MADISON, Wis. – An audit recently released is giving us a better idea of what went wrong at Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development (DWD), which has struggled with a backlog of unemployment claims for much of the year.

Lawmakers got the chance to dive deeper into that report and ask tough questions during a public hearing Wednesday before the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

DWD staff said recruiting, hiring, training, and onboarding nearly 1,300 staff wasn't easy.
 


Transition Director Amy Pechacek said those challenges were on top of already complex eligibility laws and outdated systems.

“Between March 15 and December 12, 2020, UI has paid over 576,000 individuals over $4.5 billion in benefits and resolved approximately 96% of the 8.7 million weekly claims that have been filed,” Pechacek said.

For comparison, DWD received about 287,000 initial claims over the entire year in 2019.

Processing Certain Unemployment Insurance Claims | Full Report by Anthony DaBruzzi on Scribd


A report recently released by the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau found serious issues including the overpayment of benefits, understaffing, and nearly 38.3 million calls blocked or receiving busy signals.

As tens of thousands still wait to hear back on their claims, DWD said it has partnered with Google to streamline the process.

“Google Services uses predictive analytics, based on historical data, to shorten adjudication decision making, which will allow DWD to release payments to eligible claimants faster,” Pechacek said. “Our intention is to have all claims that are older than 21 days fully resolved or actively being processed by the end of the year.”

Data from DWD shows it took 22.1 days, on average, to resolve each adjudication issue associated with initial claims filed from mid-March to the beginning of October.

Streamlining the process could make a difference. The audit shows there were 175 adjudicators in mid-March—a team that grew to 563 by mid-September.

“As you see, with adjudication staff ramping up in Figure 3, you're also seeing a decline in the number of days it took to process, so I think you could make the argument that staff and resources helped address that,” Wisconsin State Auditor Joe Chrisman said.


The audit also shows DWD may have overpaid an estimated $21.2 million in program benefits on April 28 and 29.

The agency said on April 29 it recovered $19.6 million in duplicate payments it made, citing new federal programs, including the one providing unemployed Wisconsinites an extra $600 a week, for creating new challenges.

“Due to the changes that were required in the code in its system to make those payments, the new code, there was just a glitch or malfunction and something didn't work as anticipated,” Wisconsin Deputy State Auditor Dean Swenson said.

DWD's actions near the end of April may have led to the agency overpaying and underpaying an unknown number of people.