BATON ROUGE, La. -- An audit report says the state labor department paid more than $21 million in unemployment benefits without getting the required payback of the money from Louisiana employers.
According to the Legislative Auditor's report, the money went to people who worked in Louisiana but who went on to file for unemployment in other states. Louisiana reimburses those states under an interstate agreement. But, according to the audit, the labor department, known as the Louisiana Workforce Commission, had no procedures in place to collect the money from the in-state employers, as required by law.
The audit, released Monday, was conducted last year for the fiscal year that ended last June. It includes a response in which the commission says it has completed work needed to begin charging employers for the required payments.
The commission also said it has taken steps to fix other problems cited in the audit report. Those included inadequate controls to make sure unemployment insurance payments are not going to people who are employed.
Another problem cited in the report: expenditures under a federally funded unemployment program for disaster victims were incorrectly charged to the state unemployment insurance program.
In the response, workforce commission director Curt Eysink said the commission has plans in place to make sure that doesn't happen again. And the state has sought reimbursement of more than $536,000 in reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for payments made following Hurricane Gustav.
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On the Net: The audit report and responses: http://app1.lla.state.la.us/PublicReports.nsf/0/4037B25E7141A88886257749006F37C0/$FILE/000175EF.pdf
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
