Government
Beshear Says Federal Changes Responsible For Unemployment Confusion
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It’s unclear if state officials ever communicated the change to out-of-work Kentuckians after the state received new guidance in April.
Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/series/coronavirus-covid-kentucky-2020/page/2/)
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads through Kentucky, we bring you the latest on death rates, risks of reopening and how it was affecting the commonwealth’s most vulnerable.
It’s unclear if state officials ever communicated the change to out-of-work Kentuckians after the state received new guidance in April.
In a written decision, a state official said self-quarantining isn’t a legitimate reason to claim unemployment – and that the governor never told a private citizen to leave their job.
Despite the contagious virus taking root inside the jail, judges continue to set bail amounts that are out of reach for some people. Government agencies lean on a set of narrow parameters when deciding who gets set free. The pandemic is also leading to delayed court hearings for some people, resulting in extended stays behind bars where they risk infection.
The result: Hundreds of people stuck in a cramped jail as a dangerous, contagious virus spreads, infects and, in some cases, kills. Many inmates and their families are turning to bail funds for a shot at getting out of confinement.
Kentucky officials likely underpaid some workers and overpaid others who weren’t eligible for the benefits they received.
Six cases of a rare coronavirus-related inflammatory condition have been identified in Kentucky youth since March, according to public records from the state. Case data suggest the syndrome is disproportionately impacting young people of color. MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, has been identified in Kentuckians as young as five and as old as 19. Symptoms of the rare but serious condition include the inflammation of multiple body parts, fever, rash or vomiting. The cause of MIS-C is unknown, though it’s linked to the new coronavirus.
The state is required to collect when a person has been overpaid in unemployment benefits — even if it wasn’t their fault. That means some are learning about their state debt only after they’re in need of unemployment again.
The former executive director of the Kentucky Office of Unemployment Insurance told legislators Thursday the agency’s chaotic rush to deliver benefits in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic led to months-long delays — and may have violated federal unemployment regulations.
Muncie McNamara testified before the Interim Joint Committee on Economic Development and Workforce Investment. The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting first reported the details of McNamara’s time at the Office of Unemployment Insurance earlier this month; he was hired personally by Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman in January and fired in May, amid the chaos of the pandemic.
McNamara spoke for almost half an hour about the issues he saw at the agency. After his testimony, Republican lawmakers questioned him about Gov. Andy Beshear’s response, the months-long delays and data security. Only one Democratic lawmaker was called on to ask questions.
McNamara told legislators that neither he nor Josh Benton, the Deputy Secretary for the Cabinet for Education and Workforce Development, were consulted before Beshear announced a statewide shutdown of in-person business that led to a massive spike in unemployment.
According to McNamara, Beshear and Benton wanted to quickly extend benefits to independent contractors and other workers who previously wouldn’t have qualified.
“[Benton] stated he wanted to do this as soon as possible, and he did not want to wait for the feds, the U.S. Department of Labor, to act,” McNamara testified. “He wanted Kentucky to take the lead in this.”
McNamara said that decision to move quickly at the beginning has contributed to the months-long delays for benefits the state is now trying to untangle.
Benton has been the face of the state’s unemployment office in recent months.
Cabinet officials defended the hiring and downplayed the firing of the executive director of the Office of Unemployment Insurance at a legislative hearing Thursday.
As KyCIR first reported Monday, the executive director, Muncie McNamara, was quietly fired in early May amid a mounting unemployment crisis caused by the coronavirus.
McNamara was a campaign donor and friend of Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman; she personally called to offer him the job running the Office of Unemployment Insurance in January.
Josh Benton, the deputy secretary for the Cabinet for Education and Workforce Development, defended that hire to the legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee Thursday.
“We felt that he met the qualifications for the job, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. Sen. Danny Carroll, a Republican from Paducah, asked whether any of the delays in providing jobless benefits can be traced to McNamara’s inexperience on the job.
“Every state has had complications. Every state has had frustrations,” Benton said. “So to fully lay that at any one person’s feet would be unfair.”
Benton described an agency thrown into chaos as unemployment claims skyrocketed amid the pandemic-related shutdowns. The agency went from processing a few thousand claims a week to hundreds of thousands, and the size of the agency’s staff ballooned as employees from other parts of state government came to help out.
Legislators also questioned Benton — as well as Labor Secretary Larry Roberts and general counsel Amy Cubbage — about the contract the state gave Ernst and Young to help process claims. The $7.6 million no-bid contract is set to expire in three days, though Cubbage said they are considering extending it because the workers are already trained in the system.
Benton and Cubbage also addressed a data breach that was first identified at the unemployment office in late April, which was not reported to the proper authorities until nearly a month later.
The head of the Office of Unemployment Insurance was quietly fired on May 5, amid an unprecedented number of jobless claims, a race to overhaul an archaic computer system and a belatedly-reported data breach.