By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
Jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Department of Employment Security’s unemployment claim system is back online Thursday after a more than two-day outage rendered the system unable to distribute unemployment checks or accept claims and certifications online.
“The mainframe system experienced a partial loss (3 percent) of data storage,” Department of Innovation and Technology spokeswoman Jennifer Schultz said in a statement, adding that staff members have “successfully restored the vast majority of affected business applications.”
Schultz said there were “other systems included” in the outage aside from the Illinois Benefit Information System, although it was unclear which ones.
Schultz did not immediately respond to follow-up requests for clarification as to the exact cause of the data storage loss or the extent of the systems impacted by the outage.
“Staff remains focused on resolving issues with the remaining impacted applications. A full evaluation of the event will be conducted to identify potential areas for improvement and to strengthen processes, posture, and resiliency to ensure this does not happen in the future,” her statement said.
Benefit recipients who certified their claims on Monday will receive payments by Friday – two days later than scheduled, according to an IDES spokesman.
“Those who were unable to certify or file new claims over the past few days should do so now,” Sam Salustro, IDES spokesman, said in a statement. “Payments can take up to two days to process, so those benefit recipients should expect payments by Monday.”
Claimants can once again file new claims or certify their unemployment status online through the Illinois Benefit Information System. Claimants can also contact the IDES call center at 800-244-5631 or visit their nearest office, which can be found online at http://www.ides.illinois.gov/Pages/Office_Locator.aspx.
Salustro said the outage happened late Monday evening and lasted through Wednesday evening.