Report 2020-128/628.1 Recommendation 10 Responses

Report 2020-128/628.1: Employment Development Department: EDD's Poor Planning and Ineffective Management Left It Unprepared to Assist Californians Unemployed by COVID‑19 Shutdowns (Release Date: January 2021)

Recommendation #10 To: Employment Development Department

To continue providing timely payment of benefits to Californians in need while also effectively responding to the Department of Labor's directive regarding immediately resuming all eligibility determinations and resolving all suspended determinations, EDD should do the following:

-Hire and train staff as necessary in order to carry out the workload plan.

The Unemployment Insurance Branch (UIB) has added one additional cohort, bringing the current count to ten cohorts. The UIB is concluding the onboarding and provisioning the tenth cohort in alignment with the Employment Development Department's workload plan to address its prospective and deferred workload. A total of 2,635 vendor staff including production staff and operational oversight have been onboarded, provisioned, or began production.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Fully Implemented

EDD has demonstrated that it has added resources as needed to continue to implement its workplan, showing that it has fully implemented this recommendation. To the extent that EDD continues to recognize its need for additional resources and acquire those resources, then it will continue to have fully implemented this recommendation.

The Unemployment Insurance Branch (UIB) has modified its workload plan to increase the number of cohorts from eight cohorts to nine cohorts to assist with benefit audit workloads. Although the benefit audit workload was included in the initial workload plan, this was separated into a distinct cohort due to the provisioning and training required. The UIB continues to onboard, provision, and train vendor agents to address the Employment Development Department's (EDD) prospective and deferred workloads. Each "cohort" continues to be provided targeted training on priority workloads outlined in the workload plan. The EDD anticipates that Cohort 9 will begin production in March 2022.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

The Unemployment Insurance Branch has developed a workload plan to address its deferred workloads. In August 2021, the Employment Development Department (EDD) released a Request for Quote (RFQ), and in September 2021, the vendor, Maximus was selected to execute the Statement of Work. The workload plan developed is divided into eight "cohorts" to bring on 300 vendor agents every two weeks until sufficient staff is onboard to address the EDD's prospective and deferred workloads. Each "cohort" will be provided targeted training on select priority workloads. This approach will allow for the backlog to be addressed immediately and minimize the total training time required. The workloads have been prioritized by those workloads that impact customers currently, and then deferred workloads as outlined in the Accenture Deferred Workload Risk Assessment. The EDD anticipates that Cohort 8 will begin production in February 2022.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

The Unemployment Insurance Branch has developed a monthly hiring plan and will continue to hire and train staff as necessary to meet workload demands. As the Risk Assessment is completed and the workload plan is developed the hiring plan will be modified as needed to complete the deferred workloads.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

The Unemployment Insurance Branch (UIB) has developed a monthly hiring plan and will continue to hire and train staff as necessary to meet workload demands and to complete deferred workloads as outlined on the established workload plan.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2020-128/628.1

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.