Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced plans to rapidly repair the online system Floridians are using to file for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 crisis.
During Monday’s economic roundtable in Tallahassee, the governor also issued an executive order to wave collection of taxes for small business loans under the federal stimulus bill.
DeSantis said the state is adding multiple resources to help out-of-work Floridians obtain unemployment benefits, including the addition of 72 computer servers from the state’s Logistic Response Center in Orlando. He said those servers were added to the 10 already in use and should make the system run much smoother instead of stalling and continuously kicking people out as they attempt to file for benefits.
With the additional servers in place, DeSantis said the state’s unemployment system can handle 120,000 people filing claims at the same time, a significant increase over last week’s capacity. He said on Sunday night alone more than 62,000 Floridians filed claims.
DeSantis also pointed out that more than 2,000 employees from other state agencies have been reassigned to help the Department of Economic Opportunity process the jobless benefits applications. He said paper applications are available for those who can’t access the system online and promised that the state has made the issue a top priority.