Enough is enough. In one of the more disgraceful episodes in recent memory, created and nurtured by an incompetent bureaucracy, the N.C. Employment Security Commission is victimizing the last people in the world who need more trouble, the unemployed. The News & Observer's David Bracken filed a second report yesterday.
First, the ESC sends out notices to people on unemployment compensation notifying them that they may have been overpaid and will have to pay the state back. Now, just a couple of days after those notices, the ESC has begun to slash benefits to some long-time unemployed workers in the name of recouping the $28 million the agency says it improperly paid out. The workers involved are those who have been on unemployment for a while, who have moved into a second year of benefits.
And get a load of this: The agency has known it was miscalculating benefits for about 38,000 people since January, but couldn't figure out how to complete new computer programming to fix it. So the miscalculating went on, the inaccurate payments went on, and now the ESC wants its money back. And it wants to take it out of the hides of people who are barely getting by as it is, with little notice.
The error is the ESC's. Those receiving unemployment would have little way of knowing whether their payments were too much or too little, excepting of course if a check were for thousands of dollars when the recipient knew it was supposed to be for a few hundred. Then there would be an obligation to report it to the ESC.
There is an appeals process, the ESC says, but those who have seen their benefits slashed by as much as half as the agency seeks to correct its mistake have had trouble getting through to anyone at the agency. Nothing like scaring people to death and then, for all practical purposes, ducking.
But the way things look, an appeals process might not work. Why should we believe the ESC would handle that better than it has handled this mistake? It's no doubt true that the agency has been under stress amidst a brutal recession and stubborn joblessness, but it nevertheless has had its inefficiency exposed.
Gov. Beverly Perdue needs to take decisive action. She can start with quizzing the ESC chairperson she appointed, Lynn R. Holmes. Deputy Chairman David Clegg, who's the commission's chief operating officer, also has some explaining to do. One hopes his explanation for the governor will be better than the one he's thus far provided to the public.
And the governor also should see to it that all appeals from those who have had their benefits cut are granted immediately. Those who have been receiving unemployment compensation are not at fault and should not lose their homes or suffer other severe consequences because the state bureaucrats made a mistake. It's not going to be easy for the state to find $28 million in this budget crunch, but it must not be taken from those who can least afford it and had nothing to do with what brought it about.
