I had the phone interview reviewing my application to officially acknowledge my unemployment the day before I started work again. They had sent me benefits for two weeks before the interview, and I would have then had a chance to apply for Medicaid/Medical and for "retraining" education benefits if the caseworker approved my claim.
But...apparently my EED caseworker didn't understand the letter from my erstwhile employer indicating I was placed on enforced LWOP for 4 weeks prior to official termination because there was no contract tasking available to charge to. She thought it meant that I had chose to go on leave rather than do my job or take some mythical follow-on tasking, and that I had "willfully falsified" my unemployment claim - oh, and that I had willfully decided not to look for work during that period.
Even with termination letter uploaded with my application clearly indicating that: 1) I was not going to get paid or accrue any back pay during LWOP, and, 2) I was free to look for work during LWOP, including temporary work within the company and at other companies within my field - in which case if it occurred, I would be taken off LWOP and not go through official termination.
Also, the 27 documents of emails and letters covering my job search that were added to my weekly claims during that period of LWOP was ignored. All these documents had been entered into my case file and apparently ignored.
The appeals judge was very annoyed at the case worker (who was not present) when he opened my case file and ruled against all charges once he saw the evidence. Took a half hour in total. So, my record with EED is cleared, and I don't have to pay back the $900 I had received for two weeks, and I'll hopefully get the last $450 they didn't send when my caseworker denied my claim. (The $450 will pay off the last of the outstanding bills incurred while I was not getting an income.)
The dirty secret of unemployment is that benefits don't start until after the week after the end of the last official work week - or end of week that paid leave could be taken, even if you only get paid for 10 hours back leave pay taken that week. They want to make sure you aren't working or getting paid for work before they even consider granting unemployment.
The lesson learned is "document, document, document..."
Being unemployed is tough. What people don't realize is that for every week you aren't earning an income, it takes 2 weeks to recover that lost income; and longer if you are unemployed for over a month. After 4 weeks, it takes a month to recover from each week of lost income. Or so I've experienced.
Again, best of luck to you.
Haele
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