Six months after request, NC has not provided unemployment office records
In late April, WRAL News filed an public records request with the state unemployment office, seeking a trove of emails to and from Lockhart Taylor, who was then head of the Division of Employment Security.
The idea was to gauge what sort of heads-up Taylor got before Gov. Roy Cooper ordered businesses closed due to the coronavirus pandemic and to read conversations top officials had as new unemployment claims spiked and overwhelmed the state's system.
The Cooper administration has not provided any of those records, despite repeated reminders over six months.
A spokesman for the state Department of Commerce, which houses the Division of Employment Security, said nearly two weeks ago that the state was close to completing the process, but he said Thursday things had not been as far along as he'd thought.
The Cooper administration has released a lot of data during the pandemic, but its record on public records requests is spotty. WRAL and a number of other media partners are engaged in a lawsuit against the administration, seeking the release of various records.
The request for Taylor's emails was sent via email on April 17. It sought his emails from the month of March with Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland, as well as with the governor and members of the governor's senior staff.
Taylor was replaced in late May. He has not returned WRAL voicemails seeking an interview.
Taylor told state lawmakers in a committee hearing this spring that he knew his office would see a flood of new applications when the governor announced mandatory closures and other measures, including mid-March school closures. But he said he was surprised how massive it was.
The state went from processing an average of 3,200 claims a week in 2019 to something closer to 20,000 a day as claims mounted during the spring.
The division has dealt with 1.3 million claimants since March 15 and distributed roughly $8.4 billion in federal and state jobless benefits, according to a daily update the Division of Employment Security issued Thursday.
