At a time when the California Employment Development Department (EDD) experiences more delays in claims processing, state lawmakers have both delayed hearings on state Auditor recommendations for reforming the department and postponed action on EDD reform bills that had received bipartisan unanimous support.
The shelving of the legislation on Thursday followed an earlier announcement that oversight hearings would be postponed.
“Newsom’s mismanagement of EDD is a textbook example of a government failure," Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, told the Northern California Record by email.
"Legislative Democrats are stalling because they don’t want this governor’s incompetency on full display. The sad part is - while they play politics to protect the governor, thousands of unemployed Californians are legitimately waiting for their checks and the backlog of cases continues to pile up as nearly 69,000 Californians have filed new jobless claims which marks the state’s highest total in three months. Republicans have pushed for accountability and solutions, but this governor and legislative Democrats appear to be fine with the status quo. Welcome to Gavin Newsomville."
The EDD reform hearing, which had been scheduled for Aug. 24, is possibly rescheduled for September. Hearings on wildfire prevention also have been postponed, Capital Public Radio reported.
The EDD schedule change was instituted by Assembly Budget Subcommittee 4, which is chaired by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, D-Los Angeles.
“It is imperative that we hold a bicameral, bipartisan, and multi-committee hearing on EDD,” Carrillo said in an emailed statement. “This was not possible in August. My colleagues and I will return to Sacramento in September to ensure that it is done.
“We cannot ensure a successful joint hearing with Budget Sub 4, Insurance, Accountability and Administrative Review, and JLAC, without the participation of each of these committees, and without including an evaluation of the impacts of federal unemployment benefits ending in early September,” Carrillo said.
The issues at the EDD have been the subject of attention by the office of California State Auditor Elaine Howle; during the pandemic the department has seen an estimated $30 billion in fraud. And EDD mismanagement has become a hotly contested issue amid the recall election, the Los Angeles Times reported.
There have been five EDD oversight hearings in just over a year, Carrillo said.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in the state budget are focused on making Californians who need access to benefits whole," she said. "This has been and remains my priority. We will continue to take action until the job is done.”
The EDD reform bills that were held in committee Thursday had received unanimous support from several legislative committees as well as the Senate Floor. A news release stated the decision came from the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, did not respond to a request for comment from the Record.