‘Let NMI gov’t carry burden in PUA overpayment in case it’s DOL’s mistake’

The Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation’s Judicial and Governmental Operations Committee has recommended that, if an overpayment in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is not the fault of the person concerned, the CNMI government should carry the burden of that mistake.

In this case, such PUA applicants can be given a waiver on this particular overpayment, said the SNILD JGO Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan), herself a former Labor secretary.

The committee asked the CNMI Department of Labor to consider the Unemployment Insurance Program Letter No. 16-20, Change 4, giving the authority to the state grantee like the CNMI government to exercise its prudent judgment and review each particular overpayment case.

Giving such waiver is one of the committee’s recommendations in its report on its oversight hearings on PUA.

The SNILD unanimously approved Friday the committee’s report during its meeting.

At the Aug. 13, 2021, oversight hearing, the committee said that Labor reported that the Benefit Control Unit found 4,010 overpayment cases as of July 2021, including out of state or territory cases, with 1,868 overpayment cases within the CNMI.

Labor reported overpayments in the amount of $31.13 million in PUA, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, and Lost Wages Assistance, and collected $28.02 million in such overpayments.

The committee concluded that it is looking forward to Labor’s implementation of its recommendations regarding the PUA Program.

The committee is also expecting to receive from Labor all the data as requested pursuant to Open Government Act requests and during the hearings.

The committee conducted its PUA oversight hearings last Aug. 13 and 20.

DeLeon Guerrero called the oversight hearing to discuss and review the PUA program process, procedures, status of applications, reported problems with program and the internet portal, as well as to make recommendations on improvements, to receive updates and address several concerns raised by the committee.

The committee also recommended for Labor to polish up and reread data and information on its press releases to make sure that the data and information being communicated is exactly correct and not misleading.

The committee recommended that weekly benefits be paid out instead of a lump sum payment of multiple weeks. The committee pointed out that people are required to file documents weekly to receive their benefits. The committee said if their benefits do not come on time, their car are repossessed, they lose their power, or they lose their telephone line.

The other commendation is for Labor to use the services of the Department of Commerce Statistical Division to design and construct questions for any statistics or survey, just so that there is validity in the survey rather than just some kind of generic survey being formulated within the department and then people will start questioning the validity of the data.

The committee also recommended, among other things, for Labor to share and train adjudicators on the immigration classification case so that they understand what happened in particular cases, and it will help them adjudicate properly so that they don’t mistakenly deny a person erroneously and then make the file an appeal.

PUA provided temporary pandemic unemployment assistance from Jan. 29, 2020 to Sept. 4, 2021.

The PUA program was initially established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act of 2020 and extended by Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Act of 2021.

The committee finds that individuals who receive at least $1 of PUA benefits for a week also received an additional $600 supplemental payment under the FPUC program.

Under the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act of 2020, for weeks of unemployment beginning after Dec. 26, 2020, and ending on or before March 14, 2021, an individual collecting PUA may collect a $300 PFUC payment per week.

DeLeon Guerrero stated in the committee’s report that because the CNMI does not have an established unemployment insurance program, Labor experienced problems, obstacles and delays in rolling out the PUA program.

Under the American Rescue Plan Act, DeLeon Guerrero said, for weeks of unemployment beginning after March 13, 2021, and ending on or before Sept. 4, 2021, an individual collecting PUA may collect a $300 PFUC payment per week.

However, she said, once the PUA Program was launched, the applicants also experienced problems and delays in applying for and receiving PUA benefits and submitting and uploading documents to the PUA portal.

The senator said committee members as well as all the other SNILD members received numerous complaints or requests for assistance with their PUA applications and benefits since the launching of the PUA Program in June 2020.

As of the Aug. 13, 2021 oversight hearing, the CNMI received PUA/FPUC funds in the amount of $706,429,600 and expended $209,126,352 of those funds, she said.

The senator said Labor received 39,086 applications of which 10,285 applicants were found ineligible, 2,559 applicants were pending, and 26,242 applicants were deemed ineligible for benefits based on the guidance and applicable laws provided to the CNMI by the U.S. Labor.