HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.R. NO.	146
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2021
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE RESOLUTION

 

 

urging the governor TO use federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds or other suitable federal COVID-19 RELIEF funds to EMPLOY eighty-nine-day hires for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to expedite the processing of unemployment claims.

 

 

 

        WHEREAS, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in February 2020, and the State's unemployment rate skyrocketed to a high of twenty-four percent in April, the State has been unable to keep up with the sheer volume of unemployment claims filed with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations; and

 

        WHEREAS, the State opened a call center to assist with claims processing and field questions at the Hawaii Convention Center in April, and in October, the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations hired a private company to help with the one hundred fifty thousand calls being received there per day, equating to roughly three hundred calls per minute; and

 

        WHEREAS, according to a February 23, 2021, article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, currently, the call center is staffed by about one hundred call agents and seventy-five adjudicators, in addition to some unquantified staff from the private company; and

 

        WHEREAS, the Star-Advertiser article reported that State officials processed thirty thousand requests for eleven-week extensions on unemployment benefits in one week; however, the backlog remains a challenge; and

 

        WHEREAS, a year into the pandemic, the call center at the Convention Center remains swamped with people calling throughout the day and unable to get through; now, therefore,

 

        BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2021, that the Governor is urged to use federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds or other suitable federal COVID-19 relief funds to employ eighty-nine-day hires for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to expedite the processing of unemployment claims; and

 

        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to Governor and Director of Labor and Industrial Relations.

 

 

 

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:  

COVID-19; Federal Funds; Unemployment Claims; Department of Labor and Industrial Relations; Eighty-Nine-Day Hires