New mainframes do not mean the end of old problems
The unemployment special session has come and gone with nothing to show. For some reason, however, folks seem to think a new mainframe is somehow vital to fixing the unemployment case-handling problems at the Department.
I have to ask: what are they smoking?
A new mainframe is a four to eight year project, and there is no guarantee of success. Massachusetts, for example, did not actually get a new unemployment system until its third attempt at replacing its old mainframe.
And, in every state that has moved to a new claim-filing system, the effort has taken numerous years of…