By Katherine Gregg

PROVIDENCE, RI -- With the newly unemployed still facing long wait times to get through to the state's Department of Labor & Training, the Senate last night passed - and the governor quickly signed into law - a bill to allow the agency to recall its retirees, for a second time, to handle the deluge of jobless claims.

The bill cleared the House Tuesday after House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino told colleagues the waiting time for callers to get through is down to an hour and a half from nearly twice that, but the department is evidently "still swamped" and the telephone waiting time is "still significant."

The legislation extends by a month the special 30-day permission the lawmakers had given the department to recall retirees in an earlier effort to reduce the huge backlog.
The bill says, in part: "Any retired member who retired from service with the Department of Labor and Training, is proficient in the processing of unemployment insurance claims ... and has extensive experience working in the administration of the unemployment insurance program may be employed or reemployed by the department for the purpose [of] processing unemployment insurance claims between March 3, 2009 and April 3, 2009 without any forfeiture of or reduction of any retirement benefits and allowances that he or she is receiving. ... No additional contributions shall be taken and no additional service credits shall be granted for this service."

Laura Hart, spokeswoman for the department, says it is difficult to estimate how much the 30-day extension will help reduce wait times, since not all retirees are answering phones.