DeSantis calls for probe of system
Governor wants unemployment claims problems investigated
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered an investigation Monday into what went wrong with the $77 million unemployment compensation system that has struggled to pay hundreds of thousands of Floridians who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The way it was done was not worth the amount of money it took,” he said, calling it a bad use of taxpayers’ money. He ordered the state’s inspector general to conduct the probe.
At the same time, the governor said the CONNECT system has shown great improvement in the past two weeks because of additional staffing and changes made to how claims have been handled.
“With the processing that’s been done, the numbers are starting to look much better,” DeSantis said.
So far, the Department of Economic Opportunity has received more than 1 million unique claims and paid out 478,666 claims — 46 percent of the unique claims submitted — totaling more than $979 million.
That is marked progress from early April, when hundreds of thousands of claims lagged in the system, but several significant problems remain with getting the
money to the unemployed.
DeSantis said the issues with the CONNECT system aren’t new, but said he never saw an audit of the system from March 2019 detailing the flaws. He told reporters to ask DEO executive director Ken Lawson about the audit.
DeSantis sidelined Lawson last month amid continued errors with CONNECT, tapping Department of Management Services secretary Jonathan Satter to improve the system.
The contract to revamp the old unemployment system was given to Deloitte in 2010, and the CONNECT system created lengthy delays for thousands of claimants when it first came online in 2013.
An uproar over the failures has subsided some as jobless figures receded and more claimants were paid, but DeSantis said it still wouldn’t have been able to handle a minor recession, much less the massive halt to the economy caused by the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, DEO released additional guidance for Floridians marked ineligible for state benefits and wondering what to do next.
Those who applied before April 4 — self-employed workers, gig workers, contractors or others — are to apply again at Floridajobs.org, select “file a claim” and request the PUA application.
If a person applied on or after April 5 and was found ineligible, he or she should
wait for additional information from DEO, either through the mail, email or their “inbox” in the CONNECT system. These workers should also see an option on the lefthand side navigation menu on CONNECT to apply for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which offers $275 a week maximum for up to 39 weeks, plus another $600 a week from March 29 through July 31.
But several workers who reached out to the Orlando Sentinel said they still aren’t seeing the option to apply for PUA, and they haven’t heard from DEO, either.
Like Robin Keener, a teaching tennis professional at Suntree Country Club in Melbourne, who applied right on April 5 but was marked ineligible. That’s expected, said her husband, Chuck Keener, who has been helping her with the application, because she’s been an independent contractor for years and therefore is ineligible for state benefits.
But Keener should have received guidance to apply for the federal program. After spending a week trying to just apply for benefits and another four weeks waiting for the result of that application, Chuck Keener said they shouldn’t be waiting again just to start another application process.
“I don’t mind seeing ineligible, but then what?” said Chuck Keener. “There is no then what.”
Kenner said his daughter, who lost work in South Carolina and applied for unemployment, got a letter back within five days with her benefits.
“When you look and see one state responds within five days and another one doesn’t respond within five weeks, you can’t help but wonder,” Keener said.
The problem is the uncertainty. The Keeners don’t even have an application they can start and calling DEO has been futile. Even logging into CONNECT is a challenge, with the website often showing error messages.
“There is only so much shifting of car payments and trying to get your mortgages in forbearance for a couple of months that you can do,” Keener said. “Just tell us what to do, tell us how we can find out exactly what’s going to happen. We are fine with whatever the answer is, but there needs to be some answer.”
Numerous other workers who contacted the Sentinel are still stuck in a “pending” limbo. It means their application has been received but there is no determination yet on their eligibility. Some have been waiting for almost two months, having applied in mid-March.
According to DEO, about 30% of unique applicants had not yet been processed as of Saturday, the most recent data for which data is available.
And even for those that have been processed and found eligible, many are still only receiving partial payment for unemployment.
Winter Garden residents Sarita Jackson and her husband, Oscar, filed his unemployment application on March 21, but say they’ve only received $135 and $275 for the last two weeks of
March. Nothing has come in for most of April or early May.
And the $600 a week in federal payments hasn’t come in, either.
“We are in need of this money just like everybody else, and that’s all they gave us,” said Sarita Jackson, an Uber Eats and DoorDash driver who also applied in April and is waiting for her application to come back as ineligible for state payments so she can apply for the federal program.
The Jacksons have 10 children, eight of them living at home. They signed a six-month lease with the hopes of purchasing a home in June. But that dream is on hold for now.