Unemployment Appeals Board reports faster case processing after CAMS rollout, but gaps remain

The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board reported sharper case-processing metrics for April, saying the board and field offices reduced overall inventory and average case age as the agency continues to adopt the CAMS case-management system.

Board Chair Michael Allen and field leaders told the board at its May 21 meeting that field operations closed more than 26,000 cases in April and that overall case age fell to about 43 days, down four days from the prior month. Judges and managers said the board’s “first in, first out” calendaring and a continued decline in daily appeal intake helped reduce the backlog.

The improvement matters because the U.S. Department of Labor’s timeliness benchmarks drive federal oversight and performance comparisons. Presiding Judge Rebecca Bach told the board April is the start of the DOL year and that second‑level measures were exceeded for April: 74.8% of second‑level cases closed within 45 days (DOL guidance: 50%) and 93.1% closed within 75 days (DOL guidance: 80%). She said the board’s average case age at second level was 32.6 days for April, below a cited national average in the transcript of about 153 days.

Chief (field) reports described work to move cases to offices that could schedule hearings more quickly; staff said they shifted roughly 2,500 cases in April to better match hearing capacity. Judge Koutre (field operations) said those moves, together with continued dispositions, reduced the inventory by about 2,600 cases for the month.

CAMS — the agency’s case-management platform referenced repeatedly in board reports — is the focus of a field-level best-practices review. Board members and staff said an original CAMS training team that visited each field office during rollout has begun a follow-up series of 11 site reviews to evaluate consistency of CAMS use and recommend additional training. Vice Chair Laura Kent Monning and other members praised the trainers’ granular approach, citing examples such as how staff categorize incoming paper and which CAMS tasks are used for routing.

Board members emphasized that meeting federal timeliness percentages requires alignment across multiple partners. Judge Koutre noted the DOL standard that states close 60% of appeals within 30 days and 80% within 45 days; she said reaching those figures depends on how quickly appeals are transferred from the Employment Development Department and on prompt scheduling and decision drafting once the appeals are received.

Officials also said some timeliness measures that were once tracked less frequently are now improving as average case age drops. Judge Koutre remarked that 30‑day and 45‑day closure percentages had been in single digits after 2020 but showed notable month‑over‑month gains in April.

The board approved the minutes for its April 16 meeting by voice vote at the start of the session; Chair Allen and members also used the meeting to thank staff and judges for their contributions during what they described as a sustained high workload period.

Looking ahead, board members and staff said they expect incremental improvement in timeliness as CAMS best-practices recommendations are implemented and field scheduling is adjusted, but several members cautioned that the board controls only part of the end‑to‑end process and that further progress depends on upstream partners and continued staffing stability.