Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly picks Lawrence official to lead struggling labor department
Seven months after the Kansas Labor Secretary resigned because the agency overdrafted an unknown number of Kansans’ bank accounts, Gov. Laura Kelly announced a Lawrence official as the new leader.
Amber Shultz, general manager of municipal services and operations in Lawrence, will run the agency on an interim basis pending formal confirmation from the Senate, Kelly announced Friday.
Shultz, who will lead efforts to modernize the department’s 1970s era computer system, has spent her 25-year career working primarily on technology, data and asset management and systems administration.
“Amber has a wealth of leadership experience when it comes to technology and innovation, and I have no doubt she will hit the ground running at the Department of Labor as we work to modernize the unemployment insurance system,” Kelly said in a statement.
The governor has budgeted $37.5 million to update KDOL’s IT system.
The Department of Labor has faced severe struggles since its computer system was overwhelmed by the volume of unemployment claims arriving early in the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
On Friday, the agency announced that employees would no longer conduct video interviews after several credible threats of violence were made against staff and their families. The threats followed an announcement Wednesday that the state’s unemployment system would go offline over the weekend to install an anti-fraud security system.
The department has been led by two consecutive interim secretaries since the departure of former secretary Delia Garcia.
Garcia resigned in June, after the state overdrafted the bank accounts of unemployed Kansans it mistakenly overpaid. The department didn’t disclose how many people were impacted, but moved to claw back more than 4,500 duplicate benefit payments totaling $7 million.
At the time, Kelly said that KDOL moved to take back the money without approval from the governor’s office and after her staff directed the agency not to move ahead with the clawbacks.
The impact on unemployed Kansans was immediate. When some received additional payment, they used it promptly to cover bills and other expenses they were behind on during the pandemic. After using the money in their account, a clawback from the state left some with a negative balance and overdraft fees.
Many unemployed Kansans also remain frustrated with the agency’s call center, which can take days or even weeks to get a call through.
Last spring, at the beginning of the pandemic, there were about 20 people answering the phones at the state labor department. Today, about 450 are taking calls.
After months of delays, the agency said Friday that it had eliminated the backlog of regular unemployment claims, which stood at 25,000 people in June who were awaiting a decision on their payment eligibility.
That backlog doesn’t include people waiting on payments from federal unemployment programs, such as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which expanded benefits to people who wouldn’t traditionally qualify — such as contract workers and the self-employed. As of mid-January, that backlog stood at just over 9,000 workers and KDOL expected to eradicate it sometime in February.
In order to address the backlog of PUA claims, the labor agency needed an entirely new software update, which it completed in November.
In a statement, Shultz said she was ready to take on the challenges faced by the agency.
“I value public service along with utilizing innovation and technology to solve problems, and I will use this experience along with our team to address the challenges ahead,” Shultz said.
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly picks Lawrence official to lead struggling labor department."
