RICHMOND, Va. -- A handful of Virginia families are left concerned for their personal information and financial well-being after technical issues halted a program for the second time in just two years.
Virginia's Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services has a program that assists families with developmentally disabled loved ones. On Thursday, the website shut down after a serious glitch was discovered.
Those impacted find themselves confused why the problem, which also happened in 2019, hasn't already been addressed.
"I thought that after what happened in 2019, that they would have resorted to using a new system instead of trying to tweak the old one. So I was pretty shocked at what happened again," Matilda Houck, a frustrated Virginian, said.
CBS6 contacted the department to address why the problem hadn't been resolved already.
A spokesperson said that the agency's internal team and the Virginia IT Authority, also known as VITA, have been working to simulate and solve the issue since the similar incident that happened in 2019.
She said that extensive review and testing took place over 17 months prior to the program being put back into service and that the program was functioning properly. After this, it was believed that the portal was clear to operate as scheduled.
However, when the portal went live on Thursday, it was up for six minutes before it was shut down as soon as the problem was identified.
The spokesperson said that the agency is investigating to determine the extent of the issue and securing the proper resources through VITA to assist.
