Maryland’s labor secretary said she takes responsibility for the department’s failure in the implementation of a program that was supposed to make filing unemployment claims smoother.
Asked who was responsible for the glitches in the BEACON portal the department used, Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson said, “I will take full responsibility because everything that happens with our customers is our responsibility.”
Robinson fielded questions from the Economic Matters Committee a day after hundreds of Marylanders told state lawmakers they spent hours trying to navigate the state’s unemployment site without success while worrying about rent, car payments and other bills.
For more than an hour, Robinson took questions from lawmakers while detailing the challenges the department faced. She said she makes no excuses for the problems that hampered processing a record number of claims.
While the state’s department of labor website described getting 90% of benefits paid within 21 days, Robinson explained that applied only to the 66% of applicants whose claims had been accepted.
More than a quarter of those applying for benefits, 27%, were still waiting for payment because their cases were “pending adjudication.”
Robinson told lawmakers, “I know that’s a high number. Every single one of these 135,533 Marylanders are customers. We are desperately trying to solve their issues.”
Robinson said many of the issues were the result of a combination of factors, including new federal regulations under the CARES Act and the unprecedented number of claims being filed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Dereck Davis, chair of the legislative committee, asked Robinson about an incident relayed to him in which a caller was subjected to what Davis called a “meltdown” by a claims agent.
Robinson apologized and said that just as claimants are undergoing the worst financial stress of their lives, call-takers are sometimes overwhelmed.
“We completely understand,” Robinson said. “I also have stories of some of our agents crying on the phone with claimants, and it makes me emotional talking about it. We know people are having a hard time getting through this.”
Davis said he was not asking the question to chastise Robinson, but to find out whether the department has enough staff to handle the volume of incoming calls.
Robinson said the department didn’t and said it’s looking to increase the 200 phone lines currently in use.
Davis, who was taking questions submitted by his colleagues on the Zoom call, asked Robinson at one point if the state was getting its money’s worth from the contractor that provided the BEACON website and whether the department of labor would use that contractor again.
Robinson explained the state had contracted the vendor previously.
“What I will say is we do still have the only one-stop comprehensive system in the country,” Robinson said.
And she said the volume the site is handling “is not the fault of the vendor or the state.”
Robinson also said the technology “for the most part” is working and that many of the issues that have resulted in slow payment are a result of required federal regulations that add a layer of tasks that the state cannot opt out of.
After Robinson left the meeting, several delegates expressed frustration and concerns.
Del. Ned Carey said he’s hearing from constituents who say they can’t get answers to their questions, “and I don’t know what to tell them — what do we tell our constituents? When are they going to get paid?”
Del. C.T. Wilson expressed concern about the likelihood of a resurgence of the coronavirus as Gov. Larry Hogan was preparing to announce the state’s plans to ease its stay-at-home order.
Saying that the current problems with BEACON show “a break in the system,” Wilson worried that “in the fall we’re going to have to do this all over again, and I don’t want to repeat all our mistakes.”
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