Gov. Tony Evers has written to the White House, demanding that President Donald Trump release $29 million Wisconsin was promised to complete an upgrade of the state’s unemployment insurance system.

Evers’ letter to Trump, sent Tuesday, repeatedly leans into the upgrade project as a tool for “preventing fraud, waste, and abuse in our unemployment insurance system.”

The terminated grants “were being used to efficiently and effectively reduce fraud and ensure correct payment of benefits,” Evers wrote. Referring to the justification stated in the U.S. Department of Labor’s letter in May canceling the grants, Evers added: “Notably, Wisconsin was informed that, apparently, those grants no longer effectuate the priorities of the U.S. DOL.”

Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system upgrade was launched after major snags in the unemployment system in 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when business shutdowns spiked unemployment claims in the state. There were widespread complaints about the system, and Evers fired his first Department of Workforce Development cabinet secretary over the delays.

The Evers administration blamed the state’s computer system used for processing claims, which was based on decades-old technology, and in 2021 lawmakers authorized a major overhaul of the system.

With an $80 million grant from the federal government, part of the American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief measure enacted in the first months of President Joe Biden’s administration, DWD proceeded with the upgrades.

“We upgraded the entire claimant portal,” DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview in August. Among a number of improvements, the upgrade made it possible for people filing an unemployment claim to send photos or digital document files to the agency, she said.

“Since modernizing the claimant portal, DWD has consistently paid 88% of regular UI claims within three days or less of the claim being filed,” states the latest quarterly report on the upgrade project. The report, under the signatures of Pechacek and Department of Administration Secretary-designee Kathy Blumenfeld, was filed with the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee Jan. 30.

Starting in September 2021, the Department of Labor awarded DWD four additional ARPA grants totaling $29 million. That included $11.25 million to modernize the UI system portal for employers; $6.3 million for fraud prevention and deduction and related modifications; $6.8 million for improved communications for UI users and $4.5 million in identity authentication and proofing and other improvements.

“The modern employer portal would improve communication between DWD and its customers for tax and wage reporting, employer information and support, responding to submitted unemployment insurance claims verification, and appeal activities all in a secure setting,” Pechacek and Blumenfeld wrote in the Jan. 30 report.

The Trump administration notified Wisconsin May 22 that the $29 million was being terminated. The letter left open the possibility of future grants

“Vendors working on UI modernization had to end their work before the product was complete,” Pechacek and Blumenfeld wrote in their report. “The Trump Administration’s decision to pull funding from UI modernization projects turned partially completed software contracts into sunk costs, effectively wasting many months and hundreds of millions of dollars nationally.”

DWD asked the Labor Department in June and July to reverse its decision, but the request was denied. In August, Evers wrote U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and again urged reinstatement of the grants.

“To be clear, if the Trump Administration does not reverse course and provide the $29 million Wisconsin expected to receive, the state will not be able to complete its UI system modernization project, which is designed to use innovative tools to help efficiently and effectively prevent benefit fraud and abuse,” Evers declared in the August letter.

Wisconsin’s appeals to the Labor Department to reconsider “have largely gone ignored,” Evers told Trump in his letter this week, with no “formal decision” from the department, nor any new grants to modernize UI systems.

“If fighting fraud is truly and earnestly a meaningful commitment of you and your administration, funding for states’ unemployment modernization projects must be restored,” Evers wrote.