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Marty Morgentern said in a memo to the EDD on Tuesday that it should not wait to verify whether people are eligible for the benefits before issuing the checks. Morgenstern said eligibility would have to be determined later, with any overpayments collected at that time.
The memo was reported by the Sacramento Bee.
EDD spokeswoman Loree Levy told the newspaper people with claims in the backlog will begin receiving payments as soon as Thursday.
The department said last week about 80,000 Californians had claims delayed after an error occurred when several years of old data were being converted to a new processing system over Labor Day weekend.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
