LANSING – The state implemented a new system for handling unemployment
taxes and claims, implemented in 2012 (MiDAS Tax) and 2013 (MiDAS Benefits),
respectively, at a cost to date of $46.24 million. A worker with the Unemployment
Insurance Agency, who also asked to remain anonymous, said that system has some
good features, but also has caused some problems.
“We have a system that takes
the unemployment claims. That in itself seems to work okay,” the person
said.
But there are some concerns once the
case is in the system.
“It makes decisions whether or
not people are going to be eligible for unemployment based on how they were let
go or whether they are available for work,” the employee said. “There
are times the decisions are made incorrectly. What that caused is a backlog for
administrative law judges.”
The notification systems for
benefits and payments work well, but only for those who check the system, the
worker said. Notices, including for over-payment of benefits, are not sent in
the mail, the worker said.
“So someone might not even know
that they owe restitution until they file their taxes,” the person said.
“It’s become messy.”
But DTMB spokesperson Caleb Buhs
said the system was working as it was designed. “The MiDAS system’s
functionality provides UIA with more information regarding potential fraud
and/or misrepresentation which was built into the design of the system,”
he said.
The system also makes correcting
mistakes more difficult because a manager has to approve the change, the UI
worker said.
“If that manager doesn’t get to
that change and fix it by the end of the day, the computer will send that
incorrect decision out,” the person said.
In addition to allowing both
employers and claimants to track cases, the system also allows the department
to track productivity of its workers, the person said, which has led to new
performance goals.
That same tracking and goals do not
apply to managers, the person said.
A key positive, the person said, is
employers no longer have to wait for a state worker to respond to requests.
“They can check out their own
data and information,” the person said. “They don’t have to call the
agency and wait for them to get back with that information.”
The Bridges system for assistance
cases has been around longer, but is still presenting some substantial concerns
as well, workers with that system said.
“It requires too much
information for us to put in,” one person said. “A lot of it is
duplicate.”
The system also does not navigate
efficiently, the person said.
“It doesn’t stop at the
required fields, but it does stop at fields that we don’t need to put
information in,” the person said. “So we’re getting a lot of cases
certified even though the information has not been updated.”
The added fields and navigation
errors have added substantial time, the person said. “Before, it would
take us a half-hour to process in emergency applications,” the person
said. “Now it can take us six hours.”
The system also does not always
identify files correctly, the worker said.
“It tells us that we have to
update screens and we look at what we have to update and there’s nothing to
update,” the person said, adding the system will not move ahead without
something changing. “If we enter false information into the system, we can
lose our jobs. … We have to enter comments in the case that we updated it but
there was nothing to update.”
The system also does not allow
workers to easily share cases.
“We have to know who’s in the
home,” the person said. “If five people in the office have cases that
are at the same address, we have no way of knowing.”
And the system has declined since
moving to electronic document management, the person said.
“Generally we pick up a case
once a year for redetermination,” the person said. “Now we can’t
combine the redetermination because they can’t combine the cases.”
With the added time from the new
system, the person said it was impossible to catch up with the document filing
left over from the old paper system.
Buhs said the department was not
aware of any of the issues the worker raised.
“We are unaware of any system
issues that are preventing employees from accessing fields or sharing
cases,” he said. “Reports of these types of issues have been
addressed by training workers or handling a single, case-specific issue by
providing technical assistance.”
Employees at the Department of
Transportation have raised a variety of concerns about the computer systems,
including conflicts between a surveying program they had used and the standard
software installed on state computers that prevents the program from working.
Employees who talked to Gongwer said they had raised the concern with managers
and been told the survey program was unnecessary.
While the workers agreed they could
work without the survey program, the work takes longer.
MDOT employees also took issue with
some of the security settings in their machines. A primary concern has been
disabling the DVD drives, which they said has led to delaying or canceling some
training sessions because the material is on DVD.
They also raised concerns that all
the workers in the survey division had been provided tablets but not all needed
them.
This story was published by Gongwer
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