CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — Lawmakers in town for interim sessions have been told fraudsters ripped off pandemic unemployment programs by nearly $83 million just in West Virginia.
That's what an informational audit by the Legislative Auditor showed. The pressure to quickly get out a huge jump in claims clearly created problems for Workforce West Virginia.
Before the pandemic hit, West Virginia was processing about 50,000 claims. That number jumped to more than 400,000 in fiscal 2020 -- and that spelled trouble.
“They were overwhelmed by the large number of unemployment claims they were receiving," Legislative Auditor Research Analyst Christopher Carney said.
West Virginia was not alone with these unemployment problems.
Ohio paid out $477 million in false claims, including $82,000 to people behind bars and $141,000 to even less deserving dead people. California could hit $29 billion in fraudulent claims.
“According to Workforce, and also for the Department of Labor, the technology was outdated,” Carney said.
However, Workforce West Virginia claims tools are now in place for cross checks to prevent a repeat of a very expensive mistake.
“Well, we have the tools in place to make certain it doesn't happen again,” Workforce West Virginia Interim Director Scott Adkins said.
West Virginia ranked 4th in the country on preventing fraud. Now it's 16th.
“They indicated to us that they expect to --by the end of 2021 --to recover between $3 and $4 million," Carney said.
Adkins said most...
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