ORLANDO, Fla. – Two state senators hosted a Q&A Thursday in an attempt to get some clarity from the official overseeing Florida’s coronavirus unemployment response but instead, hundreds of frustrated people were left with unanswered questions.

The Facebook live hosted by Florida Sen. Jason Pizzo and Sen. Jeff Brandes was quickly flooded with questions in the comments for Department of Management Services Secretary John Satter, the man appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to step in and oversee the state’s unemployment surge. About 1,200 people tuned in to watch.

Since mid-March, Floridians unable to work due to the pandemic have struggled to receive unemployment benefits through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity website CONNECT or to speak to a human due to the volume of calls and applications.

As of Wednesday, the DEO has made more than 416,000 unemployment benefit payments out of the 916,000 unique claims submitted, according to the most recent numbers on the DEO dashboard. The state has paid more than $579 million in unemployment, more than half funded by federal pandemic aid.

The one takeaway from the Q&A was Satter’s remarks about Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for those who file 1099 tax forms such as contractors or gig workers, and it explained why those who have been told to apply for those benefits at Floridajobs.org can’t find the application because the state isn’t ready to process those benefits.

“We are building the system to be able to accept those applications because these are federal dollars,” Satter said.

He said it could be another five to seven days before PUA applications can be processed through the DEO CONNECT system.

Earlier this week, the DEO put out information on its website telling people who were declared ineligible they may qualify for PUA or benefits under the federal CARES Act, however, based on Satter’s statements, the state is a week away from being able to process any PUA applications, which is why frustrated Floridians can’t find the application at Floridajobs.org.

More than 266,000 people were declared ineligible and may qualify for federal benefits, according to the DEO dashboard.

Satter also addressed how the state plans to honor retroactive payments for people who weren’t able to to apply sooner due to website issues but that fix is also not ready.

The secretary said they are working on a way for people to backdate their application to when they would have applied if they could get into CONNECT.

“If you tried to get into the primary system when the system started to have issues in mid-March you would be able to attest you tried to access and couldn’t, you could backdate,” Satter said, adding, “We’re building out the tool to allow people to do that.”

Again, no timeline was offered for when people could see those retroactive payments.

News 6 has received hundreds of calls and emails from people who are still waiting on benefits and spend hours a day trying to get answers or trying to find out how to apply for PUA.

To help handle the influx of calls and applications, the DEO has brought in contractors to the tune of $120 million and counting, state spending records show, and more than 2,000 state employees from other agencies are also processing applications.

Satter said the best number to call with questions is 1-833-FL-APPLY (352-7759) and indicated calling in the later afternoon might offer some relief from the long wait times callers have experienced. Many of the comments on the Facebook live said they were calling that number and were disconnected or the person they spoke to didn’t have answers.

Before the Q&A ended, Satter said offered up a promise.

“I can’t express this enough, hold us accountable,” he said. “It will take us some time but we’re going to get there.”