Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said on Dec. 17 that state officials received "bad information" last week and that there was a danger of having the funds "clawed back"
State officials have hit pause on a plan to send out one-time $400 payments to people who lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
Oklahoma Employment Security Commission Executive Director Shelley Zumwalt said in a news release Wednesday that the payments would be on hold after the state agency received what it called “conflicting guidance” about the use of the excess funds, which might be seen as overpayments that would have to be returned.
State officials announced last week that one-time $400 payments from unused Lost Wages Assistance program funds administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be sent to about 120,000 out-of-work Oklahomans.
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The payments were to begin Wednesday.
But state officials said Wednesday in a news release that the so-called Additional Lost Wages program is now shelved. They did not provide a date as to when the payments would be sent out, if at all.
A FEMA spokesman said in a statement to the Tulsa World that Oklahoma received nearly $302.5 million in LWA program funding. The summer program provided $300 weekly payments for six weeks to those whose jobs were lost due to COVID-19.
The six weeks ran from Aug. 1 through Sept. 5.
Oklahoma had planned to send one-time $400 payments from its remaining LWA funds to about 120,000 people who were out of work the week ending Sept. 12.
However, FEMA told the World that: “Any excess funding received from FEMA that is not utilized for the six weeks of assistance authorized must be returned to FEMA.
“States and territories may not use the funding to pay claimants for any other weeks of assistance (beyond the weeks ending Aug. 1, 2020 through Sept. 5, 2020) or for an amount beyond the $300 federal contribution approved.”
Zumwalt said the program is overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor and FEMA and is unlike other CARES Act programs.
“We have been in communication with both of these federal agencies and have received conflicting guidance from them about the path forward for distributing LWA funds,” Zumwalt said.
She said the agency had excess funds because of its efforts at the time to “get people back to work, lower claims volumes and stop fraud.”
Zumwalt continued: “Because of these actions, claims volumes dropped significantly from the estimate that was forecasted. We had hoped that, as a result of this effort, the state would be able to again provide assistance to claimants with these funds. To be clear, through sound fiscal management the state of Oklahoma saved over $50 million.”
The state agency said it would wait to see if a new federal relief package is passed before deciding what to do about the $400 payments.
“If new federal legislation is passed and a new federal unemployment relief package reaches Oklahomans, it will be clear that OESC will return the funds to FEMA,” Zumwalt said. “Based on the guidance we received about these federal packages, there is a possibility that distributing remaining LWA funds could be seen as an overpayment that would have to be recalled and returned.
“We do not want to put Oklahomans in this position, so OESC will hold on starting to process these payments until we have a definite answer about the future of LWA funds.”
Video and gallery: Tulsans of the Year 2020 from Tulsa World Magazine
In a year filled with challenges and heartbreak, these people gave us hope.
Gallery: Tulsans of the year — These people gave us hope
Tulsans of the Year: Aurash Zarkeshan
One hand squeeze for “yes,” two for “no.”
For those first few weeks in the hospital, it was about the only way Aurash Zarkeshan had of communicating.
“I had a breathing tube in, so I couldn’t talk. And one of my academy classmates who was visiting me came up with that idea,” he said.
Zarkeshan still doesn’t remember much from that dark time earlier this year. But there was one exchange, he said, that he was told about later.
Read the full story and Aurash Zarkeshan's first interview here.
Tulsans of the Year: Craig Johnson
All it took was one ride-along, and his mind was made up.
Craig Johnson, store manager for KB Toys, was going to change careers.
“He told me he was thinking about becoming a police officer,” said Susannah Ralston, officer with the Tulsa Police Department, adding that when asked if she’d take him out on a ride-along, she was happy to oblige.
“I think it was graveyard shift,” she said.
Tulsans of the Year: Bruce Dart
The text message that popped up on his phone contained just a single word.
But for Dr. Bruce Dart, it communicated everything it needed to.
“I’ll never forget it — it was from our response incident commander and it just said ‘positive,’” he said.
Tulsans of the Year: Health care workers
At the outset of the pandemic, health care workers were showered with gift baskets, parades, encouraging roadside signs and impressive F-16 fly-bys at hospitals. However, those expressions of thanks have waned and the COVID-19 hospital admissions and virus-related deaths continue. As Jake Henry Jr., president and CEO of Saint Francis Health System, noted, these frontline heroes “are exhausted after wearing personal protective equipment for a bustling 12-hour shift over and over again. “When they get in their car and drive home, they are truly spent,” Henry said. “When they enter unmasked apathy in public places — stores, restaurants and public gatherings — they feel defeated.”
Read more about why we honored local health care workers as Tulsans of the Year.Pictured above: Frontline workers James Burns, RN, BSN, Saint Francis Health System (left); Tulsa Fire Department Chief Michael Baker; Tulsa Health Department Division Chief of Prevention, Preparedness and Response Kelly VanBuskirk; Respiratory Therapist Brittany Ullrich from Ascension St. John Medical Center; Tulsa Health Department Executive Director Bruce Dart; Kayla Stack, EMSA medic and recipient of the 2020 Star of Life award; Dr. Guy Sneed, chief medical officer of Hillcrest HealthCare System; Nick Coffman, EMSA paramedic; Kelsey Two Bears, certified physician assistant at Sapulpa Indian Health Center of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Department of Health, stand outside Tulsa Central Library.
Tulsans of the Year: G.T. Bynum
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum may go down as one of the best in the city’s history.
Tulsans of the year: Carlisha Williams Bradley
Carlisha Williams Bradley took on this challenging year with confidence and decisiveness. In the pandemic’s early days, state leaders started deferring decisions to local levels. As a member of the state Board of Education, Bradley didn’t want to shirk that responsibility. She was among the three board members pushing for strong statewide requirements, stating, “We are in the midst of something that is far worse than we ever predicted.”
Tulsan of the Year: Keith Elder
It was an off-hand, almost joking comment that started the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra on the path to making history.
The orchestra, like almost every other performing arts group in the country, had been forced to postpone or cancel all of its concerts after the city of Tulsa shut down in March in the face of the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic
Most arts organizations resigned themselves to not performing at all or creating online, virtual content to keep their work before the public.
But the Tulsa Symphony, said Executive Director Keith C. Elder, was determined to get before a live audience again.
Tulsan of the Year: Susan Ellerbach
After years of getting letters to the editor, this editor decided to write back.
Susan Ellerbach spent 35 years at the Tulsa World, working her way from a reporter to the top job in the newsroom. In 2014, she became the ninth executive editor since the first Tulsa World print edition published before statehood in 1905.
In her letter that was printed the week she retired in September, she reminded Tulsans of the importance of journalism in today’s world, not the talking heads that crowd cable channels. She told readers who relied on them to get their “news” that those aren’t actual broadcasts that report news.
“They are personalities who take news events and load them with opinion based on the interests and beliefs that sophisticated research tells them the audience would like to see,” she wrote. “Be aware of what news is and where you’re getting it.”
Tulsans of the Year: Tykebrean Cheshier
Tykebrean Cheshier realized she was different at the age of 5 or 6.
Her grandparents hosted her birthday party, and she invited a little girl who lived across the street.
“Her father told her that she could not come to my birthday party because I was Black,” Cheshier said. “I heard him say it, but he used the N-word.”
Then, she ran crying to her grandmother, who tried to shield her from the racism she would experience.
Now 22, she’s facing it head-on.
Tulsans of the Year: Lauren Landwerlin
Watching the epidemic spread across China, Saint Francis Hospital began stockpiling personal protective equipment in February, when the rest of Tulsa still seemed, if not oblivious, at least not terribly worried about COVID-19.
“I’m not saying we predicted the future,” says Lauren Landwerlin, executive director of corporate communications for the entire Saint Francis Health System. “But we saw the possibilities.”
The foresight allowed Saint Francis to ride out a disruption in the PPE supply chain until production ramped up in late spring. By June, as Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the area and President Donald Trump announced a campaign rally in Tulsa, Saint Francis was compiling data on how fast medical workers were going through mask supplies.
“We knew how many masks we were using per day,” Landwerlin says. “We knew how many masks we could have delivered and how long we could last if there was a shortage.”
Tulsans of the Year: Jeff Jaynes
The day third grade ended at Holland Hall, 8-year-old Jeff Jaynes went straight from school to the hospital.
He had gotten his tonsils taken out earlier that year. And after the simple operation, a nurse took a routine check of vital signs in the recovery room. She must have heard something unusual because she ordered a chest X-ray. And Jaynes went back later to have a grapefruit-sized tumor removed from tissue near his lungs.
If the nurse hadn’t been so diligent? If he hadn’t needed his tonsils removed?
“I wouldn’t still be here,” Jaynes said. “I was incredibly lucky.”
2020: Bryce Thompson, Booker T. Washington
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