Advocates for the disabled blame the backlog primarily on inadequate funding, a lack of administrative law judges to hear cases and a shortage of support staffers. Increased funding last year made it possible for the Tampa hearing office to increase its number of judges from 16 to 17, but the person hired for the job decided not to take it. Astrue said his agency hopes to fill the vacancy in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Tampa has one of the worst backlogs in the country.
In his Aug. 29 letter to Castor, Astrue said progress is being made toward reducing Tampa’s backlog.
“In only one year, we have reduced the overall number of pending hearing requests by nearly 1,000 cases, from 15,577 in July 2007 to 14,638 in July 2008,” he said.
In October, he said, the Tampa office had 5,103 cases pending for over 900 days.
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