Some unemployed Floridians had their benefits frozen after the Department of Economic Opportunity told them they owe the department money.
The reason was an error that caused some claimants being overpaid. As a result, some claimants, like Gia Cuccaro, were slapped with a bill for thousands of dollars.
“It’s tragic because the low amount that we get, now we’re not getting any of it until this is fixed,” Cuccaro said.
Unemployment expert Vanessa Brito said she received more than a thousand submissions from people in Cuccaro’s shoes.
Brito said the error is usually a result of DEO employees updating claims manually.
“When they review the claims, they are updating programs without realizing it and they’re pushing people into a monetary ineligible status,” Brito said. “It basically switches either PEUC payments or PUA payments to a previous program they already exhausted. So any extra weeks become monetarily ineligible.”
That means, in error, claimants are being told to repay DEO the benefits they already received. If they do not repay, they cannot claim future benefits.
DEO acknowledged the error is a known issue:
“The Department is aware of some overpayments notifications resulting from a change in monetary eligibility related to Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims,” said Paige Landrum, DEO Press Secretary. “These populations were identified and technical fixes were implemented last week, however there are some outliers where the implemented resolution has not yet taken effect. The Department is aware of those outstanding claims and is diligently working to resolve them.”
Brito said if you the department says you owe thousands of dollars, do not submit a payment and wait for the error to be fixed. She has been collecting claimants’ information who are experiencing this error, and submitting it to DEO.
Brito said people who have these issues should follow her social media pages for when she periodically opens forms to submit information.
On Your Sides’ Josslyn Howard and Brito will be holding a Facebook Live Q&A session at 6 pm, Wednesday December 9 in First Coast News’ Navigating Florida’s Unemployment Maze Facebook group.
The session will be posted to the page afterward.