The backlog of unprocessed claims at California’s Employment Development Department, which oversees unemployment, has gotten so large that at least one lawmaker wants to add positions to his staff just to handle all the angry calls.
“Every single member of my staff has literally hundreds of EDD cases, and they are, quite frankly, getting burned out,” said Fresno Republican Assemblymember Jim Patterson.
Patterson said he would welcome an authorization for more hiring to relieve his staffers. Still, he thinks more staff in Sacramento offices will not get to the root of the problem.
“We’re still going to be stuck with a system on the other end of the communication channel that is simply saying, ‘Can’t do it. No. We’ll let you know. We’ll try to help but we can’t really get this solved today,’” said Patterson.
At any given point since at least February, well over a million California jobless claims have been stuck in the logjam.
In addition to the backlog, state Labor Secretary Julie Su told reporters in a conference call in January that of the $114 billion the state paid in unemployment claims, around 10% have been confirmed as fraudulent. That amounts to $11.4 billion paid in fraudulent claims.
Republican Assemblymember Kevin Kiley, who represents Rocklin and has announced he will challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom in the September recall election, has argued for greater private sector involvement in processing unemployment claims.
“The way that our bureaucracy is set up, it is not designed to have a customer service mentality or paradigm,” said Kiley.
He wants the state to “adopt the practices of the private sector where we can bring in people who are competent managers, who are able to run a state agency the same way they would run a business.”
However, according to CalMatters, the state’s unemployment agency has spent at least $236 million in private contracts to help process jobless claims.
Yet, the backlog remains.