Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

Commissioner Nicole “Nikki” Fried

The Capitol
May 4, 2020

Chief Inspector General Melinda M. Miguel

Office of the Chief Inspector General
The Capitol, 400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399

Inspector General Miguel,

You are undoubtedly aware of the serious, persistent failures surrounding CONNECT, the state’s system for facilitating
unemployment assistance.

State auditors cited major, systematic problems with CONNECT in 2015, 2016, and 2019 reports. Governor DeSantis
was briefed on these problems upon taking office. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented
requests for unemployment assistance, but has also exposed a failure to correct the problems. $110 million of taxpayer
funding is currently being spent to mitigate a portion of the failures in the midst of this pandemic.

The Governor recently asserted that CONNECT “was designed…basically to fail.” About the system’s plagued
creation, a state Senator recently stated that “someone should go to jail.” Now, the State of Florida is facing litigation
from unemployed Floridians, with plaintiffs citing “gross negligence.”

However, despite these known failures, the Governor has not acted with the urgency or transparency that the situation
necessitates. As the Miami Herald recently noted, “it’s unclear whether the problems auditors flagged last year still exist
and are causing headaches for the thousands of Floridians who are trying, and failing, to apply for unemployment
benefits. Neither DeSantis’ administration nor the Department of Economic Opportunity, which he oversees and which
operates the state’s unemployment website, responded to questions about which of the 17 findings in last year’s report
had been fixed since DeSantis took office in January 2019.”

Given these failures, I hereby request that pursuant to Section 14.32(2)(a), Florida Statutes, you initiate an investigation
into potential mismanagement of the CONNECT unemployment system.

As head of the state's consumer protection agency, I make this request on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of
Floridians who have been unduly frustrated by their state government’s inability to timely process requests for
unemployment assistance, for whom economic recovery depends on the competent government response they deserve.

Sincerely,

Nicole Fried
Commissioner of Agriculture

(850) 617-7700 1-800-HELPFLA www.FDACS.gov