House of Representatives State of Tennessee

Transcription

1 ROGER KANE STATE REPRESENTATIVE 89 th LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT CHAIRMAN EDUCATION SUB-COMMITTEE INSTRUCTION & PLANNING MEMBER OF COMMITTEES: EDUCATION COMMITTEE EDUCATION SUB-COMMITTEE INSTRUCTION & PLANNING INSURANCE & BANKING House of Representatives State of Tennessee NASHVILLE LEGISLATIVE ADDRESS: 202A WAR MEMORIAL BLDG. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE DISTRICT ADDRESS: 7031 CHERRY GROVE ROAD KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE PHONE: (615) TOLL FREE: (800) Ext Commissioner Burns Phillips Department of Labor & Workforce Development Floor 4A 220 French Landing Drive Nashville, Tn Dear Commissioner Burns: Yesterday, in LP29, we had a joint meeting of House, Senate and Legislative staff members concerning recent issues with unemployment benefits. Just for your understanding, it was standing room only. No other issue that have I encountered in my tenure here at the legislature has generated more angst then the failure to provide benefits to some of our most needy constituents. A recommendation was made yesterday that the Comptroller complete an audit on your department to analyze the numbers you and your staff recently provided the legislature. A synopsis of our meeting of 1/30 resulted in several concrete recommendations to you and your staff and I would appreciate your immediate consideration and implementation. 1. LOW TECH PROGRAM- We have to implement a low tech solution for many of our neediest constituents and dedicated staff will be needed. Having rules of requiring one or one phone number for many of these folks is not feasible. Married couples or families sharing the same residence who are unemployed might be down to one phone but under our current system, only one can file. Many neither have cell phones with internet access nor personal computers to complete tasks needed. Having adequate staffing at our phone banks is crucial. 2. CAREER CENTERS- We have to use our career centers to help these constituents with both filing, processing, and re-certifying their benefits. 3. CHAT OPTIONS- The chat option on your website needs to be de-activated or properly manned. We heard numerous complaints and have documentation to provide of people beginning a chat and waiting between two (2) and six (6) hours for any response at the other end. This is not acceptable.

2 Page Two (2) 4. ONE (1) CALL RULE- The one (1) call rule needs to end immediately. Many of these people live in rural communities with spotty cell phone and internet services. Your staff member might make a call when this person is either in an interview, out of service range, or even in the shower, and no follow up is done causing frustration and unnecessary calls to our offices. 5. DEBIT CARDS- We need to find a Tennessee state vendor to provide debit cards as we ve had several situations where the current Texas vendor has mailed out the card which is then become lost or unavailable. The vendor shows no concern which exacerbates the lack of income these people need to provide for their basic needs. It also appears the vendor charges a fee each time the balance is checked and since we have failed to give constituents a proper expectation of when their funds will be available, they are accruing charges to their account that are unnecessary. 6. ADJUDICATE- The word adjudicated needs to be removed from all correspondence. In determining benefits, it is vague and provides no guidance for concerned constituents trying to determine their benefit status. In addition, the legislature should not be advised a claim has been resolved just because a ticket was dismissed. For example, some tickets have been dismissed with open cases because the constituent could not be reached on the first phone call. Clarification needs to be made of actual claim status when an inquiry is submitted. 7. SEASONAL UNEMPLOYMENT- A work around needs to be implemented whereby people who are seasonally unemployed with expectations of going back to their current employer do not get hung up in the system documenting their efforts to find new employment. We had two (2) major corporations send us letters of frustration as they use seasonal unemployment as a tool within their businesses and pay for that service. 8. ORGANIZATIONAL HUB- A liaison, in my definition, is a designated staff member(s) whose whole job is to work back channels of government to complete tasks efficiently. I m beginning to question your organizational structure. I was truly surprised at the upward of forty to fifty (40-50) hands that went up in our meeting that conveyed they use only one staff member exclusively to solve their unemployment problems, Jann Dower. She has been a valuable resource to the legislature for many years and in our meeting yesterday, her name came up repeatedly from various staff members and legislators that she was the one that assisted them. Therefore, I would ask that you implement a hub of competent staff members with Jann s passion and supervision to address legislative issues until our computer system and staff issues catch up with each other. I ve noticed your Chief of Staff, Melinda, has been doing numerous responses recently in various offices to these unemployment situations while you have explained to us that your legislative liaison, Leanne Durm is not to be bothered with legislative issues. We must have a difference in definitions in what is a liaison. 9. COMMUNICATION-Communication seems to be our weakest asset. Constituents continually are unsure if they have additional duties required or when their benefits might be released. I would ask that you consider a computer generated or staff generated response on all pending unemployment accounts over twenty one days with no approval or denial. My conversation of last week with Jim Henry clarified that we are not making our federally mandated guidelines of compliance with eighty (80%) percent within twenty one (21) days of application.

3 Page Three (3) Another recommendation might be the use of private phone lines whereby a constituent can return a call directly to his claims agent. Currently, caller ID does not identify the caller as Department of Labor, so the constituent is not aware we have returned their call. 10. STATISTICS-Just recently, I understand testimony was given that your average response time was fifty-three (53) seconds for all phone calls. Surprisingly enough, we called on both Friday and Monday, average wait time was over nine (9) minutes, which while acceptable, is not what your testimony reflected. When talking to your staff, we were told the delay in answering the phones were the result of the Sevier County Fires of November 22, An explanation from you might be valuable to understand how a two (2) month old fire is causing a ten (10) fold decrease in response time on phone calls. This and other differences in the statistics you reported cause us to have great concerns. Please see below the signatures of fellow members of this legislative body who want to see the unemployment process to our constituents improved immediately. We are expecting you to return to Consumer & Gov Ops with an update within the next thirty (30) days with a status of the items addressed above. Sincerely, Rep. Roger Kane Rep. Ron Lollar Rep. Mark Gravitt Rep. Cameron Sexton Rep. Ron Gant Rep. Dale Carr Rep. Dennis Powers Rep. Darren Jernigan Rep. Bill Sanderson Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver Rep. Jerry Sexton Rep. David Alexander

4 Page Four (4) Rep. John K. Crawford Rep. John Mark Windle Rep. David Byrd Rep. Dan Howell Rep. Kelly Keisling Rep. David Hawk Rep. Jimmy Eldridge Rep. Kent Calfee Rep. Timothy Hill Rep. Rick Staples Rep. Shelia Butt Senator Jim Tracy Senator Jon Lundberg Rep. Micah Van Huss Rep. Bill Beck Rep. Jay Reedy Rep. Rick Tillis Rep. John B. Holsclaw Rep. Antonio Parkinson Rep. John D. Ragan Rep. Jimmy Matlock

5 Page Five (5) Rep. Bud Hulsey Senator Frank Niceley Rep. Dwayne Thompson Rep. Joanne Favors Rep. Andy Farmer Rep. Mark Lovell Rep. Brenda Gilmore Rep. Courtney Rogers Rep. John Forgerty Senator Becky Massey Rep. Susan Lynn Rep. Tim Rudd Rep. Joe Pitts Rep. Tim Wirgau Senator Mae Beavers Senator Lee Harris Senator Joey Hensley Rep. Martin Daniel Rep. Matthew Hill Senator Richard Briggs Senator Janice Bowling Rep. R.L. (Bob) Ramsey Rep. G.A. Hardaway Cc: Governor Bill Haslam Deputy Governor Jim Henry Lt. Governor Randy McNally Speaker of the House Beth Harwell Members of the House and Senate