Senator Turns Tampa Office Into Print Shop For Unemployment Apps

D'Ann Lawrence White
·6 min read

TAMPA, FL — With newly jobless Floridians continuing to have problems filing for unemployment through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity's overwhelmed website, a state senator is going back to the basics.

Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, has transformed the back porch of her campaign headquarters in South Tampa into a print shop for anyone needing a paper unemployment application.

Unemployed workers can fill out the paper unemployment form and then return it to a secure mailbox at Cruz' campaign headquarters to be sent to the DEO by priority mail.

The forms are available in both English and Spanish. Cruz noted that Hillsborough County Public Defender Julianne Holt paid to print 500 copies of the application while Cruz is paying to ship the applications to Tallahassee.

Cruz’s office is at 210 A S. MacDill Ave. in Tampa. Parking is in the rear of the building, just off the porch.

"My office will continue distributing paper applications to all who need them," said Cruz.

She's also seen to it that paper applications are available at 100 FedEX locations around the state.

“I think everyone keeps thinking that they’re going to fix this and it’s going to be OK but it’s not going to be OK,” said Cruz. “Days are going by. The longer you wait, it’s my understanding that you won’t get retroactive pay. I’m encouraging people to do the paper app and stop waiting for the site to get better. Don’t wait for the technology. Get the paper and send it in."

With more than 227,000 newly jobless Floridians attempting to file unemployment claims with the state, workers have reported ongoing problems logging on to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity's Connect website and contacting anyone at the Florida Reemployment Assistance Call Center to help them.

"It kicks me off halfway through when trying to claim my weeks," said Shirley Taylor of New Port Richey. "This is a nightmare -- 10 to 12 hours a day trying to get into the system. What happens if I don't get through this?"

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After trying unsuccessfully to apply for unemployment, Wayne Foret took Cruz' advice and filled out a paper application.

"This mail application is going to have issues too, I presume, but at least it gives me hope," he said.

DEO Executive Director Ken Lawson apologized for the backlog and said he's brought on 250 more representatives to assist at the call center.

This week Gov. Ron DeSantis said he's also added 72 servers to handle 120,000 online requests simultaneously and brought in 2,000 employees from other departments to assist the call center.

“We have all hands on deck now,” said DeSantis during a news conference this week.

Additionally, on Wednesday Lawsom announced the creation of a mobile-friendly online app available at www.FloridaJobs.org/RAApplication.

“The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity is committed to ensuring Floridians are able to receive the benefits owed to them during this global pandemic,” said Lawson. “The team is working around the clock to make the process for applying for reemployment assistance as easy as possible for Floridians.”

Between March 15 and April 5, more than 562,000 Floridians applied for unemployment -- more than the 326,653 applications received for the entire year in 2019.

Lawson said his goal is to process 80,000 claims by the end of this week, but legislators say that's only a fraction of the number of claims the state should have been prepared to process.

In the wake of the unemployment maelstrom, state Rep. Jackie Toledo, R-Tampa, called on the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee to open an audit into the Department of Economic Opportunity.

After spending $77 million to create the unemployment website, state auditors detected problems in both 2015 and 2019.

Toledo is appealing to the chairmen of the auditing committee, Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Rep. Jason Fischer, R-Jacksonville, to investigate why these problems were never resolved.

"I am calling on Chairmen Brandes and Fischer to open an audit into how the DEO spent such a large sum of money to run a website that has seen the same unfixed problems in the past five years," she said. "If these problems were not solved, we must determine where the appropriation went and why the DEO did not seek to prepare for the economic impact of COVID-19."

Cruz would like the governor to go a step further and fire Lawson.

"I cannot in good conscience stand by the response provided by the department to this economic crisis," Cruz wrote. "It is with great disappointment and frustration that I request you ask Executive Director Ken Lawson to resign."

In the meantime, U.S. Reps. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, and Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, are urging DeSantis to increase the amount of money paid out to unemployed workers and the length of time they can receive benefits, both of which were cut under former Gov. Rick Scott's administration.

Currently, the 12 weeks unemployed Floridians can collect benefits matches North Carolina for the shortest in the country, and the $275-a-week maximum jobless benefit is among the lowest in the country. The average weekly unemployment benefit in the U.S. is $366, while Florida’s average is $251.

Democrats said Scott's actions in 2013 were intended to save businesses millions of tax dollars to the detriment of workers devastated by a wave of layoffs.

As the Florida governor during the Great Recession, Crist said he used his emergency powers to extend unemployment benefits. He believes DeSantis should do the same.

“What’s wrong with us? We have to have greater compassion and empathy,” Crist said. "The state of Florida’s unemployment benefits are among the lowest in the nation. You have to have the courage and the strength and know what’s right and be driven by what’s right and what’s legal. And what’s legal in this is for the governor to do exactly what I did and go ahead and extend additional benefits to the people in a time of need. “

Because the state of Florida is under a declared state of emergency, Castor said DeSantis’ has the authority to increase unemployment benefits and extend the time workers can receive those benefits.

She noted that DeSantis has already used his executive authority to make waivers during the coronovirus pandemic.

“There’s no difference really," she said. "This is a crisis. It is an emergency. That’s why the emergency authorities are there.”

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This article originally appeared on the Tampa Patch