Lawmaker goes ‘undercover’ at unemployment office

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BY MICHAEL OLOHAN
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS

After learning of a constituent posting her frustrations in trying to resolve an unemployment claim, Republican Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi showed up unannounced Monday, Feb. 12 at the state Department of Labor’s unemployment office in Hackensack to get a close-up view of its customer service in action.

What the “undercover” Schepisi (R-River Vale) found was a roomful of about 30 people waiting, she said, with only one person having an unemployment claim addressed since 8 a.m., when the office opened.

Schepisi was investigating the situation firsthand after reading Monica Brinson’s Facebook account of her unsuccessful and frustrating attempts to deal with the state unemployment office in Hackensack. (The video is posted below.)

Brinson, 46, of Hackensack had posted over weeks about the poor customer service and understaffed office’s long waits to speak with a representative for service. In addition, the delays and run-around Brinson was getting trying to get reimbursed for a professional development course – approximately $3,000 – was getting to be intolerable.

“I just needed an issue resolved with my claim to release the $3,000 I was owed,” she said, noting that one missing document apparently held up the check reimbursing her for a professional development course in project management.

Brinson said the Hackensack office serves over a million people in Bergen County and is often understaffed with long lines waiting for service.

“I had had it and I needed help. Schepisi swung into action. They treat us horribly in there. What are our taxpaying dollars being used for?” she asked.

“It definitely helped me get (this) resolved,” she said of Schepisi’s intervention. “She got people to do their jobs. What Holly did was she sparked some positive change,” Brinson said. She was still waiting on Wednesday, Feb. 14, to receive the check.

“It’s a hostile environment there. You should not be further harassed because you’re going to a career center. I just want to see some positive change there,” said Brinson.
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‘At their most vulnerable’
“He saw the [Facebook] video and wanted to talk,” said Schepisi on Feb. 14 about the acting state labor commissioner. Schepisi’s post drew dozens of comments, many critical of the state’s efforts and employees.

She said she was trying to schedule a phone call with Acting Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo on Feb. 14 or 15.

Schepisi said people in the unemployment office “are at their most vulnerable, most uncertain time of their lives” and deserve better treatment from state employees.

She compared the treatment in the office like navigating an unfriendly and unhelpful security line at the airport. “It’s a question of proper staffing, training, a whole host of things. It’s kind of like TSA (Transportation Security Administration), it’s made much more difficult than it needs to be,” she noted.

She said the unemployment office needs to hire more staff – maybe some unemployed people, she suggested – and to overhaul the way the office operates.

“People should not be sitting there for hours on end and not get any service, that’s wrong,” she said. She noted some unemployed people said parking meters in the area are limited to two hours, meaning they risk getting an expensive parking ticket and must feed meters, which often leads to further delays in getting an unemployment claim addressed.

Posting video to Facebook
Schepisi started filming on her cellphone and talking to men and women sitting in the large unemployment office. She was informed there “were never more than two workers there at any one time” in the unemployment office and generally folks wait three to four hours before being seen, if at all.

Just before a guard asked her to stop filming, and escorted her out of the room, another man told her the office needs “a whole new system, all new people, that’s what they need, new computers, everything,” he said.

Outside the office, she was told by an apparent state employee that she could not record video on her phone in a state facility. She learned later that was not true.

“Today I went to the unemployment office to see firsthand how it operates. I almost got physically removed for videotaping but afterwards did get a comprehensive tour and analysis of the good, bad and ugly of these offices. First, the state needs to provide additional personnel,” she wrote on Facebook.

“There is currently one employee working today in this office to service a county of almost one million people. They stopped handing out tickets to see people at number seven. That is right, for the entire day they will only be able to service seven people,” continued Schepisi.

Schepisi said she later received a tour of the state’s Hackensack unemployment office, including the Bergen One-Stop Career Center, and available training programs and employment resources. She hopes to address unemployment staffing and customer service issues with Asaro-Angelo.

“Commissioner Asaro-Angelo did speak with Assemblywoman Schepisi yesterday and reiterated that the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development is working tirelessly to identify the opportunities we have to better service the residents of New Jersey who need us the most. We are committed to improving these conditions through proper staffing and better customer service, as soon as possible. We look forward to working with our legislature in the coming months, weeks, and years to bring the level of government service back up to where it should be,” said Thomas Wright, a department spokesman.