State officials face a large and evolving task as they work to improve service and modernize technology at the California Employment Development Department (EDD).
The department has come under fire this year for its response to residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time in which it has nevertheless made an unprecedented response to record numbers of claims. EDD has processed more than 8 million unemployment insurance (UI) claims and distributed more than $49 billion since March, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said last week, in announcing the creation of a strike team to “create a blueprint for improvements at EDD, including a reimagining of their technology systems.”
EDD will streamline its call center experience with updated, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) automation, and will work with the Legislature and “advocates” to enhance its UI Online customer service experience, the Governor’s office said — and it will process the oldest claims first, to address nearly 1 million potentially eligible claims and eliminate a backlog by Sept. 30. But the agency faces many more challenges including, from a recent federal coronavirus relief proposal, the potential need to change how it calculates UI from a flat payment to one that’s scalable to a certain percentage of residents’ wages. Here’s how EDD might accomplish this goal and others, and what its strike team roadmap might look like:
• How might EDD update legacy systems to calculate UI based on a percentage of a resident’s wages? Carlos Ramos, who was state CIO from 2011 to 2016, said that whether it’s client server or mainframe tech, “it’s going to come down to ... what sort of business rules they have in place or how the system is programmed to calculate benefits.”
“Essentially, what it would take for them is to reprogram their benefit calculation module or coding or business rules in that system, to go from going from a fixed amount, whatever that fixed amount is, or … a fixed duration and moving to something that’s more flexible,” Ramos, now principal consultant with Maestro Consulting, told Techwire. But the former CIO, who led state IT in a time when EDD was updating its disability and unemployment claims systems, cautioned that the agency will likely also have to plan to calculate in changes in eligibility.
The situation is further complicated, said Mike Hewitt, president of CalDorado Group, because “there’s no mathematical model that you could put in place, that you could then automate through technology to make it work.”
“EDD’s problem is they were way behind the curve from a technology modernization standpoint,” Hewitt told Techwire. Sources tell Techwire that there is a team within the state currently looking to modernize the UI system, in anticipation of more federal funding.
• The EDD strike team is Newsom’s second, after the California Department of Motor Vehicles strike team he convened last year — and former state officials told Techwire it’s entirely possible the DMV modernization informed by its strike team could in turn offer guidance to an EDD transformation. EDD is already working with the California Department of Technology on a Benefit Systems Modernization aimed at “implementing a single, integrated benefit system that provides customers and staff a consistent, user-friendly, single portal” and would replace “multiple, independent systems,” according to CDT. But the age of existing systems and a lack of institutional knowledge may make their modernization more difficult, said Paul Benedetto, former undersecretary of operations at the California Technology Agency (CTA) — CDT precursor — from September 2011 through October 2013.
“That’s the same problem that DMV had a while ago … so I think what you’re going to see is, EDD might become DMV 2.0 — and I think DMV’s done a great job,” said Benedetto, now principal at PMB Consulting Services LLC.
“I think it could be very instructive,” Ramos said, referring to DMV, and warning that this is far from the only economic downturn — or unemployment driver such as a natural disaster — that state entities will face. “Other public benefit programs would be wise to look at what’s going on here and to say, ‘OK, if something changes in the way that we operate, are we prepared to handle it?” he added.
• EDD’s systems are older and independent, but unlike those in place at DMV, they’re also a true lifeline for residents — making a rip and replace problematic. That’s why when a modernization gets underway, it may be done “a little bit here, a little bit here,” Benedetto said, “because you know you can’t rebuild EDD’s technology from the ground up.”
Hewitt agreed “there’s lots of things that they could do in the near-term,” pointing out: “Doing something is better than doing nothing. Even if it only works for 90 days, at least the million people that have submitted claims and have not heard back from EDD, and can’t get through to EDD … at least they would see something being done.” Automation, he said, could yield quick results and save employee hours. EDD is hiring 5,300 new, temporary employees; a chatbot it created to answer frequently asked questions (FAQ) has received 3.6 million queries since launching in April.
Joe Panora, agency CIO with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) from January 2008 through December 2014, said “the underpin, which the house will be built upon” will be understanding the data, its formats, ownership, location and cleanliness, as well as the various internal interfaces/exchanges — and recommended “doing the piece as a separate standalone effort that can be leveraged for all other efforts going forward.”
The CEO of Panora Associates Inc., also recommended officials address change management, organization change and culture management, “as COVID-19 has caused government to step back and seriously re-engineer how they will conduct business and how they interact with the public, both from a program service delivery and an IT support perspective.”
• The EDD strike team, which was announced July 29, has 45 days to create its report with support from CDT and the Office of Digital Innovation. It’s charged with delivering “a roadmap that outlines short-, mid- and long-term recommendations and solutions to transform the customer experience of applying for and receiving UI benefits.” What might that look like? Likely, it will be customer-centric, Benedetto said, and may employ “technology that might not be familiar with the department. But if it’s better for the citizen, then the department has to figure out a way to learn about that technology.” (In a statement last week, Julie A. Su, secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, said UI “should be a human-centered system.)
Hewitt said the bullet points from the Legislature’s letter Wednesday to Newsom — which included a cloud-based strategy to augment outdated tech and boost transaction volume; the ability for applicants to edit claims online; and clear explanations of pending updates — may turn up on that roadmap. And Ramos said it will likely examine how to process claims already underway; “get information out and communicate more effectively to constituents”; and modernize the supporting technology.
