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A US Senate Committee heard testimony from the US Labor secretary along with a panel of experts on the rollout of the CARES Act unemployment benefits and the future of the program Tuesday.

Florida State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez was on the panel and reported on the disastrous failures of the state’s unemployment system early on in the pandemic.

Rodriquez testified the state has proven to be one of the slowest in the nation when it comes to distributing the $600 a week federal benefits.

“If you take two of the federal programs the one that gives $600 a week, the State of Florida has only distributed about half of that money to eligible Floridians, which means the other half is still sitting in DC. With the other program for gig workers, self employed, by my count for every dollar the State of Florida has distributed three dollars are still sitting in DC,” said Rodriguez.

And while the Governor has commissioned an investigation into how the state spent $77 million on a broken unemployment system, Rodriguez agrees with calls from top ranking US Senators for the federal government to look into the matter as well.