Oregon picks vendor, again, to replace employment department's obsolete technology
Oregon has again selected a Colorado company to replace the rickety system it uses to manage unemployment benefits.
Fast Consulting is the same vendor Oregon chose in September, but a rival protested that selection and that forced the state to revisit its choice.
The mainframe computer system from the 1990s is the primary reason why Oregon was unable to promptly pay hundreds of thousands of jobless claims this year.
The state was among the nation’s slowest at issuing payments, according to an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive, and was the very last to pay federal coronavirus relief payments for the first week workers were out of a job. Congress authorized those payments in March but Oregon didn’t start paying that $300 million in benefits to more than 400,000 Oregonians until last week.
Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2020/12/oregon-picks-vendor-again-to-replace-employment-departments-obsolete-technology.html