ALBANY – Mike Montoro, like thousands of fellow New Yorkers, first applied for unemployment benefits in mid-March as his concert promotion business halted amid the spread of Covid-19.
The now-familiar wait for benefits ensued. Montoro couldn’t get through jammed phone lines, labor officials didn't call back and nothing happened after he finally got through to a Labor Department application processor.
The Cheektowaga resident, who is also a school board member in the Cleveland Hill school district, did something similar to tens of thousands of laid off New Yorkers: he reached out to a state lawmaker.
“I had run out of options," said Montoro, who as of Friday was still waiting for his first unemployment check.
In his case, Assemblywoman Monica Wallace, a Lancaster Democrat, was called upon for help to weave through the bureaucracy in Albany. Montoro said Wallace’s office immediately reached out to Department of Labor officials. Now, for the first time in more than two months, he has some hope benefits will start flowing.
Since Covid-19 hit New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has become the face of the New York State government as he takes to state and national airwaves each day. But it is district lawmakers who have been called upon by frustrated and scared constituents to take on myriad roles: calming forces, bureaucracy busters, solution finders, food pantry dispensers, mental health care referrers, face mask distributors, job locators.
People think of lawmakers by their title: makers of laws. They go to Albany, introduce bills, stand on the chamber floors and debate bills or give speeches, and, of course, use nearby restaurants and hotels to host political fundraisers.
Behind the scenes, though, constituency services work has long been the bread and butter task for any lawmaker who wants to remain in office. Concerns about roads, or schools, or DMV snafus or business permits all come under the umbrella of constituent services.
But since Covid-19, that work has sharply accelerated, with a new top task no matter whether a legislator represents a city, suburban or rural district: addressing unemployment insurance benefit problems that have plagued hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
“Unemployment is, by far, the most significant issue that we’ve been dealing with the past few months, with good reason," said Wallace, whose office has gotten thousands of calls and emails from constituents in a region that – at 19.2% – had the state’s highest unemployment rate last month. She said she personally has intervened in more than 500 constituent problems with the jobless benefits.
Assemblywoman Monica Wallace works on constituent issues in her district office in Cheektowaga. (James P. McCoy/Buffalo News)
“It’s gotten emotional for me to see the desperation in the emails," said Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez, a Bronx Democrat whose district includes neighborhoods such as Pelham Gardens, one of the areas of the state with the highest number of Covid-19-related deaths. Some panicked emails on the issue are sent to her at 3 and 4 in the morning.
Covid-19 drives New Yorkers for help
In Queens, Senator Jessica Ramos has hosted a weekly food distribution program for 3,000 families in her district thanks to an effort she began to link upstate farmers with food needs in her district.
But Ramos, the Senate Labor Committee chair, received 214 emails from constituents on unemployment benefits in May alone. That was after the Cuomo administration’s labor department publicly characterized the benefits’ problem as massively improved and far more workable than other states.
Also in Queens, Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris has visited five sites to deliver 2,500 face masks and distributed 40 cases of hand sanitizer to constituents.
And then there’s unemployment: more than 800 of Gianaris’ constituents have reached out to his office to help navigate the state labor bureaucracy that for weeks was overwhelmed by millions of claims.
In Brooklyn, the office of Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat, reported that one constituent liaison could not recall any unemployment concerns brought by constituents before Covid-19. Since the pandemic started, 266 constituents have asked for jobless benefits help.
A bi-partisan problem
The constituent problems stretch across party lines.
“From issues with unemployment to health care questions to business owners looking for answers, it’s been an unprecedented amount of outreach," said Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, an Oswego County Republican.
In Niagara Falls, Assemblyman Angelo Morinello, a Republican, said he got calls from dentists about why they could not re-open or from small businesses wondering why big box stores were operating but small stores had to stay shuttered.
On unemployment, though, Morinello said: “All day, every day and even late at night, that was the majority of the constituent calls and emails."
Like other lawmakers, Morinello reported mood phases for the jobless. In the beginning, they were understanding, if frustrated with computer application programs that suddenly disappeared from their screens. Anger and worry started spreading among constituents when calls were not returned by labor officials. Then there was a new level of angst when people who got checks sometimes got the wrong amount and the delays started all over again. Some jobless even expressed frustration to lawmakers about why phone center workers they talked to lived out of state at a time of such high unemployment at home.
Desperation draws residents to lawmakers
Constituents are learning something that lobbyists already know: Legislators have more access.
“My office has never been busier as it pertains to constituent services," said Senator Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat.
State Senator Tim Kennedy in the chambers at the State Capitol building in January. (Mark Mulville/News file photo)
Many lawmaker offices are now open seven days a week, handling messages left on phones, via web pages, through social media or in heartfelt letters from constituents facing Covid-19's many impacts.
To deal with unemployment problems, lawmakers were given a special state labor portal through which they could send details about specific constituents’ benefit problems. The state labor commissioner got on the phone with lawmakers. Outreach was made to Cuomo’s staffers.
Constituents who took this route tapped into lawmakers’ political standing in Albany to get labor officials to directly focus on stalled applications.
Sound unfair? Lawmakers say it is part of their duty. They also know it makes good politics: help constituents get unemployment checks and they’re going to tell friends and neighbors. 2020 is, after all, an election year for all 213 state legislative seats.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what she has done," Montoro said of Wallace. “There’s still zeros in my bank account but all the arrows appear in the right direction now."
Kennedy said lawmakers are serving as “megaphones” to help direct people to available assistance – from location of food pantries to supplies of personal protective equipment. Kennedy also runs an online job referral site.
On unemployment, more 1,000 people have reached out to Kennedy's office for help during the pandemic. (A Senate district has nearly 300,000 residents.)
“We have all hands on deck trying to work with DOL to try to fast-track these applications," Kennedy said.
Access can bring results in Albany
By the time most reach out to lawmakers on jobless claims, they have often been waiting a month or more without any action on their claims.
“What we’re seeing is a lot of people who are desperate," Kennedy said.
He spoke of a laid off mother in Depew who couldn’t get a response from the Department of Labor as she worried about not being able to afford her son’s asthma prescription.
“We were able to remedy it over the phone," Kennedy said.
Assemblyman Sean Ryan, a Buffalo Democrat running to join the state Senate, has assisted more than 400 people with unemployment claims. The New York Post on May 18 had a single line in a story quoting from Ryan’s Facebook page offering to help people in his district with unemployment problems. That led even some downstate residents to reach out to Ryan’s office for help.
If the jobless claims crisis is close to being resolved, lawmakers’ offices are not yet feeling it. Constituent calls have declined on the topic, but Ryan’s office is still getting between 40 and 50 people reaching out every day for help with jobless benefits.
“They’re people of modest means who can’t afford to wait. They don’t have money in the bank to pay the rent and make the car payment and pay the electric bill," Ryan said. " ... We can’t be leaving people out there who are desperate."
Tensions run high
Lawmakers say most constituents with the unemployment issues have been a mix of frazzled and courteous. Sometimes, staffers are abused by callers who, after weeks of trying to get a labor official to return their call, take their wrath out on the first state employee who gets on the phone.
“It’s the not knowing anything about it that’s incredibly frustrating to people," Wallace said, adding that her office has been able to resolve many of the jobless claim problems. “Unfortunately, there’s quite a large number still unresolved."
For Kathy Bays, a Buffalo resident who lost her job at a day care center, it became clear she was not going to get answers from the labor agency without employing the help of elected officials. She reached out first to Assemblyman Pat Burke and then to Senator Tim Kennedy, both Buffalo Democrats. She believes Kennedy was able to prod along her stalled claim, which she waited two months to receive.
“I think they may have a little bit more clout than we do," Bays said. "... Sometimes, the little guy doesn't get heard."
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Waiting – and waiting, the unemployed turn to lawmakers for help - Buffalo News
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