CBS Sacramento - California Computer Glitch

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A spokeswoman says EDD is trying to clear as many unemployment claims as possible the day after an employee said the problem is much worse than the department is letting on. EDD says it’s employees have been working late and sometimes overnight to repair problems with a new system affecting thousands of unemployed Californians. But there are differing opinions on what went wrong. “We apologize wholeheartedly for what some of our customers are going through,” said Loree Levy with the Employment Development Department. 

The department says its doing everything possible to pay thousands of Californians their unemployment benefits after a computer glitch in its newly installed system. “We have to get through this transition as quickly as possible so that people don’t encounter this issue again,” Levy said. CBS13 first brought you the story last week of Victoria Ford saying because her benefits were delayed, she was being evicted from her apartment for not being able to pay her rent. We also talked to an EDD employee, who did not want to show their face, but told us the problem was the new system couldn’t read any claim that was handwritten. They said the problem would affect hundreds of thousands of struggling people in the state. 

“If we are behind, which I know we are—back to when the system started on Aug. 30. There’s more than 28,000 that file every week, much more,” the employee said. “When it came in, there was some site interruption with some old stop-pay flags that were getting in there and interfering with some new claim processing,” Levy said. But the department says the problem is because the new system misread old data. They also said there is no indication the problem would be so widespread. Meanwhile, people like Ford are still waiting on their money. But in the meantime, she’s trying to sell her car to stay afloat. “I don’t know what else to do, I don’t have any other options of raising money,” she said. “I feel they had a responsibility, the people that implemented the system had a responsibility to know that it worked to begin with.” EDD says its corrected 84 percent of the claims that the new system didn’t accept and that people could start receiving their money as early as tomorrow.