Unemployment Website Problems May Spur Creation Of State IT Department

January 16, 2014

State lawmakers will again be asked to create a state information-technology department as focus builds on the troubles that plague Florida’s $63 million unemployment assistance website.

Legislation continues to be drafted as state Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Jesse Panuccio appeared Wednesday before the Senate Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee to provide an update about the much-criticized “Connect” system.

The problems with the state’s unemployment website will next be scrutinized by a technology consultant and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, said Wednesday he has been discussing the IT department proposal with Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, and hopes to have legislation ready in the next week or two.

“We’re a $70 billion business without a chief information officer, we have no IT abilities whatsoever in this state, we can’t be surprised that this is the case,” said Ring, a former Yahoo.com executive. “We need to have experts if we’re going to release projects of this size.”

A similar measure to create a Department of State Technology during the 2013 legislative session was unanimously supported by the Senate but died in the budget conference process.

The 2013 effort called for 24 full-time workers at a cost of $5 million in the first year of operation, according to a staff analysis.

Ring’s pending legislation comes as the Department of Economic Opportunity continues to impose fines of $15,000 per business day against Minnesota-based Deloitte Consulting and withhold a $3 million payment to the company for failing to deliver a “fully functioning” system.

The state also has started to hire what could be 330 workers to help process unemployment-assistance applications over the next couple of months, at an estimated $164,700 a week. The money will come from federal administrative funds and money expected to be recouped from Deloitte, Panuccio said.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced that the U.S. Department of Labor, at his request, will send staff to Florida by the end of the week to monitor the problems with the Connect system. The federal agency has indicated there has been a 20 percent drop in claims since the system went live Oct. 15.

While Gov. Rick Scott’s office criticized Nelson over the request, Panuccio maintained on Wednesday that his department’s focus is getting the system operational.

“What we’re doing right now, the most important thing we’re focused on, is every possible way to get things fixed and getting claims paid,” Panuccio told the Senate panel. “Down the road we’ll continue to discuss ways we can continue to recoup costs.”

Panuccio’s comments were markedly different from his Nov. 4 appearance before the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee when he said that “glitches” with the new system should be smoothed over by the end of the year.

Instead, the per-business-day fines were imposed Dec. 20 on Deloitte as the problems continued.

On Wednesday, the department completed a contract with the Paris-based consulting firm Capgemini for $365,000 to examine the system, Panuccio said.

“Deloitte’s stabilization of the adjudication function and other systems did not occur as we had expected,” Panuccio said.

Deloitte has said that the company completed the work outlined in its contract and that the Connect system has surpassed the performance of the unsustainable systems it replaced.

Panuccio maintains a separate view.

“Deloitte does not dispute the list of defects we’ve given them, they don’t dispute that those things are broken, what they will dispute is how we characterize it under the contract,” Panuccio said after the meeting. “The point is those pieces of functionality still aren’t working.”

Prior to the meeting, Sen. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, and Rep. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, called for Deloitte to refund money to taxpayers.

Thompson said people have spent more than nine weeks trying to get the needed assistance to qualify for the $275 a week reemployment checks. She also referenced more than $20 million in denied benefits due to the new system, an estimate by the non-profit National Employment Law Project.

“For someone who is unemployed, who has no means of income, this is the difference between hanging on to a lifeline and actually being pushed into the ranks of those who are impoverished,” Thompson said.

Berman said she asked Panuccio on Oct. 23 about when the problems with the system would be improved and got a reply dated Nov. 1 stating the system was operational and improving.

“Today is Jan. 15 and there continues to be problems and issues with the system,” Berman said. “The time for discussion has passed, action is needed right now.”

Thompson added that the state should have been aware of the problems before the new system was introduced in October.

She noted that Deloitte had been fined $4.5 million for delays to the state system in 2012 and has come under fire over unrelated problems involving the rollout of multimillion-dollar government websites in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California.

Deloitte also agreed to pay $1.5 million in November as repairs continued and the Department of Economic Opportunity wasn’t ready to certify the system.

Connect had been in the works since 2009 to replace a 30-year-old system out-of-work Floridians used to claim their weekly benefits, monitor accounts and request information.

by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida

Comments

4 Responses to “Unemployment Website Problems May Spur Creation Of State IT Department”

  1. Dennis on January 17th, 2014 12:34 pm

    Well it is kinda hard to get a job if the site online you apply thru(which is what most companies use now) doesn’t work. It doesn’t say but if the unemplyment part isn’t working my guess is all of the system isn’t working properly.
    No it department is kinda like opening a store and not have a clerk at the cash register.

  2. Puddin on January 17th, 2014 6:59 am

    The State DOESNT have an IT dept? Im surprised at that. Guess I never thougt about it. What have they done before to fix computer problems?

    Gee, sure wish my first hubby was still alive, he would have been a great one to implement that. (doctorate in computer technology and 30+ years experiance). Hope they get someone good to head it up.

  3. Pat on January 16th, 2014 10:16 am

    Once they start to actually process these claims which haven’t been processed since Oct 2013 we will being to see the true unemployment numbers for Florida something Rick Scott doesn’t want to get out..

  4. 429SCJ on January 16th, 2014 6:37 am

    I would worry about creating jobs first, then worry about that $63,000,000.00 website.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News