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Nelson Wants Fed Review Of State’s Unemployment Website
February 23, 2014
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wants the Department of Labor’s inspector general to look into the state’s trouble-plagued $63 million unemployment assistance website for potential “waste, fraud or abuse or violations of law” due to months of delayed claims.
“Somebody owes taxpayers an explanation,” Nelson wrote Inspector General Scott S. Dahl on Friday. “They are the ones who paid the $63 million for this project.”
Nelson twice before has asked the Labor Department to look into the Department of Economic Opportunity’s Connect system that went on live in October. After Labor Department staff visited Tallahassee in December, the state agency announced that claims would be paid in cases that had been in dispute for more than one week. The move was intended to ease a backlog created by the new website.
Since Dec. 23, the state has imposed a $15,000 per business day fine against contractor Deloitte Consulting and withheld a $3 million payment to the company for failing to deliver a “fully functioning” system. The agency hired about 250 additional staff in January, at a cost of $165,000 a week. DEO reported about 6,000 applications were pending on Friday, a drop from a backlog of more than 60,000 in mid-January.
Nelson in his letter noted that, although the state agency claims the system has improved, media outlets continue to report that people “were still reaching out for help.”
Comments
8 Responses to “Nelson Wants Fed Review Of State’s Unemployment Website”
He doesn’t deserve any praise. Maybe they should try investing more time putting people to work.
Thank you Bill for addressing Connect. Thank you DEO for imposing the $15k/a day fine against Deloitte. While several have expressed that Affordable Care should take precendent over the State’s unemployment system, which I fully agree, credit is due to this man for seeking to hold people/organization’s accountable for this boondoggle.
Imagine that. I website that doesn’t work as advertised on launch. Now where have I heard something like that before? I guess it must be all Rick Scott’s fault. Right?
Well Senator Nelson didn’t mind Voting for obamacare and Voting to take away
our guns with the United Nations Treaty, which “HE” supports Foreign Nations to
Try OUR TROOPS which is TREASON in my opinion.
My hat’s off to Sen. Nelson.
Get over all the political hype. Give credit where credit is due. Bill Nelson was the first elected official to come forward after the oil spill and explain the disaster and offer solutions. He was there for all of us Federal Tax Payers.
Why doesn’t Nelson ask for a probe of the trouble plagued http://www.healthcare.gov website too?
The answer is that Nelson is an Obama minion and woundn’t dare cross Obama! Time to replace Nelson!
I wish Senator Bill Nelson would be so kind to the taxpayers when it comes to Obamacare and other ways this administration is CHANGING our country. Instead, we hear a loud NOTHING. He won’t even show his face in Escambia County!