#Pua portal update#
#Pua portal download#

#Pua portal update#

GSI’s update to Pennsylvania’s system was supposed to be nearing completion when the coronavirus pandemic struck. The company responded that those issues were fixed. A report by WTAE in Pittsburgh last year uncovered how Tennessee and Louisiana both audited their benefits programs after GSI updated them, finding “improper benefit payments, noncompliance with federal regulations and weak security controls” as well as “undue hardship” for benefits recipients. “It seems like we’re not hiring the best people,” said Cox.īrenda Warburton, with the governor’s budget office, responded that early issues in Louisiana and Tennessee were fixed, and state officials there were satisfied. Pennsylvania next selected GSI, which according to the company’s application materials has “provided workforce development solutions to more than 30 state level workforce development and unemployment agencies,” to try again in 2017.Īt the time, Pennsylvania House Labor and Industry Committee Chairman Jim Cox (R-Berks) questioned the choice of vendor during a committee hearing, noting that Louisiana, another state that had worked with GSI, had received a system “replete with errors.” Prior to working with GSI, Pennsylvania had already tried to update its aging computer systems once, and wound up suing IBM for $170 million, alleging that the company went over time and over budget. “My main thing is I have this 14-year-old granddaughter that I can’t take care of because I literally have no money,” said Roundtree. Unemployment attorneys say they have seen dozens of clients with payment issues flowing from the overpayment error. In November, Roundtree started receiving only $1 dollar a week from the state while unemployed, then nothing at all. That group threatened to sue the state and the company in September, saying they ran the program in an “unconstitutional and illegal manner” by cutting off benefits without notice.įor Roundtree, the real-world effects of the systemic errors have been mind-numbingly frustrating. “It was kind of shocking as PUA rolled out how many problems were connected to GSI,” said Sharon Dietrich, litigation director with Community Legal Services. Legal aid workers allege such mistakes violated federal law and could disproportionately affect low-income, Black and Latino applicants. “We would have had to be in some shelter or something.”Īdvocates say these instances highlight significant problems stemming from Pennsylvania’s decision to award GSI a no-bid contract worth more than $4 million to create and administer Pandemic Unemployment Assistance last April.Ī Keystone Crossroads investigation found that the site GSI built for the state, which has been used to issue billions in emergency aid, has bungled payments and failed to provide timely information about delays and rejections to claimants. “I’m really glad there was a moratorium on the utilities because I don’t know how we would have survived if they hadn’t done that,” said Roundtree. What started as a mistake wound up reducing the assistance they got going forward, compounding the struggles of out-of-work Pennsylvanians trying to make ends meet. (GSI).Īs the overpayments came to light, Roundtree and the others began to see their weekly payments slashed dramatically to recoup the money. Tom Wolf’s administration attributed the error to the state’s benefits provider, Geographic Solutions, Inc.

She figured the state knew what it was doing and decided to spend the money.īut that payment turned out to be a mistake, one that affected tens of thousands of others across the state. Like many people who were struggling before the pandemic, she owed money for utilities and needed to make home repairs.

#Pua portal download#

Her granddaughter had helped her download an autodialing app.

I tried to call them 1,000 times a day,” she said. “I tried to call PUA, but it was impossible. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor