Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the online Florida Unemployment system known as Connect as an old Jalopy in the Datona 500. As politicians do, he blamed his predecessor Rick Scott for the failings of the system. Florida has had more than 3.48 million unemployment applications filed since mid-March. Only California had more first-time claims.
The Orlando Weekly reported that the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) distributed $13 billion in state and federal assistance to 1.8 million unemployment claimants. The bulk of the money came from a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit, which expired at the end of July. Connect was designed by the previous Governor Rick Scott and it could not handle the massive number of unemployment claims that began pouring in after the pandemic hit the state in March. The system, which cost nearly $78 million dollars to design was put in place in 2013.
The firm hired to design the site, Deloitte Consulting, got the job by offering the lowest bid. The firm has just on another bid to handle the states Medicaid data. In an interview Monday with Miami television reporter Jim DeFede, DeSantis said, “I mean having studied how it was internally constructed,” DeSantis said, “I think the goal was for whoever designed, it was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that.” The DeSantis administration was left having to fix a system that could not keep up with demand in the middle of economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19. The state has spent more than $120 million in contracts to prop up the flawed unemployment process during the pandemic.
So, is the DEO Connect site now working? Of course not. Representative Anna Eskamani reported that, “The DEO is aware that a LOT of people are missing both back pay and their $600 payments. DEO has made this issue a priority to address and assures us that money is being released daily. In July the CONNECT system did finally provide a way to at least track $600 FPUC payments.”
For many people who apply for benefits, the online nightmare feels like a full time job. Many feel they are being denied wrongly. Those that are denied are given no reason. DeSantis said that people should not have to keep re logging into the broken system to certify their weeks in order to get paid, but his administration followed up with exactly the opposite information. The Governor ordered work search requirement suspended but people were being denied for not meeting those requirements. FOX 13 Tampa reporter Craig Patrick pointed out that call center questions are seldom answered and responses run in circles. The whole system seems designed to be sure applicants get frustrated and leave in frustration.
Wesh 2 News reported a DEO response, “We are asking Floridians to be patient as we take action to increase our ability to serve those whose employment has been negatively impacted by the mitigation efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
Starting July 25, 2020 those $600 payments, going to about 25 million Americans, will stop, which could cause a flood of evictions as people can no longer pay rent. Law makers in Washington have not been able to come to an agreement about what can be done. The system is a wreck.