DEO Jalopy

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.

Hundreds of people risked exposure to the Covid-19 virus to stand in line in Hialeah, Florida on Tuesday April 7, 2020. The line was for people who don’t have internet access or printers, so they could pick up unemployment forms in person.The line snaked outside of the John F. Kennedy Library, and around the block, before it opened at 11
a.m. Social isolation to lower cases of COVID-19, prompted an unemployment crisis
that the state government was not prepared for. Some people had been out of work for a whole month.

Many are still having issues submitting
applications for benefits after having lost their jobs through no fault
of their own. Applicants who had access to the Internet were dealing with error
messages and hours of waiting on the phone while calling a helpline that
was of no help. People started lining up as early as 6-7 a.m. The online servers could not handle the sudden influx of people seeking claims. The online server had to be taken down overnight Sunday April 5, 2020 into Monday. From about 10 p.m. until 5 a.m., the Florida Department of Economic
Opportunity will not be accepting reemployment benefit applications
online. The agency had received 1.5 million calls in the past week.

By the end of the week, there will 82 new servers to increase connectivity. Last week, DEO had nearly 200 staff working on the claims. There are now
579 additional employees and more than 2,300 state employees. In the past two weeks, the department has spent $25 million on
improvements to the computer and phone systems it uses to collect
unemployment benefits applications.

The Department of Labor reported Thursday that 227,000 Floridians
initiated unemployment claims the week prior, up from 74,313 the
previous week. Another 56,000 were expected last week as Governor Ron
DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order that took effect on
Friday.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as
the CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, expands benefits. DEO
is working to incorporate the new provisions of the CARES Act to ensure
all Floridians who are eligible get their full amount of Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Assistance
as it becomes available. Benefits will be paid from the date they became
eligible under the CARES Act.

It was horrifying to watch people standing in line with no social distancing. Tempers flared as people stood in the oppressive Florida heat. If any one person was infected their could be a flair up of infections and deaths.

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In an equally callous and short sighted instance, Michigan held it’s primary voting in the midst of the Pandemic. Voters had to chose between their health and their civic duty. Wisconsin Republicans, the state’s conservative supreme court risked voters’ lives by sending them to polls. People will die.