The Social Security National Records Center (SSANRC) is the largest storage facility for paper Social Security Administration (SSA) folders in the nation. The current inventory of folders is 10M stored in 1.44M standard National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) boxes. The main function of the facility is to store, send and receive paper folders to over 1,100 SSA field offices and hearing facilities. SSA maintains a workforce of 21 employees with Ahtna employing approximately 120-130 full time employees.

Since 2007 Ahtna has provided support SSA in the storage and handling of SSA records at the SSA NRC. Our team handles 20,000 to 25,000 items per day over the 12 month period of performance. The duties include receiving folders and papers from shippers, unpacking the material, sorting it and placing the material in appropriate boxes/locations throughout the 550,000 square foot facility. Boxes are on shelves, seven high on two levels with a catwalk system. The processing of this material includes recording folders into a case control system with keying or wanding of a bar code, retrieving and shipping folders daily and filing paper within individual folders.

Additional duties include validation of existing folder location reads in our case control system, folder/box compaction and maintenance and pulling and shipping folders eligible for destruction. Most specific workloads have set time frames for completion of one to three days. Several computer systems/software are used to control the inventory and are used extensively by the Ahtna team. Ahtna also scans paper material and forwards of electronic files to the Veteran’s Administration offices. We uses standard warehouse equipment such as pallet jacks, forklifts and streamliners. We have an onsite maintenance program for routine repairs of equipment and the shelving/catwalk units as well as some limited responsibilities regarding facility issues.

In September 2017, the Advancia-Ahtna JV was awarded a follow-on five-year contract to continue providing these services.   A recently completed Past Performance Questionnaire received all “Very Good” and “Exceptional” rankings.

“The contractor strictly follows their internal quality control plan to ensure we are good stewards of the sensitive material in which we are entrusted to record, file, store, and recall. The number of contractor errors identified during the folder destruction process is statistically insignificant and is near 0%.”

CPAR comments from Andrew Argiro, SSA Contracting Officer, regarding records management performance at the Social Security National Records Center