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28K PUA claims remain unadjudicated
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Posted on Nov 11 2020
The CNMI Department of Labor has officially adjudicated roughly 8,000 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims but about 28,000 remain unadjudicated.
As of yesterday, DOL has already received a total of 36,000 claims, said CNMI DOL director Eugene Tebuteb in a news briefing yesterday.
Bad news, though, for the 28,000 claims that remain unadjudicated. Tebuted pointed out that, with the program expiring by the end of December, the department may not be able to adjudicate all the remaining claims.
“I believe we’re making headway in terms of having more time to adjudicate claims. We have a total of 36,000 claims and we have to vet all of them and we have had some time to do that so we’re making headway. So far, roughly 8,000 have been adjudicated. I don’t believe we’re going to adjudicate all of them, but I believe we will get close,” he said.
Since opening the PUA program back in June, to date, Tebuteb said over $72 million in PUA funds have been obligated and over $86 million in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation have been obligated.
“I say obligated because these funds, for the most, have been dispersed to eligible claimants but not all of them have been dispersed,” Tebuteb said.
In terms of assistance with claims, PUA call center supervisor Agatha Camacho is asking the community to bear with DOL as they try to answer every call that comes in on a daily basis.
“We get a lot of incoming calls. As much as possible, we try to assist all the claimants daily. We ask the community for patience and to bear with Labor. We are doing our best to give everyone their payments,” she said.
Camacho said on average DOL receives around 300 to 400 calls a day. Currently, DOL has 15 PUA coordinators that assist with incoming calls.
