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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Oregon agrees to speed up
unemployment payments
Address: P.O. Box 13009, Salem, OR 97309
Phone: 503-399-6773
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Oregon’s unemploy-
ment system is going to
have to make significant
improvements to speed
up its claims handling
processes, something the
state has lagged in sig-
nificantly since the be-
ginning of the pandemic.
And it’s going to have
to do so quickly to meet
the requirements of a
lawsuit settlement.
After the COVID-19
pandemic hit Oregon in
March 2020 and initial
unemployment
claims
soared, the Oregon Em-
ployment
Department
fell behind in a key area
that the federal govern-
ment uses to track unem-
ployment claims — pay-
ing the first week of un-
employment
benefits
within 21 days.
According to data from
the U.S. Department of
Labor, Oregon’s rate fell
from 97.4% in March to
54.7% in May and con-
tinued to decline to 23.3%
in November.
Under the settlement,
which will be the subject
of a March 16 hearing, the
department will have to
speed up all of its proc-
esses and make its ser-
vices more accessible to
non-English
language
speakers by March 1.
The lawsuit, filed in
July 2020 by attorneys
from the Oregon Law
Center, a non-profit legal
center that serves low-in-
come
communities,
sought to compel the de-
David Gerstenfeld took
the helm of the Oregon
Employment Department
on May 31, 2020.
COURTESY OREGON
EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT
partment to speed up its
processes in issuing un-
employment benefits and
expand the language ac-
cessibility.
The initial lawsuit said
plaintiffs had to wait 17
weeks for their benefits.
The plaintiffs won a
summary judgement in
early December, compel-
ling the department to
speed up its processes.
In a news release, the
department said it would
hire and train more work-
ers to handle unemploy-
ment claims, but didn’t
specify how that would
speed up the process.
Oregon Employment
Department acting direc-
tor David Gerstenfeld
said the department had
1,000 people processing
claims as of August.
“We have made signifi-
cant headway since the
onset of the pandemic,
improving our communi-
cation with claimants, of-
fering more services and
resources in languages
other than English, proc-
essing
claims
more
quickly, and closing in on
our backlog,” Gerstenfeld
said in the statement.
“We are committed to
doing right by the Orego-
nians relying on us,
reaching the goals set
forth in the proposed set-
tlement, and being trans-
parent about our progress
along the way.”
According to Decem-
ber data, Oregon had im-
proved to paying the first
week of benefits in a
timely manner to 50.6%,
though that number was
still far below the federal
standard.
Oregon and a few other
states, including Ken-
tucky, Maryland, Nevada,
Oklahoma, South Caroli-
na and Washington, have
struggled to get up to the
federal standard of 87%
of claims in 21 days.
The settlement will
cover all people in Oregon
who have applied for un-
employment since March
2020.
Among other issues
the parties agreed to in
the settlement, the state
will:
h Speed up its adjudi-
cation process by work-
ing through all claims in
that status as of Mid-Jan-
uary by March 1 and meet
timeliness
standards
with its adjudication
process by April 1.
h Expand services for
non-English speakers, in-
cluding allowing them to
receive retroactive bene-
fits they had been unable
to apply for initially due
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to the language barrier.
h Speed up wait times
for people restarting their
claims, something that
has been a frequent prob-
lem since many busi-
nesses in the state closed
due to new restrictions in
November 2020.
One of the early plain-
tiffs in the lawsuit, Lisa
Exterovich, said she lost
her job early in the pan-
demic
and
waited
months to receive unem-
ployment benefits or get
any
communication
about whether she was
eligible for it.
“The Employment De-
partment is committing
to paying people benefits
more quickly, working to
improve
communica-
tions with those seeking
benefits, and providing
assistance to people who
don’t speak English,” Ex-
terovich said in a state-
ment.
The original plaintiffs
in the lawsuit had their
claims processed shortly
after the original suit was
filed and the suit was
turned into a proposed
class action.
The lawsuit gave the
first accurate glimpse
into how many people in
the state had claims
stuck in the adjudication
process. The department
originally said it had
49,000 cases in adjudica-
tion in September, but
court filings indicated
there were 96,000.
In the final week of
January, the department
had fewer than 10,000
cases in adjudication,
Gerstenfeld said.
Bill Poehler covers
Marion County for the
Statesman Journal. Con-
tact him at bpoehler@
statesmanjournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler.
Sports
Continued from Page 1A
teams in extreme risk
counties to return to the
field.
Even the OSAA an-
nounced on Twitter it was
seeking more clarification
about the opting-in proc-
ess.
South Eugene athletic
director and boys basket-
ball coach Dave Hancock
assumed the decision to
opt-in for Eugene’s four
public high schools would
come from the 4J School
District.
“It’s not up to individ-
ual schools,” Hancock
said. “It’s up to the dis-
trict.”
Schools in extreme and
high risk counties want-
ing to opt in must also
have at least limited in-
person instruction occur-
ring or a plan in place for
hybrid instruction this
school year.
Season 2 for the Ore-
gon School Activities As-
sociation has started.
Most schools have been
conducting socially dis-
tant conditioning prac-
tices as they awaited a de-
cision by Brown. High
school soccer and cross
country were already
cleared to return with
their start date set for Feb.
22.
Indoor contact sports
Nathaniel Gubbels practices with teammates at Silverton High School. ABIGAIL DOLLINS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
like volleyball and basket-
ball are still prohibited in
all high- and extreme-risk
counties. There have been
no high school sports in
Oregon since state bas-
ketball tournaments were
canceled in mid-March
2020. Until Wednesday’s
decision, Oregon and
California were the only
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two states that neither
played a high school foot-
ball season this school
year nor had a plan to play.
“To all of Oregon’s high
school athletes: I am ask-
ing you to now be leaders
in your communities,”
Brown said. “We’ve given
you a chance to play, but
with that opportunity
comes great responsibil-
ity. If COVID-19 numbers
spike, we may have to
shut down contact sports
again. When you are off
the field, set the example
for your peers: Wear a
mask, maintain physical
distance, and avoid social
gatherings.”
Brown also said that if
lower small colleges like
NAIA Willamette Univer-
sity and Chemeketa Com-
munity College want to
return in full, they have to
meet the same standards
as Oregon’s Division I pro-
grams in regards to regu-
lar testing, plans for con-
tact tracing, isolation and
quarantine, and health
and safety protocols for
practices and games.
Statesman Journal re-
porter Luis Ramirez con-
tributed to this story.
Follow Chris Hansen
on Twitter @chansen_RG
or email at chansen@reg-
isterguard.com. For more
sports coverage, visit reg-
isterguard.com.
Mergers
cludes Planned Parent-
hood Advocates of Ore-
gon, Basic Rights Oregon,
the ACLU of Oregon,
Prism Health and SEIU
Local 49.
Large hospital sys-
tems and associations
have indicated to bill pro-
ponents that they will
look to amend some as-
pects of the proposal be-
fore they would be willing
to support it.
The Oregon Associa-
tion of Hospitals and
Health Systems declined
to comment for this story
about its position on the
proposed legislation.
Partners and CareOregon
announced their intent to
merge. The deal was
called off in May.
Proponents of HB 2362
said it was nearly impos-
sible to find answers to
questions they had about
how the merger might
impact services, particu-
larly for those on the Ore-
gon Health Plan through
CareOregon.
“It’s not a Providence-
specific problem; it can
be a large health system
problem,” said Peter Par-
isot, chief of staff and
chief legal officer at Cas-
cade AIDS Project and
Prism Health, an LGBTQ
clinic in Portland. “There
isn’t an agency that really
has eyes on this issue.
The bill is an attempt to
give some oversight au-
thority to the Oregon
Health Authority.”
Parisot said particular
communities
already
struggle with access to
care and mergers can
harm that access even
further.
“At the end of the day,
if these consolidations do
the things that they say
they do … I don’t have a
problem with consolida-
tion. What we’ve seen is
that’s not really true,” he
said.
Reporter Connor Rad-
novich covers the Oregon
Legislature and state
government. Contact him
at cradnovich@states-
manjournal.com or 503-
399-6864, or follow him
on Twitter at @CDRad-
novich.
Continued from Page 1A
tors that contribute to
health inequities.
The oversight is limit-
ed to entities that had $25
million or more in net pa-
tient revenue in the pre-
ceding three fiscal years.
The bill also would re-
quire the convening of a
review board of individ-
uals from impacted com-
munities, health care ex-
perts and consumer ad-
vocates for each pro-
posed deal. The board
could request documen-
tation and hold public
hearings to discuss the
potential transaction.
The stakeholder group
behind the legislation in-
Seeking information
The idea for the bill
originated two years ago
when Providence Plan