The federal government will allow the state of Florida to pay unemployment claims in cases that have been in dispute for more than a week. Officials are looking to ease a backlog created by Florida's new but troubled $63 million CONNECT unemployment assistance website.
The Department of Economic Opportunity says the state has federal approval to temporarily issue benefit payments to people whose continuing claims have been held up for "adjudication" for more than seven days. DEO provides up to $275 weekly to more than 200,000 Floridians.
Governor Rick Scott says those entitled to government assistance should get it."I want to make sure anybody who has to rely on unemployment benefits gets their benefits", said Scott. "But, more importantly, I want to make sure everybody can get a job. There are 279,000 job openings in the state. I work every day to make sure no one has to rely on any system to give them unemployment benefits."
Minnesota-based Deloitte Consulting, which has a contract to set up the CONNECT website, will oversee the payments.
The state has been imposing fines of $15,000 per business day against Deloitte since December 23rd and has withheld a $3 million payment to the company for failing to deliver a "fully functioning" system.
CONNECT has been in the works since 2009 to replace a thirty-year-old system that jobless Floridians used to claim their weekly benefits, monitor accounts and request information.