From VT Digger - State Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, Rep. Tiff Bluemle, D-Burlington, and Rep. Gabrielle Stebbins, D-Burlington, have called on Vermont Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington to resign following a snafu involving a planned $25 weekly unemployment benefit.
“[The Department of Labor] took a lifeline away from [Vermonters] due to willful incompetence,” Ram Hinsdale said in a Wednesday tweet. “It’s not the first time. Harrington should resign.”
Harrington offered an apology Tuesday at a hearing of the Legislature’s Unemployment Insurance Study Committee for not informing legislators in June that there could be a problem with the supplemental unemployment benefit signed into law June 1 by Gov. Phil Scott.
“If the primary concern is that we didn’t inform the Legislature in what they feel was a timely manner, I apologize,” Harrington said.
“VTDOL sits on info from USDOL re: UI rules all summer while telling legislators all session we can’t do this, that or the other thing for workers b/c of the rusty mainframe,” Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, D-Burlington, said in a tweet.
Mulvaney-Stanak did not call for Harrington’s resignation in an interview with VTDigger on Wednesday.
“I wish it were as simple as removing one person,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “There is a leadership and culture problem at the Department of Labor. The governor needs to set a different course. It’s not just Harrington. We need a real leadership shift.”
Mulvaney-Stanak said the labor department is under-resourced.
To read the full story go to: https://vtdigger.org/2021/09/15/2-democratic-state-legislators-call-for-resignation-of-vermont-labor-commissioner/