Faulty Websites Confront Needy in Search of Aid
By FRANCES ROBLES
MIAMI — Three months after the disastrous rollout of a new $63 million
website for unemployment claims, Florida is hiring hundreds of employees
to deal with technical problems that left tens of thousands of people
without their checks while penalties mount against the vendor who set up
the site.
Efforts at modernizing the systems for unemployment compensation in
California, Massachusetts and Nevada have also largely backfired in
recent months, causing enormous cost overruns and delays.
While the nation’s attention was focused on the troubled rollout of the
federal health care site under the Affordable Care Act, the problems
with the unemployment sites have pointed to something much broader: how a
lack of funding in many states and a shortage of information technology
specialists in public service jobs routinely lead to higher costs,
botched systems and infuriating technical problems that fall hardest on
the poor, the jobless and the neediest.
As a result, the old stereotype of applicants standing in long lines to
speak to surly civil servants at government unemployment offices is
quickly being replaced. Now those seeking work or government assistance
are often spending countless hours in front of buggy websites, then
getting a busy signal when they try to get through by phone.
In October, food stamp recipients in 17 states were unable to use their
electronic cards for a day because the computer system that runs the
program failed. Over the years, similar problems with systems in
Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado and other states have prevented
people from getting food stamps and Medicaid benefits.
The problems come at a time when state legislatures are increasingly
demanding efficient methods for people to apply online for aid, from
food stamps to unemployment benefits.
“It’s like calling a radio station trying to get tickets,” said Gary A.
Grimes, 52, an unemployed construction manager in Pensacola, Fla. His
$275 weekly checks stopped after he tried to log in to report that he
had gotten a weeklong job but still needed benefits.
High unemployment in recent years has forced states to process record
numbers of benefit claims using outdated technology, and without
significant increases in federal funding, according to a report in 2012
by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for
lower-wage workers. Most states are operating unemployment insurance
programs with 30-year-old computer systems, said George Wentworth, a
senior staff lawyer with the legal group.
“What we have seen is that a lot of the old systems have been breaking
down,” Mr. Wentworth said. “The recession really ended up highlighting
the fragile state of a lot of these systems.”
But for many states, the upgrade was even worse.
So many applications for benefits were stalled when California
introduced its new system on Labor Day that the government had to
process them by hand. About 148,000 people waited weeks for their
unemployment checks.
Similar problems after Massachusetts rolled out its system in July cost
the state $800,000 in overtime and new hires to resolve and prompted
legislative hearings. The project was delivered two years late and $6
million over the original estimate, The Boston Globe reported.
Also in July, Pennsylvania scrapped its $153 million online system for
unemployment benefits, because the project was “simply not working,” the
state’s secretary of labor, Julia Hearthway, said at the time.
Florida’s website trouble stems from a 2011 law that required people to
sign up online for unemployment benefits. Before the law, 40 percent of
the applications were done by phone.
In April, in response to a complaint by the nonprofit Florida Legal
Services, the federal Department of Labor found that the online
requirement violated the civil rights of people with language barriers
and disabilities. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity lashed
back, accusing the federal agency of being overly politicized.
The state agency’s website shows more than 78,000 calls came in to the
customer service center last Thursday alone. Of those, fewer than 6,500
callers spoke with a representative. More than 300 customer service
representatives and claims adjudicators will be hired in the coming
months, the agency said last week.
The department blamed its vendor, Deloitte Consulting, which was also
responsible for the projects in California and Massachusetts. The agency
issued $6 million in penalties against the company, withheld a $3
million payment and on Dec. 23 began fining it $15,000 a day until the
problems are fixed.
“We are dedicated to making sure every claim is processed quickly, and
we will continue to work until every claimant is served,” Jesse
Panuccio, the executive director of the Department of Economic
Opportunity, said in a statement. “We will continue to hold Deloitte
accountable and I have asked them to devote whatever resources necessary
to fix all remaining technical issues.”
Deloitte defended its work, saying that most jobless people have been
able to file for benefits without trouble. It blamed the department for
the latest setbacks because, the company said, it changed requirements
that strained Deloitte’s resources. The company has already made more
than 1,000 fixes and successfully processed at least 300,000 claims,
Deloitte said in response to the latest fine.
Deloitte said a 2012 report
by the Government Accountability Office showed that states were
struggling to modernize their unemployment insurance programs, because
governments lacked the budgets and the trained staff to make the updated
systems work. Most of the issues that continue to dog the project, the
company said, are beyond its control or have nothing to do with the
software.
“We will also continue to work with D.E.O. to clarify the true nature of
the remaining issues and will hold ourselves strictly accountable for
fixing anything within our control as quickly as possible,” the company
said in a statement.
Users of the site say the online enrollment system is particularly a
problem for people whose benefits applications require further review.
Albert Harris, an Army reservist who recently returned from Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, was owed $2,400 in unemployment benefits, but a problem with a
claim involving his previous employer, Disney, complicated his
application. He was finally paid last week, after calling the customer
service line about 150 times over two and a half months.
“Some of the representatives are really rude because they have been
dealing with so many angry claimants,” he said, adding that he got
through to speak with a representative about 30 times. “Sometimes they
hang up, because they can’t take it.”
Shari Godfrey, 51, who was owed $2,000 in unemployment checks, was so
desperate for money over the holidays that she set up a fund-raising
site on gofundme.com to ask for
donations. Having spent her severance payment so her dying sister could
continue to receive hospital care, Ms. Godfrey was two months behind on
her rent, was getting late notices on her car payments, and did not have
enough money to pay for her diabetes medication.
Late last week she received notice that her overdue unemployment payment would finally arrive.
“The system does not work,” Ms. Godfrey said. “They cannot process claims. For months, not one check.”
Valory Greenfield, a lawyer with Florida Legal Services, said the state
was not doing enough to make fixes and penalize the company responsible.
“At Legal Services, we are hearing, ‘I am getting evicted. I can’t pay my bills,’ ” Ms. Greenfield said. 