Speaker 1: Good moaning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: It is time now for our community connection right here
Speaker 1: on KAY one, the one you trusted on the telephone
Speaker 1: with me. Here we have Trey ray Hills with this
Speaker 1: and he is from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. Howy
Speaker 1: you doing, Trey, I'm doing well.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Well, we've got a big lineup
Speaker 1: of things going on here with this here and we
Speaker 1: get at the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. First of all,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what the commission is
Speaker 1: and what it does, and then we're going to get
Speaker 1: into some pretty good sized headlines here.
Speaker 2: Sure. Sure. We are the state's employment agency, so we
Speaker 2: do employment services, re employment services, unemployment services across the state.
Speaker 2: We are a state agency and so we are here
Speaker 2: for everyone in the state veteran services through our agency
Speaker 2: where we're primarily with all the populations we serve, trying
Speaker 2: to help people match two jobs. So whether someone has
Speaker 2: a job and they're looking to change careers or upstill
Speaker 2: into something better for their family, or they're unemployed, or
Speaker 2: they're just entering a job market for the first time.
Speaker 2: Our primary role with the agency is to try and
Speaker 2: mask people to work and support them with on point
Speaker 2: of mefits in their in between phases while they're on
Speaker 2: their way to work.
Speaker 1: Well, Trey, I understand you've been busy with a new
Speaker 1: system for claims. How does this work? I mean, this
Speaker 1: had to be a big undergoing. Whenever somebody says we've
Speaker 1: got a new system and the word migration comes in, oh,
Speaker 1: folks getting yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the agency has historically operated on
Speaker 2: pretty old systems. Some of our technology is, you know,
Speaker 2: thirty five years old, so we're using an outdated technology
Speaker 2: for the most part, and a lot of government is
Speaker 2: this way. But essentially wanting to have systems that serve
Speaker 2: us in today's customer service kind of expectation and also
Speaker 2: being able to process flow and keep data on kind
Speaker 2: of how well are we serving folks, it requires that
Speaker 2: the systems modernized a little bit further for us to
Speaker 2: be able to see some of those insights that we'd
Speaker 2: like to speak. So we've been hard at work the
Speaker 2: last few years just prioritizing which of these legacy systems,
Speaker 2: you know, is impacting people the most, and so we've
Speaker 2: prioritized replacing them and so that you know, in the future,
Speaker 2: we'll have some of this address, hopefully a lot of
Speaker 2: it addressed, and they've lost to serve people a lot better.
Speaker 2: So the one that we just launched earlier this year
Speaker 2: or earlier this month rather is our new claimant Pital
Speaker 2: and it's actually the largest technology release in agency history,
Speaker 2: so we're really really proud of it. It replaced the
Speaker 2: system that does all of the claims processing work for
Speaker 2: the agency and claims filing work for the agency. So
Speaker 2: when someone comes into one of our offices or goes online,
Speaker 2: historically they've gone through a process of filing claims, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of work inside the agency that happens
Speaker 2: to support that process and just the side that faces customers.
Speaker 2: Typically it takes a staff number of ours sitting down
Speaker 2: with someone who's going to need better assistance and they're
Speaker 2: going to go through a process for about an hour
Speaker 2: and a half. This new tool enables our staff to
Speaker 2: sit there with someone and get it done as quickly
Speaker 2: as twenty minutes, maybe.
Speaker 1: Thirty minutes, my goodness.
Speaker 2: So it's a huge time savings for us and for
Speaker 2: the people we serve, and then they have less fatigue
Speaker 2: and frustration and a little bit more time to spend
Speaker 2: if we wanted to do the work searches and get
Speaker 2: a more focus on kind of the workforce side of
Speaker 2: that interaction. So we're super excited because it saves us
Speaker 2: a lot of time and create opportunity for us to
Speaker 2: spend energy for us and the people we serve in
Speaker 2: the more kind of forward looking direction.
Speaker 1: And my goodness sakes, just think of all the frustration
Speaker 1: you're saving on all ends of that. That is amazing.
Speaker 2: Sure you sure, yeah, you're super happy about that. And
Speaker 2: it's also layered with it's got some AI functionality in it,
Speaker 2: so as somebody is answering a question, the subsequent questions
Speaker 2: will adapt to that answer and make sure that they're
Speaker 2: not rehashing or asking things duplicatively. So it's it's a
Speaker 2: little smarter in the way that interacts with folks, and
Speaker 2: that helps us to get better and more accurate data
Speaker 2: have to sift through so much junk. It's also layered
Speaker 2: with our fraud detection and prevention tool, so it certainly
Speaker 2: helps us steward our tax dollars better by making sure
Speaker 2: that if any benefits are going out, they're going into
Speaker 2: the right hand. And the tool that is Layered in
Speaker 2: there is the Verify Okay tool that we have as
Speaker 2: well as our staff process that kind of backs up
Speaker 2: our fraud tool, but that is the number one fraud
Speaker 2: tool and process in the country, So that's built into
Speaker 2: this new Claimate portal. So we have a lot of
Speaker 2: confidence in it and it's been going great so far.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Trey ray Hill and he is with
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Employment to Security Commission and Trey, you were
Speaker 1: talking about the designs within your agency, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of redesigning going along statewide too in order to
Speaker 1: get us perhaps into the new century.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, it's it's a big project, but luckily we've
Speaker 2: got a lot of partners in this work. Several organizations
Speaker 2: that serve people across the data are similarly missioned at
Speaker 2: the end of the day to create positive workforce outcomes,
Speaker 2: and that is what we need for businesses in our
Speaker 2: economy to thrive. So if a business is looking to
Speaker 2: hire folks, we want to try our best to ensure
Speaker 2: that there's a pipeline of people that are a match to
Speaker 2: that skill set, to that talent, and that people know
Speaker 2: where to get them and that it's easy and then
Speaker 2: it works well, so whether we're trying to attract new
Speaker 2: businesses to invest in No Cloma, or we're trying to
Speaker 2: grow the businesses that are here, or we're just trying
Speaker 2: to help people on the individuals side and understand, I
Speaker 2: know what I want to do, but I know no
Speaker 2: where to find it. We kind of play a case
Speaker 2: management role for both the individuals and the businesses, and
Speaker 2: so that matchmaking exercise, it's something that we do all
Speaker 2: day every day. And there's also other institutions in the
Speaker 2: state like Career Tech DRS, higher ed, local workforce boards.
Speaker 2: There's several partners that kind of work together to make
Speaker 2: sure that those things are done well. And we're redesigning
Speaker 2: the way that we all work together right now to
Speaker 2: increase our efficiency. Some of the work today and has
Speaker 2: always been kind of to clickative in nature, and so
Speaker 2: we're rooting a lot of that out in this system redesign,
Speaker 2: and we're doing it as a group of partners. So
Speaker 2: it costs less to do this work across the state,
Speaker 2: and we're expanding services, so it should be more service
Speaker 2: for less taxpayer spend.
Speaker 1: My goodness sakes in the bottom line is is that
Speaker 1: everybody wins on this one.
Speaker 2: That's the goal. I mean, if everyone's not winning, then
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be doing this work. I usually will say
Speaker 2: inside agency, we're going to do it as the rightest
Speaker 2: way we can. If you can find the right answer,
Speaker 2: and George Tactellar improved service, great. If not, you know,
Speaker 2: you'all should be finding someone else to do this, because
Speaker 2: that should.
Speaker 1: Be the goal, doing it the rightest way possible. I
Speaker 1: like that tax decrease. That boy, you caught my attention
Speaker 1: when we were talking just a couple of seconds before
Speaker 1: we went on the air. How does this filter into
Speaker 1: all of this?
Speaker 2: So, Oklahoma's economy is pretty strong, and that means that
Speaker 2: as our as our state GDP is in a positive place,
Speaker 2: it generates a lot of tax from wages being paid
Speaker 2: out by businesses. We collect employer taxes based on their wage,
Speaker 2: based on the wages that they're paying employees, and that
Speaker 2: those taxes go into a trust fund, and the trust
Speaker 2: fund is used to pay out unemployment claims. The only
Speaker 2: revenue source into that fund is employer taxes and the
Speaker 2: only thing that the fund is used for is to
Speaker 2: pay benefits. The operations of our agency, all the staff,
Speaker 2: all the systems, all the modernization projects. Those are all
Speaker 2: funded completely by federal grants. So there's no state dollars
Speaker 2: in our agency, and there are no employer tax dollars
Speaker 2: used to operate our agency. It's just the trust fund
Speaker 2: for paying out claims. Since we've i think worked over
Speaker 2: the last few years to ensure that the workforce side
Speaker 2: of this work is going as swimmingly as possible, and
Speaker 2: that we're doing a little bit better job of leaning
Speaker 2: in and understanding industry needs and supporting businesses, we've seen
Speaker 2: our claims volume subside at least a little bit, and
Speaker 2: that means our trust fund is growing well. It's good
Speaker 2: to have a trust fund that is sizeable so that
Speaker 2: if another event like the pandemic happens, it's not going
Speaker 2: to bankrupt us trying to support people across the state
Speaker 2: that they transition into new work. But we don't want
Speaker 2: to bet on needing a ridiculous amount of money in
Speaker 2: there forever and continue to grow it and grow it
Speaker 2: and grow it every year. So one of our staff
Speaker 2: members inside the agency came forward and said, if we're
Speaker 2: going to be in a positive place and we're doing
Speaker 2: this work more efficiently moving forward, we ought to vision
Speaker 2: some kind of decrease to that revenue source, which essentially
Speaker 2: would cut employer taxes, and so we looked into it
Speaker 2: and we found a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 2: We basically decrease some of the factors legislatively that we
Speaker 2: use in the equation that that calculates taxes for employers,
Speaker 2: and we reduced some of those components, so now it
Speaker 2: is calculating lower taxes for every employer in the state.
Speaker 2: And we did that through a couple of things. We
Speaker 2: changed the decrease the taxable wage base, which is what
Speaker 2: every employer pays up to for each employee that they're employeeing.
Speaker 2: And I know this is kind of confusing, but ultimately
Speaker 2: the headline is we made some changes to our calculation
Speaker 2: inside the agency that enabled us to charge less taxes
Speaker 2: to employers. Because our trust fund is in a positive position,
Speaker 2: we felt we could do that.
Speaker 1: Very good. Hey Trey, where can folks should find out
Speaker 1: more about your agency? Imagine you have a website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we have Oklahoma dot gov slash workforce. We'll
Speaker 2: thank you to our website. OESC dot gov is our
Speaker 2: is our website as well, and we've got twenty seven
Speaker 2: offices across the day. We've got several outreached outreach locations
Speaker 2: where existing staff will go to a town that we
Speaker 2: don't have bricks and mortar a couple of days a
Speaker 2: week and serve folks there. And then we have some
Speaker 2: mobile units that we can get around to if a
Speaker 2: place is hit by a disaster or there's a significant,
Speaker 2: you know, employment event, we can we can always hit
Speaker 2: the road on wheels. But yes, certainly they can call,
Speaker 2: they go online, they can come into one of our
Speaker 2: offices and inquire about any of these things. I always say,
Speaker 2: if you're an employer, respond the notices timely that the
Speaker 2: agency sends out so that you can be an informed,
Speaker 2: interested party and that way you can get updates on
Speaker 2: what's going on. And if you do have employment needs,
Speaker 2: give our offices a shot because we have a lot
Speaker 2: of people under case management and whether they're looking for
Speaker 2: one of these tools, they're looking for a new job.
Speaker 2: Our people are cross trained out there to be able
Speaker 2: to facilitate both. So certainly they can come see us,
Speaker 2: they can go online, they can call us. Then we're here,
Speaker 2: ready to serve.
Speaker 1: Trey ray Hill is with the Oklahoma Employment and Security
Speaker 1: ex Commission. Thank you very much for your hard work
Speaker 1: and the hard work that your staff and agency do
Speaker 1: each and every day to make our lives a little easier. Appreciated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. We hope that these are things that
Speaker 2: you know. Not everyone needs these things to be successful
Speaker 2: every day, but if someone does find themselves in a
Speaker 2: position and you need help with this stuff, we want
Speaker 2: to be able to help them. We're going to be
Speaker 2: able to be found quickly and help them fast, and
Speaker 2: so we're happy to do it. And if you ever
Speaker 2: have questions, you can reach out to us. Happy to
Speaker 2: happy to be on with you and thanks for having
Speaker 2: me all.
Speaker 1: Right, Trey ray Hill, thank you very much, having yourself
Speaker 1: a great day. Folks, you have been listening to our
Speaker 1: community connection right here on Gay one, the one you trust.
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