Oregon paid leave applicant 'stuck' amid reduced phone center hours

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After the Oregon Employment Department temporarily shortened its call hours to focus on tackling a mountain of older backlog issues for customers, officials say the strategy is working. However, customers are also complaining about the longer hold times in the interim.

Beginning on June 4, OED reduced their phone hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each working day to 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition, they also closed the call center hours on Mondays. Officials announced that these changes would be temporary to let OED employees focus on chipping away at the 13,500 issues that needed to be addressed and prioritizing problems six weeks or older.

Officials said the strategy is working and that they've now resolved roughly 10,000 of those backlog issues.

"The change in our phone hours is working to help us get caught up on our workload. Extra time is allowing us to resolve the very issues that people are calling us about," OED Director David Gerstenfeld said.

However, some people have reported challenges due to the reduced call center hours. In particular, people like Laurie Godwin, who is trying to set up her paid leave account before her surgery in a few months. She told KOIN 6 News she couldn't get through over the phone.

"When I try to call, it's like a two-hour wait and I can't wait all day because I have to work," Godwin said. "And then, yesterday and today, it's been busy signals. Busy signals. And it's just — it's ridiculous. "

Godwin works from home with her dog, Lulu Mae, by her side. She said she's suffered from chronic pain "for the past 40 years." Now she's working to get everything in order to take off at least six weeks from work for surgery months from now.

"I really don't know what I'm going to do," Godwin said. "And then I got to take care of her as well because she's a special needs dog and she needs a wheelchair."

Godwin is applying for paid leave through OED but she said it's a task easier said than done.

"I saw everybody having the same issues. So I thought I better get on this early because there's been like a 29+, 30-day wait just to even get started."

Godwin needs to change her address online. The website says she needs a code from the mail. That verification has yet to arrive in her mailbox so she's been trying to call OED, instead.

"I try to call first thing when they open," she said. "They're only open from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. and that's Tuesday through Friday."

Godwin said she's been trying to complete this address change for nearly a month now, with no hope in sight. She said she doesn't know where to turn next.

"I'm kind of stuck between a rock and hard place right now," Godwin said.

In a response to KOIN 6 News' request for comment, an OED spokesperson said they were not aware of any issues around "address changes that are slowing applicants down in general."

"That doesn't mean there aren't a few complex cases where folks may be running into unique issues," the OED spokesperson continued. "We will look into Ms. Godwin's case and reach out if there's anything else we need to resolve her issue."

OED said their goal with the restricted phone center hours is to reduce the number of unemployment insurance claim issues that were six weeks or older by 80%. Officials said they're expecting a surge in unemployment insurance claims come July 1, the end of the fiscal year, and that they'll have 23 new employees starting a few days after that.

It's a shortage of employees that OED had pointed to as a cause for these backlog issues, something that predates the consolidation of their U.I. system onto a newer site, Frances Online. Anecdotally, the site's launch seemed to coincide with a rise in Oregonians reporting issues with getting processed through OED, as KOIN 6 News has extensively covered in the past several months.