Coronavirus Florida: Senate Democrats give DeSantis list of 1k waiting for jobless benefits
Christine Stapleton
cstapleton@pbpost.com
* TO OUR READERS: Please support local journalism by subscribing to The Palm Beach Post. If you want breaking coronavirus news directly in your inbox, sign up for our Coronavirus Newsletter. * A day after Democrats in the Florida Senate gave Gov. Ron DeSantis a list of 1,000 jobless Floridians still waiting for aid, DeSantis defended efforts to process nearly 2 million claims filed since mid-March at a hastily called press conference on Tuesday. As in prior public statements, DeSantis blamed the state’s glitch-ridden unemployment claims system, called CONNECT, saying it is like “throwing a jalopy into the Daytona 500.” “This was a system designed to have 1,000 users on the website at a time,” said DeSantis, adding that the state added 72 servers to accommodate more concurrent users and brought in 2,000 workers from other state agencies to help process claims. “At one point the system was down 75 percent of the time.” Despite DeSantis’ repeated attacks on the system, he offered no plan to fix the system, targeted in three audits for numerous performance and security deficiencies. Frustrated and angry by repeated questions from reporters at two recent press conferences, DeSantis pivoted and claimed many applicants were to blame for failing to fully complete their applications. In response, Senate Democrats on Monday hand delivered a list of 1,000 Floridians they say have been waiting since March for aid. Senate Democratic Leader Audrey Gibson’s office said the list included claimant ID numbers as well as names of those who have unsuccessfully applied for unemployment benefits. Gibson’s office did not say whether the list also specified why the 1,000 people they provided had not received benefits. “Today our Caucus delivered the names of applicants representing over 1000 Florida families and individuals that have been out of work and not received their unemployment since March,” Gibson, D-Jacksonville, said in a statement. “A single application could represent the support for an entire family. Many in our state live paycheck to paycheck and a disruption of income is devastating as all of us who have done food distributions, regardless of party, can attest.” The travails and frustrations with Florida’s jobless benefits system have been well-documented. The online system broke down numerous times as close to 2 million claims were filed by Floridians amid the coronavirus businesMany others s shutdown. Many who applied were initially incorrectly denied. Legislative Democrats have called for a special session to address the unemployment system, as well as to increase benefits. But House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami, has rebuffed those calls and insisted the governor is addressing the issues with the system. Gibson said the point of compiling the list was to emphasize the need for legislative action. “Rather than a ‘smart sheet’ or a fax suggested by DEO in a tweet on Friday, our Caucus took the people’s distress to the Governor as he requested last week. The multitude of emails and lists tells their story. We simply want to amplify their voices to ‘PayTheClaimsNow!’”