Status of the Various Surge Initiatives    

NTEU asked the IRS about the status of its efforts to draw down the backlog of inventory and cases in Accounts Management (AM) and Submission Processing (SP), and whether those efforts are on track to conclude by the end of this FY (Sept. 30, 2022). W&I indicated that the surge actions are working, and the inventory is going down, more so in AM than SP. The agency stated it is too early to assess whether it will have completed all of the work that it planned to complete by September 30, 2022, but indicated it will have a better picture of the status by mid-July. The IRS will update us at that time. We pointed out that some Campus chapters are advising us that there is “paper stored everywhere” in the Campuses — and it is causing some concern among employees. W&I responded that any paper that is out in the open are cases that have already been worked; and only employees with the proper authorizations have access to these areas. They are waiting for the Federal Records Center (FRC) to be able to take shipment of such files. The FRC had been mostly non-operational during much of the pandemic, and only recently began operating again.