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Federal officials called in to fix Florida's unemployment site

ORLANDO, Fla. — Federal officials will be in Tallahassee this week to investigate problems that have plagued Florida’s website where people can apply for unemployment benefits.

The state already added hundreds of employees to its workforce to try to keep up with and fix the problems.  Before CONNECT  launched in October the state hired 230 additional staff members and since then has hired an extra 200. Now, there’s a plan in place to hire another 330 employees.

Those 330 additional workers alone will cost the state $164,000 per week.

“I don’t know if it takes hiring more people to figure it out or just getting the right people to figure it out,” said Bruce Fisher, who has been trying to use the site since he was laid off last month.

In October Sen. Bill Nelson announced he wanted an investigation into the $63 million website and his office told WFTV today federal officials will be in Tallahassee by the end of the week.

In the meantime, Fisher is hoping he picks up another job so he doesn’t have to spend time trying to get the website to work.

“It’s not an easy site to use,” Fisher said.