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Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board cites sharp backlog decline, highlights CAMS rollout and access to precedents
Summary
At its Dec. 11 meeting the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board reported a major drop in open appeals and faster processing after CAMS implementation; board staff said precedent decisions are now available on Lexis to improve access.
The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board on Dec. 11 reported substantial progress reducing its pandemic-era case backlog and faster appeals processing tied to the CAMS case-management system.
Vice Chair Laura Kent Mahoning told the board the agency began 2024 with about 100,000 open appeals and, by the end of November, the open balance was just under 58,000. “So these data points show a tremendous amount of work,” she said, noting average case aging fell from about 138.5 days in December 2023 to roughly 60 days at the end of November 2024.
Chair Michael Allen said the board closed 709 cases in the month, 701 of them processed using CAMS and eight under the legacy system, and he praised staff, judges and managers for their work. “My criteria is are we doing our very best for the people of California?” Allen said.
Chief Executive Director and Chief Judge Koutre gave a November workload update that echoed those trends. Koutre said field offices resolved more than 20,000 decisions in November and reduced the open appeals inventory by about 3,700 cases; total open inventory sits just over 57,000, with roughly 42,000 in unemployment and PUA fields. He also noted CAMS moved more than 205,100 cases to be hearing-ready, contributing to normalization of wait times across offices.
Supervising Administrative Law Judge Bach said the board is meeting Department of Labor timeliness targets: for November the board closed 79.2% of cases within 50 days and 97.8% within 75 days; year-to-date figures were reported at 73.7% within 45 days and 94.9% within 75 days. Bach added that the board’s precedent decisions are now available on Lexis, improving public and legal-community access to the agency’s written decisions.
Board members flagged remaining workload and policy issues. Member Bob Wachowski pointed to a Legislative Analyst Office report on the Unemployment Insurance Fund and said some employers appear to be “serial appeals filers,” a pattern he said adds administrative cost and should be reviewed by the Legislature in 2025. No formal action or vote on policy changes occurred at the meeting.
The board expects a more comprehensive annual report in early January and a longer retrospective in March reviewing the spike in appeals beginning in 2020. The meeting adjourned with no closed-session items taken.
