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Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board: case age drops below 30 days as CAMS rollout continues
Summary
At its Oct. 15 meeting in Sacramento, the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board heard agency reports showing appeal intake has returned to pre‑pandemic levels, average case age closed September at 29.3 days, and the board received updates on the CAMS system migration, staffing, facilities and statewide CPR training.
SACRAMENTO — The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board heard operational reports Friday showing the agency’s appeal workload has stabilized and case processing times have improved, officials said.
Judge Michael Koutre, executive director, told the board that “In September, our daily appeal intake remained stable and relatively low, and it's comparable to nonrecessionary, non pandemic years.” He said field offices issued just over 18,800 decisions in September and that the overall inventory was reduced “by almost 1,000 cases.” Koutre said the agency’s average case age “closed the month at 29.3,” noting that was the first time the state had met the Department of Labor’s 30‑day benchmark since before March 2020.
The executive director also described improvement on other federal benchmarks: “September, the field offices closed almost 20% of appeals within 30 days and, almost 70% of appeals within 45 days,” and staff moved more than 1,700 cases among field offices in the last month to balance workloads.
The board’s supervising administrative law judge, Judge Bach, reviewed second‑level review performance measured against U.S. Department of Labor guidance. Bach reported the Department of Labor year‑to‑date figures were 43.9% of cases closed within 45 days and 95.6% within 75 days, and an average second‑level case age of 36.6 days for September. “I think it is a really huge milestone and I'm so impressed with the field operations,” Bach said.
Chief Information Officer John Compway updated members on CAMS, the agency’s case management system. Compway said staff are refining business requirements to support transitioning tax operations into CAMS, and that two new CUIB developers joined the team to accelerate delivery. “This initiative remains our top priority,” Compway said, adding the IT branch continues to focus on security and platform reliability.
Chief Administrative Services Officer Robert Silver briefed the board on facilities and human resources. Silver said planning is underway for tenant improvements at the Pasadena and Sacramento offices and that the Department of General Services must review and sign off on remodeling plans for leased state space. On recruitment, he said field‑level hiring has been quiet and that the agency recently converted seasonal clerks into permanent office assistant or technician roles in several locations; seasonal clerks are limited to 1,500 hours in a 12‑month period. Silver also reported that, after executing a statewide contract for CPR training, nearly all offices have received on‑site training and two remaining offices are scheduled.
Board members asked follow‑up questions about whether the roughly 1,700 interoffice case transfers represent a sustainable medium for workload balancing and about longer‑term changes in zip‑code assignments for EDD case routing. Koutre said staff will pursue a longer exercise with the Employment Development Department to reassign zip codes where necessary but that manual transfers remain a practical short‑term tool as staffing levels change.
The board approved the meeting minutes from Sept. 17, 2025 by voice vote. No items were scheduled for closed session and the meeting was adjourned.
The board will next meet according to its published calendar; staff updates on CAMS rollout, case reallocation with EDD and the remaining CPR training schedules were identified as near‑term follow‑up topics.
