The problems with Florida’s new unemployment website may be more than just annoying. A Washington lawmakers thinks they may be criminal. The new website went live in October at a cost of $63 million dollars.
Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson says he’s getting reports that Floridians are still having trouble applying for and receiving jobless benefits.
He has twice asked the Department of Labor to intervene. Now, he wants a formal investigation by the department’s inspector general into possible "violations of the law” that led to thousands of payments being improperly delayed.
In January, Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity hired hundreds of additional staffers to handle the backlog. The state says claims are now being processed at record levels.
For the last two months, the state has imposed a $15,000 a day fine against contractor Deloitte Consulting. It also withheld a $3 million payment to the company for failing to deliver a "fully functioning" system.
Deloitte was awarded another state contract last year. The company was hired to modernize the state’s Medicaid tracking system even as it was struggling to design the state’s unemployment website.