Highlights:
2013: The Department Of Economic Opportunity’s CONNECT System Was Plagued With Problems Under Former Gov. Rick Scott. According to the Florida Times-Union, “DEO’s CONNECT system has been problem-plagued since it was first launched in 2013, after Scott’s predecessor, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, pushed for an overhaul of unemployment compensation that slashed benefits and shortened the number of weeks of eligibility. Florida’s $275-a-week maximum jobless benefit is among the lowest in the U.S. The 12 weeks unemployed Floridians can collect benefits matches North Carolina for the shortest in the country. The changes made by Scott and the Florida Legislature saved businesses millions of tax dollars – largely by reducing the number of people who successfully applied for unemployment benefits.” [Florida Times-Union, 4/3/20]
When CONNECT Launched, The Problems With The Website Became Apparent, Website Would Break Down Under Normal Workload And Failed To Send Out Benefits. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “When CONNECT launched in 2013, at an eventual cost to taxpayers of $77.9 million, the failings of the system were immediately obvious, with the system breaking down under the workload and claimants failing to receive benefits. Although Deloitte was publicly blamed by Scott’s administration, it continued to bid on and win state contracts. State auditors pointed out a multitude of failings that remained unfixed under five more years of Scott and more than a year under DeSantis.” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
Issues With CONNECT Included Technical Glitches, Computer Crashes, Needs For Password Resets, And Unresponsive Phone-Lines. According to the Florida Times-Union, “State auditors, though, for years found problems with the CONNECT system. Still, state lawmakers and both the DeSantis and Scott administrations did nothing to attempt to correct these issues. Most involve technical glitches, computer crashes, a need for password resets and unresponsive phone help-lines that effectively keep people from successfully completing applications.” [Florida Times-Union, 4/3/20]
The System Cost Taxpayers $77.9 Million. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “When CONNECT launched in 2013, at an eventual cost to taxpayers of $77.9 million, the failings of the system were immediately obvious, with the system breaking down under the workload and claimants failing to receive benefits. Although Deloitte was publicly blamed by Scott’s administration, it continued to bid on and win state contracts. State auditors pointed out a multitude of failings that remained unfixed under five more years of Scott and more than a year under DeSantis.” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
DeSantis’ Administration Had Not Heeded Warnings In 2019 Audit About The System; DeSantis Blamed Continued Issues On His Director Of Economic Opportunity. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “When asked why he hadn’t heeded the warnings in the 2019 audit, DeSantis blamed Ken Lawson, the man he named as executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, which oversees the unemployment system. Lawson, a holdover from the Scott administration, was pushed aside by DeSantis and his oversight of the unemployment system was given to another department secretary on April 15. Data released by the state days later showed just how little progress had been made over Lawson’s first month: by April 19, just 40,193 Floridians had received unemployment out of more than 1.5 million claims filed. ‘That’s a question for Ken Lawson. That was a report to Lawson,’ DeSantis said Monday. ‘It was never anything that reached my desk. I never had anyone ask me for additional funding.’” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
State Auditors Had Known Of Problems With The CONNECT System For Years. According to the Florida Times-Union, “State auditors, though, for years found problems with the CONNECT system. Still, state lawmakers and both the DeSantis and Scott administrations did nothing to attempt to correct these issues. Most involve technical glitches, computer crashes, a need for password resets and unresponsive phone help-lines that effectively keep people from successfully completing applications.” [Florida Times-Union, 4/3/20]
Laid-Off Floridians Faced Frustration When Filing For Unemployment Benefits, Encountered Unanswered Phones And Computer Program Unresponsiveness. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, “Laid-off workers in Florida have encountered frustrating roadblocks to filing, with phones unanswered and computer programs unresponsive. After taking public heat for weeks for failing to promptly process hundreds of thousands of jobless claims since mid-March, the Department of Economic Opportunity disclosed last week that it sent relief checks to only 40,000 people out of 650.000 claims processed. This week, the agency disclosed that it had upgraded its troubled computer system, enabling the state to more than double the number of claims processed in a single day. Still, hundreds of thousands of people were waiting for checks to arrive, and more still had found no success in filing their claims.” [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 4/22/20]
DeSantis Called For Action Following Florida’s Unemployment Website’s Troubles Following Increased Unemployment Applications. Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday he was taking steps to remedy the state’s failed online system for unemployment compensation, which has kept untold thousands of Floridians from applying for help after losing jobs in a paralyzed economy. Records show that 227,000 unemployment claims were filed last week in Florida, bringing the two-week total to 348,511, more than all that were approved in 2019. The Department of Economic Opportunity also received 2.1 million calls for help this week. […] Now, in the economic side of the state’s fight against the coronavirus, DeSantis said, ‘This is our top priority: To be able to field the calls and respond appropriately to the people of Florida.’” [Florida Times-Union, 4/3/20]
DeSantis Said “We Need To Do More,” To Fix State Unemployment’s CONNECT System. According to the Florida Times-Union, ‘This system is not handling the needs of the people of Florida in an adequate way,’ DeSantis said in a Thursday afternoon briefing at the Capitol. ‘We need to do more.’ DeSantis issued an executive order pushing other state agencies to deploy staff to help the DEO field calls, allow for paper applications for benefits to be submitted and improve the online capacity of the CONNECT application filing system.” [Florida Times-Union, 4/3/20]
A Month Into The Pandemic, DeSantis Said The State Lacked Information On How Many Applications Had Been Processed Or How Many Have Been Paid Out. According to the Miami Herald, “A month into Florida’s historic unemployment crisis, Gov. Ron DeSantis is replacing the man in charge of the state’s broken unemployment system. In a stunning admission, DeSantis said during a Wednesday news conference that he still doesn’t have basic information about how many unemployment applications have been processed or how many people have been paid — data that his counterparts in other states have been touting regularly.” [Miami Herald, 4/16/20]
Tampa Bay Times Reported Florida Was One Of The Slowest State’s In The U.S. To Process Covid-19-Related Unemployment Claims. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “Florida has been the slowest state in the nation at processing coronavirus-related unemployment claims, and it’s lagged behind much smaller states in simply getting money into the hands of its citizens.” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
DeSantis Said The Problems With CONNECT Were Not The Problems Flagged In The 2019 Audits. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “The governor said the problems flagged by auditors are not the ones that are plaguing the site today. ‘These are different problems,’ DeSantis told reporters. ‘They’re more significant problems, and obviously they’re problems a $77 million system was not able to handle off the bat.”” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
DeSantis Called For The State’s Inspector General To Investigate The State’s Unemployment Benefits Website. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “Gov. Ron DeSantis said he will ask his inspector general to investigate the contract with the company that built Florida’s broken unemployment website seven years ago. DeSantis said he wants his inspector general, an office that was created in 1994 to provide internal oversight of state agencies, to investigate how the state paid $77.9 million on the website and how the contract was amended numerous times. ‘There’s a lot of money that went in to this,’ DeSantis said. ‘I think everything needs to be looked at, 100 percent.’” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
DeSantis Called CONNECT A “Jalopy,” Said The System Would Have Been Overwhelmed In A Slight Recession. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “DeSantis has continued to blame Florida’s unemployment crisis on the state’s seven-year-old online unemployment system, known as CONNECT, calling it a ‘jalopy’ in pass press conferences. On Monday, DeSantis said the system was so bad that the system would have been overwhelmed even in a slight recession. ‘If we had anything other than 3 or 4 percent unemployment, this would have been a problem,’ DeSantis said. ‘So that’s not a good use of taxpayer money.’” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
DeSantis Blamed Applicants For Submitting Incomplete Applications For Backlogging The State’s CONNECT System. According to News4Jax, “Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that most remaining unsettled claims in the state’s heavily criticized unemployment system are due to incomplete applications. DeSantis said forms often lack Social Security numbers or information about wages earned when the applicants were employed or they improperly list reasons for people being out of work. ‘We were in Tampa the other day, and one of the reporters said, ‘You know, I have someone here who has been unable to (get approved), filed them in mid-March,’ DeSantis said Monday while in Orlando. ‘So, it's like, give us a name. We took the name, and it turns out the employer’s contesting it, saying that the individual quit.’ DeSantis, who intends to provide more information Tuesday on the state’s much-derided handling of jobless claims and the ‘common pitfalls’ by applicants, made similar comments Friday while in Jacksonville, where he said, ‘nine times out of 10 the application’s incomplete.’” [News4Jax, 5/18/20]
Under Scott, Deloitte Had Been Publicly For System Issues, But Was Continually Awarded Contracts. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “When CONNECT launched in 2013, at an eventual cost to taxpayers of $77.9 million, the failings of the system were immediately obvious, with the system breaking down under the workload and claimants failing to receive benefits. Although Deloitte was publicly blamed by Scott’s administration, it continued to bid on and win state contracts. State auditors pointed out a multitude of failings that remained unfixed under five more years of Scott and more than a year under DeSantis.” [Tampa Bay Times, 5/4/20]
Deloitte Was Not Penalized For Its Past Work Handling The State’s Unemployment System, While Having $8 Million In Fines. According to the Miami Herald, “The company awarded a potential $135 million state contract doesn’t appear to have been penalized for its past work building Florida’s dysfunctional unemployment system. Neither a negative recommendation by the state’s unemployment agency nor $8 million in penalties appears to have counted against Deloitte Consulting before it was selected for the new contract, according to a Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald review of the Agency for Health Care Administration’s bid process and the company’s applications. A critical factor that boosted Deloitte’s odds in scoring the new contract was that the bidding process the agency created for the job of overhauling the state’s Medicaid data intentionally downplayed each company’s past performance. Any fines levied against the companies by a government agency since 2014 counted for just 10 out of a possible 1,000 points. Despite being penalized $8 million during the duration of its work on Florida’s unemployment system — which was partially covered in the five-year time frame — Deloitte scored a perfect 10 out of 10. (Deloitte representatives assert the firm has not had any involvement in Florida’s unemployment system since 2015.) The company’s top competitor, Accenture, scored just 1 out of 10.” [Miami Herald, 8/14/20]
Despite Being Penalized $8 Million For Handling Of CONNECT, Deloitte Scored A 10-Out-Of-10 By The State, While Other Top Competitors Such As Accenture, Scored 1 Out Of 10. According to the Miami Herald, “Any fines levied against the companies by a government agency since 2014 counted for just 10 out of a possible 1,000 points. Despite being penalized $8 million during the duration of its work on Florida’s unemployment system — which was partially covered in the five-year time frame — Deloitte scored a perfect 10 out of 10. (Deloitte representatives assert the firm has not had any involvement in Florida’s unemployment system since 2015.) The company’s top competitor, Accenture, scored just 1 out of 10.” [Miami Herald, 8/14/20]
DeSantis Attacked Deloitte For Being Awarded A Potential Six-Figure Contract, Said “It’d Be My Preference That (Deloitte) Not Get Anything”. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday slammed a potential new nine-figure contract between the state and the firm that built Florida’s dysfunctional unemployment system. Deloitte Consulting was announced earlier this week as the state’s preferred vendor for a potential $135 million contract to beef up Florida’s Medicaid data infrastructure. This happened despite an ongoing state investigation into how Florida paid the firm more than $40 million starting in 2011 to build what turned out to be a frequently non-functional CONNECT unemployment site. ‘It’d be my preference that (Deloitte) not get anything,’ DeSantis said at a discussion about Florida’s transportation industry in Orlando. ‘At the same time, there’s a process, unfortunately, that has to play out.’” [Tampa Bay Times, 8/7/20]
DeSantis Said Deloitte Undercut Other Bidders For The Medicaid Contract, Including IBM And Accenture. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “DeSantis said Deloitte undercut the other bidders for the Medicaid contract, which included multinational corporations such as IBM and Accenture. He suggested that Deloitte underbid the other companies to such a degree that the company forced agency officials to give Deloitte the highest score. ‘I think what happened is, they dropped the price by so much that under the current law, or however they make those decisions, their hands were tied,’ DeSantis said.” [Tampa Bay Times, 8/7/20]
Deloitte Was Awarded The AHCA $110 Million Contract. According to the Orlando Sentinel, “The company placed under investigation by Gov. Ron DeSantis for its handling of Florida's flawed unemployment website is poised to land another lucrative multiyear state contract for at least $110 million to update the Medicaid program. Deloitte Consulting LLP beat out four competitors in a bid posted by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, despite its work designing Florida's CONNECT unemployment website facing scrutiny from state investigators. […] The Agency for Health Care Administration posted notice this week it intends to award the contract to Deloitte, which has a politically connected team of high-powered lobbyists in Tallahassee.” [Orlando Sentinel, 8/6/20]
Orlando Sentinel Reported That Deloitte Used A Team Of “High-Powered” Lobbyists In Tallahassee. According to the Orlando Sentinel, “The Agency for Health Care Administration posted notice this week it intends to award the contract to Deloitte, which has a politically connected team of high-powered lobbyists in Tallahassee.” [Orlando Sentinel, 8/6/20]