Weekly COVID-19 Updates: Filing for Unemployment, Q&A

Stella: [00:00:00] well, good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our weekly COVID-19 updates. I am Stella Beard, the assistant director for Kentucky SPIN, and we’re going to be talking today about unemployment benefits for folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Before we do that though, I would like to tell you just a little bit about Kentucky SPIN and go over a few housekeeping things. First of all, if you have a question, you are more than welcome to type that in the question box. And, we will pause throughout the presentation today. If they’re are any questions and try to answer those.

Following the webinar today, we will be sending their PowerPoint out for you. So just wanted to let you know that that information will be sent to everyone on the webinar today. And then also at the end of the webinar, there will be a brief summary. If you would please fill out that [00:01:00] evaluation for us, it lets us know how we’re doing and what we can do to better improve, for you all. But just a little bit about Kentucky SPIN.  Kentucky SPIN actually stands for Kentucky Special Parent Involvement Network. We are the parent training and information center or the PTI for the state of Kentucky.

We have been the PTI for Kentucky since 1988. We also provide training, resources and information support for families and children, with all types of disabilities, birth through age 26. As you will see if you visit our website, we have a COVID-19 page that we have created with lots of wonderful resources and links for families where you can get all of that information in one location.

We also are doing a variety of webinars, throughout the end of June. And also, when I send the PowerPoint out to you, I will send a flyer with all of those links available for you to [00:02:00] register for additional webinars. At Kentucky SPIN, though we do not act as attorneys, but what we do is we empower families to effectively advocate for their kids.

We are more of a peer support to help families. All of our staff, are either a parents who have a child, or a young adult with an intellectual developmental disability or a sibling. And, so we really pride ourselves on that, that we are, you know, able to interact with families because we’ve been there we understand what that’s like. I actually have a 23 year old, almost 24 year old with an intellectual disability, but one of the things we do more than anything is we just lend a listening ear. We talk to families on a daily basis and we help them understand special education and understand how they can be a better advocate for their child.

And our director, Rhonda Logsdon, said this, and we thought it was just such a great quote. “The key to success for all our children during this unprecedented time is to work in partnership as we all go down this uncharted territory together!” [00:03:00] And that’s why I’m so excited to have our special guests with us today.

Her name is Natalie Haden. She is in the department for workforce development and she is a workforce development specialist two. And so she works with unemployment on a daily basis, but she is in the unemployment and benefits department. So we want to thank Natalie for joining us today. Natalie, can you hear me.

Natalie: [00:03:25] Yes, I can hear you. Great. Thank you so much for introducing me. I do appreciate it. So today I’m going to be telling you specifically how to file an unemployment claim. This is a step by step guide. If you have any questions at all, go ahead and enter in your questions and we’ll stop the presentation and go through what you specifically need.

So to begin the process, the website that you’re going to go to is www.kcc.ky.gov once you’re on the main screen, you’re going to see a menu. You’re going to click on unemployment services up at the top and select file or access your claim. Next, [00:04:00] you’re going to be viewing our unemployment insurance claim systems page.

It will tell you when our system is available, what services it provides, and our internet requirements. Please read through all of this information. I cannot stress it enough. It will tell you also the best browsers are Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Safari is not compatible. Once you’re done reading through all that information, you’re going to go down to the bottom of click on, I agree.

On the next screen you’re going to be viewing where you can log in and you’re going to click on New User. You’re going to put in your legal first and your last name, do not put any nicknames, if you do have junior or senior in your last name, please make sure to go ahead and add that. You can also have your middle initial in there as an option.

You don’t technically have to, but it doesn’t allow our office to look for your wages if need be. Additionally, you’re going to be putting in your email. Our office sends out a lot of electronic documents, specifically regarding [00:05:00] payment, so please make sure you put in a valid email and an email that you can have access to.

Once you actually clicked on new profile, you’re going to click on. Uh-oh, I apologize. You’re going to basically be creating a pin. This is a pin that you create. Our office will never create a pin for you. So at this point you’re going to be, choosing a security question. One was the name of your pet, favorite pet’s name? Two what city were you born?

Three, what is your mother’s maiden name? And four, what is your grandmother’s maiden name? Click on next at the bottom, and then you’ll see, wow, this is not very thorough.

[Disapointed sigh.] So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna stop here as this is not the correct slide that we should be on. If you can go ahead and hit next, please. Hit next again. [00:06:00] Okay. So basically, go back please.

Okay. So, this is the main screen that I wanted to show you. I should have deleted the first two slides. I do apologize on that. So we’re going to go ahead and create a profile. This is the Kentucky Career Center website, the www.kcc.ky.gov  as you can see, step one, you’re going to click on unemployment services and then you’re going to select file or access your claim.

Again, I do want to note that Safari is not compatible at this time. Please use Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explore. Okay. On the next screen, you’re going to be viewing our system, specifically what I mentioned before, what services are provided, the internet browsers and what our system can do for you. Once you’ve read through all this information, you’re going to click on, I agree at the bottom.

Go to the next screen please. [00:07:00] This is a much better visual than what I was trying to show you earlier. And again, I do apologize on that fact. You’re going to go ahead and click on new user, and if you’ve ever had an existing account before, our system, it goes back to 2002. So if you have actually had a claim from 2002 to 2009, our system is not going to have a security question for you already enforced in there.

So you would have to actually turn in your driver’s license, your social security card, and a letter to your address and a good phone number to contact you back at, if you’ve ever had a preexisting claim prior to 2009. And then also on the screen, you’ll see specifically where you’re going to be turning that information into to, uiassistance@ky.gov or you can fax it into our office at (502) 564-0065. You can also call into our main office to talk to a representative, and just [00:08:00] simply take pictures of everything and email it over to the representatives. They’ll go ahead and send it over to someone that can go ahead and do that. In this instance, since you’ve never filed a Kentucky unemployment claim, potentially before, you’re going to click on new user, you can go to the next screen.

Now in these fields you’re going to be putting in your legal first and last name, again, your middle initial is optional. You’re going to put in your correct email address. As I said before, we’re going to be sending you a lot of paperwork regarding payments. Then you’re going to be putting in your correct social security number, and then you’re going to be re-entering in your social security number.

Now you’re going to be creating a four digit numeric pin. This is something that only you create. Our office will never be creating a four digit pin for you. Now you’re going to be selecting four different security questions. What is your favorite pet’s name? In what city were you born? What was your mother’s maiden name? And what is your [00:09:00] grandmother’s maiden name?

Keep in mind, this is actually case sensitive, so just to make things a little bit easier, go ahead and do all upper case letters. It will help out tremendously. And go to the next screen.

On this next screen, you’re going to be putting in your personal address. Don’t put anybody else’s address. We send out way too much information, letters about what your monetary amount is going to be. Additionally, you know, especially during this timeframe with COVID-19 going on, we’ll send out paperwork regarding, you know, what you need to do.

So go ahead and put in your address, if it’s a PO box and you’re going to be putting in verses the full address, if you have an apartment, put apartment, that full word please, it does help. Or if you have a suite, yeah, put in suite, it does help. Especially with the mail service, making sure that you get that specific letter and not give it out to your neighbor by accident. Then you’re going to be putting in your [00:10:00] city, state, the county that you live in, and your zip code, and of course your email address. You can go to the next screen.

At that point, it will go ahead and create an online profile for you. It does take a couple moments for that to be established in the mainframe, but now you can see, you can request a payment. You can, of course change your payment method. And again, right now I’m just giving an orientation about your online profile.

Okay. And you can click file a claim, which that’s our next step at this point. You cannot request a benefit check prior to you filing a claim. Just so you’re aware, once you’ve actually filed your claim, you can see on the account summary specifically what our office needs, potentially, when your next benefit check is going to be and what your monetary amounts going to be and more.

We’ll go into that in a little bit. So at this point, what I’m going to do is go [00:11:00] ahead and click on file a claim. So we’re going to go ahead and get started. It does take about 30 minutes for you to file an unemployment claim. Please make sure you have all the required information as seen on this slide.

If you actually worked in another state, other than Kentucky within the last 18 months, you need to make sure that you put in that state. If you don’t put in that state, it’s going to, or our system will automatically generate your monetary determination letter saying, what our weekly benefit amount is going to be, because it’s different for everyone.

And you know, if you don’t put it in there, well, you’re going to be unfortunately seeing a lower amount. And then you’ll be calling our office saying, you know, specifically asking, “Hey, what’s going on? What can I do to help with this?” Additionally, if you’ve worked with a temporary agency, please make sure that you’ve put the agency that you work for, not the contractor’s employer you worked for.

Like for example, if you worked at Kelly Services and your contract is at Toyota, you’re going to list Kelly Services as your employer, they [00:12:00] pay your payment, they give you your paycheck. Additionally, you only want to submit one claim filing an additional claim on top of a claim that you’ve just filed, let’s say about a week ago. It’ll cause issues with your payment.  I cannot stress that enough. Be patient and only request on the days that you’re supposed to be requesting. Whenever you’re done filing this claim, it actually will give you a confirmation number, specifically. So now you’re going to be going through the base period wages. Legally, we have to allow employers six months to report their W2 employees wages to Kentucky. Note if a company has their central office in another state, please be sure to go ahead and call our office at (502) 564-2900, to determine where the wages are reported. Companies can decide what state they report their wages to.

So you just want to make sure that you do call our office. If you have any wages outside of state, you’ll need to go [00:13:00] ahead and report that it while we’re going in through the claim I’ll actually show you specifically where. Our system will automatically request your wages from another state once submitted as well.

Getting the wages from another state. It actually can take up to four to six weeks, depending on the state, and how quickly. And of course with COVID-19 going on, there could be a little bit of a delay, but we genuinely try to consistently to call them, email them, do what we have to do in order to get the wages actually back from their office.

And please, I just want to say, please do not worry. Allow our office time to get the wages from another state, okay? All right? It will specifically ask you if you’ve already filed another claim in another state. You want to be very, very careful with that because if you do have two claims open in two different states, it’s going to block the unemployment and you have to figure out which specific state that you want to have your [00:14:00] unemployment claim in.

So. Again, it’s within 52 weeks. If you’ve ever filed another claim in another state, you can only have one claim at a time. Of course, as I stated, it can cause issues. If you’ve already had filed the claim in another state and then filed a claim in Kentucky, and of course you want to call our office today, determine, you know, what specifically needs to occur.

I’ve already mentioned that. The biggest thing, if you’ve already exhausted your claim in another state, then you can go ahead and file a claim in Kentucky. As long as you have wages that we can pull from and you have a valid claim. As you can see on the right here, you can see a monetary determination saying you’ve got an invalid claim.

Feel free to call our office regarding this. We can try to see, you know, where your wages are. And you know, a lot of times, unfortunately, we do see, your employer had reported your wages under the wrong name, the wrong social. It does cause a lot of problems with that, but it’s [00:15:00] very rare for our office to see that.

Additionally, at the very bottom, you’re gonna see a monetary determination that says what you’re going to be eligible for, what the total benefits that you can get. And just, to let you know at the end of the year, you’ll be receiving a 1099 G form. Actually, I should say in January. We always send them out in the second and third week of January, so that way it’s right in time for tax time.

Go to the next screen.

Okay. So on this screen specifically, I went ahead and highlighted a lot of issues that our office sees. Of course it’s going to ask you if you worked in Kentucky and the base period shown right now it is all of 2019. We can’t use the six months, most recent wages. We always [00:16:00] have to wait for the employer to go ahead and report the wages.

Then we can go ahead and use those wages. It will ask you to do, did you work in another state other than Kentucky and the base period wages? Again, this is where you’re going to be putting in that information and I’ll show you a little bit more of what states you can go ahead and select later on.

I do want to state, COVID-19 is not a natural disaster. It is, basically natural disasters are physical disasters, so like tornado, flooding, fire, hail damage, lightning strikes, earthquakes, that kind of thing.  COVID-19 is very unfortunate. I will, I will say, but it is technically not a natural disaster, so it will only cause problems if you answer that.

Okay, will specifically…

Stella: [00:16:52] Natalie, what if someone does select [unclear]

Natalie: [00:16:58] If that is selected …

[00:17:00] Stella: [00:16:59] COVID-19, not knowing.

Natalie: [00:17:07] The phone broke up just a little bit there. But to answer the question, if they do select that it is a natural disaster, it’ll create issue on the claim that someone will just go ahead and mark that. And it won’t be too much of a problem to be very genuine with you. So if you, if you answer that incorrectly, it’s okay.

Our office will be, we’ll be able to see the issue and just take care of it.

Stella: [00:17:34] Great. Thank you. I know we had had a couple of folks that had, said they had selected that. So we just wanted to clarify that. Thank you so much.

Natalie: [00:17:44] No problem. If you’ve ever served in the armed service, armed forces between the specific dates that it lists within the base period, you’re going to select yes or no.

If you do select yes, you’re going to have to turn in your DD-214 and you can just simply [00:18:00] upload that to your online claim or you can fax it into our office at (502) 564-0065. It’ll also ask you specifically if you worked for the federal government or the U.S. postal service, and again, you’ll have to turn in your SF-8 or SF-50 for that.

And then of course, it’ll ask you specifically if you’re actually filing a claim, and are you in Kentucky? We actually do have an interstate division where we can have someone actually living in another state, but draw on Kentucky and vice versa for other states as well. So please make sure that you’re very honest with this answer.

And if you live in that, if a different state. Outside of COVID-19 circumstances. If you do live in another state, we would require you to register for work in the state that you live in, and then you would have to actively seek full time work each week. But this is within COVID-19 and right now you’re not [00:19:00] specifically required do that right now.

You can go to the next screen. Alrighty. So now you’re going to be getting to the personal information page, and you’re just going to be putting in a little bit more demographics about yourself. Of course, your first and last name is locked in. So if you’re on this screen and you see that you’ve inadvertently spelled your name wrong, it’s locked in. And you want to make sure that you write that down, if you did misspell your name, because at the very end, whenever you’re actually doing your certifications and typing in your name, you’re going to have to make sure you type it in incorrectly just the way that you did it prior, or it’s not going to be submitting correctly.

So just letting you be aware of that. Here you’re going to be, of course, selecting your gender, putting in your date of birth, your phone number, no dashes. Unfortunately. Okay. It will not take it if you put in a dash, of course, you’re going to be putting in your ethic group, your race. If you’re a U.S. Citizen, if you’re [00:20:00] not a U.S. Citizen, you’ll be required turn in the front and back of your immigration card and other IDs, and our office will also be sending you a letter concerning that and how the turn that specifically in. You’re of course also going to be listing if you have any type of disability. You want to make sure that you’re very honest with this information, and our office will take a look at that.

Please list any other name that you have also used. So let’s say you’ve recently had a name change. You recently got married or divorced. You want to go ahead and put that information in because you know our office will need to pull your wages. And we also will have to legally change your name as well.

All right, so on this screen you’re going to be selecting our different payment methods. We do not send out checks anymore. We send out either a Bank of America card or you can do direct deposit. And on this screen [00:21:00] here, it actually specifically says, you know what type of fees the Bank of America debit card has.

It’s not too many fees, but it’s just really important that if you do select this, that you look very carefully in the mail for a Bank of America card. It does kind of look like junk mail to be honest. So be very careful. Very, very careful. If you want to go ahead and put in direct deposit information, you can see it on this screen here.

You’re going to be putting in the bank name, I’m sorry, bank account holders name, you’re going to pick the routing number. It’s going to automatically select that bank name for you. Okay. And then you’re going to make sure that you’re going to put in your account number. Know that, leave out any type of spaces.

It will cause issues. If you do that. If for whatever reason the direct deposit information kicks, our system will automatically send out a debit card, to you in the mail. So if you do put in direct deposit information, being the [00:22:00] lookout for a debit card, just in case.

Alrighty. So this is what the Bank of America card is going to look like. As you can see, it kind of does look like junk mail, so just be very careful. And to activate your card. You’re going to call 1 (833) 215-1620. You’ll be creating your own pin for that card.

Whenever you do activate that card. Again, our office will not be creating your four-digit pin for your debit card. That is completely separate. If you do have any issues with your pin, you’re going to actually call the 1 (833) number, in order to get that taken care of with your specific debit card, not the four digit pin that you  have online,  that’s completely separate. Right now, the Bank of America cards, we’ve used a lot of the Office of the State Treasury cards. Can you go back [00:23:00] please, if you don’t mind?

Thank you. With the Office of the State Treasury. As you can see, it’s going to be basic debit card from Bank of America. So just be aware of that. Typically, we do actually show that., It will be a, just a little bit of time before we get those cards back. You can go to the next slide.

Alrighty. So on this page, it’ll have the pension compensation withholding. You’re going to just go ahead and select yes or no for all of these questions. If you’ve ever applied or ever received a pension other than social security from an employer, if you’ve worked during the timeframe from the beginning of the base period wages.

And specifically if you have, you’re going to have to turn in that information to our office, it will create an issue on your claim. Just so you’re aware, and we’ll have to look into that. The next question, it has, if you’ve ever applied for or received [00:24:00] a workers’ compensation during the base period wages, if you’ve ever received workers’ compensation, potentially, depending on how long the duration is, those wages could also be added too.

Hopefully bring your weekly benefit amount up, which is great. It helps out tremendously. I’ve seen a lot of claims, claimants be really happy concerning that. So if you do actually have any workers’ compensation information that you’ve received, any benefits from them, you want to go ahead and turn that into our office, either via email or also via fax as well.

Okay.  And then here it will ask you specifically if you want 10% of your weekly benefit check withheld for federal income tax, you can select yes or no. And then additionally, same thing for 4% for tax, for state tax. If at any point you want to change this information, you’re going to see this form here.

I need to call into our office specifically for this form. We [00:25:00] can only change that technically once out of the entire 52 week claim that you have. So make sure that if you do change your mind, you only have that one chance to do it and then it’s going to be locked into the system. We will not going to be able to change that after that.

Okay.

And of course, here you’re going to see all the work, that all the states that you potentially worked in, and you just select whichever one that you have worked in. And we’re going to go ahead and just automatically request the wages from the other states.

Alrighty. So as you can see on this screen, it has a lot of information. This is just mostly concerning COVID-19. You know, specifically, if you have been diagnosed with COVID-19, if a family member has been diagnosed with COVID-19, if you’re providing care for someone in your home with COVID-19, if you’re primary caregiver for a child who [00:26:00] is attending school.

Also, you know, if you’ve reached your place of employment, and of course they have a quarantine and, or because you’ve been advised by a medical practitioner to self quarantine during COVID-19. I actually know quite a few people that have had to self quarantine during COVID-19. If you’re scheduled to commence or start a new employment and could not reach the workplace due to COVID-19, you want to select yes or no for that.

If you’ve become the major breadwinner because the head of the household had passed away, which I hope this doesn’t happen. That’s very sad if that does happen, but you’re going to go ahead and select that answer. If you’ve quit your job as a result to COVID-19. Please enter this very carefully.

That means if you’ve completely, your job separated and your not going back at all. A lot of claimants, what I’ve seen is they’re putting all kinds of different types of job separations, and it just causes issues with [00:27:00] claims. And I’ll go over that in just a little bit. Okay. specifically it’ll ask you if your place of employment has closed due to COVID-19, the hours have been reduced.

If your hours have been reduced, if you’re working full time to part time, you can still draw unemployment. It’s partial unemployment. You report your gross pay without the taxes being taken out and how many hours that you work, whenever you’re doing your check request, and we’ll go ahead and send you the difference.

And depending on what type of climate you have, you may also see that $600 stimulus on top of it. It depends on if you have a valid claim or an invalid claim. A valid claim means that you have a weekly benefit amount and invalid claim means specifically that, well, you don’t have a weekly benefit amount. So we’ll have to establish a pandemic unemployment assistance claim for you.

It will also ask you if you’re self-employed, an independent  contractor, 1099 filer or farmer, those would fall specifically under a pandemic unemployment assistance claim. [00:28:00] And then also if you’re seeking part time employment and affected by COVID-19. And you’re just going to answer that carefully.

Stella: [00:28:11] Natalie, I have a question. If you’re approved for unemployment, you know, in Kentucky, are you automatically approved for the $600 extra? Maybe you said that, but I missed that.

Natalie: [00:28:27] Actually, it depends on type of claim that you have, whether you have a valid claim, invalid claim, if you’ve established under a PUA claim.

Specifically, if you have a regular unemployment insurance claim, then yes, you’re also going to be receiving the $600 each week. If you have an invalid claim, then yes, you’re still going to be established as a weekly benefit amount of $180 each week, and then additionally, you’re going to be receiving the $600.

So that’s $780 each week, if you have an invalid claim. So that’s 1099 [00:29:00] employees, contractors, that kind of thing. Now if you have to apply for extension, but say for example, from July of 2019, if you’ve exhausted your 26 week claim, then you have to apply for extension. The extension will not include the $600 each week.

Okay. That’s the unfortunate part of it, from what I’m understanding. But all the other types of claims, yes, you would be receiving the additional $600 on top of your unemployment insurance benefits. Whenever you’re doing your check request, you’re going to be receiving the regular unemployment insurance benefits 72 hours after the check request, and then the next day, you’ll be receiving the stimulus, the $600 each week. So essentially, if you’re doing a biweekly check, depending on if your employers file for you, then you would be weekly, you would request weekly. If you have a regular unemployment insurance claim, you would be requesting biweekly.

So you would [00:30:00] essentially be receiving your regular unemployment the next day. You should also see the $1,200.

Stella: [00:30:08] And you can find all of that information in your account correct after [inaudible] you’ve already applied.

Natalie: [00:30:18] You actually will not be viewing a lot of the information, unfortunately, with the COVID-19 payments.

It does make it a little bit more difficult, but if you do receive a regular unemployment insurance claim benefit, then you should be able to receive the $600 the next day. The only thing that doesn’t really show up online is the PUA, pandemic unemployment  assistance. And we’re genuinely trying to get that fixed right now so then that way everybody can see what the status is, what’s specifically going on with their claim.

Cause that’s really important.

Stella: [00:30:55] Okay. Thanks.

Natalie: [00:30:57] No problem.

[00:31:00] On the screen, it’ll specifically talk about if you are a 1099 employee, and just keep in mind, we’re almost done. if you are a 1099 employee, you’re going to go ahead and put in all the areas that you had for the different quarters, each quarter being three months. This actually could help you and benefit you later on because what we’re trying to establish is potential extra benefits.

So if you’ve received a letter that said you have an invalid claim and you’re only going to be receiving $180 each week. Well, if you report all your earnings and you show that yes, you do have, a certain income during the timeframe as a 1099, potentially later on down the road, you could actually be paid more benefits, which is just, it’s, I think it’s wonderful.

It helps out a lot of people. So you just want to go ahead and enter this information. Once you’ve entered in all that information you’re going to select next.

[00:32:00] This is the most important screen here. So take a screenshot if you need to, write this information down. There are different types of separations, with a separation you have a lack of work. The secondary reason is no recall, you’re not going back to that employer or recall you are going to go back to that employer.

So just be very careful with that. Especially with COVID-19 a lot of people are putting laid off due to lack of work and they’re putting in that specific date. If you do put in a date and that date passes and you haven’t returned back to work yet, but it, you know, it’s pending. You want to go ahead and call into our office and you’re going to have to fill out an amend claim form to change that return to work date. With the way that our system is set up and it’s an older system and you know, we’re not typically set up for a pandemic, but if that date that you put in, it prevents, let’s say for example, it’s three weeks from now and you don’t go back. You’re going to go ahead [00:33:00] and call into our office, get the amend claim form, put in the new date that your employer says, and then we’ll go ahead and fix it. And essentially during that timeframe, if it’s been a little bit since you’ve actually been able to request, we’ll go ahead and send out some pay order forms and get basically get you caught up because it’s, this is a systematic thing.

If you quit your job and you’ve decided to quit to leave your job, you can select the different types of separations, secondary reasons. If you’ve quit a job due to health or physical conditions, personal reasons, prospect of other work, reassigned military spouse, general or working conditions.

Then we also have discharged. You’re fully separated from your employer. You’re not going back. The secondary reasons that you can select is absence, tardiness, general, substance abuse, unsatisfactory work and violation of work rule. The fourth one, is strike or lockout. You want to be very careful with this, putting that on there, especially during [00:34:00] COVID-19.

You want to, instead of strike or lockout,  if you’re still job connected, you want to go ahead and you actually have a return to work date, you’re going to put lack of work, and then you’re going to put in the date that you’re going to be potentially going back. This, that if you put strike a lockout, it’ll immediately cause an issue on your claim. But if you are genuinely with a company that is on strike, you are going to want to put that information on there. Okay. It’s very imperative that you put the correct information. Five, if you put full time to part time. There’s different secondary reasons. Disciplinary action, initiated by claimant requests, reduced hours due to work load.

Our office right now due to COVID-19, we see this a lot. If you do go full time to part time, of course you want to go ahead and enter in all earnings that you have for that specific week. Our weeks go from Sunday to Saturday. So the hours that you worked times your pay rate, and that will equal the gross pay that you have to report to our office.

You want to [00:35:00] make sure that you write down each and every hour that you work on too, because we do verify this information. And if you don’t put it in correctly, unfortunately, you could have an overpayment. You could also have an underpayment too. So just make sure that you put in the correct information and you know what your hourly rate is. Really important.

If you’re on the leave of absence, I’ve seen this quite a lot too, as well with COVID-19. This means that you’re still job connected, but this is mostly seen as a medical leave. Again, you want to be very careful about what you put on your claim, and I can’t tell you specifically what to put with this one, but if you specifically are on a leave of absence, like you’re doing surgery or something major like that, that’s what you’re going to select. But most of the time, if you’re on a leave of absence from your employer during COVID-19 more than likely would be the lack of work. And then again, for seven, you have suspension, so you’re still technically job connected with your employer.

So you’re [00:36:00] potentially going to go back with them. With the non-separation it’s absence, tardiness, general substance abuse or unsatisfactory work. If a suspension leads to a discharge, like fully separates from your employer, you will need to reopen your claim under a discharge instead. Okay.

That way, we can go ahead and determine, you know, what specifically happened? If you just leave it as a suspension after you’ve already been fired from your job or discharged technically, that will cause an issue on your claim and your claim won’t be adjudicated until you actually reopen your claim under that discharge.

All right? We’re almost at the very end. At this point, you’re going to be putting in your employer information, make sure that you put in the correct information. A letter will be mailed out to the employer so they can respond and if they wish to do so, protest, they have 13 days to protest. For that to be timely.

After 13 days, they [00:37:00] still have a right to turn in information. And it can unfortunately, during COVID-19, it can take some time before we’re going to obviously see that information. But, they still have a right. They legally have a right. So keynotes here, please list your most recent employer. Do not list your employer in the base period wages. Our office sees that way too much and it just genuinely causes a lot of issues.

So it’s your last date of work, your physical last date of work was in March. You’re going to put March and you’re not going to put back in 2019 that’s whenever you were working. No. You’re going to put your most recent. By listing the correct employer, also, it’s going to make your claim process so much smoother for our staff, and it’s not going to allow, well, it will allow our staff members to essentially take care of your claim and other claims a lot faster. List those last fiscal, I’m sorry, list your fiscal last date of work, you were actually paid for. That’s a really big [00:38:00] thing. A lot of people will go ahead and list, you know, their last date of work.

Technically. For example was on Friday, but they went into work. They didn’t clock in on Monday. They were immediately let go. Your physical last day to work is actually Friday instead of Monday. Okay. It actually will cause issues if you file your claim that way. And you’ll have to call our office to get that fixed too, which I don’t want to have a long wait time for you, so make sure you put them in the correct date.

And this is just an example too, and it’s just something that I just went over. So again, go ahead and put your employer, type the employer name, the correct employer address, the phone number. Was the work actually in Kentucky or another state? That’s a really big thing. What is the reason why you’re no longer working?

This is specifically on that previous page we were looking at the different types of separations. So this is where you would put that information here. And of course, that secondary reason. You’re going to be putting in your [00:39:00] correct first date of work, as much as you can remember, make sure you try to get that within the correct ball frame or timeframe.

So in that way, our office can specifically contact an employer and say hey what  specific day did that person start? Cause we do need that information, especially whenever it comes to 10 week employers who is chargeable essentially on your unemployment claim, your employer, essentially somebody’s paying your unemployment, and it’s up to our office to make a determination on your claim, whether that employer’s chargeable and whether you’re going to be payable with unemployment or not.

You’re going to go ahead and put in that correct last date of work, of course. And you actually have a little area here at the bottom where you can put in the information on what had happened. You can put COVID-19 if you were genuinely off of work due to COVID-19. You can list that you know, what type of situation that occurred.

I’d say if you were discharged, you’re going to put that information there. It is very small, unfortunately. It’s 250 characters. [00:40:00] But on the next screen, which will of course vary, depending on what type of answers that you have, and I’m not going to be able to show those questions to you today, unfortunately, because of course, every single claim that’s filed is technically different.

But you can go ahead and put that information there. And then at the very bottom, please make sure that you put in your, if it is a 10 week employer or not. Again, our weeks go from a Sunday to Saturday, and if you started working on a Monday, and of course you want to actually get a calendar and count 10 weeks.

If you’ve actually worked with them 10 weeks, our office sees a lot of mishaps with that too, so just be careful on that.

Alrighty. Of course, on the next screen, that whenever you’re filiing your claim, it will have a variance of separation questions. You know, if you were discharged, if you had quit the job, you would list in more detail what [00:41:00] specifically happened that led you to actually have that decision to quit that job?

Or you know, what other reasons why you had left that?

On the next screen, you’re going to see our certification page. We’re actually on the very last page here. It is incredibly important that you read the rights and responsibilities pamphlet. If you do not read the pamphlet, you’re not going to specifically understand what you need to do in order to of course request benefits, and, you know, what time that you can actually do that as well.

So it, it’s important to read that pamphlet backwards and forwards. You know, just please make sure that you do read that. You’ll be able to actually select it by clicking here near where you may access the rights and responsibilities pamphlet, and then additionally, at the very bottom, after you’ve read that, they’re going to go ahead and initial that you were given access to the pamphlet.

You must also understand that [00:42:00] you must report all wages earned. You’re going to play putting in your initials there, and then you must understand that you can use the website or the voice response unit, which is the (877) 369-5984 number to request your benefit payment, and you’re actually certifying for that as well.

And right now it’s going to ask you specifically, you know. Or it’s going to actually state that our office has a waiting week right now during COVID-19 we do not have a waiting week. Okay, so you’re just going to go ahead and just initial that. I mentioned earlier, if you have misspelled your name, this is where you’re going to be putting that misspelling in there.

Just to let you know, but you want to go ahead and put it in your first name, your middle initial. If you put your middle initial in whenever you created your profile, don’t add your middle initial in there if you didn’t add it to your profile originally. And then of course your legal last name.

[00:43:00] If you have any issues with this specifically, you want to go ahead and put in your maiden name. And a lot of times that’ll fix it. If you did put Jr after your last name and you put a dot, you want to go ahead and put a dot there as well. It is very, very sensitive with you putting in your name.

And now you’re finished. So a lot of times you’ll see here in red, the important notice. If our office does require you to turn in your driver’s license and social security card for verification of identity, you need to do that immediately. Do not wait for that. This issue here, if it tells you to do this, you need to do it.

It’ll call, basically what’ll happen, is the system will put a stop on your claim, and the benefits will not be released out until you actually get that turned in. That’s if, you know, two weeks have passed, of course, but if you can go ahead and turn that in [00:44:00] prior to when your automatic payments gonna go out, that will help you out tremendously. 13 days from the file date you’re going to be requesting a benefits check. A lot of claims right now are automatic. The pandemic unemployment assistance, it’s all automatic. It will tell you specifically when, of course, to request, you’re going to call (877) 369-5984  to request. You can also go online to www.kcc.ky.gov log into your claim, as I’ve shown you before with your social and your four digit pin, and you’re going to click on request payment. It has the green dollar sign. And that’s 13 days from the file date.

After that, you’re going to be requesting it again every other Sunday thereafter. To make things a lot easier we did, our office did say that if you request on day 28 that our system will allow you to go ahead and request without any issues. If you do come across [00:45:00] any issues, you’re gonna want to call our office.

Especially when it been three weeks since you’ve requested payment and you haven’t received anything yet. That’s really important. Don’t wait on that. Our office opens at 7:00 AM and we’re open until 7:00 PM. You can call (502) 564-2900 and just listen very carefully with the phone tree. We do have different types of tiers to allow better customer service and allow you to receive what you need in a time that you need it.

And that’s all I have for you today. What type of questions do you have?

Stella: [00:45:40] So, Natalie, just to clarify, if the [inaudible], well just to clarify that someone had asked about, if you received a notice of your determination and it was considered the PUA or the pandemic unemployment assistance, and your letter [00:46:00] states that you are automatically going to get those benefits, you don’t have to go in and request it then, correct?

Natalie: [00:46:06] That is correct. You will not have to request, you will automatically receive the payment.

Stella: [00:46:13] And it’ll just go directly into the account that they provided either loaded onto that card or as a direct deposit?

Natalie: [00:46:21] Correct.

Stella: [00:46:22] Okay. All right, great.

Natalie: [00:46:25] Now for the PUA claims, typically the automatic request is on a Sunday, so you should be receiving the benefits by Tuesday and then receiving the stimulus on that Wednesday, the next day.

That way everybody has a better timeframe of when you’re going to be receiving your benefits. It is always a standard 72 hours. If you don’t receive your benefits in one day….

Stella: [00:46:50] Correct. And that’s every other week, correct?

Natalie: [00:46:56] That’s correct, yes, ma’am.

Stella: [00:46:58] Great.

[00:47:00] Okay. I don’t, I don’t see any other questions right now, so I think that is it. But if everyone at the end of the webinar, if you could please complete the evaluation, that would be wonderful. And Natalie, if they want to reach out, if they do have a question, they would just call that 502 number within the PowerPoint, correct?

Natalie: [00:47:30] That is correct, yes.

Stella: [00:47:32] Okay. We’ll be sending that PowerPoint out to everyone. So Natalie, thank you so much again for joining us and helping us, helping our families. We really appreciate that. And we will have this, the webinar was recorded today and it will be uploaded to our YouTube channel within the next couple of days.

So we’ll be sending that information out. And we really appreciate [00:48:00] it. Thank you. Thank you, Natalie, for joining us and thanks everyone for being on the webinar. Have a wonderful Tuesday.