Deloitte Consulting was among the vendors who sold Florida a $78 million unemployment compensation system that buckled and broke for many thousands of Floridians who tried to file claims after being thrown out of work by the coronavirus pandemic.
Company representatives were called to task on the system s failures in a 2-hour appearance Monday before the Florida Senate s Select Committee on Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
The bottom line: No one including Deloitte, paid $46 million, foresaw the tsunami of unemployment applications that washed over and foundered the system. It was designed to handle unemployment levels produced by the Great Recession over a decade ago – about 10% – but started crashing when the jobless rate exceeded 13%.