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Many Kentuckians still waiting on unemployment back pay worth thousands of dollars

Governor Beshear feels confident unemployment help will get real traction now that global accounting giant Ernst & Young is onboard.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — When Ford furloughed Dan Kellogg, 33, in March, the system wouldn’t allow him to file for unemployment until June 1, which was the day before he returned to work. That was about seven to eight weeks of lost income, which Kellogg fully expects to get back, at least for the most part, from state unemployment.

“We’re not talking a couple hundred bucks here,” Kellogg said. “That’s $8,000.”

So far, he hasn’t seen a dime.

“I’m going to make sure I see that money,” Kellogg said.

While Kellogg is waiting to get paid back, Tyler Oosse, 29, is waiting for back pay.

For the seven weeks and three days he waited to get his claim cleared, he missed out on over $5,000 in unemployment payments. Once his claim did get fixed, Oosse said he’s been getting paid biweekly, but he hasn't received anything for all that time his claim was held up.

“My car got repossessed two weeks ago,” Oosse said.

The husband and father of two is certain that if he got his back pay, he wouldn’t have lost his car.

“I could go get it right now," he said.

Governor Andy Beshear is confident state unemployment will be close to caught up by the end of the month now that global accounting giant Ernst & Young is on board.

To get that done, the accounting firm is charging Kentucky almost $7.6 million.

Oosse said it’ll be worth it if he gets his back pay soon.

“It’s a huge deal,” he said.  “It’s the money that I need to, like, get everything back on track.”

RELATED: Kentucky legislators unsure about outside firm handling state's unemployment backlog

RELATED: Kentucky gets help from global accounting firm to clear backlog of unemployment claims

►Contact reporter John Charlton at jcharlton@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@JCharltonNews) and Facebook.

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