DENVER (KDVR) — As the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) prepares to transition to a new system, some have questions about a benefits notice they received informing them of a Jan. 3 deadline.  

Joshua, who prefers not to use his last name, tells the FOX31 Problem Solvers he has been unemployed for eight months. He says he became confused when he received a notice saying he needed to file a clam by Jan. 3.

“I was actually up at midnight and submitted right when I was requested to and that’s when it gave me a message stating that it was going to close down my employment and if I were to do that I would have to reapply,” he said.

The state tells FOX31 on Dec. 29, all claimants receiving regular state unemployment benefits only were informed that they should request payment on Jan. 3, regardless of their payment request date, as part of the transition to the new MYUI+ system. 

Some Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUC) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) claimants got the email because they had a regular state claim in the system before moving onto the Federal program and were still on the distribution list.

The state tells FOX31 all claimants were notified again that only regular UI claimants should request payment at this time. The CDLE is not yet paying PUA/PEUC claimants as employees have not begun programming the systems.

Any regular claimant who went to request payment and saw a message about their claim closing due to early payment request was instructed to disregard and continue to the payment request screen, the CDLE said. More than 100,000 people successfully requested payment before the Jan. 3 deadline.