Kansas’s Republican congressional delegation is rejecting Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s calls for Congress to immediately provide more federal dollars to overhaul the state’s beleaguered unemployment system.
Kelly urged Congress on Monday to fund information technology improvements and singled out the Kansas Department of Labor, which has been relying on decades-old computer systems to process unemployment benefit claims. The agency has struggled to field a crush of calls from frustrated out-of-work residents.
But on Friday, the state’s two GOP senators and three representatives made clear they view the Kelly administration’s handling of the crisis as the problem.
“The fact of the matter is Kansans’ livelihoods have been put on the line during the upheaval caused by the department’s instability with four different leaders over the past year, the false narrative that additional federal funding will solve the current issues, and playing politics rather than problem-solving,” the officials said in a letter to Kelly that was also signed by the Republican Kansas House speaker and Senate president.
Republican frustration with Kelly may not ultimately determine whether Kansas receives federal aid for upgrades. Democrats, in control of Congress, have made clear they intend to pass a sweeping COVID-19 relief package (a vote was scheduled for Friday evening) that would likely provide Kansas about $1.6 billion in federal aid.
“The most important issue facing the Kansas Department of Labor is modernizing its outdated IT systems. It’s disappointing that the majority of the Kansas Congressional Delegation has decided against supporting the Governor’s efforts to address this in the federal stimulus package,” Kelly spokesman Sam Coleman said in a statement.
Coleman said Kelly is committed to fixing the agency’s immediate problems and noted the governor announced last week that KDOL has hired more than 100 additional customer service representatives to help with call volumes, bringing the total to 450.
KDOL and the unemployment system has been a source of persistent anger since unemployment soared in the early weeks of the pandemic nearly a year ago. The agency eliminated early backlogs in processing claims but is still flooded with far more calls each day than it can handle. Tens of thousands of residents have also had fraudulent claims filed using their personal information, increasing the agency’s workload and leading to hundreds of millions in payments.
Illustrating the depth of frustration, one woman even held a hunger strike outside KDOL’s Topeka headquarters this week.
Republicans have increasingly challenged Kelly’s handling of the crisis as the inboxes of state and federal legislators fill up with requests for help. In Friday’s letter, the legislators wrote that residents “cannot continue to wait weeks or months before finally receiving their unemployment benefits from the state.”
Democrats have pointed to the scale of the crisis — unlike anything since the Great Depression — and say KDOL has been successful in largely stabilizing the unemployment system but that overhauls will take time. They have also noted that auto-dialers, which inflate the volume of calls coming into KDOL, have exacerbated problems at its call center.
Democrats have also said that previous efforts to modernize the agency a decade ago stalled under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
“I would urge them to stop playing political games and actually become part of the solution,” Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, said.
Since Labor Secretary Delia Garcia abruptly departed in June after KDOL overdrafted the bank accounts of some unemployed workers, the agency has had two temporary leaders before Kelly named Amber Shultz, a former Lawrence city official, as the new secretary late last month. Shultz is trying to boost morale at the besieged agency and make it more responsive to the public, but state officials say the demand for help is often overwhelming.
KDOL says an additional 1,100 operators would be needed to fully handle the call volume. That isn’t realistic due to budget and technology constraints, the agency has said.
Additionally, a full overhaul of the unemployment system’s old computer systems will take two to three years at a cost of roughly $37.5 million, according to the agency. Kelly on Monday called on Congress to provide states with modernization funding.
“Increased federal funding to fast-track modernization will help KDOL and my administration with the immediate, upcoming challenges and protect future generations from crises of this nature. I look forward to working with our state and federal partners to deliver solutions to Kansans as quickly as possible,” Kelly said Monday.
But the Republicans who wrote to Kelly on Friday — including U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall — contend previous COVID-19 aid approved by Congress can be used to fund improvements.
“The (Coronavirus Relief Fund) deliberately provided state and local leaders with discretion for determining whether an expenditure from their CRF allocation is in response to the pandemic or not, instead of a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach,” the letter says.
Congress has passed multiple rounds of relief and previously provided Kansas with more than $1 billion in aid. But some Republicans who previously voted in favor of the massive spending packages are now balking at proposals to let state and local governments use federal dollars to help their budgets cope with fallout from the pandemic.
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 6:25 PM.
