Florida moves toward junking unemployment system, perhaps with a boost in benefits
TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers appear ready to junk the state’s unemployment benefits system, CONNECT, over its failures to process payments at the height of the pandemic, but GOP leaders have rebuffed Democratic proposals to address other issues with the system that paid out paltry benefits even before the coronavirus hit.
That could be changing, at least in the Senate, where Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, said he’s open to increasing the payments. At the same time, a bill is advancing to punish Deloitte, the main contractor for CONNECT.
Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, has filed a bill to increase the maximum weekly benefit from $275, one of the lowest in the country, to $375. The measure, SB 1906, also increases the minimum weekly payment from $32 to $100.
“One of the complaints that I heard during the campaign is that Florida is at the lowest rate for unemployment for payments to those who are seeking claims,” Brodeur said.
The $375 maximum level isn’t as big of an increase as Democratic bills to raise it to $500, but Brodeur said he picked $375 because that’s the national average among states. He would’ve done an analysis of Florida’s cost of living to determine the appropriate amount for weekly benefits if he had more time, he said.
“We didn’t have time to do that, people are hurting,” Brodeur said. “So we took what is the average and just raised it to whatever the average is, knowing that eventually Florida will do some kind of study that says what is appropriate rate.”
The bill also doesn’t address other aspects of payments Democrats want to see changed, such as the amount of weeks a claimant can receive. It would keep the number of weeks tied to the state’s unemployment rate, starting at 12 weeks when unemployment is below 5.5% and up to 23 weeks when it reaches 10.5%.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who has fielded thousands of requests for help with the unemployment system since it ground to a halt last March and April when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, has filed a bill to increase benefits to $500, set the maximum weeks at 26 and impose new oversight measures on the system. But she’s encouraged the issue of the payments getting attention from GOP lawmakers one year after the crisis hit.
“That’s the exact discussion both chambers should be having,” Eskamani said. “For me, the bottom line is that it just can’t be throwing more money into a system that was essentially designed to fail, it needs to be improving the system while also adapting the policy to reflect the unemployment system of 2021.”
Democrats requested a special session last May to fix the unemployment system, which was overrun with claims starting in mid-March when tourist attractions shut down and theme parks began laying off hundreds of thousands of workers.
A report from the Department of Economic Opportunity detailing the problems with the system suggested lawmakers might have to spend up to $244 million over the next four years to replace CONNECT with a workable system.
Pouring more money into the problem after already spending $180 million on CONNECT and subsequent patches and fixes isn’t appealing to lawmakers but some feel there’s little other choice but to start from scratch.
“It’s so frustrating but what do we do? What do we do now?” said Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa. “We’ve been left holding the bag.”
Spurred by the CONNECT debacle, Cruz is sponsoring a bill, SB 788, to prohibit vendors who previously failed to fulfill contracts from bidding on future business with the state. Last summer, Deloitte was awarded a $135 million deal from the Agency for Health Care Administration to create a Medicaid database despite its history with CONNECT.
The bill passed through the Senate Government Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday with a unanimous vote, but there is no House version. Deloitte is scheduled to present its side of the story to a different Senate panel on Monday.
House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, has said he wants to fix the system but hasn’t embraced changing other parts of the program, such as increasing benefits.
“We all agree that the CONNECT system didn’t work, certainly the way it was intended to work,” Sprowls told reporters Tuesday.
When asked about raising the maximum weekly benefit, Sprowls has said he wants to focus on reforming state workforce boards, which help connect jobless Floridians with jobs to get people back to work quicker and off the unemployment rolls. He’s also mindful that an increase in benefits would likely mean an increase in taxes on businesses, which are used to fill the trust fund that pays the benefits.
Cruz believes the state will be able to move to a workable system this year, despite the cost.
“We owe it to Floridians,” Cruz said. “We have wasted so many of their tax dollars. We have to fix this.”
