At $400 a month, the Social Security Administration will collect the $90,000 it says Judy Sullivan owes it in just under 19 years.

Meanwhile, the 64-year-old Chattaroy woman will have to scrape by on $223 a month in Supplemental Security Income as she wonders whether the husband who disappeared and was declared dead 16 years ago is alive after all or if she’s a victim of an identity theft.

Last spring, Sullivan was getting $867 a month in survivors benefits, arising from the fact her husband Jack dropped out of her life on June 11, 1991. It took a ruling by the Social Security Administration’s own administrative law judge, following the agency’s own procedures, before she could satisfy the eligibility requirements as a presumed widow in 1999.

Now, somebody on the other side of the country has filed for a driver’s license and a new Social Security card as Jack Sullivan. This time the agency didn’t put Judy Sullivan through a methodical review; it terminated her survivors benefits in May. It did approve a smaller SSI benefit that, coupled with her own disability benefits, totaled $623 a month – but last week the agency garnisheed $400 of that to recoup what it considers a $90,000 overpayment.

You would think that the agency in charge of a record that figures so prominently in cases of identity theft would be able to give Judy Sullivan plausible answers to her predictable questions:

How do you know it’s my husband and not an imposter? What’s the proof? How can I get in touch with him?

Instead of answers, Sullivan is getting a runaround. Federal officials couldn’t forward a letter to Jack Sullivan, saying they can’t locate a “useable address” for the man to whom they gave a new Social Security card. Nor can they tell her what they know about her supposed husband because of privacy considerations. For now, Judy Sullivan has appealed to U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Gonzaga Law School’s legal assistance program. Let’s hope a reasonable, expedient and just solution can be worked out.

But Sullivan clearly isn’t the only citizen to encounter frustration with this vital government agency. A spokeswoman for Murray said Social Security figures into about 40 percent of the issues Murray’s office handles for constituents. Forty to 50 percent, says a spokesman for Idaho congressman Bill Sali.

But how many other people just give up in despair and accept the hardship?

Solving Social Security’s well-known funding problems is a critical challenge for the nation. So is solving its service deficiencies.