Gov. Laura Kelly said Monday that the Labor Department tried to claw back $7 million in duplicate unemployment benefits against the directions of her staff.
The attempt to reclaim the duplicate payments to more than 4,500 people led to the bank accounts of some beneficiaries being overdrawn.
The governor also said her administration is looking into reports that some beneficiaries who did not receive duplicate payments had money withdrawn from their accounts.
During a news briefing Monday, the governor said the Labor Department was directed not to move forward with trying to reverse the payments.
“We will determine how this breakdown occurred and ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Kelly said.
“The decision was wrong and I am going to use all the resources I have to identify the Kansans who were wrongly targeted or had their accounts overdrawn,” she said.
“They will be made whole.”
The governor revealed the latest wrinkle with the Labor Department after announcing earlier in the day that Secretary Delia Garcia had resigned.
The governor said she had met with Garcia on Sunday night when the secretary offered her resignation.
The announcement came after weeks of criticism over how the agency responded to a flood of unemployment claims after the economy abruptly shut down in March as the coronavirus started spreading across Kansas.
The governor revealed the duplicate payments Monday morning when Garcia’s resignation was announced.
“There was clearly a break in communications,” Kelly said.
“My staff did talk directly to Labor leadership,” she said. “At some point, the clawback happened. The leadership knew that was not to happen. What we need to figure out is why that happened.”
Kelly said no other leadership changes at the Labor Department were planned.
Meanwhile, the governor is sending her deputy chief of staff, Ryan Wright, over to run the agency.
Before joining the governor’s office, Wright served as executive director and board member of the Kansas Values Institute, a nonprofit social welfare group that spent heavily in the governor’s races in 2014 and 2018.
Wright also has led Kansans for Fair Courts, an offshoot of KVI. Kansans for Fair Courts defended the current so-called merit selection system for picking judges, a method that the Brownback administration sought to change — and did for justices sitting on the Kansas Court of Appeals.
Among other things, Wright has served as legislative director for the speaker of the House, special communications assistant to former state treasurer Lynn Jenkins and as a spokesman for Jerry Moran when he was a congressman.
Wright has a bachelor’s in political science from Kansas State University.
The governor said Wright has served as the liaison between the governor’s office and the agency during the pandemic.
“He is very well aware of what the issues are and is very much part of the solution.”
