(Mississippi Kite. Photo credit: Dick Daniels.)
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS, Mumbai) has announced that the Mississippi, Rhode Island and Maine (MRM) Consortium, now known as ReEmployUSA, has gone live on the cloud with the TCS Unemployment Insurance (UI) system earlier co-developed with TCS’s Government Business Unit. Mississippi is now operating on what the vendor characterizes as a multi-tenant capable, fully integrated, re-engineered UI Benefits and Tax system hosted in a FedRAMP certified government cloud. Maine is expected to follow in December.
Mark Henry, Executive Director, Mississippi Department of Employment Security.
TCS reports that it was initially engaged by the ReEmployUSA consortium to develop, maintain and enhance the UI system. Later the global IT services, consulting and business solutions firm became the consortium’s managed services provider for cloud infrastructure. TCS reports that it migrated the first-ever multi-tenant UI system from on-premise to a cloud hosted infrastructure. The cloud deployment and setup is IRS and SSA approved. TCS says the deployment will help Mississippi to optimize its long-term infrastructure and reduce overall costs of operating the system.
“Deployment of the ReEmployUSA system to the cloud is the culmination of 13 years of work between MDES and TCS,” comments Mark Henry, Executive Director, Mississippi Department of Employment Security. “We are excited about this unprecedented initiative. With the full multi-tenant ReEmployUSA system deployment in Mississippi, the focus now is bringing the second state, Maine, into production for unemployment benefits in December this year.”
“Unemployment benefits are the only safety net for many people who lose jobs; therefore, it’s critical that our customers receive quick benefits and have a more accessible claim process,” comments Dale Smith, Deputy Director and COO, Mississippi Department of Employment Security. “Mississippi is pleased to partner with Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut, sharing the state of the art, multi-tenant cloud hosted technology that we developed and deployed through our partnership with TCS.”
Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Global Head, Government Industry Solutions Unit, TCS.
TCS reports that it has partnered with several U.S. states to modernize their Unemployment Insurance systems. TCS describes its solution as a robust, highly scalable platform with the ability to easily control multiple functional requirements, such as support for online claims processing, adjudication, appeals, extensive tracking of all claims, payments, tax rate and status, delinquency, and audit. The system includes mobile apps to enable claimants to perform self service functions on the go.
First Ever Cloud Deployment of a UI System
“The first ever cloud deployment of a UI system is a significant digital transformation milestone for the ReEmployUSA consortium and the UI community,” comments Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Head, Government Industry Solutions Unit, TCS. “This is a ground breaking and pioneering achievement and TCS is proud to be a partner with the ReEmployUSA consortium in this journey.”
TCS’s work with ReEmployUSA fits within a larger trend whereby the federal government is pushing for states to upgrade their legacy UI systems that support involuntarily unemployed citizens. U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) has supported the concept of multi-state consortia and cloud infrastructure for joint UI modernization efforts and optimized cost of operations.