Janelle Irwin Taylor
Rep. Jackie Toledo is calling on Sen. Jeff Brandes and Rep. Jason Fischer, chairs of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, to open an audit into the Department of Economic Opportunity over failures in the department’s handling of an influx of unemployment compensation claims.
Specifically, Toledo is calling for an investigation after the department spent $77 million in taxpayer funds to create a website that is now crumbling under the weight of historic job losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am calling on Chairmen Brandes and Fischer to open an audit into how the DEO spent such a large sum of money to run a website that has seen the same unfixed problems in the past 5 years. If these problems were not solved, we must determine where the appropriation went, and why the DEO did not seek to prepare for the economic impact of COVID-19,” Toledo said.
Florida had a total of 152,687 new initial unemployment benefit applications last week alone. This far exceeds the previous record of just over 40,000 in 2009.
“People need assistance processing their claims. My office has been inundated with calls from constituents that application pages will not load, or that in-progress applications reset entirely.”
The online system was rolled out amid much criticism in October 2013, following a 2011 unemployment law that raised new barriers for eligibility and cut back on the number of weeks of unemployment benefits.
Two years after the system was operating, a report from the National Employment Law Project found that fewer than one in eight unemployed Floridians — 12%, compared to 27% nationally — received jobless aid.
Rich Templin, a lobbyist for the Florida AFL-CIO, said that before the latest rush on the system, the burdensome application process resulted in two-thirds of applicants failing to qualify.
Echoing remarks by lawmakers throughout the state, Toledo said her office has been inundated with calls from people concerned that “application pages will not load, or that in-progress applications reset entirely.”
Toledo, a Tampa Republican, called for an audit the same day Tampa Democratic Sen. Janet Cruz called for DEO head Ken Lawson’s resignation over the ongoing problems.
Lawson has since apologized for the delays and announced his office would be providing paper applications for those experiencing difficulties with the online process or unable to get through to call center representatives.
Gov. Ron DeSantis also issued an executive order Thursday directing state staff to shift focus to the DEO to help add manpower to fixing the problems. He also enshrined Lawson’s paper application plan into the order.
But a day later, problems persist.
The latest troubling report comes from from Daytona’s WESH. The station reported Friday that just 2% of calls to a state-contracted unemployment call center were actually answered.
The center, run by the Fanuiel company on a $17 million emergency contract, received 864,000 calls last week. Only 9,000 of them were actually answered, the station reports.
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Content from the News Service of Florida was used in this report.
5 comments
Ray Blacklidge
April 3, 2020 at 3:41 pm
Gee, all these Dumbocrats smell blood in the water and come charging during a World Wide Crisis, that is in proportions never seen before. Silly Democrats, yes Lawson needs to get the system up and working, however it was unforeseeable that the system would be so overloaded in such a short period of time. We are in the middle of a catastrophe and instead of trying to make a name for themselves the Democrats should be rolling up there selves and help us get out of this mess, but alas it’s just politics. I hope the Citizens of Florida remember what were priorities for the Democrats when our Nation faced such a great threat.
Mike
April 3, 2020 at 4:59 pm
Thank you Janelle for your reporting. I’m glad to see that someone is trying to find out how a $77M system can break, even under a load. A great many of us are awaiting determinations yet cannot even contact someone to talk to – to get an answer.
Tammy Trailerson
April 3, 2020 at 6:17 pm
Who gives a toss what Jackie “Texting Ban” Toledo thinks?
Catherine Stark
April 7, 2020 at 10:20 am
I am on week 4 and was able to get into the system 3-19-2020. I am in the dental field, last day 3-17. I did, however, sign up for unemployment. I have not been able to get back in and submit any claims as expected to weekly by Saturday midnight. 3 weeks now unable to submit work missed. over 50 hours on the computer and calling. I did find a paper form for weekly claims should I resort to this weekly filing or will this mess up the system. Please help.
It is still BROKE. 4-7-2020 10:00 AM.
Pedro
April 14, 2020 at 9:48 am
Middle of April and it is still nearly impossible to get connected. It is shut down in the evening and when you do get in it kicks you out after a few minutes.
I am an existing claimant and although the notes say the work search portion of the claim process has been suspended its as if that notice is the only thing that has changed. I still must provide a work search and while I am doing that I get thrown off the system. The process to add better instructions to the connect site is a simple matter of typing in the text and saving, very simple yet that is not being done. It seems money is being wasted or diverted somewhere else.
As a Florida resident and taxpayer I strongly support a state and federal audit of the Florida UI benefit system to make sure the money is going where it is supposed to be going.
We pay taxes to make these benefits available to us in time of need and they should be returned to us in a timely manner. I have children and a family to support. Please encourage your colleagues and the governor to stop dragging their feet on this. Get the system running, get these benefits out to us and at least give a full explanation of what all of us need to do to get access to our benefits.
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