State labor commissioner to retire
Lamont picks Bartolomeo, deputy commissioner, to file role
More than a year after the Connecticut Department of Labor was overwhelmed with initial claims for unemployment compensation at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt Westby is retiring as commissioner of labor after three years leading DOL.
Gov. Ned Lamont announced Thursday his choice of Danté Bartolomeo to lead DOL. Bartolomeo is a former member of the Connecticut General Assembly who is deputy commissioner under Westby.
DOL’s existing systems and staffing were no match for an economic shock the size of the pandemic. The department was only in the planning stages for a new online system to process claims and issue checks. Forced to work remotely, Westby, Bartolomeo, Daryle Dudzinski and other managers pieced together alternaceived tive systems on the fly to deal with the crush of claims, some of them filed under entirely new programs authorized by Congress that DOL’s existing software platform was not designed to administer.
But with checks taking as long as six weeks to be issued, the department absorbed vocal criticism from people draining what savings they had to make ends meet after losing their jobs. In all, the department rewell over one million claims as people cycled on and off unemployment — with an unknown number of fraudsters attempting to siphon off some of the money through identify theft.
“We got the job done [and] we got the job done with integrity — and we couldn’t have gotten that done without Kurt Westby,” Lamont said Thursday afternoon at a press conference at DOL’s office in Wethersfield. “Unemployment [benefits] provided that lifeline.”
Westby replaced Scott Jackson as DOL commissioner in June 2018, having been deputy commissioner previously and before that a union organizer with two SEIU affiliates in Connecticut and as vice president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO.
In the early months of the pandemic, Westby took calls on a near-weekly basis from the news media, offering detailed answers to difficult questions as reporters forwarded complaints from viewers and readers on not getting through to DOL, and commiserating with those frustrated by the process.
“The IT team withstood challenge after challenge and breakdown after breakdown with this old COBOL [computer] system that was 40 years old,” Westby said Thursday. “The team effort … really was the difference
between breaking down and melting down.”
In the final months of Westby’s tenure, the Lamont administration and the Connecticut General Assembly came to an agreement on reforms for the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to improve revenue collections from the businesses that pay into it, with the goal of eliminating deficits.
“It’s tough leaving,” Westby said. “I wanted to leave the department in a better state than it was, and one not completely beset with crisis — and I think that I’ve managed that, so I’m happy about that . ... Things have stabilized a lot with the [unemployment insurance] system, but we’re by no means out of the woods.”
He added that wait times remain for people who are appealing DOL decisions on their unemployment claims, which Westby said that the department is establishing systems to address in the coming year.
“Knock on wood — the next recession ... we’ll be way more prepared [and] we’ll have more money in the bank so we don’t have to borrow,” Westby said.
Lamont expressed confidence that Bartolomeo is ready for the job, having served as deputy commissioner since January 2019 and before that serving two terms as a state senator for the 13th district, which includes Middletown, Meriden and Cheshire.
“Unemployment [compensation] ... is a bridge between employment and that next opportunity — it can be the difference between having food on your table and a roof over your head or not,” Bartolomeo said Thursday. “We know the seriousness of this reality.”