Share:
House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 18, 2012 01:19 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative William F. Keller |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Unemployment Compensation Service Centers (Prior HB 2733/2012) |
| MEMORANDUM TO: All Members of the House of Representatives FROM: Rep. William Keller DATE: December 18, 2012 SUBJECT: Co-sponsorship of Legislation – Unemployment Compensation Service Centers (Prior HB 2733) I will soon be reintroducing legislation that would authorize the Department of Labor & Industry to supplement federal funding for administration of the Unemployment Compensation (UC) system with a portion of employees’ UC tax contributions. I know that many of you are aware of the problems regarding UC service centers – many of your constituents encounter busy signals and long wait times and are unable to get through to get help. The service centers are unable to effectively assist claimants – call volume is too high for the current system. Claimants repeatedly get busy signals over days or weeks of persistent redialing. When callers do manage to reach service center queues, they meet hours of wait time to speak with UC staffers. As you know, claimants frequently require personalized assistance. This is because the department’s online and telephone claims filing systems are often confusing, and users who make mistakes may be “kicked out” of these systems. In fact, most issues can only be resolved by speaking directly to a service center worker who must often manually fix the problem in the department’s antiquated computer system. What’s more, benefit payments can be halted until the problem is resolved; this can and has already resulted in too many claimants needlessly experiencing weeks or months without benefits. Federal funding is the single source of funding for UC service center administration and has long been inadequate. Additional federal dollars were provided during the recession to cope with rising claims and federal extended benefit programs, but are now phasing out. This funding loss has already resulted in the recent closure of the Philadelphia UC Service Center and the reduction of staff and hours at all other call centers. I believe that there is a legislative solution to this problem: we can and should supplement federal funding with a portion of the existing employee tax contribution. Specifically, my legislation will direct a portion of annual employee contributions – no more than $10 million when the fund is low and 40% of contributions when the fund is high – for use in staffing service centers, training to ensure a ready workforce, and necessary upgrades to claims filing systems. At least 14 other states already provide similar supplemental funding. I hope you will agree that claimants of UC benefits, who have already lost a job through no fault of their own, should not be subjected to such barriers to collecting unemployment benefits. Benefits should be timely paid on approved claims, and a claimant’s time spent repeatedly dialing a call center or waiting hours on hold can surely be better spent looking for work. To be added as a co-sponsor, please contact Kelly Minito at 717-787-5774 or kminito@pahouse.net. Previous co-sponsors of this measure included: BRENNAN, BROWNLEE, COHEN, DePASQUALE, FRANKEL, GEORGE, HANNA, HARKINS, JAMES, MANN, McGEEHAN, M. O'BRIEN, PARKER, PASHINSKI, SABATINA, TAYLOR, THOMAS, READSHAW and DONATUCCI |
Introduced as HB26