The failures of Florida’s unemployment website are well documented by now. The original Connect site was a “jalopy” as Governor DeSantis coined it, which wasn’t fit for a high volume of unemployment claims but did come with a high price tag. It’s a system that as Governor DeSantis described was “convoluted”. So why was a convoluted system running a jalopy of a website created and left to serve, or largely fail as the case may be? This is where we need answers and hopefully, we will get them.
Governor DeSantis has tasked Inspector General Melinda Miguel with investigating the contractor, vendor, and related issues with the Connect system. There's an investigation because the story of the failed system isn’t one a legacy website allowed to persist past its point of viability. This system was a created failure from day one.
On December 11th, 2013, one month after the Connect system went online, technicians were called on behalf of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity after numerous complaints of Floridians who were unable to submit claims on the site. The first time, the technicians found 38 issues with the software, they patched it to make it work effectively. A brand-new platform, which Florida paid $77.9 million prior to its launch required 38 patches almost immediately. Inside of the first year, that number grew to more than 100. At the time Deloitte Consulting, the hired vendor, paid back $1.5 million due to the issues. Then FDEO Director Jesse Panuccio said, "I will not rest until our contractor, Deloitte Consulting, has delivered the system Floridians were promised". We should have known it would have gone downhill from there. But still, an inspector general? Why? It probably has something to do with why Deloitte Consulting was hired originally. There’s a reason why State Senator and Florida Republican Party Chairman, Joe Gruters said, "$77 million? Someone should go to jail for that".
Here’s what we know, a 2009 law signed by then-Governor Charlie Crist mandated a new unemployment system. The Crist administration chose Deloitte Consulting as the contractor for the new system prior to Rick Scott taking office.
Now it’s time to tie details together. This first piece of the puzzle is important. News media is quick to point to the Scott administration for the failures of Connect and make no mistake, there’s room for blame. However, the origins of this failure were signed into law by Charlie Crist with the chosen vendor in hand prior to Scott ever overseeing the failed launch. Here’s the next important piece of the puzzle. The lobbyist behind Deloitte Consulting. Brian Ballard of Ballard Partners is one of the heaviest hitting lobbyists around. He’s lobbied on behalf of companies like Amazon recently but over a decade ago it was Deloitte and Republican politics within Florida. Representing Deloitte and being well connected to the Crist administration seemed to get his client the deal without even proof of what proved to be a failed concept years later at its launch. But before that launch, he saw an opportunity with the incoming governor Rick Scott and Chaired his inaugural finance committee. So, he won his client the contract with one governor, took on an active role with the next which naturally kept the ball rolling for his client. One which took on tens of millions of cost overruns and of course failed out of the box. By the time the genie was out of the bottle, he’d conveniently moved on to other projects. But he’s not the only link to potentially two important questions that require answers. There’s another key player. Shane Strum.
Shane Strum was the Chief-of-Staff of Governor Charlie Crist who advanced the recommendation of Deloitte Consulting within the Crist administration. What is Strum doing today? He’s Ron DeSantis’s chief-of-staff. No kidding. It doesn’t mean Shane’s done anything knowingly wrong, other than buying into slick lobbying and recommending a company that failed the state. But, Ballard and Strum might have had something to do with why years' worth of audit reports went ignored.
Auditors raised concerns with Florida’s Connect system in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019. Four years under the Scott administration and one year under the DeSantis administration. The warnings issued suggested the system would fail under high demand as we’ve seen. Yet no one acted meaningfully on those audit findings. Why? This is something we don’t know. But if a chief-of-staff recommended the service in use and unemployment is low so problems that pop up can be swept under the rug. Perhaps that’s what happened here? There’s smoke all over the place. There’s bound to be a fire. This is why the investigation is needed. And sadly, this story is the premise of why you might not be receiving your benefits during a time of need.