03/30/2023
February 2, 2023 Public Hearing Testimony of Dante Bartolomeo Commissioner Department of Labor Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee
Public Hearing Testimony of
Danté Bartolomeo
Commissioner
Department of Labor
Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee
February 2, 2023
Good morning Senator Duff, Representative Concepcion, Senator Kelly, Representative Yaccarino, and members of the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee. I’m Danté Bartolomeo and I’m honored to appear before you as Governor Ned Lamont’s nominee for Commissioner at the Department of Labor.
I am so grateful for this opportunity. Around this time last year, your committee confirmed my appointment to lead an agency that continues to be on the frontlines of pandemic recovery. I’m here today eager to share our progress and, with your consent, ready to get back to work.
Over the past 10 years, as a state senator and in my role at CTDOL, I’ve been fortunate to have the support and counsel of many of you as we navigated some of the most difficult days in state history.
I’m a proud lifelong resident of Connecticut. I grew up in Wallingford and, after attending Colby College, came back home where my husband and I raised our children in Meriden. At heart, I’m a public servant. My best days are the ones where I know I helped someone and made things just a little bit better. It’s a guiding principle in my life and one I take to work with me every day.
The pandemic challenged every one of us, but at the Connecticut Department of Labor, we were uniquely positioned to help. It is incredibly difficult and imperfect, and the pandemic learning curve has been steep for us all, but I want to take a moment to tell you all just how valuable and dedicated the CTDOL staff has been and continues to be.
The backbone of this agency are the people who wake up every day and wade right into the difficulty and the imperfection. They are challenged by the people they serve and the complexity of the many state and federal mandates that guide their work. They work under the microscope of public service and got us through an extraordinary era of an overnight recession, an 18% unemployment rate, and hundreds of thousands of people who needed their help every week.
And through all of it, they show up 100% for this job, this agency, and the people of Connecticut. I’m proud to work with them.
Connecticut’s economy was among the hardest hit by the pandemic. In March and April of 2020, Connecticut lost nearly 290,000 jobs. Over two years, 627,000 Connecticut workers filed for eight federal and state unemployment programs. The agency disbursed $10.5 billion in unemployment funds—money that kept individuals, families, and the state’s economy afloat during the pandemic.
While Congress was working to get financial resources to residents, CTDOL was using 40-year-old technology and had to build entirely new systems to administer the federal programs established under CARES Acts 1 and 2 and then the American Rescue Plan.
PUA, PEUC, MEUC, DUA, LWA, FPUC 1, and FPUC 2 —all federal programs designed to provide economic relief quickly, were an alphabet soup of confusion for unemployment filers who were not sure what they were eligible for and how to get it. All of them needed our help.
During that first 15 months, 1.5 million claims came in. What we normally receive in 10 years, we received in the first year. CTDOL staff, 35% smaller due to years of budget cuts, was quickly burning through its own staff who were working days, nights, weekends, and holidays with no end in sight.
In order for us to help the people who needed it, we needed help first.
Governor Lamont and the legislature made sure that we got that help. On behalf of the staff and leadership team at CTDOL, I want to thank you for that. Thank you for standing by us, providing good counsel, and helping us get assistance out to residents.
With support and funding, we have been able to hire staff in units experiencing the highest demand—the Consumer Contact Center, Benefit Payment Control, Adjudications, and Appeals. We re-opened the American Job Centers with dedicated Consumer Contact Center agents and a revamped service delivery model. We continue to bring in staff for our Benefit Payment Control and Adjudications Units and the Appeals Division—two areas still burdened by pandemic backlogs.
The Consumer Contact Center, CTDOL’s one-stop call center, turned two in July and has handled 2.7 million calls and cases.
The new Unemployed Workers’ Advocate unit, established just last year, is already managing more than 800 cases. Their work reduces the barrier to unemployment and helps filers understand the process at each step of the way.
In addition, ReEmployCT, the new unemployment tax and filing system, launched in July. This system modernizes state government, reduces the time it takes to interact with the agency, and brings many services online, making them more accessible to users. It’s a step towards ensuring equity in Connecticut and we should all be proud of this commitment.
Our Wage and Workplace Standards Division has, over two years, investigated about 8,000 cases, recovered $7.7 million in back pay for workers, and has levied more than $2 million in civil penalties against employers who were violating labor laws.
Lastly, we’ve been at the head of the line in advocating for employers who were dealing with the financial impact of the pandemic. ReEmployCT makes faster notification to employers and helps prevent fraudulent applications from being paid out. That protects the employer-funded Trust Fund.
We’ve been integrally involved with efforts to bring the state closer to Trust Fund solvency. We advocated for a state tax reduction for employers to help offset the long-term impacts of federal borrowing. It’s part of easing some of the burden on employers from the pandemic.
With these successes, we also acknowledge that there are many things we can and must do better. As a state agency integral to both the social safety net and workforce development, we continue to need your partnership to make sure the resources are there for people who need us.
Over the coming year, CTDOL will continue our efforts to help get claimants through Adjudications and Appeals. Both of these areas are still handling pandemic volume and both of them require highly skilled staff who understand unemployment law and the requirements established by the multitude of federal programs that existed from 2020-2021.
We will ask you to continue to support our other claimant assistance programs at CTDOL—the Consumer Contact Center, the Unemployed Workers’ Advocate unit, and the American Job Centers.
Our statewide economy continues to be solid. Connecticut’s employers added 55,000 jobs in 2021 and 32,000 jobs in 2022. These are the fastest job growth years we’ve had since 1996. With about 100,000 jobs available in the state, CTDOL workforce development programs continue to be critical feeders for business and industry.
Family care, transportation, illness, housing insecurity, and other issues play a major role in workforce participation. Using the Two Generational (2Gen) and the Whole Family Approach to Jobs, CTDOL is taking a pragmatic approach to building a strong and stable workforce pipeline.
Our Registered Apprenticeship program has remarkable success recruiting employers in high demand fields like healthcare, partnering with educational institutions throughout Connecticut, and ensuring Registered Apprentices graduate with sought-after skills and a strong career ladder for jobs right here in Connecticut. CTDOL has 6,700 registered apprentices engaged with 1,700 employers across more than 50 occupations. It’s a workforce development workhorse and an answer to manufacturing, defense, construction, trades, and technology industry needs.
CTDOL is committed to helping people who are facing very stressful situations. They may be laid off, new to the workforce, or masters of their craft. They may be resettled refugees or newly relocated from over the border. Whoever they are, we are here for them.
We work closely with state agencies, private businesses, social and legal service organizations, and all of you to do our work. These partnerships create more connections for our customers—wrap around services like housing, transportation, tax, legal, and other resources are in place now, and we continue to seek more ways to serve the whole person at CTDOL.
Before I take your questions, I want to just thank Deputy Commissioners Daryle Dudzinski and Mark Polzella for their generous support and extraordinary dedication to the agency. They are truly experts of this complicated programs administered by our agency and I am fortunate to work with them.
With that, I thank you for your consideration of my nomination and am happy to take any questions you may have.
Connecticut Department of Labor • www.ct.gov/dol
An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer