Gov. DeSantis: Unemployment website shut down again to process claims

Here’s a look at the $100 billion in disaster relief in the government spending bill

FWC adds several anglers to record books after adding new categories for fishing benchmarks this year

What Donald Trump’s decision to wade into spending fight tells us about the next 4 years

Furloughed Or Redundant Employees Sent Home - 3d Illustration

Gov. DeSantis said the website was in "tatters"

Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed recurrent shutdowns of the state’s CONNECT unemployment website, saying Saturday they were necessary to process claims.

DeSantis, after a roundtable in Orlando, noted that the site’s downtime last weekend was used to deal with backlogged requests for relief.

“They took down CONNECT just to process claims,” DeSantis said of the weekend before, with an estimated “450,000 to 500,000” then.

Weekend downtime is used “to really make an impact there,” DeSantis said, while noting that the site is now working well enough to require applicants to recertify their job search every two weeks starting May 9.

The Department of Economic Opportunity noted earlier Saturday that it would be “restricting” access to the chronically-overwhelmed CONNECT website again this weekend “so that the system can dedicate 100% of its processing power to processing applications & making payments.”

This latest restriction of access continues a trend of intermittent shutdowns, which Gov. Ron DeSantis has disparaged at many a media availability.

“You go back four weeks and the system was in tatters, people couldn’t even get on. There’s going to be a whole investigation that’s going to need to be done on how the state of Florida could’ve paid $77 million for this thing however many years ago they did,” DeSantis said Friday in Jacksonville.

DeSantis discussed how engineers were attempting to fix the site, continuing the “all hands on deck” narrative he has put forth since the jobless crunch overwhelmed the website, built during and for an era predating the current crush of unemployment claims.

The sniping has been depersonalized by both DeSantis and Scott on live microphones, but spokespeople for the current Governor and the former one have brought the heat.

“The Governor should ask his Chief of Staff why the Crist Administration picked Deloitte as the vendor. That would be a good place to start,” said Chris Hartline, putting this debate in the category of “dumb political squabbles.”

DeSantis’ spokeswoman, Helen Aguirre Ferre, noted that the website was a “colossal failure,” blaming the Scott administration for executing the ill-fated $77 million contract.

Post Views: 1,725

8 comments

Anes11
May 2, 2020 at 12:16 pm

If permanently unemployed, yes you should be required to look for work. With the fed $600 + $275 from the state per week, many people will ride that out for as long as possible. Businesses should have never been shut down. This is a way for UBI to be ushered it by the progressives. Many people will vote for free money giving up their god given freedoms to a tyrannical state.
- Jefe
  May 3, 2020 at 6:05 pm
  
  You’re nuts, and likely the type that denies there is even a pandemic. People are dying, businesses are closed, and forcing people to look for work while everything is shutdown will only serve to spread the virus. FL has yet to experience the full impact of the virus. A lot of people are going to die, here.
- scott
  May 3, 2020 at 6:32 pm
  
  You are a moron. My son lost his job 6 weeks ago. After a month he received 4 state payments of just $202 and 1 federal payment of $600. Now a week later still no more payments.
Wes Woodside
May 2, 2020 at 6:32 pm

My eligible claim has an inactive status. Does anyone know what this means and/or how to “fix” it. No one on the other end of the telephone does. I need help….
Kristen
May 3, 2020 at 6:32 pm

There are many people that applied and have been deemed ineligible, with no explanation why they were deemed ineligible. Some of these people applied after 4/5 have been at the same employer for 5 years or more with no break in employment and they are deemed INELIGIBLE!!! They have been told to apply using the PUA (pandemic unemployment assistance) link but the link is not available in their Connect page!!! They’ve had no income for almost a month some more than that. They may have been deemed ineligible because the connect site kept crashing causing them to be kicked out repeatedly so their application be may incomplete, but no one from DEO is telling them why they are ineligible just OH WELL IF YOUR INELIGIBLE YOUR INELIGIBLE.
So these people trust me if they were allowed to go back to work today they WOULD at least that way they could have the ability to pay their bills.
Helene Dowhunyk
May 4, 2020 at 6:46 am

I am self employed and have had many upcoming jobs cancelled for April and beyond (hoping they resume), I have been trying to apply (to date, have not been able to get one application completed!) I am 60 years old, have been on the phone with whomever I was able to get ahold of, told to keep trying! I have been working for myself for the past 14 years, and have filed my taxes and paid into the social security system all those years. I read that selfemployed have to first be denied regular state unemployment benefits to then maybe be eligible for the federal pandemic benefits…I cant believe this, horrible way florida residents are being treated! Also read Disney employees (who by the way were being paid salaries before being furloughed) were spared the agony of having to try to file as the governor took care of them and had them automatically entered into the unemployment system! Why ?? because Disney is a big corporation!!! Again, the little people take the brunt of everything! And to add insult to injury, open things up when the virus is getting worse! Umbrella up, now open it!!! Outraged!!
Mpeak32
May 4, 2020 at 8:52 am

Its Monday, May 4, 2020 and Florida’s Connect website is DOWN AGAIN!
Ed adams
May 4, 2020 at 11:52 am

This whole system matches the officials who run the state. Total useless jokes passing the blame game. Desantis is as useless as the man that helped get him elected. I hope the tool in Tallahassee will allow the people that are being conned by these clowns to set up camp in his backyard when they start getting evicted and have no where to go. I’ve worked for 34 years almost continuously and have never used these services that are designed to help people in their time of need. After a month of finally getting filed I’m still waiting on an answer, yet people who filed after are receiving state and the PUA aid.
TOTAL TRASH.