January 9, 2025 — It was teamwork on every level – from the agency labor-management committee to the PEF Field Services and Legislative departments to PEF’s top elected leaders – that successfully stopped the state from sending PEF members’ work to medical consultants in Florida.
The Disability Determinations Division (DDD), a federally funded subgroup of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), comprises around 90 members who handle federal disability claims and, with thanks to short staffing, there was a backlog of more than 11,000 cases awaiting medical consultant review heading into September 2024.
The issue was raised by PEF members at the labor/management table for at least eight months and the team offered several avenues to address it, including redeploying assets and hiring, but they never got off the table, said Leslie Apacible, Council Leader of Division 399 and the statewide DDD labor/management chair.
“There was discussion but no resolution,” she said. “We were at an L/M meeting and as soon as we got out, they sent an email saying, ‘Great news, we have developed a plan to send cases to Florida for their medical consultants to sign off on.’ News spread very quickly. I heard from four or five members with concerns right away.”
Apacible immediately called together the L/M team to discuss the news, and the decision was made to reach out to PEF for assistance countering the state’s decision and offering reasons why it was not the right approach.
“Medical consultants are hourly, non-statutory employees,” she said. “Why would New York be outsourcing this work to Florida of all places? If New York State continues to outsource our work what will eventually happen to our non-statutory employees? Labor has tried to push management in hiring staff and now we are at a form of outsourcing. This is a slippery slope.”
PEF Director of Field Services Katie Vorwald and Field Representative Ryan Stoliker gathered information to back up the local leaders in talks with management both at the table and during informal meetings.
“They were extremely helpful,” said PEF Executive Board representative Scott Staub, a disability analyst at OTDA. “Management was coming up with rationale to justify this flawed approach and PEF’s Field team did the research that we used to counter their narrative. Management was saying the feds were supportive of the approach. Meanwhile, the feds were also saying we are in the top tier – we are getting cases out in 110 days, but you look at Texas, that is backed up 300 days. So, we knew we needed to educate the management team on how this flawed approach would slow down response times, impair investigations and ultimately diminish services to affected New Yorkers.”
Staub said they also spoke with PEF Legislative Director Patrick Lyons because this work comes to the state via the federal government, and it is federally funded.
“We only have this work because the feds give us this work,” he said. “We don’t support any outsourcing; PEF members have demonstrated they can do it more efficiently and effectively, and most importantly, New Yorkers should be making decisions that affect New Yorkers.”
PEF staff and leaders, including President Wayne Spence, reached out to state and federal elected leaders, as well as the Deputy Commissioner at OTDA and the Governor’s Office.
“President Spence said this flawed plan is inefficient and would take work from New York and give it to Florida, a Right-to-Work state,” Staub said. “None of this made any sense. While we had this backlog, our workers handled 60,000 cases and Florida’s consultants handled maybe 3,000; what they did was minimal and the stress they caused was unnecessary.”
In mid-November, the State announced the work would no longer be contracted out to Florida and would be handled by the DDD in New York.
Apacible said it was a great team effort with a great outcome.
“Having all of that work being pushed out to a non-union state for no practical reason was a huge concern,” she said. “New York State should be the priority, not other states. We had open communication with management through the help of President Spence. This one was a big win!”