WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — With tens of thousands of out-of-work Vermonters struggling to access unemployment benefits, Gov. Phil Scott said the state may wind up offering $1,200 payments to claimants who are hung up in the state’s antiquated processing system.
At a news conference on Friday, Scott said he was giving the Vermont Department of Labor until Saturday night to “clear the backlog of eligible claims,” and if that doesn’t happen the state would begin writing $1,200 checks “to send to anyone who is still in need and are on that list.”
Acting Commissioner of Labor Michael Harrington said Vermont has received nearly 80,000 claims since the COVID-19 pandemic brought the economy to a near-standstill last month. He said 34,000 Vermonters are snagged in a system bogged down by a 30-year-old mainframe with primitive computer coding and strict federal rules to check for fraud and related issues.
“I’m sorry, and we’re sorry,” said Harrington, who thinks 90% of the problems can be addressed by bringing on even more people to help the Department of Labor, possibly getting some users their first payments by Tuesday if they have direct deposit.
Harrington also said the state is trying to prioritize “people over process” at Scott’s directive and would “veer outside federal government guidelines to help Vermonters” if snags in the system persist.
For many residents, trying to access the state’s unemployment system has been “horrifying,” according to Randall Thompson, of Bridgewater.
The 65-year-old Thompson was laid off on March 6 from his job of six years as a chef and banquet assistant at the Quechee Club in Quechee. He filed online immediately, he said, and received in the mail a “monetary determination” from the state’s Department of Labor indicating that he is eligible to receive $220 per week in unemployment benefits. But Thompson said so far he hasn’t received anything.
“I’ve been trying to call for the past four weeks and I can’t get through,” he said.
Thompson said he did receive a $2,400 stimulus check from the federal government and his wife is still earning income working from home as an administrative assistant for Dartmouth College, so they are not in immediate financial peril.
But he estimates that he has been auto-dialing the Department of Labor’s claimant helpline 200 times a day and has never had anyone pick up.
“If you can send a man to the moon, why can’t they come up with something to fix this?” Thompson said. “I work in a restaurant. When we’re busy we can’t say, ‘We’ll get to it.’ People don’t want to hear that.”
For Honey Donegan, of Quechee, her experience in filing for unemployment has been like a Catch-22.
Donegan, 71, who was furloughed from her part-time job in March as the caretaker for a family’s two young children, received a letter confirming her eligibility for $364 a week in unemployment benefits and was provided with an ID number for access to her online account.
But when Donegan logged into her account to file her first weekly claim, it said there was no record of her Social Security number and her claim could not be processed. So she tried to begin again and re-register — then she was denied access to the system because it said she had a claim pending.
Meanwhile, Donegan couldn’t reach anyone to answer questions on the claimant helpline, even though she was auto-calling on both her mobile phone and landline.
“As frustrating at it’s been for me, I understand (Department of Labor employees) are overwhelmed and I have nothing but pity for the people working there,” Donegan said.
At 5:30 a.m. Friday — “my dog got me up,” she said — Donegan instead tried calling a different number for filing initial claims and at last was accepted into the system.
Others have been stymied by confusion over which state they should be applying for unemployment benefits.
Miranda Potter, 34, of Sharon, works as a paraoptometric assistant at White River Family Eyecare in White River Junction and at the optometrist’s sister location in Hanover. Because her employer’s W2 statement listed a Vermont address, she initially filed for unemployment in Vermont.
But when she was denied eligibility — two weeks later via mail after applying online on March 24 — without explanation, Potter said she her calls to the claimant helpline in Vermont to find out the reason were fruitless.
“I spent hours on hold and each time I got connected I was disconnected,” she said.
Finally, a co-worker suggested Potter apply for unemployment in New Hampshire. (Under the unemployment system, people seeking benefits are to file claims in the state where they work, even if they live in a different state).
“I applied on April 3 and just crossed my fingers. I heard back in less than 12 hours by email that I was approved” for $427 a week in benefits. She received her first unemployment payment on Wednesday, the same day she received a $1,200 stimulus check from the federal government.
“Now we know,” Potter said about which state she needed to apply for unemployment. “After I lost two weeks of unemployment and can’t get it back.”
John Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com and John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.