Maximus Federal Services has been awarded the sole contract by the DWC to administer the IMR process for all of the treatment provided to California injured workers. The latest DWC IMR Progress Report seems to suggest that the IMR process is progressing flawlessly.

But Maximus does not seem to be a company that is flawlessly run. According to a story in the Idaho Statesman, the company has hired, laid off and rehired hundreds of employees at the call center, which opened in fall 2013 to provide customer support for the federal health-insurance exchange created under the Affordable Care Act.

This round of layoffs is permanent, according to a letter just given to Maximus employees. The Idaho Statesman obtained the letter as did the city of Boise. The letter advises that Maximus would close its office and conduct mass layoffs, according to a city spokesman.

Maximus, a Virginia company that serves health and human-service agencies under contract, is a subcontractor under a $100 million, 30-month federal government contract for services to exchange customers, according to court documents from a lawsuit against it. “The reduction in staffing is based on the term of the contract,” the letter to employees said. Maximus said in the letter that some employees will receive severance pay. Maximus did not respond to a request for comment by the Idaho Statesman.

The move seems to be somewhat chaotic. Maximus hired about 1,600 Idahoans for its Boise call-center launch in 2013. Layoffs followed in spring 2014. Several employees from the Boise call center sued Maximus over the layoffs. They claimed the company led them to believe the jobs were permanent. Maximus denied those allegations, saying its call-center work was temporary – ramping up and winding down in tandem with the federal exchange’s enrollment season each year. That lawsuit is pending in federal court.

Separately, employees at the Boise office sued Maximus in early 2014 for unpaid overtime. That lawsuit, also still pending in federal court, claimed Maximus mischaracterized the employees’ jobs and, as a result, deprived them of overtime pay. Maximus denies those allegations.

Maximus started its latest Boise-area hiring spree in summer 2014 – for the 2015 enrollment season, running November 2014 through February 2015 – and struggled to fill 1,800 openings. The Idaho Department of Labor coordinated several job fairs for the company. Maximus continued to advertise opportunities at its Boise call center as recently as Friday, on its careers website, but it had taken down the actual job listings for Boise.