State lawmakers are calling for an investigation of the unemployment system and state IT systems that allowed $11 billion in unemployment fraud to take place in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
That audit released earlier this week showed that the state Department of Labor lost at least $11 billion to unemployment fraud during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, angry lawmakers want to know how the state got here.
“I doubt the state will ever be able to recover even half of what DOL lost,” Assemblymember Josh Jensen told News10NBC on Wednesday. At the very least, lawmakers like Jensen say other state agencies need to learn from DOL’s errors.
“I really think it’s our job in the legislature to be the watchdog for our state agencies,” Assemblymember Sarah Clark added to News10NBC.
Lawmakers say it’s time to take a deeper look at IT systems and upgrade them accordingly.
To be clear, that’s precisely what the Comptroller’s audit said. Technology used by DOL to administer the unemployment system during the pandemic was stressed beyond functionality. And even before the pandemic began – upgrades were badly needed for it.
For it’s part the DOL was not willing to cooperate with the audit.
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