FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky will get a new unemployment system at some point, it’s just expected to take up to two years.

The state moved one step closer to overhauling its outdated unemployment system after it closed the bidding window for companies interested in taking on the process.

“In the interim, we are taking every measure we can to improve upon the existing system with fraud prevention measures and other efficiencies that we can find and upgrading the current system,” Labor Cabinet Secretary Jamie Link said. “Because obviously we’ve got a year and a half or two years before the new system will be implemented and we need to make improvements now.”

Link and other Labor Cabinet officials provided an update to lawmakers Thursday on improvements to the unemployment system, one that was bogged down with a historic amount of claims due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Office of Unemployment Insurance Executive Director Buddy Hoskinson said there are still 84,000 unresolved claims left, even though in-person appointments have helped get those numbers down.

“What I will tell you is one of the things that we do see that we’re trying to work on now is that tends to push them up and maybe some older claims down,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is come up with a plan — and we’re working on that right now — that we can focus on what is left in 2020.”

Kentucky just finished collecting bids from companies who want to overhaul the system, and Link said that will likely take 18 to 24 months to implement.

Rep. Phillip Pratt (R-Georgetown) said that’s not good enough.

“Can we not get something off the shelf, like California and like Texas did, and just get it off the shelf; get it up and get it going,” he said. “Why are we reinventing the wheel?”

Gov. Andy Beshear said he’s also not satisfied with how slowly the process has gone. 

“I’m not sure that we could do it faster, but I’m not satisfied with it, and that’s because people are still hurting,” he said. “There are good reasons for how long it takes, but it still takes too long.”

Sen. Mike Nemes (R-Shepherdsville), one of the Republican co-chairs of the Unemployment Insurance Reform Task Force, said the state should be careful.

“And I have a lot of disagreements with the [Beshear] administration on how they’ve done things,” Nemes said. “But what I’m talking about right now is to weather through and get a good system is what we want to do.”

Nemes said the task force is working on other recommendations to help fix unemployment, and it is slated to meet one more time before the legislative session starts in January 2022.