What if Oregon’s Employment Department had a computer system that it didn’t have to fight to get people unemployment benefits? What if its system was flexible enough to adapt when changes are made to unemployment programs or new programs begin?

Maybe then, fewer of the tens of thousands of Oregonians would be waiting for unemployment benefits. Maybe it wouldn’t be a victory to get hold times down to less than an hour.

That different present might exist if real progress had been made with the millions the Oregon Legislature has allocated to the department’s computer upgrade. The pandemic is a disaster that caught people flat-footed. The department would have been seriously challenged to cope with 470,000 Oregonians filing for unemployment benefits since March, no matter how fancy its computers are. Other states face similar backlogs. But Oregon legislators can’t be allowed to say: Gosh, who knew the employment department’s computer system was such a mess?

We spoke on Saturday, June 6, with David Gerstenfeld, the new interim head of the department. Many encouraging things are happening.

Wait times are down. More claims are being processed. About 150 volunteers from other state agencies are helping the department reach out to people — to at least let people know that somebody is working on their claims. The Oregon Army National Guard is even pitching in. You can get data about unemployment in Oregon at qualityinfo.org/covid-19.

As Gerstenfeld told us, one of the most frustrating things for his employees is knowing people need help and the department has fallen behind. That in no way diminishes the frustration and financial problems people experience waiting for benefits, he said. He is understandably reluctant to commit to a date when the backlog will be tamed.

The department’s computer system is from the 1990s. It apparently can’t even handle web-based applications. Legislators began the process to upgrade the department’s computer system with $5 million in 2015.

That money and more millions did not just sit around for five years. Modernizing the system is complicated. This is the kind of big, technological project that goes bad. Oregon can’t afford a multimillion-dollar failure. The state has what it calls a “stage gate” process for marching through such an upgrade. One look at that flow chart and the memories of how tech projects have fallen flat and you will know why things are moving slowly.

Isn’t five years too slow, though?

It is only this year that the department has gotten to the point where it may pick a vendor?

The department’s priority must be catching up on the unemployment backlog, not trying to rush into a new computer system. We get that. But is it going to be five more years before the department’s system is upgraded?