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Vermont officials say UI modernization is under way as claimants face long adjudication waits
Summary
Department of Labor leaders told lawmakers the UI trust fund is healthy but the antiquated claims system and staff shortages are causing long adjudication delays that leave some claimants without income while determinations are pending.
Commissioner Michael Harrington and department staff told the House Commerce & Economic Development Committee on Jan. 23 that the state's unemployment-insurance system is undergoing a modernization effort to replace an aging claims platform that has increased processing time for claimants.
Harrington said the department's unemployment trust fund balance was about $307,000,000 as of Jan. 11 and that there were roughly 4,604 people collecting benefits in the winter seasonal period; he contrasted that to the pandemic peak when far more people collected benefits.
Why this matters: claimants whose claims enter "adjudication" (additional fact-finding) can experience 60 to 90 days or more without benefits, depending on staffing and system constraints, committee members said. Department officials said federal rules require adjudication of identified issues before benefits can be paid.
Harrington described the pre-modernization system as built on old code and legacy architecture: "The system's never gonna operate the same way it did given the age of the system," he said. He said the department has begun a formal modernization project and aims for a go-live in 2026.
Dirk Anderson, director of the workers' compensation and safety division, and the commissioner explained the legal constraint: "Federal law requires us both to adjudicate if an issue is discovered, we have to adjudicate that issue prior to paying the benefit," Anderson said. The department and committee discussed the tradeoff between paying claimants quickly and the federal requirement to avoid improper payments that would later have to be clawed back.
Officials described operational impacts from pandemic-era changes: when the online claim form was opened during the pandemic, the department saw large volumes of fraudulent claims; returning to a required phone-in initial claim screening reduced fraud but made intake slower. Harrington said the time to take a claim grew from roughly seven minutes to about 27 minutes because of missing automated functionality.
Committee members asked whether reverted funds could be used immediately to add staff. Harrington said some carry-forward funds exist from prior appropriations and that the department may come back in the future with requests after an Agency of Digital Services "true up" of IT costs; he did not commit to an immediate spending request. He said turnover and the time required to recruit and train adjudicators have constrained short-term staffing increases.
Ending: The committee asked the department to return with more detailed briefings on UI adjudication timelines, staffing plans and interim options to connect claimants with other benefit programs while their UI claims are pending.
