Ex-DETR chief faced online threats, anger from unemployed

“Thank you for all you do Heather!” a Las Vegas man seeking jobless benefits wrote to Heather Korbulic back in June.

Korbulic had been tapped by Gov. Steve Sisolak six weeks earlier to turn around an unemployment division overwhelmed by record-busting job claims stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

The writer was being sarcastic.

“Just kidding. You suck. Here’s a picture though,” he wrote in the June 11 message sent to her personal email account. He attached an image file featuring an internet meme, “Society has progressed pas(t) the need for…” with her name and photograph.

Korbulic quit eight days later, citing harassment and “threats to personal safety,” and returned to her post as executive director of the state’s health insurance exchange. Heading the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, she had been the standout target for frustrated Nevadans whose claims for benefits got sidetracked, delayed or denied — rightly or wrongly — in a system never designed to handle such caseloads. (Even still, the state was paying claims faster than most.)

At its April peak, Nevada’s unemployment rate reached 30 percent. It was highest in the U.S. week after week. Continuing claims for benefits neared 370,000 a week at their mid-May peak, with more than 100,000 additional claims filed by contract workers and the self-employed when a special pandemic benefit kicked in starting in June.

The latest figures put the state’s unemployment rate at 14 percent, with weekly continuing claims of just more than 240,000 and gig worker claims near 110,000.

Sisolak on Aug. 6 named a new DETR director and set up a task force to fix the agency’s claims processing backlog. In June, though, as COVID infection in the state swelled and the state’s phased-in recovery went on pause or got rolled back, some of Nevada’s unemployed aimed their wrath at Korbulic, emails from the period reviewed by the Review-Journal show.

Attacked on social media

“It was a difficult situation,” Sisolak said in an early July interview as the Legislature convened for the first of two special sessions. “Ms. Korbulic did a great job. She worked hard to get this resolved but, you know, everybody’s under a lot of scrutiny and took a lot of public criticism, and the threats just got to be too much for her family to be able to continue to deal with.”

Korbulic had personal details, including her home address and personal email, posted on social media. People got hold of her personal payment account information and requested funds directly from her.

Other DETR workers faced similar abuse. Personal information and phone numbers were posted in Facebook groups. A desperate woman in Las Vegas who told the governor’s outreach coordinator she was considering “giving up her kids” said she had been leaving notes on DETR employees’ parked cars, watching them come and go, and at one point kept an employee from entering the building.

The Review-Journal requested records of communications to and among state officials regarding threats aimed at Korbulic in the weeks leading up to her resignation and reached out to several claimants who sent emails to her or posted harassing messages.

Three angry claimants

Alex Dacome, who emailed the sarcastic thank-you, first filed for unemployment in April, then in May, when gig-worker assistance became available. His claim was denied because he had a combined wage claim involving several states and needed to file a special claim. He said he spent up to 12 hours on the phone each day, up to five days a week, trying to get through.

“That email I sent was written out of frustration,” he said in an emailed response. He said calling the phone line was “like a job on its own.”

“Most days you couldn’t even get through to a real person because the system was so overloaded,” he said. “So, put yourself in my situation. You’re unemployed and have been trying to get your benefits since April, and you’re calling a phone line over and over again for 12 hours a day. Sounds frustrating right?”

He said he took it out on Korbulic when the agency didn’t meet stated goals for processing claims.

“As for my status, I’m still unemployed and my claim has not been resolved,” he said last week. “I’m still waiting on that phone call.”

One Twitter account that posted angry, profanity-laced messages looks to be a bot, not a real person. Another user, Tyler Kemp, tweeted out Korbulic’s home address in mid-June, saying, “We should go protest in front of this place. Maybe this is how we get what we have been promised…”

Over email and Twitter, he said his tweet was a “call to a public protest” meant to “showcase the suffering, and bring about a quasi ‘public shaming.’” Unemployed gig workers, he said, “are being squeezed by a state agency that lacks imagination/ingenuity regarding adapting to a crisis.”

He compared his proposed protest, which never came about, to those aimed at U.S. senators “who’ve refused to vote on another rescue package.”

Kemp, who started an advocacy group for gig workers, said his claim had been paid and was current. He is looking for work where he won’t “be getting exposed to a lot of different people” because of a relative he lives with whose medical conditions raise the risk of a more serious COVID infection.

Making things miserable

In an early June email to Korbulic’s work address, Joey DelliGatti told her he “could really make things miserable for you” by posting her email in a Facebook group for gig workers “and elsewhere, but I WILL NOT DO SO!!! I’m a believer in dialogue and transparency.”

Responding to the Review-Journal in an email, DelliGatti said his case got picked up by Reno media and his claim was approved. He formerly worked for the state Department of Health and Human Services, and because of that, “I had access to the pertinent emails.”

“Since there was senseless stonewalling, concealing of information and crickets from our Governor, I figured what better way than to publish their emails, put pressure on them for a change and give them a taste of what they were avoiding,” DelliGatti said.

“I did not agree with the threats to Heather and anyone else that was in the line of fire, as that doesn’t solve anything and ran counter to my intentions, but I totally understood the frustrations,” he added. “DETR self-inflicted upon themselves, but that’s still no reason for the threats of violence upon ANYONE.”

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.