CAMS rollout credited with large drop in appeals backlog and faster decisions, Board hears

Board staff told the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board that migration to the California Appeals Management System (CAMS) has materially improved throughput and case age.

The executive operations report said the Board issued 25,694 decisions in August, roughly 23,428 of which were in UI and PUA programs, and that the open inventory dropped by about 5,000 cases. "We were able to issue 25,694 decisions in August," the executive report said, and staff credited CAMS for much of the improvement. The executive report added that average case age dropped from 76 days in July to 68 days in August while the national average remains near 219 days.

Staff said CAMS allowed managers to move roughly 2,500 cases among offices in the last month to balance workloads. A board member who visited the San Jose field office said observing in-person and telephone hearings clarified how evidence intake works and noted a browser compatibility issue with Safari that was resolved by using Chrome.

Judge Rebecca Bach, supervising ALJ for appellate operations, said second-level appeals performance exceeded Department of Labor metrics in August, reporting that 91.8% of cases closed in 45 days and 97.1% within 75 days, and she said the Board's average case age at the end of August was reported in the meeting transcript.

Chief Information Officer Jefferson Willoughby described an IT schedule of stabilization releases for CAMS, saying release 2 of 4 was expected before the next meeting and that upcoming changes include delegated access rights for employers and numerous field-requested workflow fixes. Willoughby said user acceptance testing will proceed in 2-to-3-week waves.

Board members praised the improvement and thanked staff for cross-training and operational flexibility; staff announced the appointment of Stephen Swenson to lead the Office of Tax Petitions and thanked retiring ALJ Madeline Hilton for service.