Beshear merges cabinets to improve unemployment system criticized during COVID
Gov. Andy Beshear announced steps Thursday to improve Kentucky’s beleaguered unemployment insurance system, including combining the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet with the Labor Cabinet and asking for more permanent staffing.
The system that provides benefits to those out of work has been under duress during the coronavirus pandemic, producing a backlog of cases.
Beshear said that he did not know how many valid claims are backed up because his administration is working to remove fraudulent claims.
Earlier this month, Beshear announced a new system that began Nov. 4 to curb unemployment fraud. The Kentucky Office of Unemployment Insurance is partnerning with ID.me, a third-party vendor that helps confirm people’s identities.
Of unemployment insurance initiatives Beshear talked about Thursday, the newest was combining the two cabinets.
He said the unemployment insurance office will be in the new new cabinet.
In May 2020, Beshear moved the Office of Unemployment Insurance from the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet into the Labor Cabinet after many complaints about getting unemployment insurance benefits from people out of work due to COVID-19.
Beshear said Thursday that combining the two cabinets will reduce duplication efforts and allow the state to pull from more employees to address a crisis like unemployment insurance. It will be called the Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet.
Jamie Link, who has been labor secretary, will be secretary of the new, combined cabinet, the governor said.
Mary Pat Regan, whom Beshear named as acting secretary of Education and Workforce Development in October when Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman stepped down to perform more duties, particularly in the area of economic development, will be deputy secretary of the new cabinet.
Beshear said the combination will not mean any job cuts. He did not immediately know how many employees there will be in the new cabinet.
He also said the combining will start immediately, but he will have to ask state lawmakers in the 2022 General Assembly that begins in January to approve the reorganization. He said he believes lawmakers will be favorable to the move since it means one less cabinet.
Beshear also said he will ask state lawmakers to fund more permanent staffers for the new cabinet. He made a similar request last year but was told to use federal funds.
He said Thursday the new staffers should be permanent and not subject to one-time federal funding.
The Democratic governor also said the state is evaluating responses it has received from vendors to upgrade the state’s unemployment insurance system.
He said the system is antiquated and that sometimes retired employees have had to be called in to work with it. Link said earlier this year that the upgrade could cost $40 million.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 3:08 PM.
