Kansas to shut down unemployment servers for security update to combat flood of fraud
After being flooded with fraudulent unemployment claims last year, the Kansas Department of Labor is taking its servers offline and delaying payment to beneficiaries to install a better security system.
The agency announced Wednesday that the system will shut down Saturday and come back online Tuesday morning. Starting Friday, claimants will not receive benefits but will receive back pay after the update next week.
In a news conference, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly predicted the number of fraudulent claims would “plummet” with the security system. The move, she said, was similar to steps taken in other states but that Kansas was slowed by a decades-old computer system used to process unemployment claims.
“There has been a surge in the number of claims recently,” Kelly said. “That very much could be related to the fraudulent claims that have been submitted.”
Since the department began tracking fraud claims in October, KDOL spokesman Jerry Grasso said, the department has blocked more than 250,000 bogus claims for benefits.
Once implemented, the program will require claimants to answer security questions specific to their credit history and set up two-factor authentication.
The result, the agency said, should be a “decline or outright elimination” of fraudulent claims.
The high level of fraud, seen nationwide, is yet another challenge for the Department of Labor.
The agency’s 1970s era computer system was overwhelmed with claims at the beginning of the pandemic, resulting in a large backlog. Former Secretary Delia Garcia resigned after the department over drafted the bank accounts of an unknown number of Kansans.
The department is currently being led by Acting Secretary Brett Flachsbarth.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 6:22 PM.
