Ohio
Long wait times, no answers: Workers frustrated after Ohio withholds tax refunds over unemployment claims
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Sharon Ganoe said she is literally paying for someone else’s crime.
The Springfield Township resident said the Ohio Department of Taxation withheld her 2023 tax refund to offset a debt from a fraudulent unemployment claim filed in her name.
“I’m paying on a debt that somebody else accrued,” she said. “And they did it fraudulently.”
Despite spending hours on hold with three different state agencies, she said she has been unable to reach anyone who can help her.
“I just wonder if anybody is even really working there,” she said.
How it started
Ganoe said she and her husband, Barry, received an Offset Notice from the Ohio Department of Taxation in February. It said the agency was considering withholding their tax refund to offset their debt.
“We’re like, ‘What?!’ because we weren’t aware of any money that we owed,” she said.
After making several phone calls, Ganoe said she learned her identity was stolen. She said a crook filed an unemployment claim during the pandemic using her previous name and an old address.
Ganoe said she then filed a fraud claim with the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, reported it to OH|ID, and made more calls to state agencies in an attempt to receive her refund.
“This has become a project for me,” she said. “One that I don’t want.”
But it didn’t work. Ohio kept their refund.
“It infuriates me that they wouldn’t listen to me,” she said.
How it happened
“The agency is not doing a good enough job to identify where is fraud really taking place,” Zach Schiller said. Schiller is the research director for Policy Matters Ohio, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute.
He has researched and written about problems with Ohio’s outdated and underfunded unemployment system for two decades.
I first talked to Schiller in January after a Parma business owner was told to back his pandemic benefits.
Ohio says Parma business owner has to pay back $26,000 in pandemic benefits because of missed deadline
Ohio says Parma business owner has to pay back pandemic benefits
“The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services is not sufficiently funded to support the level of service that Ohioans deserve and need,” he said.
Schiller said efforts have been made to modernize the state’s system, but it still falls short of what is needed to provide adequate customer service.
“We are not in a pandemic, we’re not in a high unemployment situation,” he said. “So why can’t the agency answer phone calls in a timely manner?”
ODJFS Director of Communications Bill Teets said the state is working to improve customer service, including reducing wait times.
He sent us the following statement:
“In March, the contact center had 65 FTE (full time employees). Since then, 33 additional employees completed training and are now on the phones. We are in the process of hiring 30 more. Those will likely start training in June, so they’ll start “coming online” this fall. So, in short, over this year, we’ll have double our contact center staff to more than 120 full time employees. For comparison, we had approximately 40 in the pre-pandemic era.”
He said the state has created a callback feature so callers do not need to wait on hold. Currently, the average time for a callback is 4 hours, according to ODJFS.
He also encouraged workers to use the ODJFS Unemployment website to find answers to their questions.
How it’s going
So, how many Ohio taxpayers’ refunds are being withheld in connection with unemployment claims?
In an e-mail, an Ohio Department of Taxation spokesperson wrote that the agency withheld 248,262 tax refunds this year.
In another e-mail, an ODJFS spokesperson wrote that “as of May 9, 2024, ODJFS has 465,814 cases in active debt collections with the Ohio Attorney General since March 2020.”
But no one we talked to with the Ohio Department of Taxation, Ohio Attorney General’s Office, or Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services answered our questions about the number of tax refunds withheld in connection with unemployment claims this year.
However, ODJFS Public Information Program Administrator Tom Betti provided us with the following timeline on unemployment overpayment appeals and the collection process:
- ODJFS discovers a claimant may not be eligible for a previously paid week.
- ODJFS contacts the claimant and requests information specific to their eligibility and weeks. Claimants are notified that they have five days to respond to our requests.
- If there is no response, or the information provided establishes the claimant was not eligible for unemployment benefits, ODJFS issues a Determination of Unemployment Compensation Benefits (Determination), which spells out the ineligibility issue in question, the week(s) of ineligibility, any associated overpayments, and any penalties for fraud.
- The Determination also provides information for repayment, as well as outstanding debt referred to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office for collection, which may include state and federal income tax withholding.
- The Determination also provides information on appeal rights, how to appeal, and deadlines to appeal (21 calendar days after the date issued).
- ODJFS has 21 days to review an appeal and issue a Directors Redetermination (Redetermination). The Redetermination provides the appellant with the decision and reasoning, repayment information, and appeal rights, how to appeal, and deadlines to appeal (21 calendar days after the date issued).
- Appeals to Redeterminations are transferred to the Unemployment Compensation Review Commission (UCRC), and a hearing is scheduled. The UCRC has 21 days to review an appeal, conduct a hearing, and issue a decision. The Hearing decision includes the details of the ineligibility issue, the weeks, and repayment amounts and methods. It also includes information on appeal rights, how to appeal, and deadlines to appeal (21 calendar days after the date issued).
- Appeals to UCRC decisions, or Requests for Review, are reviewed by the full Unemployment Compensation Review Commission, and a decision is issued to the appellant, which includes appeal rights, methods, and deadlines (30 calendar days after the date issued).
- Appeals to Requests for Review should be filed with the county common pleas court where the claimant lives or was employed.
- Determinations and Decisions become final once applicable appeal deadlines have expired.
- Once a Determination or Decision becomes final, all associated debt becomes collectible. ODJFS takes collection action through the Determination repayment language and overpayment notices.
- All associated outstanding debt is certified to the Ohio Attorney General (OAG) for collection after 66 days. The OAG has various collection methods, including mail/phone outreach, third-party collectors, and special council, as well as offsets to state income tax refunds, Ohio lottery, and Ohio casino/racinos.
“There’s a lack of inter-agency communication,” Barry Ganoe, Sharon’s husband, said. “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
Ganoe said the state should have figured out the fraudulent claim filed in his wife’s previous name was fraudulent.
After all, he noted, she changed her name to Ganoe when they got married in 2014.
Their refund was only $411. But Sharon won’t give up on getting her money back.
“I’m afraid somewhere in the future they’ll send us another letter saying we owe $20,000 dollars or something,” she said. “Plus, the fact it’s not right.”
News 5 Investigators have reported on problems with Ohio’s unemployment system since the pandemic started.
ODJFS said it identified approximately $6.9 billion in fraud and non-fraudulent overpayments during the pandemic.
This is not the first time efforts to reclaim those funds and reduce fraud have led to problems for Ohio workers. Last summer, I revealed some Ohio workers were temporarily locked out of their accounts in an effort to prevent fraud.
Unemployed Ohio workers temporarily locked out of accounts
Unemployed Ohio workers locked out of accounts
I requested an interview with ODJFS Director Matt Damschroder for this report but was told he was unavailable.
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Fans got their first glimpse of the 2026-2027 Buckeyes during their spring game earlier today. In contrast to last year’s offensive takeover, it was the defense this year that shined for the most part.
With this, we still saw plenty of Buckeyes that proved that they are ready to play, and ready to play now. Here are three standouts from the Ohio State Spring Game.
Chris Henry Jr.
Coming into the game, most Ohio State fans had already penciled Chris Henry Jr., the No. 1 WR in the 2026 class according to ESPN, as the successor to Carnell Tate in the Buckeye offense.
Anyone that didn’t, probably should now.
The freshman wideout hauled in 4 passes for 96 yards, including a 40-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter.
Playing all snaps on the outside, Henry Jr. looked very poised, showcasing smooth route running and breakaway speed. The connection between him and another Buckeye on this list was the highlight of the offense for the day. There is no doubt he should be an immediate contributor in this Ohio State offense.
Tavien St. Clair
After a subpar showing at the spring game last year, Tavien St. Clair showed flashes of the top-10 recruit he was just two years ago.
He dazzled early with two big completions to Chris Henry Jr., showing off his big arm in the process.
His touchdown pass to Henry Jr. was a beautiful look off from St. Clair, who launched it right to the right pylon to find the freshman wideout.
It was not all sunshine and rainbows for St. Clair on the day though, as he was forced into a couple three-and-outs as well as a few balls that could have been intercepted.
All in all, all tools are there for St. Clair to be great when his number is called, and another year of growth under Julian Sayin should help him get there.
Beau Atkinson
Buckeye fans were surprised when Beau Atkinson was basically a non-factor on the defensive line a season ago, as the hype around him coming from North Carolina was immense.
The player they expected to see last year was on full display, as the senior finished the day with a sack and an interception off a Julian Sayin batted ball at the line of scrimmage.
His high motor was one to watch early, as his get-off and confidence at the position looked vastly improved from last year. He is one to seriously watch to be the starter next to Kenyatta Jackson Jr. come September.
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A vulnerable woman, suffering from multiple health conditions and alcohol-related dementia, was “dumped” at a homeless shelter by an Ohio nursing home, prompting staff to call the fire department.
The woman, who was diabetic, managing a tibia fracture, and incontinent, arrived at the shelter carrying “a large bag of medications.”
Federal inspectors from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) documented the incident following an August 3, 2023, inspection, noting the woman was “unclear of what was going on, scared, and not sure who dropped her off there.”
The Eastland Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Columbus had involuntarily discharged the woman after she was caught drinking beer at the facility. While staff reportedly sought a substance abuse rehabilitation bed, none were immediately available.
Eastland staff failed to contact the county’s psychiatric bed board for alternative placement before taking her to the shelter, where she faced a waiting list of about 100 people.
The incident highlights a disturbing trend, described by industry experts as rare but increasingly common, where nursing homes transfer medically fragile patients to homeless shelters. CMS, which funds most nursing home care in the U.S., has previously faulted Eastland and six other facilities for similar discharge practices in recent years.
The shelter at first declined to admit the woman, leaving her outside in the late-summer heat. Staff eventually relented, letting her sit in the lobby with a glass of cold water while they summoned a city rapid response team, including the fire department and a social worker.
Neither Eastland nor the CMS inspectors could locate the woman by the time the report was published.
“In addition, the events of what occurred at the addiction recovery center or how/why Resident #83 ended up at the homeless shelter … could not be determined as the facility was unable to provide any additional information regarding Resident #83,” the inspection report says.
The administrator at Eastland declined to return phone calls about the inspection. Facility staff declined to provide contact information for Garden Healthcare, the corporate owner of the nursing home, which operates five other facilities, according to CMS data. It doesn’t publish any contact information online.
Most of the patients in these situations are older, homeless, unemployed and lack support networks of family or friends that might be checking in on them, according to Chip Wilkins, who leads the city of Dayton’s Long Term Care Ombudsman program, which acts as a legal advocate for long term care patients.
“We are starting to deal with it more and more. The facilities are so closely monitored on discharges, but yet they still try and send them to hospitals and not take them back. Or drop them off at homeless shelters,” he said in an interview.
“I would say certainly over the last six months there has been an uptick.”
Leilani Pelletier, the statewide ombudsman, said she didn’t have ready access to data that could confirm whether the discharges to homeless shelters have increased in frequency statewide.
But health care is as subject to macroeconomic forces like inflation as other sectors of the economy. And Medicaid, which pays for most nursing care, is under increasing cost pressure as federal lawmakers have reduced program funds.
The challenges nursing facilities in Ohio are facing reflect a broader and concerning trend affecting facilities across the country, said Scott Wiley in a statement, CEO of the Ohio Health Care Association, an industry trade group.
“This issue has been growing as more residents face unstable housing,” he said. “State oversight and resources are needed to help tackle the issue on a larger scale to find meaningful, long-term solutions for Ohioans who struggle with homelessness. It will require a collaborative approach that a single nursing facility provider is not equipped to manage on their own.”
The state ombudsman’s office gets copies of every involuntary discharge from a nursing home in Ohio. One of the first things they check, Wilkins said, is the proposed discharge location.
Homeless shelter discharges are priority cases because they’re almost always unsafe, he said. They can’t manage the 10 to 20 medications they might need daily. Some rely on wheelchairs or walkers.
“Invariably, that ends up being a horrible experience for the individual because they’ll go to the shelter, and typically, within two to three days, the shelter will send them to the hospital because they can’t meet their needs,” Wilkins said.
Often, the issues trace back to insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, that cut off residents’ benefits. Sometimes the facilities cite aggressive behavior or substance use.
Homeless shelters aren’t built to handle medically fragile patients. They aren’t medical centers. Some may require residents to climb to a top bunk, a tall task for older patients.
Marcus Roth, director of communications of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said the practice puts the shelters in a tight spot. They’re tending to a population they’re not equipped to handle, but they’re also the de facto safety net.
“The emergency shelter system, to the extent we have a system, is often the only thing available when other interventions don’t work,” he said.
Pelletier emphasized in an interview that such involuntary discharges to shelters against residents’ wishes are rare. That said, she estimated about 13,000 Ohioans are discharged from a nursing home each month.
Nursing homes, she said, have legal obligations to make sure that discharges are “safe and appropriate.” And it’s not up to the facilities, she said, to unilaterally decide where a person should go.
Whether a shelter is “safe and appropriate” is a fact-specific question. Pelletier said there are instances where it could be, pending the care needs of the resident and abilities of the shelter. It’s the kind of thing that ombudsmen hone in on when reviewing discharges.
“The real issue is when people are discharged to a homeless shelter and there’s been no work or investigation done on if that would be a safe or appropriate discharge,” she said.
It didn’t matter that its patient was diabetic and struggled to manage his blood sugar. Neither did his history of glaucoma, cataracts, or suspected autism, or his 22 years of residency at the nursing home.
What mattered is that his insurance stopped paying, and the Laurels of Hillsboro wanted him out, according to a Dec. 29, 2025 CMS inspection of the facility. The facility was sold in July 2025 and rebranded to Hillsboro Health and Rehab, but state and federal records reflect the previous name.
The man told CMS inspectors in an interview that nursing home staff never told him he was being taken to a homeless shelter.
Federal law says nursing home residents must be given at least 30 days’ notice before a discharge, barring health and safety emergencies. But the patient at Hillsboro, who isn’t identified in the investigation, wasn’t given any. According to his former roommate, facility staff misrepresented the discharge, claiming he’d be going to an assisted living apartment as opposed to an emergency shelter that would only house him for up to 90 days.
The man wasn’t taught to manage his medications and showed up at the shelter without any needles to use. He struggled to see with his cataracts. He had no driver’s license, birth certificate or other documents he would need to get a job, income or housing.
“I can’t believe they would do someone dirty like that,” the patient’s roommate said to CMS inspectors.
Hillsboro, via a receptionist who declined to provide her name over the phone, declined to comment but said the facility is now in “substantial compliance” with the state.
In some of the facilities cited by CMS, the providers allegedly failed to ensure patients got their medications as they were discharged to homeless shelters. And some failed to provide patients their 30 days of notice before an involuntary discharge.
Meadowbrook Manor, in Trumbull County, sought to discharge a patient with an array of long-term illnesses and a history of substance use and homelessness, according to a July 8 inspection. He was given a 30-day discharge notice, but was sent to a shelter 20 days later regardless.
He was given two weeks’ worth of medications, but no prescriptions, medical appointments or care plan. The shelter staff identified a “mismatch” given the man had trouble walking and couldn’t climb a ladder to reach a top bunk, as the facility requires.
Meadowbrook staff refused to take him back.
At New Lebanon Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, a woman’s insurer sent her a termination letter for her treatment for a series of neural and spinal disorders, plus depression and arthritis.
While she was entitled to 30 days’ notice, the facility gave her roughly 24 hours before discharging her to a homeless shelter. The facility’s social services director said he didn’t know where the woman actually went, only that a friend picked her up.
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Friday, April 17, 2026 | 7:01 PM
Central Catholic lineman Jimmy Kalis warms up before the Vikings’ game against Pine-Richland on Aug. 29, 2025, at CMU. (Christopher Horner | TribLive)
Central Catholic’s Jimmy Kalis blocks as Chrys Black carries through the Harrisburg defense during their PIAA Class 6A state semifinal on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, at Mansion Park in Altoona. (Christopher Horner | TribLive)
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Jimmy Kalis will play his college football at Ohio State.
Central Catholic’s 6-foot-8, 285-pound star lineman, surrounded by family, friends and other supporters, gave a verbal commitment to the Buckeyes live on Rivals’ YouTube channel Friday evening.
He thanked many of the people who supported him along his journey, including teammates and coaches.
“I want to thank all of the schools that gave me a chance and believed in me,” Kalis said. “I am really thankful and blessed for all these opportunities I got.”
The soon-to-be senior chose Ohio State over a group of five other finalists that included Georgia, Texas, Clemson, Miami and LSU.
Kalis, a Rivals 4-star offensive tackle, collected more than 40 Power Four scholarship offers with Alabama, Cal, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Indiana, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, Pitt, Purdue, Tennessee, Washington, WVU and Wisconsin among the others.
He is the No. 234 overall prospect and No. 21 offensive tackle in the Class of 2027, according to the Rivals Industry Ranking.
Kalis went through an extensive recruiting process that included visits to several of the top schools on his list.
In an interview with Rivals in February, Kalis said Ohio State was “very high on my list because they have been there and been very consistent since Day 1. They develop OL at a high level and have an elite culture and they take pride in getting guys to the next level.”
Kalis was part of a powerful Central Catholic offensive line in 2025 that helped the Vikings rack up 40.8 points per game.
Central Catholic went undefeated in Class 6A, finished 13-2 overall, defeated North Allegheny, 42-7, for the WPIAL title and advanced to the PIAA championship game before falling to La Salle College.
Kalis’ efforts were celebrated with numerous all-star honors including an all-conference second-team nod.
“It’s been an awesome ride watching Jimmy grow and mature,” Central Catholic coach Ryan Lehmeier said. “He’s earned this opportunity. He’s played really well throughout his career with us. He’s a great kid who is so focused on what he wants, and he’s worked so hard towards that. He’s been a delight to coach, and I hope all of our kids are able to reach their max potential. For guys like Jimmy to have this opportunity, I couldn’t be more happy for him.”
Kalis has had a strong support system, and throughout the recruiting process, he leaned on the experience of both his father, Todd, and older brother, Kyle.
Todd Kalis, a Minnesota native, attended Division I Arizona State as a 6-6, 300-pound guard and was selected by the Vikings in the fourth round of the 1988 NFL Draft. He played for the Vikings, Steelers and Bengals over his eight-year NFL career.
Kyle Kalis, recruited by Michigan out of St. Edward High School in suburban Cleveland, got an opportunity as a lineman (6-4, 305) in the NFL with Washington, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland from 2017-2020.
Jimmy’s mother, Kristen, was a former college basketball player. She is 6-1.
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.
Tags: Central Catholic
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