AUSTIN (KXAN) — Somehow, Shereda Rawls has managed six months without a paycheck. Rawls lost her chore in March then went on unemployment. But her unemployment payments stopped nearly equally soon as they started.

Rawls said her employer filed an appeal with the Texas Workforce Commission, claiming she shouldn't exist qualified for unemployment benefits, and the employer's business relationship shouldn't be deducted because of it.

Shereda Rawls shows her TWC account showing the agency'due south hearing officer found she was owed unemployment benefits in a July three, 2020 hearing. Rawls had still not received payment in this Sept. eight, 2020 interview. (KXAN Photo/Jody Barr)

The entreatment filing stopped her payments.

And then, both sides waited for the TWC, which oversees unemployment claims in the state, to schedule an appeal hearing with a hearing officer. It took the TWC another xc days to hear the appeal. On July 3, Rawls' online TWC account showed she won her entreatment and the unemployment payments could proceed.

"How much money have you received since July?" KXAN investigator Jody Barr asked Rawl.

"Zip dollars," Rawls said. "Not one check."

"At that place are people out hither who accept children who are not making ends meet, and I call back they should be more considerate in the way that they're handling people's claims," Rawls said. "Some people's lives depend on it."

She's likewise spent about days calling the TWC's telephone call centers, trying to find out why her payments haven't continued. Her calls start at 7 a.chiliad. and end when the centers close at 7 p.g., she said.

"It makes information technology seem like they don't intendance that people have children out hither, and they don't have the things they need," Rawls said, as she described her "anger" over never being able to attain a TWC staffer with credentials to help restart her payments.

Rawls has gotten through to the telephone call centre a few times since July. Both times she said the call was answered by 1 of the TWC'south contractors hired to assist file initial unemployment applications. Rawls said the contracted call takers have told her they are not able to handle problems that don't have to do with initial unemployment claims.

TWC'south 'Up to eighteen week' appeals backlog

"You're really looking at unemployment saying they never received an appeal from me," Felicia Armstrong said as she pulled out her cell phone and opened her online TWC business relationship.

Armstrong's business relationship didn't evidence whatsoever confirmation that she had filed an appeal on June xv, which would allow her to testify to the TWC that she should authorize for unemployment benefits.

"We do not have an appeal on record for yous," the TWC'due south message in her business relationship stated. "If you recently filed an appeal, allow 3 weeks for usa to record it."

"It's been way longer than three weeks," Armstrong said. When KXAN interviewed Armstrong at her home in San Antonio on Sept. 8, over 12 weeks had passed without TWC scheduling a hearing.

  • On Sept. 8, 2020 Felicia Armstrong accessed her online TWC account to show that her June xv, 2020 appeal filing however did not accept a engagement assigned to be heard. (KXAN Photo/Jody Barr)
  • Felicia Armstrong said she calls and emails the TWC's appeals division multiple times each solar day to find the status of her entreatment after the TWC found she was not qualified for benefits. Armstrong got this e-mail the morning of our interview telling her the TWC was in a four-calendar month backlog. (KXAN Photograph/Jody Barr)
  • Felicia Armstrong continues to wait for the TWC to schedule a hearing in her appeal she filed with the commission back on June 15, 2020. (KXAN Photo/Jody Barr)

The morning we interviewed her, the TWC sent an email to Armstrong telling her the commission was working on appeals filed in early May, which was now 16 weeks ago. Other individuals experiencing problems with their unemployment claims said they were told past TWC staff that some appeals were delayed eighteen weeks.

Armstrong estimated it would be around Christmas before she'd get a hearing engagement and a chance to plead to accept her unemployment claim approved.

It typically takes between six to eight weeks for an appeal to exist heard, co-ordinate to the TWC's website.

KXAN filed a Texas Public Information Human action request with the TWC on July xx for records related to unemployment insurance appeals. We wanted to know how long information technology'south taking the country to process appeals – and whether every appeal filed was getting a hearing appointment.

The TWC did non reply to the records request until August 7, days past the 10-day deadline for a response immune by law. We filed a formal complaint with the Texas Attorney Genera'ls Office against the TWC, alleging a violation of the state's open up records law.

That complaint is nonetheless pending.

The TWC data showed that past mid-August the number of appeals in 2020 nearly equaled the total number of appeals filed in all of 2019. Through mid-August, 100,190 cases had been appealed to the TWC. In 2019, the number of appealed cases for the unabridged year was 107,809.

There are two levels of appeals once the TWC makes a determination on whether a claimant qualifies for benefits: the appeals tribunal and the commission entreatment.

Either the unemployed worker or the worker'south employer tin file an appeal, and the initial appeal is filed with the appeals tribunal. At the appeals tribunal, a hearing officeholder decides who wins: the worker or the employer. If either side disagrees with the appeals tribunal'due south determination, they tin entreatment to the commission.

TWC records show the average number of days from an appeal filing to a tribunal hearing being set was 32 days in 2019. That number climbed to 57 days by mid-August of this yr.

Appeals filed at the commission-level take longer. Our analysis of the state'due south 2019 entreatment records shows it took an average of 132 days for committee appeals to be heard. In 2020, that time increased to 168 days, on average.

Meanwhile, equally the number of appeals skyrocketed in 2020 due to the pandemic, the number of TWC entreatment hearing officers dropped to its lowest level since 2015, when in that location were 106 hearing officers.

The TWC's roster now shows just 83 officers, a 21% reduction over the past five years, according to online TWC records.

We requested an interview with TWC Executive Manager Ed Serna to explicate the appeals process and how the agency is treatment the growing backlog in appeals. Serna would not concord to schedule an interview to discuss the appeals "due to his schedule," Margaret Hession, TWC'southward manager of communications wrote in a Sept. 9 email to KXAN.

We were able to at least question the agency's three commissioners during an August 20 virtual meeting. When asked about the appeals excess, none of 3 TWC commissioners responded. But, days subsequently, Chairman Bryan Daniel sent KXAN a alphabetic character providing a response to our questions concerning the delays in hearing appeals.

"With the exponential increase in claims, the number of appeals has increased in a corresponding manner. TWC has experienced a 1,500 percent increase in the number of appeals filed weekly…The current timeframe to process an appeal is 45-60 days. This represents a 150% increment from this time last twelvemonth."

Texas Workforce Commission Chariman Bryan Daniel

Gov. Greg Abbott holds oversight authority over the TWC, and he appoints its three-member lath. We initially requested an interview with Abbott on August ten and several more times since and then. Abbott has never responded to any of our requests for interviews about the issues we've highlighted with the performance of the TWC during the pandemic.

547 New Names

On July xx, KXAN submitted to TWC a list of 111 people who contacted u.s.a. with complaints virtually not beingness able to become through to the agency to resolve unemployment filing issues.

Many of the people who contacted u.s.a. detailed stories of thousands of attempts to reach the TWC's telephone call centers on the only toll-free number the agency published.

Within days the TWC reported contacting nearly every person on that list and helping them correct their unemployment problems.

After that report, more than 500 additional people, who had like concerns to the initial 111 individuals, contacted KXAN request for aid with the TWC.

Last week, KXAN submitted a list of 547 names to the TWC. Multiple people on that list reported being contacted by the TWC within a solar day and having their unemployment benefits unlocked and deposited into their bank accounts.

Both Armstrong and Rawls said they hoped their last "desperate" attempt to make contact with the TWC works.

"Reaching out to the TV station is as far every bit nosotros've got now," Armstrong told KXAN. "It's unheard of, only hopefully it makes a departure."