Kansas officials try to repair website for unemployment benefits

Kansas officials described a number of measures being taken to fix the Kansas Department of Labor’s website and phone capabilities, as they have been swamped with unemployment benefit applications in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Laura Kelly and Labor Secretary Delia Garcia appeared at a news conference on Thursday to talk about the situation, which has left some unemployed residents without funds.

Today the state reported 1,588 positive COVID-19 cases in the state, up 94 cases from Wednesday. There were 80 deaths in the state, up four from Wednesday.

Three new deaths were in Wyandotte County, according to the UG’s COVID-19 website at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, bringing the Wyandotte County total to 34 deaths. Wyandotte County had 378 cases at 1:30 p.m.

Sixty-three Kansas counties are reporting positive COVID-19 cases. On Thursday, Johnson County reported 343; Leavenworth County, 114; Sedgwick County (Wichita area), 217; and Shawnee County (Topeka area), 82.

Gov. Kelly said discussions are underway at the state level on how to reopen the economy safely and swiftly.

Governors throughout the nation have resisted political pressure to reopen their states too early, because they are committed to making data-driven decisions allowing science and medical professionals to determine the best and safest timing, not politics, Gov. Kelly said.

Gov. Kelly said today that robust testing and contact tracing capacity is the key to getting people back to work.

While she shares the worry of people about an extended shutdown, the reality is they do not have the supplies they need to reopen, nor have they reached the apex of the outbreak, she said.

She said she was hopeful that discussions with the federal government will shed more light on their plan to get the states the testing supplies they need to move forward promptly.

Kansas Labor Secretary Delia Garcia today announced that Kansas would go to a system where persons will file applications on certain days based on the first letter of their last name. For example, last names started with A-M will file on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, while last names beginning N-Z will file on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Saturday is for those who missed their filing day. This new information is on the department website and also on its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KansasDOL/.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed an overwhelming strain on the Kansas Department of Labor, with the department handling a historic volume of claims, according to the governor. The department received 1.6 million calls in a single day last Monday, according to the governor. More than 160,000 Kansas residents have filed for unemployment, the governor said.

“The system has been overloaded, and delays have created frustration and anxiety,” Gov. Kelly said.

The top priority is to address the problem, so that residents who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic can put food on their table, she said. Additional employees have been added and some have transferred to help the Department of Labor.

The state is doing everything it can to boost the capacity of the system so it works faster, and they are making progress, she said.

An upgrade that took place from 2003 to 2011 increased functionality in many areas, but did not address core problems in the mainframe that was put into place in the 1970s, she said. The modernization was never completed, but was halted in early 2011, she said. The transition from the mainframe computer never occurred, she said.

Garcia spent last year trying to get the a path forward for the information technology structure, she said.

She said the teachable moment for all elected officials was that years of budget cuts coupled with political demands to reduce the size of government have now created tangible consequences at the Department of Labor.

“Government funded infrastructure is complex and it is expensive,” Gov. Kelly said. “We must do a better job of prioritizing these investments before disaster strikes,” she said, and factoring potential consequences of inaction into the legislative process.

She said she hoped this crisis will shed light on why key investments in infrastructure must be taken seriously.

The KDOL unemployment application website is at https://www.getkansasbenefits.gov/.

To view the governor’s news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/622240108405535/.

The Kansas COVID-19 resource page is at https://govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus.

The UG’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information

The CDC COVID-19 page is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html