People Out Of Jobs … Yet Unemployment Benefits Are Paid To The Dead
A just-released legislative audit shows that Maryland unemployment checks were issued to people who were dead, behind bars or even working for state government. One state employee collected almost 6 thousand dollars in unemployment checks while on the state payroll. Auditors say the agency didn’t do enough cross checks in available databases to look for possible fraud. This most recent audit is one in a series that find careless stewardship of our tax dollars.
The problem at Unemployment Insurance comes shortly after another audit revealed the Maryland Transportation Authority isn’t collecting unpaid tolls and fines from the worst toll violators. And late last year an accounting error was discovered at the Disabilities Administration that left 34 million dollars unspent as disabled people were stuck on a long waiting list
for services. It’s enough to make hard working taxpayers scream.
It’s hard to know how many state tax dollars have actually been lost to fraud and how much was wasted or went uncollected because agencies weren’t keeping close tabs. Audits are only done every three years and it’s tough to put your finger on the exact amount of the losses. That’s because auditors do a random sampling or just survey one quarter, when a problem may have existed for several years. Agency chiefs often respond to the critiques by saying remedies are underway or the problem will soon be fixed. Yet the missteps and mismanagement keep resurfacing. This is an outrage.
The problem is one of no enforcement! Some of these state agencies have problem audits over and over again. No taxpayer deserves this. In the future “repeat offender” agencies should be subject to more frequent audits. There should be some penalty for the bureaucrat bumbling. We are compelled to be better guardians of public funds.
MD Continental
1:58 pm on Thursday, October 4, 2012
Perhaps one remedy may be to require semi-annual audits for any agency that has problems like this. Further, that the head of the agency could be dismissed if the problem is not fixed and subsequent audits show repeats of the same problem.
HarfordLassie
5:04 pm on Thursday, October 4, 2012
The problem is everybody wants government to be efficient but they also don't want to pay taxes to make it efficient or pay competitive wages for the best people. Expecting perfection is crazy and using an example that is far from normal is nothing more than tabloid type fodder.
MD Continental
9:44 am on Friday, October 5, 2012
The fact is, government can be more efficient, should those in authority, such as the Legislature and/or Governor, choose to look for these efficiencies. I don't think wages are the problem, especially when you factor in job security and benefits. No, the problem lies more with leadership. I have worked in government for a long time and have seen the effects of good and bad leadership. Those in leadership positions who can't seem to decide to do better ought to look elsewhere for employment. Likewise, the government employees who see waste and problems, but don't do anything about it, or make suggestions on how to improve operations, services, accountability, should seek employment elsewhere. One thing of which I am curious is what is Senator Jacobs doing about this problem, other than writing a short article? Does she have legislation to introduce that will improve the auditing and tracking of public monies? If we need more auditors, perhaps some of this magical gambling money can be diverted to improve government operations. How about it Governor? Perhaps the next tiime you visit Maryland, you might look into this.
Christopher Kidwell
7:13 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Agreed, Harford Lassie. If they want these agencies to be audited more or do better investigations, they are going to have to step up and allow the federal and state governments to hire enough people to do the auditing and investigations on a more frequent basis than they do today.
That means that there will be a SLIGHT increase in taxes, but it might be abrogated by the money we save by not paying out on fraudulent things.
HarfordLassie
7:44 pm on Thursday, October 11, 2012
There is no job security in the public sector. Most jobs lost in the past few years are from the public sector due to government cutbacks. As for benefits, they are nowhere near what they used to be but if you want quality people you have to offer a competitive wage and benefits. The Public Sector is always paid less than the Private Sector except at the level of Ms. Jacobs.
Nancy Jacobs
11:01 am on Friday, October 5, 2012
I have supported legislation in prior years to increase audits on agencies with repeat problems and so have some of my colleagues in the Republican Caucas. Unfortunately those bills have been defeated. I hope to let the public that recent problematic audits do show the great need for passage of such legislation.
HarfordLassie
7:41 pm on Thursday, October 11, 2012
With all due respect this is nothing but shock tactics. What percentage of the overall thousands of claims are in error? How about making sure the upcoming elections aren't rigged?
Leslie Schildgen
4:30 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Yeah but when it comes to auditing my small business, they jack up my unemployment insurance from 4% to 9% and I've only had four people make claims in 30 years. Explain that one you politicians.
Christopher Kidwell
7:14 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Ever think that they might have done that to ALL businesses and not just yours.
Christopher Kidwell
7:11 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
With all due respect, this is a failure. However, it is not totally a failure of the federal government. It is a failure of state governments not sending death reports to the feds and in some cases a failure of local governments sending death reports to the state government.
The only way that you can stop things like this from happening totally is by not having unemployment insurance in the first place. That isn't an acceptable solution for the majority of Americans.
Carol
8:15 am on Saturday, October 6, 2012
It's sad that people have to cheat! What I don't understand is how they do it unless there is someone working for the Government that allows this to happen. Just saying. I hear people saying how hard it is to get unemployment and how much paper work there is so what goes?
Penelope Patch
3:36 am on Sunday, October 7, 2012
There is a tremendous amount of waste in the federal and state governmental agencies. I've worked with the state government for many years and it's rather disappointing to see to what degree this is occurring. You've got the "lifers" who are there riding it out to retirement. The entire structure breeds mediocrity at its finest.
franking
3:02 am on Wednesday, October 10, 2012
What is remarkable to me is that a discussion of such fraud and waste is met with calls to hire more people to oversee the fraud and waste. In the private sector there would be some accountability and those responsible would be fired.
Penelope Patch
12:40 pm on Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Franking, you are absolutely right. Not to change the subject...but I just read that Harford County employees are up for a 4% raise. I don't want to offend anyone, because I know that there are a lot of hard working people out there, some who work for local government. But, why don't they do what the school system recently did (I don't work for the school system) and utilize current payroll funds to take care of the raises. Frankly, its a bitter pill to swallow to see people getting raises when others out there (equally or more qualified) who are either laid off or have given up looking for work. After all, this is taxpayer's money, but Harford County seems to have amnesia when it comes to the source the funding that goes into "their budget." There is a great deal of "fluff" in the budget, regardless of what they say. If they want to give their staff a raise, make ends meet with what they have just like the rest of us.