State raises unemployment capacity as coronavirus fight continues to flood servers

Following a rocky week for the state’s broken unemployment claims website that left thousands of Floridians unable to file claims, officials are exploring ways to expeditiously rectify economic woes.

The state and federal governments have prepared means for economic relief for small businesses and those without work because of the novel coronavirus. But with thousands of unemployment benefits seekers unable to file electronically, Gov. Ron DeSantis has asked the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) to consider making people eligible for unemployment benefits starting the day they lost their job rather than when they completed their application.

“It’s not like they were just sitting on their hands not doing anything,” he told reporters during a Monday roundtable.

Between August 2018 and February 2020, DEO received 2.3 million calls to contact centers. The Department received an unprecedented 3.8 million calls just last week.

While the economic slide has affected white-collar jobs, mostly blue-collar workers without the luxury of working from home have been hurt the most, the Governor noted. He’s asked agencies to work quickly and outside the box to make resources available for Floridians, even issuing an executive order for an “all hands on deck” response to the dysfunctional system.

“All these agencies need to be responsive to that, they need to keep those folks in mind because the reason they’re in that situation is really because of government policy, fighting the coronavirus,” he said.

Later Monday, DeSantis will sign an executive order waiving the collection of taxes on small business loans issued under the federal relief bill.

DEO Executive Director Ken Lawson says the state has been in contact with the federal government on when the additional $600 per week of unemployment benefits per individual will become available, on top of the state’s $275.

“All states are waiting for the feds, but we’re pushing harder to get the money quicker,” he said.

“It seems to me that the money’s worth a lot more over the next few weeks than it will be two months from now,” DeSantis added.

In addition to paper submissions now available through DEO, the state has added 72 servers to double the website’s capacity to 120,000 simultaneous applicants with more servers on the way. A week ago, the servers had difficulty with 20,000 simultaneous connections.

DeSantis also said that the week before, he was advised the online system was the “way to go.”

“And obviously it wasn’t ready,” DeSantis said.

Since then, the Department of Revenue has added more than 500 people, fast-tracked through training, to assess unemployment claims at the end of the process. Meanwhile, DEO is adding more than 700 people to answer its phones. And 2,300 state employees under Department of Management Services Secretary James Satter have volunteered to assist DEO with calls, data entry and citizen services.

Lawson, who has apologized for the system’s collapse, said he couldn’t answer how the system’s response would have been improved if the backup system was operational.

DeSantis, who took only a couple of questions from reporters, didn’t address a request on Friday by Tampa Republican Rep. Jackie Toledo for an audit of the unemployment system or a separate call by Tampa Democratic Sen. Janet Cruz for Lawson to resign. Republican Party of Florida Chair and Sarasota Sen. Joe Gruters has called for an investigation into the vendor who built the site.

Lawson said after the news conference that he is focused on improving the system for people out of work rather than his own job security.

“My job right now is to do everything I can to make the system work,” Lawson said. “Today, make the system work. Today, make sure people don’t lose confidence in the government.”

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Material from the News Service of Florida was used in this report.