February 13,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Hackensack NJ , Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi intervenes in a constituents unemployment claim is almost tossed from the building.
According to Schepisi’s Facebook post , “Over the past two weeks I watched through social media the struggles of Monica Brinson as she attempts to have an unemployment claim fixed. Today I went to the unemployment office to see firsthand how it operates. I almost got physically removed for videotaping the attached but afterwards did get a comprehensive tour and analysis of the good, bad and ugly of these offices. First, the State needs to provide additional personnel. There is currently 1 employee working today in this office to service a county of almost 1 million people. They stopped handing out tickets to see people at number 7. That is right, for the entire day they will only be able to service 7 people. The group of people to the far right in the video against the wall are there to try to reach a live person at the Department of Labor. These are “dedicated phone lines” that are supposed to allow people to reach a human being but the minimum wait time on these phones is in excess of 1 1/2 hours. Many of the people I spoke to this morning wait outside in the cold for upwards of several hours because only 5 people at a time are generally allowed in the building. People will wait for 3-4 hours inside and then find out that they cannot be seen that day. We must find a better way to provide staffing.
On the upside I was provided with a comprehensive tour of the building, including the employment opportunities, the Bergen One-Stop Career Center and the available training programs. In a separate post I will provide some of the resources given to me today.
Finally I am glad that I did not need bail money today. The armed guard with the weapon on his side did tell me that if I continued to hand out my assembly business card to those seeking help that I would be physically removed from the premises. An exciting way to begin a Monday morning.”
On the downside, the person giving you the tour was not available to help the unemployed.
Her video recording of the facility was completely out of line. Those applying for benefits should be afforded some degree of anonymity.
You should got to Motor Vehicles next.
Holly is really onto something important here. Given where this state is heading it’s very important that we get very good at administering unemployment benefits. She must be paying close attention to the implications of what The Murph is saying.
Anonymity? It’s a public place.
I would pay to see her arm-wrestle Josh…
I know 2:38. Typical
Did you interview Assembly woman Schepisi or should there be a citation to reference the source of this quote?