OMB touts 'time tax' reductions for government services

Americans collectively spent 10.34 billion hours filling out paperwork for government benefits and services annually in fiscal year 2022.

The Biden administration took on the challenge of reducing that “time tax” that can inhibit eligible Americans from accessing government benefits in 2022 when the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs launched an effort to spur agencies to better measure that time tax and decrease it. 

OIRA released its second progress report on that effort on Wednesday, with some good news for individuals looking for an easier path to obtaining federal benefits and services.

“There’s so many amazing efforts across government, so many folks that are looking to identify and reduce burdens,” Sam Berger, associate administrator for OIRA, told Nextgov/FCW in an interview.

The new OIRA update details eight initiatives — including pushes to simplify tax notices, rework Presidential pardon requests and more — and offers updates on efforts included in last year’s report. 

The Social Security Administration’s work to move its continuing disability review process online for a subset of beneficiaries last year, for example, saves an estimated 45 minutes for the people that use it, compared to the offline options. 

For SSA itself, the changes save an estimated $2.4 million annually, since employees don’t need to manually key in information from paper into their systems, according to the new report.

SSA is still working to move other parts of the disability process online — it’s commissioner has called the effort to put the Supplemental Security Application application online the agency’s ‘white whale’ — but OIRA’s report also details more recent, completed efforts at SSA to make regulatory changes and simplify reporting requirements for SSI recipients. 

The hope is that those doing the work across government see in the report that “this work matters,” Berger said.

OIRA, part of the Office of Management and Budget, is charged with reviewing major government regulations, as well as reviewing and approving agency plans to collect information from the public. 

“A lot of [OIRA’s work] is utilizing the authority, engagement we have around specific forms, as well as regulations, and then providing that kind of support and expertise to agencies,” said Berger.

Real impacts

The impact that confusing forms and processes have on peoples’ ability to get help from the government is real, Berger notes in a blog accompanying the new report, pointing to an estimate that over $140 billion in government benefits go unclaimed annually. Even those that do get their benefits may face administrative burdens of lost time, stress or stigma, the new OIRA report points out.

For everyday Americans, the report may also offer hope that participation in agency rulemaking and other ways to give feedback really does make a difference, said Berger. 

“A lot of the things that you see in this report start with stakeholder engagement, start with comments and rulemaking, people saying something at a listening session, people sending in a letter, people raising issues, engagement with focus groups, stakeholders, etc.,” he said. “We hope that that encourages more people to provide that kind of feedback, because that's really the lifeblood of our efforts.”

OIRA also administers a law that some in the customer experience community have pointed to as a barrier to collecting customer feedback on government programs: the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980. 

The law governs how agencies can collect information from the public, and agencies have to get OIRA’s permission to do so.

Although open-ended requests for feedback or direct observation don’t require clearance from OIRA, customer satisfaction and behavioral surveys do require approval if an agency wants to get feedback from 10 or more people.

Public feedback

Feedback from those using a given service or form is considered critical in the customer experience space.

“When you start talking to people, you can identify problems that you might not have even realized were problems in the first place,” said Berger.

“The existing flexibilities, etc., are fully sufficient for folks to do this kind of work,” he said when asked about the complaints about the PRA, noting that “I think frequently it’s more of a perception than an actual problem.”

OIRA does, for example, offer a “fast track” process for customer satisfaction surveys and has also made other “advances,” said Martha Dorris, longtime government CX expert and former senior executive at the General Services Administration, noting that “OMB has been working diligently to provide ways for agencies to be able to have a faster process.”

Some lawmakers have previously backed proposals to overhaul the PRA, although they haven’t made it into law. 

“The big picture is that the current flexibilities within the PRA are fully sufficient to support the kind of stakeholder engagement that’s needed to support these sorts of efforts,” Berger said when asked about those pushes on Capitol Hill.

OIRA’s effort to make the process of getting government benefits less arduous falls into a larger push within the Biden administration to improve how Americans experience government interactions. 

The new report calls out two new priorities: partnering with states that administer many government benefits programs jointly with federal agencies, as well as aligning eligibility criteria across different programs that serve the same people. Both are efforts where OIRA’s convening power and birds’ eye view across the ecosystem can be helpful, said Berger.

“Administrative burdens do not just keep eligible individuals from accessing programs: they also sap Americans’ trust in the ability of the government to meet their basic needs or operate effectively or fairly,” the report states.