Arizona needs to be better
It took seven months for these.
Seven months. That’s how long it took to receive calendars from the Arizona Department of Economic Security under Director Michael Wisehart.
It took so long that Wisehart is no longer serving as director after Gov. Katie Hobbs took office and appointed Angie Rodgers to the role.
I made my first request to the office for Wisehart’s calendars between January and July; they sent me July’s calendar in November, but didn’t send his January-June calendars as well as the remainder of 2022 until yesterday March 21. A grand total of 222 days for calendars.
DES has run into a host of problems since Covid hit, but to not be able to turn over something as simple as monthly calendars for the person leading such an important agency should raise questions about its efficiency in more pressing areas.
As someone who once tried to go through the state’s unemployment system, I can attest that it was incredibly problematic with phone wait times that exceeded an hour to no avail. I looked into the issue (everyday people who don’t have contacts within the office don’t have that luxury) and it again took awhile to receive communication back from the office, but was pretty much told they were understaffed and working on training more people to man the phones. They said wait times had nearly doubled the normal average of 30 minutes, which is still a long time for people who are seeking to earn a paltry $240/week at the time (now $320). It’s incredibly frustrating.
As is waiting several months to see what the person in charge is up to every month. It’s clearly not transparent and needs to be remedied for the greater good.
I have yet to request any records from the office now that it’s under the Hobbs administration so who knows if it has improved at all, but I will be looking into several agencies soon to see their response times compared to the Ducey administration and will be holding Hobbs and her staff accountable for her promise to bring transparency back to the Ninth Floor.
In the meantime, here are Michael Wisehart’s calendars that took seven months to hand over.