Unemployment Web site stalled; claimants worry about benefits

LOUISVILLE - Steve Farrell is grateful for the job he has at technology company Rocky Mountain Ram, even though his hours were cut in half in April.

"Working part time is better than not working at all," he said.

Since April, Farrell has relied on benefits from the Colorado Department of Unemployment to help him make ends meet. Just like the more than 100,000 other Coloradans who receive unemployment benefits, he has to renew his claim every two weeks. But doing so online Sunday night proved unusually difficult.

"I was kicked out [of the Web site] four times last night," he said as he worried about getting his benefits check on time. "I'm on a budget and trying to pay bills."

Ferrell spent a total of four hours trying to file his claim. That same evening, officials with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment started receiving complaints about the Web site.

"It's a backend database service issue," said spokesperson Cher Haavind.

She added that IT workers with the department came in early Monday morning to fix the problem.

"It's a combination of server issue and volume," she said. "We knew that our systems were out of date and required replacement. And we've been working on those for about a year now."

Officials now say they don't know when the problem will be fixed, but they urge anyone who needs to renew a benefits claim or make a new claim to call the Department of Labor. The phone number to renew a claim is 303-813-2800. The phone number to make a new claim is 303-318-9123.

Haavind, though, expects the phone lines to be very busy too. She says people wishing to still access the website can try doing so later in the day or week.

"Be patient," she said.

In the meantime, Haavind says anyone who was delayed in renewing their benefits claim because of the Web site problem will still get their money.

"They won't be penalized. We'll backdate any claim," she said. "We don't want to affect their pocketbooks because of a technological issue on our end."