TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansans are reacting to Labor Secretary Delia Garcia's resignation.
Gov. Laura Kelly addressed Garcia's resignation at a news conference Monday and thanked her for her service to the state.
"Secretary Garcia inherited an agency that had its funding, technology and staff gutted by the previous administration," Kelly said. "A global pandemic was the worst-case scenario."
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Kelly went on to say the department was not able to adequately provide services for Kansans struggling with unemployment.
"For that, I take responsibility," Kelly said. "We have been too slow to process unemployment claims, too many mistakes were made while trying to deliver claims."
Kelly said her Deputy Chief of Staff Ryan Wright will take over for Garcia until a permanent candidate is nominated.
Kelly addressed the department's latest error which affected 4,500 claimants.
The department withdrew money from claimants' bank accounts, leaving many people with overdrawn accounts and overdraft charges, and said it was because of a duplicate payment error. Many claimants told 41 Action News they never received a duplicate payment and still had money taken out.
Kelly said this was done without consulting her and after her staff had instructed the department of labor not to do it.
Shawnee resident Shawn Young was one of the claimants affected by the error. Young said he understands Garcia was handed an antiquated system, but he feels the months of waiting for payments and errors is unacceptable.
"Hopefully her being removed doesn't make things worse because now you're going to have somebody else come up there and hopefully they know how to run the ship," Young said.
Wichita resident Lesa Rhodes said Garcia's resignation is a win for the thousands of claimants who still haven't received benefits.
"Where's it going to put everyone now, are they going to keep waiting and waiting and waiting because you've still got a lot of Kansans out there that are still waiting to get paid," Rhodes said.
Rhodes said her biggest concern with the department is lack of communication.
"When it's coming from your government, you don't need excuses — you need answers. That's what our tax money pays your for, answers, not excuses," Rhodes said. "Don't ignore the emails, get more people in there to answer phones."
Kelly said she is taking immediate action starting with bringing in specialists.
"These specialists will focus on improving response times for Kansans applying for unemployment, implementing new processes to manage the number of claims we are receiving and mitigating future backlogs and errors that have occurred while attempting to deliver payments," Kelly said.
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