Iowa’s Workforce Development director fights back against negative claims

DES MOINES - Iowa's Workforce Development director rebutted claims this week that her agency has struggled with a hostile work environment since 2011, saying changes she made have brought challenges but also needed efficiency and accountability to a once 'sleepy” organization.

Teresa Wahlert also flatly denied she has pushed an employer-friendly bias in deciding unemployment benefit cases or meddled with the appeals process in a way that has threatened the independent impartiality of administrative law judges as some critics had contended.

Wahlert, who was named Workforce Development leader by Gov. Terry Branstad in January 2011, said her agency has been buffeted by budget issues at the federal level - where 80 percent of job service money comes from - but is bouncing back from layoffs to replenish fraud investigation and law judge positions that will lower caseloads and better meet Department of Labor measures.

'The Department of Labor has always known that this was a transitionary time,” Wahlert told reporters after a hearing with the Senate Government Oversight Committee that followed a day of testimony that one senator said framed the state's workforce agency as 'a dysfunctional mess.”

Wahlert said she welcomed the two hours she had to respond to charges that she contended painted a false picture of her agency, but she told reporters 'there isn't enough time” to correct 'a long list” of misinformation and inaccuracies. She said she planned to correct the record by providing written information and data to the committee.

Wahlert presented several charts to committee members - one showing a trend line of appeal cases reversed in favor of claimants vs. employers with the claimants' line rising and the employers' line declining in each of the last six calendar years.

'You've got to hand it to her. She knows how to make a chart and make things look good,” said Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, a committee member who previously has requested a federal probe of Iowa Workforce Development activities. Wahlert said Wednesday she has talked with Department of Labor officials and they have not opened an investigation.

Senators expressed skepticism during the hearing with the agency's claims that a glitch this year that caused it to provide unemployment benefits to people who didn't seek them involved only $27,000 in payments to 85 people.

Agency officials said they could not definitely say whether more money was paid out, they only knew the number of people who contacted the agency about the mistake in March. Senators chastised agency officials for not being forthright and circulating a strongly worded email telling staff to keep quiet about what happened.