photo by: Screenshot/Kansas Governor's Office
Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Delia Garcia speaks as Gov. Laura Kelly watches, Wednesday, May 13, 2020, at the Statehouse in Topeka.
Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday announced the immediate resignation of Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Delia Garcia after the department saw months of continued struggle in processing unemployment claims for those who lost jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kelly also cited a recent snafu in which the department processed duplicate unemployment payments to nearly 5,000 Kansans, and then tried to get the extra money back — without consulting Kelly — which caused many Kansans’ bank accounts to become overdrawn. As a result, Kelly accepted Garcia’s resignation, she said.
“These last few months have been unusually stressful on everyone. State government employees in Kansas and around the country have been asked to deal with an unusually high volume of activity. We have a responsibility to the people we represent to get it right. And when we don’t, we’ll make the changes needed to fix the problem,” Kelly said in a statement. “I will use every resource at my disposal to ensure that we improve our response time to Kansans and build an infrastructure at KDOL that will be prepared in the event of further economic impacts from COVID-19.”
The issue with duplicate claims began on June 10, when more than 4,500 claimants received multiple payments of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation — funds created by a March federal stimulus package — totaling roughly $7 million. Last Thursday, Kelly said, the department used a process known as a clawback to recoup the duplicate payments, which caused a number of bank accounts to be overdrawn without the account holder’s knowledge.
The department is now working with partner banks to identify and reimburse any claim recipient whose account was overdrawn because of the clawback, Kelly said. KDOL will also create a special hotline and an email for Kansans who have been impacted.
Ryan Wright, Kelly’s deputy chief of staff, will serve as acting department secretary until a permanent candidate is nominated.
Wright will be faced with overseeing an unemployment system that, before the pandemic began, was operating almost entirely on software that was decades old. While some improvements were made after COVID-19 overloaded the department — it received upwards of 800,000 calls per day during the pandemic’s peak — many Kansans are still waiting to receive current and retroactive benefits payments.
Kelly acknowledged those challenges that Garcia grappled with during her time as department leader.
“I want to thank Secretary García for her service to Kansas,” Kelly said. “While states around the country have struggled to manage unemployment claims during the worst public health crisis in a century, Secretary García inherited an agency that had its funding, its technology, and its staff gutted by the previous administration.”
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Kansas labor secretary resigns after continued struggles with backlogged unemployment claims - Lawrence Journal-World
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