Report finds numerous unemployment compensation-related errors in Iowa amid 2020 pandemic

DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – A brand new report from State Auditor Rob Sand says an absence of insurance policies and procedures led Iowa Workforce Growth to make quite a few errors through the fiscal yr ending in June 2020, amid the pandemic and an increase in unemployment claims.

That features overpaying unemployment compensation to folks ineligible to obtain compensation as a result of they had been both incarcerated or useless, together with failures to detect and proper documentation errors.

The overpayments of unemployment compensation included $113,000 to eight prisoners, and $124,000 to claimants who had been deceased.

Sand’s report advisable corrective actions that may stop compensation going to people who find themselves ineligible as a result of they’re incarcerated or they’re utilizing a useless particular person’s social safety quantity. IWD mentioned it has already begun implementing insurance policies and procedures to forestall that sooner or later.

The report included a press release from IWD detailing the unprecedented scenario it handled amid the pandemic in 2020.

Iowa Workforce Growth mentioned it obtained an unparalleled variety of unemployment claims and customer support calls between March and June 2020. Claims went from about 125,000 a month earlier than the pandemic, to about 600,000 claims a month.

IWD mentioned it started an “all hands-on deck” method to staffing assignments to course of this unprecedented variety of claims and customer support requests.

IWD’s Unemployment Insurance coverage division employees went from 139 staff to greater than 475 in a single day. Additionally they employed greater than 250 non permanent staff and added 55 volunteers from different businesses. Workers additionally elevated workdays to 10-hours on weekdays and added an 8-hour workday on Saturdays in the course of March.

“We don’t anticipate that the problems that result in the discovering on this audit report, on this explicit time frame, will ever come up once more,” IWD wrote in a response to the report. “But when it ought to, now we have the experiences, assets and processes in place to rapidly handle them as wanted.”

Copyright 2022 KCRG. All rights reserved.