California’s State Auditor on Tuesday harshly criticized the Employment Development Department for its poor handling of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Although it would be unreasonable to have expected a flawless response to such an historic event, EDD’s inefficient processes and lack of advanced planning led to significant delays in its payment of [unemployment] claims,” Auditor Eliane Howle wrote in the summary of a new report.
The report sheds light on a variety of complaints that many Morongo Basin residents have shared since the beginning of the pandemic: call backlogs, payment glitches, benefit fraud, and unexpected fees. “At the beginning of the claim surge, EDD’s call center answered less than 1% of the calls it received,” the report said. In addition to phone problems, criminals subverted the EDD system, overloaded it, and stole an undetermined amount of benefit dollars.
