TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity spent more than $25 million over the past two weeks on improvements to the computer and phone systems it uses to collect unemployment benefits applications, records show.
Many jobless Floridians seeking reemployment assistance have struggled to submit applications due to jammed phone lines and glitches with the agency’s website floridajobs.org.
DEO's online reemployment assistance system, known as CONNECT, cost $63 million when it was created in 2013 at the direction of former governor Rick Scott.
Last week 227,000 Floridians filed unemployment claims, U.S. Department of Labor records show. However, the state’s actual unemployment number may be much higher since many