slayton, it would be my honor, I guess, pleasure to be visiting Austin this weekend, if we get out of here. I look forward to— 

you know, we may be here—left up to the guys on this side. But 

I look forward to being in Austin. 

Mr. SLAYTON. Great. 

Mr. LEWIS. Ms. Ford, it is clear that someone who would need 

a representative payee may also be very vulnerable to abuse. We 

are talking about children, adults with severe mental disabilities, 

and seniors who are very frail. Representative payee reviewers 

must personally assess each situation. 

Can you talk more about what difficulties payee reviews can encounter when trying to determine if abuse is going on, or taking 

place? 

Ms. FORD. Thank you. I think it is important to be able to see 

a situation on site, as I mentioned, and to talk to the individual 

and see the setting that they are in. It is not always possible to 

tell what is going on from just a paper review of where the money 

is going. You need to find out whether the individual is receiving 

68 

their money, obviously, and whether their needs are being met by 

the representative payee, their financial needs. 

But in asking questions of them, you can determine some things. 

If you are knowledgeable about disability and how an individual 

might react, you can find out certain things, and how they react 

can tell you whether you need to go further. 

For instance, just—does silence mean that everything is okay? 

Does it mean that the person does not understand the question? Do 

you need to probe a little further? Is there a cognitive impairment 

here that means that more is needed to find out what is going on? 

Is there a fear of the representative payee? Is there some undue 

influence going on? Are the conditions that they are living in, as 

we discovered in Georgia, really untenable? Those kinds of things 

can only be seen, not on paper, but on site and by talking to the 

person and to their—and seeing the situation that they are in. 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, for an example, if a beneficiary cannot communicate, what do you do? What steps do you take? 

Ms. FORD. There—if a person is not able to communicate verbally, there are ways that people do actually communicate non-verbally. The way that they handle themselves, the way that they 

communicate with their facial expressions, their eyes, the—do they 

flinch when somebody comes near them, a certain person? Do they 

reach out? They may have communication boards, they may have 

ways of communicating in that way. There may be family members 

who can help communicate or help another individual understand 

their particular language, their vocal sounds. 

So it is—it takes time, it takes being careful. But these people 

are particularly more vulnerable to being ignored, for one thing, 

and that is why it takes a little more time, and that is why it is 

more important to pay attention, because it is not going to be as 

easy to find out what is going on if you don’t take that time. 

Mr. LEWIS. Ms. Ford, it sound like a representative payee reviewer need to be a special kind of person, a special person to be 

sensitive, caring. Is it easy to find these type of people? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think that—I don’t know how easy it has been for 

SSA to find all the rep payees that they need to find. I do think 

that, in the monitoring system, it is going to take a particularly 

type of monitoring to be able to detect that there are problems 

going on. 

I think it takes both. You have got to have the right kind of representative payee, whether that is an individual or an organization. 

You are going to have to have the right people in that organization. 

And then, when you go to find out how it is working, you need 

to have the right kind of people who can look at it and say, ‘‘This 

is more than just whether the money is in the right place.’’ This 

is these are the right people doing the right thing, or these are people who don’t care, they are just moving money around, and they 

are letting this person’s life just, you know, go to nothing. They are 

not really doing the right thing for this individual. 

So it takes the right people in both places. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Ford. 

Ms. FORD. Thank you. 

Mr. LEWIS. I yield back. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Ms. Walorski? 

69 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. LaCanfora, I am just trying to logistically get my mind 

around the process, so I am just going to ask you really short questions. Short answers would help me understand this, just so I can 

get the process through here. 

So Social Security requires most payees to submit an annual accounting form, correct? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Correct. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Can they do that in writing, or is it online? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Either or. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So what steps does SSA go through when it 

receives these forms, then? And my question is this. So what would 

trigger, when these forms come in, whether or not—that they are 

going to go for further review to a field supervisor? So if—what 

would trigger that? 

Ms. LACANFORA. There is 2 main reasons that something 

would go to somebody in a field office to review. One is a non-responder, so somebody just doesn’t send back the form, and we need 

to track down what is going on there. And then, secondly, there is 

something anomalous on the form. The numbers don’t add up, they 

write a lot of remarks that need to be reviewed by a human being, 

that sort of thing. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So, in going through that process, so if the 

numbers look fine, if the numbers jive, and there is nothing that 

really flags anything, that moves through the system. Correct? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Correct. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So if there is a problem and a flag, does SSA 

require supporting documentation that backs up the amounts on 

the form, like receipts or anything like that, or logs, cash logs or 

anything? 

Ms. LACANFORA. It is possible that we would do that. It depends on what the anomaly is. In some cases it might actually trigger us to do an on-site, in-person review. In other cases it might 

be a simple, you know, mathematical error on the part of the beneficiary that could be resolved with a conversation—or on the part 

of the payee, rather. Sorry. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So this is just a note. In the Social Security 

Administration’s handbook it says, ‘‘If the total is less than 90 percent of the total acceptable amount, and the payee cannot resolve 

the difference, the FO will conduct a face-to-face interview and 

complete an SSA624–F5.’’ Put another way, if the payee’s total is 

off by less than 10 percent, it really is okay. 

Ms. LACANFORA. I think—— 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Technically, at the end of the day, that would 

be—— 

Ms. LACANFORA. We have to remember that a lot of these payees—in fact, the vast majority of them—are custodial parents and 

spouses. And so they—you know, we encourage and hope that people keep books very carefully. But the reality is that people who 

are, you know, living with—day to day are not always doing that. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Right. 

Ms. LACANFORA. So we give them a little bit of latitude. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Right, and I understand. The folks doing this 

are well-intentioned, they are volunteers, and we owe them a debt 

70 

of gratitude. But technically, theoretically, a bad actor could submit 

an accounting form with made-up amounts, no supporting documentation, but as long as their numbers are close, they really 

aren’t flagged. They really could—a bad actor could maneuver 

through the system like that, correct? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Through the accounting process? 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Correct. 

Ms. LACANFORA. That is true. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So I think it is interesting. I have this article 

that just came out today in an Indiana paper. I just got it this 

morning. It is in the neighboring district to mine. It says, ‘‘Woman 

Sentenced for Social Security Fraud,’’ and it says the woman reported—failed to report to SSA her children no longer lived with 

her, while continuing to receive benefits. She was sentenced on 

Tuesday in federal court to serve 15 months in prison and pay back 

in restitution $71,410. 

And so, you know, I guess my final question here is, you know, 

I made reference and read a 2007 report by the National Academy 

of Science. They recommended that the SSA ‘‘redesign the annual 

accounting form to obtain the meaningful accounting data and 

payee characteristics that would facilitate evaluation of risk factors 

and payee performance.’’ It would seem to me this would be a commonsense kind of practice. 

And I guess my question is, how does the SSA address that recommendation which was made 10 years ago? 

Ms. LACANFORA. So the reality is we are already collecting 

that information at the point of initial application. Everything that 

was recommended in that particular report, most of those recommendations we implemented. But that particular one was redundant with what we already do. 

When someone applies to be a payee we ask them a whole variety of questions to make sure that they are, in fact, suitable to be 

a payee. And that is part of our capability determination process. 

If we collected the same information on the accounting form, it 

would be redundant. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Would you think it would be—I guess in the 

future are you moving to an online system from the individual 

scripted reports to an online system? Is SSA moving in the direction of online—— 

Ms. LACANFORA. We have an online reporting system. I think 

the—one of the questions that we have, and it is one that we have 

been discussing with your staffs, is what is the right balance between the self-reporting that is done through the annual accounting process, versus the on-site reviews? Which are really more effective? And where should we be putting our resources? Right now 

those accountings are required by law, which is why we do them. 

But, you know, in light of these hearings, it may be time to think 

about what options we have. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I appreciate it. I yield back, Mr. Chairman, 

thank you. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. I now recognize the ranking member, 

John Larson. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would 

like to submit 2 articles, 1 by NPR, ‘‘A Wake-Up Call to Protect 

71 

Vulnerable Workers from Abuse,’’ and the other, ‘‘Life Deal for 

Woman Who Enslaved Disabled Adults in Tacony Basement,’’ for 

the record. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. That is fine. 

‘‘A ‘Wake-Up Call’ To Protect Vulnerable Workers From Abuse’’ 

Yuki Noguchi 

May 16, 2013 

NPR 

Four years ago, 21 men with intellectual disabilities were emancipated from a bright blue, century-old schoolhouse in Atalissa, 

Iowa. They ranged in age from their 40s to their 60s, and for most 

of their adult lives they had worked for next to nothing and lived 

in dangerously unsanitary conditions. 

Earlier this month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won a massive judgment against the turkey-processing company at which the men worked. The civil suit involved severe physical and emotional abuse of men with intellectual disabilities. 

The EEOC now says the $240 million judgment will be reduced 

because it exceeds a legal cap on jury awards. But the case highlights the difficulty of preventing and identifying abuse of vulnerable workers, who are also the least likely to come forward about 

violations. 

Susan Seehase, director of Exceptional Persons, a support center 

that took in most of the men in Iowa, visited their old dwelling. 

Windows were boarded up, allowing little ventilation or light. The 

cockroaches were overwhelming, she says. A leaky roof, mildew, accumulated grease and mice droppings contributed to an overwhelming stench. 

A fire marshal immediately condemned the building, later testifying it was the worst he’d seen in nearly 3,000 inspections. Decades Of Abuse, For $2 Per Day 

The men had worked at a nearby processing plant, gutting turkeys under the watchful eye of a contractor called Hill County 

Farms. The contractor was paid to oversee the men’s work and living arrangements. The supervisors hit, kicked, handcuffed and verbally abused the men, who were each paid $2 per day. This went 

on for three decades, affecting 32 men. 

Seehase says medical exams later revealed the men suffered 

from diabetes, hypertension, malnutrition, festering fungal infections and severe dental problems that had gone untreated. 

It went on and on, she says, because the men knew nothing better and because no one reported the abuse. 

‘‘Their life experiences didn’t tell them that there was really another option for them,’’ Seehase says. ‘‘It’s incredibly difficult to try 

to understand. And I have no explanation. And I don’t know who 

can explain how this really happened.’’ 

Kenneth Henry, the owner of Hill County Farms, could not be 

reached and his attorney didn’t respond to requests seeking comment. In testimony, Henry acknowledged paying the men $65 a 

month, but denied knowing about the neglect or abuse. 

Robert Canino, the prosecuting attorney for the EEOC office that 

won the verdict, says, ‘‘We are always shocked to find out about 

these extreme cases because we don’t believe that they could have 

happened in our own backyard.’’ 

72 

This year, the EEOC is making a priority of prosecuting cases involving ‘‘vulnerable workers.’’ Examples include migrant farm 

workers who are raped by supervisors in the fields, or those who 

are the most likely to be exploited and least able to speak out in 

their own defense. 

‘People Who We See But We Don’t Notice’ 

Canino says the turkey workers’ case reminds him of humantrafficking cases he’s prosecuted. The men were originally from 

Texas but transported out of state, where they lived isolated lives. 

He says vulnerable workers often remain silent because they don’t 

know their legal rights. They’re usually isolated by design from 

family, friends and community, and live in fear of abuse. 

‘‘We see the impact of the verdict as one that will hopefully open 

all our eyes to be more vigilant as a society, to be more watchful,’’ 

Canino says. ‘‘Maybe they’re people who we see but we don’t notice. 

We don’t notice them because we consciously or subconsciously assign them to some different station in life, and we assume that we 

can’t connect with them, we can’t relate to them, so we go about 

our business.’’ 

This case, he says, demonstrates the cost of failing to notice. ‘‘It’s 

a wake-up call, and hopefully we don’t ever in the future have to 

ask the question: ‘How could this go on for so long and nobody notice?’ ’’ 

Hill County Farms, also known as Henry’s Turkey Service, is 

now out of business. Canino says it’s unclear how much of the 

money will be recovered to compensate the men. But he says they 

say the real value of the victory isn’t the money. 

‘‘They told me that they were glad that people knew their story 

was the truth,’’ Canino says. ‘‘They fully understand the concept of 

people understanding them and believing them and then valuing 

them. They got that.’’ 

‘‘Life deal for woman who enslaved disabled adults in Tacony 

basement’’ 

Jeremy Roebuck 

September 10, 2015 

The Philadelphia Inquirer 

Linda Weston—the Philadelphia woman charged with enslaving 

and torturing disabled adults for years in a Tacony basement so 

she could steal their benefit checks—pleaded guilty Wednesday in 

a deal that spared her a potential death sentence. 

Instead, she agreed to accept a life term plus 80 years after admitting to all 196 federal counts filed against her including charges 

of murder, kidnapping, sex trafficking, hate crimes, forced labor, 

and benefits fraud. 

Weston, 55, appeared addled and confused through much of 

Wednesday’s hearing, at one point loudly proclaiming she wanted 

to enter a ‘‘not-guilty plea’’ before quietly reversing herself. 

Her decision ends years of internal Justice Department debate 

over whether to seek her execution for a gut-churning series of 

crimes. 

‘‘This is a sufficient sentence to mete out justice here,’’ U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe said, signaling that she intends to 

adopt the sentence Weston and prosecutors have agreed upon at a 

formal sentencing hearing Nov. 5. 

73 

Weston’s lawyers, Patricia McKinney and Paul M. George, said 

their client was ready to admit to what she had done almost as 

soon as she and four others were indicted in early 2013. 

‘‘Her decision was motivated largely by concern for her children, 

so there could be some sort of closure for them,’’ McKinney said. 

Yet, those same children were among Weston’s many victims in 

a decadelong, four-state conspiracy outlined in chilling detail in a 

plea memorandum filed Wednesday. 

She and the other members of what prosecutors have dubbed the 

‘‘Weston family’’ lured, confined, and controlled their mentally disabled targets, while seeking to make money off of them in any way 

they could. Together, the documents say, the group stole more than $200,000 

in Social Security benefits from their captives by pressuring them 

to sign documents naming Weston their designated payee. They 

forced others, including Weston’s 17-year-old niece, into prostitution. 

To keep the costs of care low, they locked their wards naked in 

basements, attics, cupboards, and closets. They fed them with depressant-spiked beans and ramen. And when supplies ran low, they 

forced their victims to eat their own and other people’s waste. 

‘‘The mentally disabled individuals were targeted and in large 

part were estranged from their families,’’ said Assistant U.S. Attorney Faithe Moore Taylor. ‘‘The Weston family offered them a place 

to stay.’’ 

The group shuttled their captives from Philadelphia to Texas, 

Virginia, Florida, and back again to avoid detection and left in 

their wake the bodies of those who did not survive malnourishment 

and beatings with sticks, bats, guns, and hammers. 

All the while, Weston admitted Wednesday, they continued to 

add victims to their menagerie by snatching them off of street corners, proposing romantic relationships, and even forcing their captives to have children together so Weston could file new government benefit claims. 

Authorities rescued four of the family’s victims in October 2011 

after discovering them emaciated, covered in filth, and chained in 

an apartment basement in the Tacony section of the city. The captives begged police not to take them away for fear that they would 

be punished for disobedience. 

But even as prosecutors detailed that depravity in court, it was 

hard to reconcile the crimes they described with the timid woman 

who sat before them in court. 

She answered the judge’s questions in a meek, childlike voice— 

her answers frequently coaxed by her lawyers with encouraging 

smiles and pats on the shoulder. 

She told the judge she was on medication for schizophrenia and 

depression and still had trouble reading and writing after receiving 

only a fourth-grade education. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barrett would not say Wednesday whether the Justice Department had made a definitive choice 

on whether to pursue a rare federal death-penalty case before Weston agreed to plead guilty. 

The decision to offer a plea deal, he said, came after a ‘‘very deliberate process’’ in consultation with Weston’s defense team and 

74 

U.S. Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. All of Weston’s victims and their families were notified in advance of the plea 

deal and none objected, Barrett said. 

McKinney, Weston’s lawyer, said her client’s own childhood— 

marked by physical and sexual abuse—justified the cautiousness 

with which prosecutors’ approached their decision. 

She blamed the media and local police for painting Weston as a 

monster. 

‘‘Usually people are not born with a ‘666’ on their heads,’’ McKinney said. ‘‘Nothing that Linda Weston did was not also done to her 

as a child. 

‘‘The safest place Linda Weston has ever lived,’’ she added, ‘‘is 

the place she is now.’’ 

Mr. LARSON. I think they are consistent with a number of the 

concerns that the committee is investigating and looking at. 

And one of the things I want to start with is, Ms. LaCanfora, you 

were talking about earlier that you are only going to be able to get 

to a million of the 6.5 million, and that is provided things go well. 

What is the reason for that? Is it a lack of resources? Is it a lack 

of ability? Is it just getting that permission that is required? Is it 

a problem with the courts, as Ms. Uekert apparently pointed out? 

What is the problem there? 

Ms. LACANFORA. So I think you are referring specifically to the 

criminal bar policy, where we check to see if a person is convicted 

of 1 of 12 serious crimes before we appoint them as payee. We do 

that now in all cases where someone is applying to be the payee, 

or where we are making a change in the payee. 

But there are, of course, around 6 million payees out there. And, 

as Chairman Johnson pointed out, we haven’t done a wholesale 

look at those around 6 million—— 

Mr. LARSON. What would it take to do that? That is my question. 

Ms. LACANFORA. We would have to—because we have to get 

the consent of each individual to check their criminal background—— 

Mr. LARSON. What kind of resources? 

Ms. LACANFORA. We would have to contact 6 million people 

and get their authorization—— 

Mr. LARSON. Do you have the resources to do that? 

Ms. LACANFORA. It would be cost prohibitive for us to do that. 

Mr. LARSON. Okay. So you don’t have the resources to do that. 

I just wanted to—now, Ms. Ford, in your testimony, one of the 

things that we are concerned about is, as—I mentioned in my opening remarks about the Information Systems and Network Corporation. And in your testimony you indicated that the expertise that 

representative payee reviewers should have should be statutorily 

authorized governmental entities. For the committee’s sake, what 

did you mean by that? 

Ms. FORD. There are entities that the Federal Government has 

authorized in various ways to do other things that can be brought 

in here. And one, in particular, is obviously the protection and advocacy systems. 

Mr. LARSON. So they would have a better understanding of the 

kind of clientele that they are dealing with. And what is alarming 

75 

to us, of course, is when we are looking at where SSA is, in terms 

of performance. And scheduled to do 1,300 by this company by August, and only having done 11 is not a very good track record. 

You also mentioned something in your testimony, scenarios you 

described regarding payees who are also creditors, which is very 

concerning, especially in cases where there is a family or friend 

who is willing to serve as the payee. What recommendations do you 

have for SSA? And what did you mean by ‘‘more wild card monitoring’’? 

Ms. FORD. I think that, on the creditors, we would like to—we 

are planning—the task force is planning to submit some additional 

recommendations to the committees. And I would like to develop 

that further, in terms of the creditors, because that is a big issue 

for both aging and for people who are younger, in terms of residents in a nursing home or any other sort of facility, group home, 

or something like that. They are—those are very serious issues. 

Mr. LARSON. Sure. 

Ms. FORD. In terms of the wild cards, that is something that 

was developed with—in 2015 between the protection and advocacy 

agencies and the Social Security Administration. Together, they— 

SSA authorized that the P&A agencies would be allowed to identify 

additional payees to review that were not included in the SSA-generated list of payees. And this allowed the P&As to take advantage 

of their years of working with these populations, and their experience in uncovering abuse and neglect, and the knowledge of the 

payees in their states, and the fact that some of the organizations 

that knew that they were doing this work were saying, ‘‘How come 

you haven’t reviewed this payee or this organization?’’ And so these 

were called the wild cards. They didn’t come up through the SSA’s 

algorithm. 

And the wild cards actually found a higher percentage of problems than the SSA algorithm did. And the problems found in the 

wild cards were also likely to be more severe in nature, and to contain possible—more likely to contain possible mismanagement of 

beneficiary funds, and to contain other problems. They contained 

higher instances of possible fraud, health or safety and residence 

problems, and possible Fair Labor Standards Act violations. 

Mr. LARSON. Mr. Chairman, if we could allow her, just for the 

record, if you have anything further—are we going to have another 

round? 

Chairman BUCHANAN. We haven’t talked about it, I guess. 

Ms. FORD. We have got some data on that, the percentages, that 

we could enter into the record, if you would like. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Mr. Kelly, you are recognized. 

Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here. Just to get a little bit of size and scope of what it is 

that we are trying to address—and I want Mr. Larson—because 

this takes a lot more time. And I think, when we talk about these 

things, sometimes it is hard to realize the universe. 

Mr. Slayton, you made a comment. You called it—about this new 

group of people that were coming in every day. You called them, 

what, the silver—— 

76 

Mr. SLAYTON. Silver tsunami is how we are referring to 

them—— 

Mr. KELLY. Silver tsunami. See, well, Mr. Larson is part of the 

tsunami. I am partially there, but not there the whole way. 

[Laughter.] 

But the size and scope of this population, this is the thing that 

really worries me, because it does comes down to dollars that are 

allocated to handle this. When we talk about beneficiaries—just if 

any of you could talk about—when it comes to Social Security beneficiaries, in the total universe how many are there that receive a 

payment? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Sixty million. 

Mr. KELLY. Sixty million? Of the 60 million, the number is how 

many that are—there is an individual or an organizational payee 

that takes care of that for them? That is how many in that universe? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Approximately 8 million. 

Mr. KELLY. Eight million. And so then it comes down to, on 

some of the individuals—now, Chairman Johnson talked about that 

Weston case in Philadelphia, which is absolutely horrible, where 

people actually died. They were chained to the furnaces in the 

basement of the house, people died, and then they had the—some 

of the other folks stage it like they died in bed, and they moved 

them to different areas. 

But when it comes to Safety Net—now the Weston case I think 

there was maybe a dozen payees, right? But when it comes to Safety Net in Oregon, there is 1,000 payees. So the organizational 

payee, how in the world would you address that situation? 

I think this is really critical for people back home that are listening to us, especially for those who fund Social Security. And those 

are members of the workforce. That money that is allocated to Social Security, can you give me an idea of how big that budget is? 

Because I think Mr. Larson saw something. Do we have enough 

dollars to actually do the things we need to do? 

Ms. LACANFORA. [No response.] 

Mr. KELLY. It is okay. I mean if we don’t, just say we don’t. 

Ms. LACANFORA. I am sorry, can you just repeat the question? 

Mr. KELLY. Well, my question is the numbers that you just gave 

me, to me, are staggering. And then we are asking Social Security, 

well, you need to do this, this, this, and that, and you need to make 

sure that everybody who is a payee is legit, and you need to make 

sure that you are following up with this. 

And I say to you, okay, well, in order to do that, in addition to 

the beneficiaries receiving a payment, we also have to run SSA. So 

how are we funding that? And what dollar amount are we right 

now to run—the budget, if you can, just tell me, roughly, what the 

budget is, because the numbers are always staggering for me. 

Ms. LACANFORA. It is $12.4 billion, administrative budget. 

Mr. KELLY. $12.4 billion, with a B? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Yes. 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. And how many people are in the agency, 

working. Any idea on that? 

Ms. LACANFORA. I am going to approximate that. It is about 

60,000, including our state disability determination offices. 

77 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. So $12.4 billion, 60,000 work in the agency. 

But we are still not really able to fully handle responsibly what we 

are doing with our beneficiaries. I mean I am not pointing a finger 

at anybody, I am just trying to figure out, if this is the model, how 

are we going to fund it? And our expectations exceed what we actually have the dollars to do. 

Ms. LACANFORA. With respect to the representative payee program, I think you stated it properly, that the scope of that program 

and monitoring, essentially, the behavior of 6 million people is a 

daunting challenge for the agency, yes. 

Mr. KELLY. Yes. Well, I don’t think there is anything more—I 

love being online, but I have already seen what is going on online, 

and I don’t know how you check people to find out if these are really the people that we think they are, and if they are really doing 

the right thing for the people that they are supposed to be taking 

care of. 

Are you able to look into the private sector and see how they are 

able to meet the needs of whatever it is that they do, credit card 

companies, people that actually are keeping track of this? Because 

I am looking at the size and scope of what we are talking about, 

and I am really wondering, as you are, how in the world are we 

going to be able to build a model that actually is effective and efficient? 

Listen, I am disturbed about what happens with some of our payees, and the fact that they are not in a position, and they are 

deemed not to be in a position where they can actually make the 

right decisions for themselves. I didn’t even think about people who 

can’t communicate. Ms. Ford, that thing about people flinching 

when somebody comes near them, I can picture that in my mind. 

I can’t imagine how horrible it must be for some of those folks. But 

this is a huge, huge problem. 

So I think, when we talk about budgets, we need to understand 

that there is dollars allocated, and then the question would be— 

especially people from the private sector—how are they prioritized? 

And are we looking at it in the right way? And are we missing, 

somehow, what we could do to make it more beneficial for the people that are the beneficiaries? Because I am really worried about 

the way this is heading. This silver tsunami that we are facing? It 

just gets bigger every single day. So it is incredibly important for 

us to have a deeper dive into this. 

But thank you all for being here. I applaud you for what you do, 

especially on behalf of those who can’t take care of themselves. I 

mean those are the most vulnerable. Those are the people we always want to take care of. So we need to have a better scope about 

what we can do to help you help them. I thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. This is a great, great hearing. I am 

on board with you. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. I do want to add one thing, because you 

like numbers. And the Commissioner in Sarasota last year, we 

were talking about the cost, the benefits they pay. A trillion dollars. That is the number. I think it was 993 billion. A trillion, a 

thousand billions is what they have to put out in the community. 

So just think about that, and the demographics. 

Mr. KELLY. Yes. 

78 

Chairman BUCHANAN. I just wanted to add to your point here 

about this—you know, the scope of this agency. It is one thing to 

look at the expense. You got to look at what are they actually processing and they have got to work with. I just want to—— 

Mr. KELLY. Just to follow up with you, because you and I do understand this: 6.2 percent from the person who receives a pay, 6.2 

percent match from the person who pays them, that is 12.4 percent. But those people have to be in the workforce. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Yes. 

Mr. KELLY. And until we increase our workforce numbers, it is 

hard to find out where that revenue is going to come from. And I 

really worry about that. 

I know, because of Chairman Johnson, he has been tireless on 

making sure that we are getting the right dollars to the right people at the right time, and getting it from the right source. And we 

have to find a way to grow that workforce, and we have to find a 

way to use those dollars in the best way to take care of the most 

vulnerable. 

So I really appreciate what you are doing. I think this is a fantastic hearing. I really do wish we had a lot longer to spend with 

you. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Curbelo, you are recognized. 

Mr. CURBELO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank 

you and Chairman Johnson for this opportunity. We are exploring 

2 critical issues today: how we take care of the most vulnerable 

Americans, seniors who need help managing their Social Security 

benefits; and I think the other major theme here today is government competence. And we have seen over the years an erosion of 

trust and confidence in our government institutions. And some of 

the examples that have been mentioned today I think exacerbate 

that current reality. 

I want to ask the acting inspector general, Ms. Stone, a June 

2015 study found cases where the SSA made benefit payments to 

representative payees who were deceased. Can you expound on 

that a little bit, and explain how this happens and what some of 

the solutions might be? 

Ms. STONE. If I could sum this up, I would say that it is a matter of the systems within SSA not talking to each other. When you 

do not have complete information within the representative payee 

system on payee data, you cannot compare that to other information in SSA such as the death master file. When there is inconsistency there, there is a likelihood that you will continue to pay a 

payee who is deceased. And that is, in fact, what happened in this 

situation. 

Mr. CURBELO. Ms. LaCanfora, what is being done to mitigate 

to address this situation? 

Ms. LACANFORA. So thank you to the inspector general for 

helping us to identify the problem. And we have begun the complete redesign of our death reporting system, so that they do talk 

to each other. We have already had a couple of different releases 

of that software so that, in fact, it makes it impossible for us to 

record multiple differing dates of death across our systems. There 

79 

will only be one date of death, it will be the one that we always 

reference, and it will override everything else. 

So, in effect, we have corrected the problem, and we will continue 

to strengthen our system’s infrastructure to close other gaps that 

have been identified by the IG. 

Mr. CURBELO. Ms. Stone, can you confirm that? Do you think 

the SSA is taking positive steps that could address this effectively? 

Ms. STONE. I cannot specifically confirm whether or not the 

changes they have made are actually working as intended, because 

we have not done any follow-up work in that area. But I will say 

they are definitely heading in the right direction with respect to 

really trying to get their hands around the representative payee 

issue. The fact that they are doing predictive modeling, and the 

fact that they have the electronic representative payee system are 

the building blocks that will be necessary for the agency to be able 

to address this problem, going into the future. 

Mr. CURBELO. Well, I thank you all for your work on this issue, 

and for collaborating with the committee. I think our shared goal 

here is that the American people have greater trust and confidence 

in the Social Security Administration and, more broadly, in their 

government. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Meehan, you are recognized. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank this 

panel for the work that you are doing in this very, very important 

area. As a former prosecutor, I spent time frequently dealing with 

the sorry circumstances where people who were charged with caring for elderly neglected that responsibility. 

I also saw so many circumstances where people really took on 

the responsibility and managed the affairs of elderly, and did it in 

a very admirable fashion. So I know we are working towards a 

time in which, as we grow older, we are going to see more reliance 

on these relationships. And there has already been one aspect that 

has been pointed out, which I think you have commented on, but— 

if anybody has any further words about how we might be able to 

fix it—is that we have created a point in time in which checks only 

go back—or representative payees, you know, people have been 

grandfathered in. 

I had a circumstance in which, in my own Philadelphia region, 

we had a woman by the name of Linda Weston who served as a 

representative payee for 4 separate individuals. Only later did they 

discover the horrid circumstances, including abuse and other things 

that were part of that. 

So what are we doing to check to assure that any kind of information related to a background of somebody who has already been 

grandfathered in to the payee situation is kept current, so we don’t 

find a circumstance where somebody is abusing an individual? 

Does anybody have a response to that? 

Ms. LACANFORA. I can start. I think our strongest tool is our 

misuse predictive model. We have a predictive model that uses a 

lot of data and various characteristics. And in the Weston case, 

that was an individual serving, as you said, multiple individual 

80 

beneficiaries. And we look at characteristics like that in the misuse 

predictive model, people who are serving multiple beneficiaries, 

and a whole host of other factors to target individuals and organizations to do on-site reviews. 

Mr. MEEHAN. When—a big part of this is the privacy issue, as 

well. To what extent, when there is oversight, is it done just to— 

how do you audit, to the extent that there is—or review the financial circumstances of somebody who is a—you know, who is having 

their affairs managed by a payee? Both with respect to what that 

person might be doing—but the thing that I saw so frequently 

would be where seniors would become victimized by things like 

telemarketers and others. And it wasn’t necessarily that it was the 

payee who was taking advantage, but their negligence, so to speak. 

They would just sort of not watch the accounts. 

And we saw savings that would just be drained because seniors 

wouldn’t appreciate payments were made into their accounts and 

they were drained by periodic dunning, which would be done because somebody—a telemarketer got, purportedly—is there a way 

that there is a check to see that accounts and other kinds of things, 

which would be often times a Social Security check, is one of the 

things that goes into the assets that a senior has? 

Anybody with respect to—my concern is that the—we don’t have 

the federal Privacy Act as a detriment because the Social Security 

Administration finds that a representative payee has committed 

fraud and also is a conservator, the agency is barred from providing that information to the courts. Do we find that? 

Ms. UEKERT. That is true, that right now the biggest complaint 

is that the state court orders are not recognized by Social Security, 

so it does mean that, if a court finds a conservator—removes a conservator for cause, that person can still stay on as the representative payee—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. That is stunning. Why? Is that our fault? 

Ms. UEKERT. It is part of the Code of Federal Regulations, section—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. But why? Why is that put in there? What does 

it serve? And should it be changed? 

Ms. LACANFORA. There are 2—I think 2 different issues. One 

is whether we recognize the conservator as the representative 

payee, and the other is whether we can disclose information back 

to the courts, 2 different issues. 

On the first one, we do consider whether there is a legal guardian or a conservator. And we have a list, like a preference list, by 

which we choose who should be the payee. So it is not that we are 

completely dismissing the fact that there is a conservator, but we 

do reserve the right to explore all potentially, you know, viable candidates for the job, because you could have someone, for example, 

who lives in another state, while the better payee may be the custodial parent. 

So we do make—we reserve the right to make a judgement 

call—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Could you speak to the second, most important 

one, which is we have a court here. We have somebody who is in 

authority to overlook this. Why would there be a failure to—— 

81 

Ms. LACANFORA. So, to the second issue about disclosing information, we are simply prohibited by the Privacy Act from disclosing information to state boards. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Or could that be fixed? 

Ms. LACANFORA. That would require a legislative change. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I understand that. What would be the right fix? 

Could you, at some point in time, report back to us if anybody has 

ideas on how you would suggest it be fixed? Thank you. 

Ms. LACANFORA. Yes, we will. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. I am going to ask a couple 

of questions. 

One of the things—I did have the Commissioner down to Sarasota in Florida. Probably 30 percent of my district is 65 and older, 

in terms of the demographics, so I see what is taking place in Florida. But I am sure, throughout the country, people are living 

longer. My mother-in-law is in town, she is 97. She had a sister, 

101, and another sister, 103. 

So you see—you know, maybe you see more of it in Florida. But 

I do want to say, with these onsite inspections or reviews, whatever 

you are calling them, you are going from 2,500 to 5,000. Is that 

enough, or does that make sense? How did you come up with that 

number? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Historically, we have done about 2,000 reviews. Last year I think we did 2,400. We do the ones that are required by statute—and there are approximately 1,600 of those— 

and the rest of them we have added on, simply because we believe 

it is the right thing to do. 

Unfortunately, we are constrained in terms of how many we can 

do. So our 5,000 goal—which we haven’t achieved yet, that is a 

multi-year, phase-in process—is just simply, on our part, an ambitious target to double the number of reviews. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. And I touched on this earlier, but I was 

kind of blown away. I didn’t look at the number, I thought it was— 

but I said collectively she mentioned $1 trillion, $993 billion, so it 

gives you some scope of it. 

In general, I think you guys have done a heck of a job. There is 

always ways to improve it and get better. 

I want to flip to the abuse side, Ms. Stone. What do you—how 

much—I would think mostly family would do a lot of this, but what 

is the percentage of family that becomes the payee, compared to 

third-party facilitators? Do you have—do you know that number 

offhand, Ms. Stone, or either of the ladies? Do you know that? 

Ms. STONE. I would say Ms. LaCanfora may be better positioned 

to answer that question. 

Ms. LACANFORA. About half of all individuals with a payee are 

minor children. And in most of those cases you have a custodial 

parent who would be the preferred payee. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. I’m thinking of seniors. Do you have a 

sense, in terms of seniors, what percentage it is? 

Ms. LACANFORA. That are served by a—— 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Their children actually managing it, 

compared to—well, let me just move on a little bit. 

82 

I mentioned earlier, Ms. Stone, that, in terms of Hillsborough 

County, which is Tampa, part of my district, there was—it went on 

for 10 years, $600,000 he got from the Social Security Administration. A third party, the television down there, had discovered that 

[sic]. How widespread do you think that—some kind of abuse, or 

that kind of abuse, goes on? Do you have any sense of that? 

Ms. STONE. I do not. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. It is scary to me to think that some- thing could go on for 6 years and $60,000 a year—average, I 

guess—for 10 years, and nobody has any sense of that, that that 

is going on. 

Ms. STONE. And I—the fact that you are asking this question 

speaks to, I guess, our fundamental concern in this area, as well. 

The population, when again you compare it to the total number of 

people that SSA serves, may be small. But when you do have a 

breakdown in a rep payee providing the service to the beneficiaries, 

it can be very daunting, and it can impact those people that we 

consider to be our most vulnerable citizens. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Okay. And let me get back to the point. 

You know, a lot of people at some point in their life end up with 

dementia or Alzheimer’s. And who is taking care of—who is overseeing their financial affairs? So I am trying to say how much of 

it is their children or how much of it is outside facilitators that are 

overseeing that? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Okay, so I will answer that question you had 

asked before: 85 percent of representative payees are family members, primarily parents. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Okay. 

Ms. LACANFORA. And I did mention—it is worth mentioning, 

since you said dementia, that we are doing research in that area 

to examine the outcomes of individuals with and without payees 

who have dementia, to see what value the representative payee 

program is adding for those individuals, versus those who are more 

informally served by friends or family members without a formal 

payee. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. And I just think, in terms of the agency 

looking—going forward, they have got to be thinking about that, 

you know, people are living longer, the demographics in the country where you have got more seniors. They say 10—12,000 a day 

turn 65 for the next 30 years, every day for the next 30 years. 

So we really have to be thinking about the past 30, but in terms 

of going forward the next 30, and I think some of the gentlemen 

have raised that question. Are we doing enough to make sure people are being served properly? 

With that, anybody that likes a second question, I am going to 

yield to the ranking member, Mr. Larson from Connecticut. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this has been very 

insightful. And I want to follow up with what both Mr. Kelly and 

Mr. Meehan were saying in their remarks. 

I couldn’t help but observe, Ms. Uekert, during this discussion 

and a number of times, you were wringing your hands like you 

wanted to respond. And here is my question, and it is—it would involve both the task force, Ms. Ford, the SSA, Ms. LaCanfora, and 

Ms. Uekert. 

83 

It seemed—obviously, there is this huge gap between what the 

courts see as a problem, and how, under current law, SSA can respond, as Mr. Meehan was pointing out, based on a number of the 

privacy concerns. And as you aptly pointed out, there is 2 separate 

issues that you are dealing with here. 

A, has the task force looked into this? And is there a way for us 

to bridge this gap so that—as Mr. Meehan, I think, was driving for, 

how can we change the law to effectively make sure that the court 

function and the privacy functions are blended in a way that works 

and, I would hope, allows us to lower the case load, work, and coordinate. 

If the 3 of you could try to respond to that, and we will start with 

you, Ms. Ford, and then Ms. Uekert, because of your very patience 

in this, and then Ms. LaCanfora, who we have been—— 

Ms. FORD. I think—excuse me—I think we definitely have to 

look at changing the law, if that is keeping SSA from reporting 

something that serious. I don’t—— 

Mr. LARSON. Has the task force recommended anything? 

Ms. FORD. We don’t have that recommendation right yet, but we 

can certainly get that to you, and—— 

Mr. LARSON. That would be great, if you could. 

Ms. FORD. And we talked a little bit earlier about getting together and looking at some of these issues and talking through 

some of the recommendations and seeing where there might be 

some joint work that could be done together. So I think that that 

is something that could come out of this hearing, too. 

Mr. LARSON. Ms. Uekert, could you join with them in that, or 

is there—— 

Ms. UEKERT. We would be happy to. We also staff the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators. They have been concerned with this issue for quite some 

time, and I know that they would be happy to draft a resolution 

and join in any collaborative—— 

Mr. LARSON. And I think, very pragmatically, what Mr. Meehan 

was driving for, is there—could you give us the language that will 

allow us to do that? And so then it would fall, obviously, back to 

the Administration. 

And would you be receptive to that? You have indicated in your 

testimony that it would need legislative change. 

Ms. LACANFORA. Yes, we would be happy to provide technical 

assistance to the committee and work with you and your staffs. 

Mr. LARSON. Do you have specific things that you would recommend to us? Because it seems like this is a huge gap here that 

becomes intuitively obvious as we discuss this. You are bound by 

what the law is and how to follow it. 

You are being very courteous and polite. You—sometimes you 

have to say to the members up here, ‘‘Look, this is what you need 

to do,’’ and it has got to be that blunt and that simple. That is how 

Mr. Johnson would handle it, right? And so, that would be very important to us, and we have heard great testimony from people that 

are working very hard to preserve a system. 

We understand—and Mr. Buchanan points out—in looking at the 

system we know that people are performing to the best of their 

ability. We know that you are operating under a resource crunch. 

84 

But we also know, even if the numbers are small in terms of who 

is abusing the system, 1 percent of that large a number is a lot of 

money. And we have got to do everything to make sure that we 

protect the integrity of the program. 

We all care about privacy issues, but there has got to be a way 

for us to draft this that would be sufficient with the courts, with 

the agencies, and with the task force that will make Ms. Stone’s 

job easier, too, when you are doing the audits. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back and look forward 

to getting your feedback. It would be vitally important to the committee. And perhaps we could work collaboratively, as I know both 

chairmen are inclined to do, to come up with model legislation that 

could help in this area. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Thank you. I now recognize our newest 

member, from Michigan, Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for conducting this hearing. Thank you to the panel, as well, for your time 

and consideration of the issue. 

I would like to follow up, if I could, with Ms. Stone’s testimony, 

and ask you if—are all reports of misconduct or abuse—are they 

all investigated? And, if so, what is the timeline in which you conduct this investigation and close the file? 

Ms. STONE. Well, the timeline is flexible, or it varies, based on 

the complexity of the case. I will start there. 

In 2016 we had approximately 16,500 allegations that were 

somehow related to a representative payee issue. Of that, we 

opened roughly 450 cases. And we had approximately 180 convictions related to that. 

And the way that our process works with the allegations is we 

worked hand in hand with the agency in that when some allegations come in we forward it to SSA to make a determination of misuse. At the end of the day, when we are actually getting convictions, a large percentage of that is as a result of the referrals and 

the work that SSA is providing to us. 

Mr. BISHOP. So is there a backlog in the number of cases or investigations? Do you get to all of the cases? 

Ms. STONE. There is not a backlog. All of them are at varying 

stages. Because I started out with the large number at the very beginning, when we send those over to the agency it may be determined at that point that no further action is needed. But some type 

of resolution takes place for every allegation that we get. 

Now, I do have to admit that some of them are closed out because the case itself may not meet certain prosecutorial guidelines—i.e. a number of cases that were referred to us last year related to amounts less than $12,000. So it is difficult for us to get 

a criminal prosecution in some jurisdictions for amounts that are 

that small. 

Mr. BISHOP. And a follow-up question, too, with a question that 

was asked earlier. I think it was from Representative Walorski. 

There would be, in my mind, a benefit to have a family member 

as the representative payee, and—given the fact they know the circumstances the best, and the beneficiary the best. Are you more or 

less likely to see abuse when the representative payee is a family 

member? 

85 

Ms. STONE. Based on—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Actually, if anybody would like to answer that 

question. 

Ms. STONE. Based on the study that the National Academies did 

back in 2007, I believe, being a family member was not one of the 

factors that would lead one to believe that an individual is more 

likely to misuse the benefits. 

In fact, to the contrary, if you are looking at the profile model, 

you would look for situations where the payee did not have a familial relationship with the beneficiary. Maybe the person did not 

have substantial income, or was self-employed, or did not have 

earnings for a substantial period of time. It is those kinds of factors 

that would lead you to believe that maybe this person needs a little 

more oversight than someone else. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Mr. Kelly, you are recognized. 

Mr. KELLY. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank Chairman Johnson and you, Chairman Buchanan, for doing this. I think 

that this is like a Pandora’s Box. We have opened this thing now; 

we have got to find out where it is going. 

I got to tell you that you being here is so valuable to us. Because 

in this life that we are in right now, if you came to see us in our 

office, you get, like, 15 minutes and then somebody knocks on the 

door and says, you know, the ag people are here, and you have 15 

minutes with them and somebody knocks on the door and says the 

manufacturing people are here. And so there is this great belief 

that we really understand every situation because you had 15 minutes to share it with us. I think in the Senate you probably don’t 

even get to see Senators. At least in the House you actually get to 

see Reps. 

But I am really concerned with this. And I think, as we open this 

up—because I do know where the revenue comes from, and I keep 

going back to that workforce participation and the fact that all of 

these wonderful programs are funded by hardworking American 

taxpayers. These are all wage taxes. And so where do wage taxes 

come from? People that are working. 

And I keep worrying about are there some best practices—we 

could look at the private sector to how they handle fraud, how they 

handle abuse. Are there some things that we can use from the private sector and mesh in with what we are doing in the government? 

I am always astounded that an entity that has great numbers of 

dollars that it spends is so far behind what the rest of the world 

is doing. And I think that—and please don’t take this the wrong 

way—when it is your own money, you really start to worry about 

it, because you are the one that has got to replace it. And then you 

realize, wait a minute, that is my money. So I want to make sure 

that we are taking care of everybody the way we can. 

But the other side of it is it is only you that can get that information to us. So I am going to just ask you something. Please don’t 

give up or get frustrated and think there is nobody listening. And 

it really doesn’t matter how we are registered, or how we vote. We 

are all trying to do what is in the best interest of the people we 

represent. 

86 

So, having said all that, is there anything in the private sector 

you look at and you say, if we could bring this into government, 

boy, would we be a lot more effective. Boy, we would be a lot more 

efficient. Just any of you. 

Yes, Ms. Uekert? Please. 

Ms. UEKERT. Thank you so much. I mean this—there is a program that we have been working with, with Minnesota. I know 

that Social Security uses sort of their risk factors based on the 

characteristics of the person. And we have been working with Minnesota, they have got the only software system for conservators. It 

requires transaction-based data to be submitted. And with them we 

have been working on a predictive model based on those transactions, and we have succeeded in using 10 risk indicators that already predict 80 percent of the—what they call the level-4 cases. 

The entire system needs to be modernized, and we believe that 

there are—there is the software, there is the technology. As long 

as you have got some auditing resources and you have got some 

statisticians who can develop some predictive analytics, that we are 

moving toward a system where we can take the resources and 

know in advance to push them towards those particular cases. But 

it does require that individual transactions be submitted through 

software. 

And I know Mr. Slayton is also working on that same approach 

in Texas. 

Mr. KELLY. Mr. Slayton, could you share what Texas is doing? 

Mr. SLAYTON. We are basically doing the same thing that Ms. 

Uekert was talking about with regard to Minnesota. We are looking at—we are within months of rolling out similar predictive analytics. And what we will be doing is requiring transaction-based reporting. So, rather than—right now, many times, when folks file 

their annual accountings they just put beginning balance, ending 

balance, and the amount of spent expenses and revenue, and there 

is a requirement in law that it be very detailed and transactionbased. But right now many of those are filed on paper. 

And so, the ability to truly review the volume is very difficult. 

So the system that we are implementing would require the guardians to file their information through the system. It would use its 

predictive model, looking at the transactions to say, ‘‘We know, by 

the research that has been done, that this type of transaction 

points to fraud,’’ and that gives us an ability to target our resources 

towards those individuals, where we think there are problems. 

And then, you know, use the remaining resources we had to review the rest of the cases, but specifically focusing on those where 

we can, because the predictive analytics see that there are potential issues. 

Mr. KELLY. How often do you all get a chance to exchange best 

practices? When can you—you can go out of where you and to talk 

to somebody else? I know there is a lot of smart people out there, 

but sometimes smart people don’t get to talk to other smart people. 

So when do you have that opportunity to actually have that exchange of ideas? 

Ms. UEKERT. We do that regularly, through the Conference of 

Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators, 

which meet at least twice—they have got a joint meeting in AuVerDate Sep 11 2014 08:09 Mar 12, 2019 Jkt 033365 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\33365.XXX 33365
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gust, I believe, and separate meetings in the year. I staff the elders 

and courts committee, so there is a frequent exchange of information on best practices. 

Mr. KELLY. Thank you all for being here. It is critical. Thanks. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. Chairman Johnson, you are recognized. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Ms. LaCanfora, how does 

someone report a problem with a payee to Social Security? And 

when a problem is found, what happens next? Can you describe the 

process? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Sure. Anyone can report a problem to Social 

Security related to allegations of misuse, and we will undertake an 

investigation in all of those cases, and question both the beneficiary 

and the payee. In certain cases—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Does that happen pretty quick? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Yes. And in some cases, we will make a referral to the inspector general. As Ms. Stone said, the vast majority 

of the cases that they opened were SSA referrals. So we also do 

that. 

And we will try to act swiftly to change the payee when necessary. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So how does SSA decide whether to remove a payee or pursue another course of action, such as working 

with the payee to correct the problem? 

Ms. LACANFORA. Well, we are looking to see whether the payee 

has the best interests of the beneficiary at heart. That is the primary criteria. And so, if someone is making allegations that the 

money is not being spent on them, on the beneficiary for their daily 

needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing, that is what we are looking to figure out. 

And if we can substantiate those allegations, or if we even feel 

like the payee is not being forthcoming, or that there is suspicion 

there that we can’t resolve, we can take action to change the payee. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman BUCHANAN. I would like to thank our witnesses for 

appearing before us today. Please be advised that members have 

2 weeks to submit written questions to be answered later in writing. Those questions and your answers will be part of the formal 

hearing record. 

With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

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