Unemployment trips up DeSantis' coronavirus victory lap

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis is eagerly moving to reopen Florida’s post-coronavirus economy, but as he projects optimism, the state’s unemployment system has emerged as a second front in his battle with the pandemic, a battle that could define the governor’s first-term legacy.

Emboldened by decreasing rates of infection, increased testing and grave hospitalization and death forecasts that never materialized, DeSantis this week is taking a victory lap after serving as a national punchline for a response that health experts and political pundits deemed slow and inadequate.

His administration, however, is becoming increasingly aware that the state’s embattled unemployment system could become a tar pit capable of dragging down the state economy, the governor’s political aspirations and President Donald Trump’s chances in a state key to his 2020 reelection bid.

On Monday, DeSantis focused his daily briefing on the unemployment system, a signal he understands the political damage that could be inflicted by the system’s continued headline-grabbing failures.

“It’s been the No. 1 thing we have worked on other than health,” DeSantis said during the briefing. “I knew that there was going to be a situation where people were not going to be able to get a job.”

For weeks, as the pandemic drained jobs from Florida’s economy, the DeSantis administration would not release data about the number of applicants for jobless benefits, or talk about the state’s unemployment system, which was built by former Gov. Rick Scott, a fellow Republican whose work is now subject to a DeSantis-ordered investigation.

The first numbers were released in late April and shocked the state. Less than 6 percent of nearly 800,000 claims filed had been processed. Overall, more than 1 million unique jobless applications have been filed since March 15. About 43 percent of applicants have received payments as of Wednesday night.

More than 173,000 Floridians filed new applications for jobless benefits last week, according to U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday. As many as 1.75 million people in the state have been thrown out of work since mid-March.

DeSantis has shifted state workers to help the Department of Economic Opportunity, his administration’s top jobs agency, to process claims. He suspended job search and biweekly recertification requirements for people seeking benefits and sidelined DEO chief Ken Lawson, a Scott-administration holdover he thought was not getting the job done.

In April the DeSantis administration inked more than $100 million in emergency, no-bid contracts to fix the sagging system.

Democrats initially focused their attacks on the fact that DeSantis waited until late in the game to issue a coronavirus stay-at-home order, one that exempted large sectors of the economy and didn’t close beaches.

But the dire public health emergency that some said would come hasn’t. Now, with the coronavirus data on DeSantis’ side, Democrats have shifted their energy to the unemployment system and the tens of thousands of Floridians it has failed.

“The longer DeSantis and his Republican allies ignore the needs of Florida’s unemployed, the greater chance our state may fall into an economic depression,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo said last week.

His latest move is to deflect blame. On Monday, he called for an inspector general investigation of the system, which Deloitte Consulting was paid $77 million to build.

Still, the DeSantis administration is cognizant that ownership of the unemployment system’s continued failure could be thrust upon it.

On April 5, the state entered into a $79 million, no-bid contract with Fort Walton Beach-based TelaForce LLC to handle overflow calls into state processing centers. The contract was signed after calls to the state’s unemployment system increased to 27,000 calls a week, a jump that boosted average wait times — for those who could get through — to 400 minutes.

In the three weeks leading up to the TelaForce contract, nearly 22,000 calls into state processing centers were abandoned.

The contract was signed under the authority of an executive order DeSantis issued in early March that gave his administration broad authority to waive state law, including procurement rules.

TelaForce did not respond to emails. The company, a federal contractor, is not on Florida’s contract vendor list and had never before done work for the state.

Tiffany Vause, communications director for the Department of Economic Opportunity, did not respond to questions about how TelaForce got on the state’s radar or why the company was selected.

“During the state’s ongoing response to COVID-19 many state agencies, including DEO, have been proactively contacted by vendors providing call center services,” she wrote in an email. “Of the vendors offering these services, DEO contracted with the ones best suited to assist in serving Floridians.”

DeSantis also has directed blame at DEO’s Lawson, who leads the department after helming a handful of executive agencies during Scott’s eight years in office.

DeSantis removed Lawson from overseeing the unemployment system in mid-April, saying he wasn’t getting the job done. Lawson was replaced by Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter, a real estate executive, who DeSantis said was brought in to “rattle the cage”.

When asked Monday why he didn’t heed early warnings of the system’s problems, DeSantis name-checked Lawson.

“That’s a question for Ken Lawson,” DeSantis said. “It was never anything that reached my desk. I never had anyone ask me for additional funding.”