The state Employment Security Commission said today it is waiving all overpayments to long-time unemployed workers and halting the deduction of benefit checks that began this week.
The agency also said it would not cash any checks sent by workers attempting to pay back the bills they received in the mail over the last week.
Gov. Bev Perdue instructed the ESC to take the actions after consulting with her legal team and fedeal officials.
The ESC is continuing to negotiation with the U.S. Department of Labor about how to resolve the estimated $28 million in overpayments.
The ESC still needs to review each claim individually and is asking those who received claims to call or email the agency. To contact the ESC call 1-888-7370259 or send an e-mail to esc.ui.customerservice@ncesc.gov.
Business reporter David Bracken came to the N&O in 2004. He covers commercial and residential real estate. Contact David at 919-829-4548 or
Comments
Vote them OUT
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 19:40 — Fedup09Is there no end to the incompetence of this state's government and it's administration. There is no consideration for those who bust their butts everyday to survive in this nightmare economy. I assume if any of them has a job in April their taxes will be forgiven....Oh yeah....I forgot....our incompetent state government will have over spent again and won't be able to send out refunds. We need accountability in Raleigh and Washington. Vote them out!!!!!
Politicians didn't make this mistake, civil servants did
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:38 — jalindUnemployment law and federal and state legislation is inordinately complex and further complicated by the amendments made to bills, espcially the latest round of them in US Congress. I've read some of the text and without a huge wall-sized white board, I wouldn't be able to figure out exactly what is supposed and not supposed to happen. It's no wonder a small mistake was made and not discovered that resulted in about 26,000 being overpaid a small amount and a lesser number underpaid a small amount for 3/4ths of a year. The collectively accumulated money seems large, but small in comparison to the amounts paid out for each individual. In my case it is about a 2% error multiplied by about 9 months and I suspect that is normal for under/over paid. For most people in the error group, there is no net under/over payment. The system is stressed in many ways already and the personnel there have done a stellar job with being severly overworked, subjected to new and very complex rules and underpaid. Calling for wholesale firings will not be productive.
But they make the rules!
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 22:55 — TwoWired4USure politicians might not have made the mistakes, but they make the rules of who to hire and how the job is done (in this case, not done). I was a civil servant for almost 29.7 yrs for the fed. govt. I know what it's like to work while your fellow colleague just sits back drinking coffee. Why? because the politicians said to hire the veteran, hire the handicap (yes I am disabled too - so I can say this), hire the minority, etc. So we are the ones so to speak that "hire" the politician. By voting them out is our way of firing. Personally I say start at the top with Bev and work your way down!
payments
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 18:31 — GvngmanThey don't want to investigate this because they might be asked how many illegals are receiving money....ESC has already been told not to do background checks on those who apply for this reason....
Unemployment is insurance paid by employers
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:42 — jalindIf illegals are receiving uenemployment benefits, they are receiving it from funds their employers paid into the unemployment insurance system on their behalf. A person can't collect unemployment unless the employer does that and a lot of other qualifying conditions are met. Your statement may be a good sounding sound bite for partisan politics, but it ignores the reality of how unemployment works.
payments
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 18:28 — Gvngmanyeah the taxpayers don't need their money back nor the money that our schools need for that matter.Has anyone been fired for this?..I can bet hell no....no one is accountable for anything anymore.Maybe gov bev will get a few votes out of this.I wonder if our Guvnor is still in the huge debt she was after her campaign?...Whatcha want to bet she isn't....
Taxpayers??? Not you!!!
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 21:02 — jalindIndividual taxpayers don't fund unemployment, employers do and contribute into the fund for each employee they have. Only employees where their employers do this are qualified to receive unemployment and then there are other conditions to be met such as the reason for losing their job and how long they had the job and how much money was contributed (based on salary). The mistake was a small one that lasted for 9 months and made with an inordinately complex process of calculating benefits in some special curcumstances that doesn't affect the vast majority of unemployed receiving benefits. It is about 2% error for some people. The accumulated sum looks large because the error lasted for about 9 months. People are accountable, but if you have read unemployment law, rules and recent federal legislation, you would find a lot of it near incomprehensibly complicated with strike outs, multiple layers of revisions and amendments. It's no wonder a very stressed out staff of very over worked civil servants with new legislation and rules that create far more complexity in the current economic situation eventually made a mistake like this. It's over, done and not being continued since last week when it was discovered. The staff has done an incredible job of keeping up with ever changing rules and legislation with incredibly timely implementation in the existing systems and this mistake
Notsurewhere_NC said it right!
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 18:16 — TwoWired4UNotsurewhere_NC is correct in what they stated - sweeping these overpayments under the state incompetence and political rug is not the answer. It's just like the LEO's with their Standards and Training up in Raleigh, they too do a lot of sweeping and then those unethical employees deny anything that was said or done ... creating unemployment for some LEOs that need their certifications to GET A JOB yet they can't because of their incompetence that apparently has now spilt over to ESC, which tell the same person "oh well, so sad you don't qualify even though you were attending BLET to get your certification back" - a certification that should have never been taken in the first place IF those govt employees were doing their job!! Yep, incompetency is rampant up in the RDU area.
Ok more double speak here
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:26 — Notsurewhere_NCHeadline says ESC waives overpayment claims, and halts reducing the benefits. Does this mean that those overpaid, no longer have to return the overpaid funds, and also that in the meantime, they will continue to recieve payments that are still incorrect?
In the article, it says the ESC is to review each claim individually, and each individual is to call or email the agency.
Sweeping these overpayments of citizen/taxpayer/voter monies under the state incompetence and political rug is not good enough.
Governor, 28 million is 28 million. When your doing your little hand wringing act trying to find ways to cut next years budget by 3 billion, let me help you find 28 million of that lying at your feet. Put that agency to work, get there problems fixed asap, and recover the monies overpaid.
Remember this whitewash attempt on November 2nd.
Not double speak
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 20:52 — jalind28 million is about 2% of the benefit received by only those who were overpaid. It's very small compared to the amount of benefit that was affected. It occurred over 9 months of time or longer. What if your employer came to you and said you had been overpaid for a year and now you weren't going to get any income for 2-1/2 months??? It would be traumatic beyond belief. Furthermore, the amount people receive going forward is corrected already. The mistake is not going to be continued and is already fixed as of last week's benefit period. Unemployment is very small and it's a wonder that anyone survives on it. It is an expensive mistake because it accumulated for so long, but it's also a very small percentage of the money it was part of. The choices are not good but one is definitely better than the other. Recover the money at half the benefit each week and catastrophically put people into foreclosure, reposession of vehicles and on the street with nothing or forgive it and let it stay in the local economy as approximately 2% overpayment for some people for 9 months. People receiving unemployment aren't stuffing their mattresses with the money, they are spending every penny of it on survival essentials.