The Delaware Department of Labor makes significant progress in reducing the state’s unemployment claims backlog.
The backlog in claims was another byproduct of the COVID pandemic when there was a sharp uptick in claims, and the department couldn’t handle the volume.
The Department of Labor’s Unemployment Division worked to enhance operational efficiency by focusing on service delivery, compliance and fiscal management.
"So first and foremost, we did an operational assessment just to figure out how we could improve the process. So the unemployment insurance team created new dashboards. They launched a centralized document knowledge base, which was a critical piece of the process, and finally, we had to figure out how to streamline workflows," said Delaware Secretary of Labor LaKresha Moultrie.
The program also secured a Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment federal grant to help with claimant engagement and ongoing process upgrades while improving reemployed outcomes.
Moultrie says the result was making a dent in the claims’ backlog.
"We started in the fall and between all of the operational enhancements and then establishing that staff with the training background to process those claims. We were able to increase the rate at which we processed claims," said Moultrie.
The result was reducing the claims backlog by more than 40 percent from over 7,000 to fewer than 4,000. Moultrie expects to clear the backlog early this year.
She notes that addressing the backlog is phase one of their efforts. Phase two is a full modernization of their software systems allowing claimants to receive decisions faster, and staff to work more efficiently.
