Senate Republicans say they still want hearings into embezzlement

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Delaware Senate Republicans continue to call for legislative hearings despite a new report from Gov. John Carney administration giving additional details on last year’s theft of taxpayer funding by a former state employee.

The document, which the administration only gave to Senate and House leadership, was circulated to all legislators and made available to the public by top lawmakers.

The report confirmed an exclusive report by WHYY News in May, which revealed former unemployment insurance administrator, Michael Brittingham, stole more than $181,000 from the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund in 2023. The state did not reveal the theft publicly until officials were contacted by WHYY News, following a tip that money had been stolen from the trust fund.

Brittingham took his own life the day he was placed on administrative leave after a supervisor with the Employer Contribution Office informed the Department of Labor’s Human Resources that Brittingham had his assistant, a contractor, issue checks to his LLC, which had the same address as a warrant issued for his arrest. Brittingham, who had been hired by DOL in February 2019, pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $42,890 from the Chimney Hill Homeowners Association in Felton. He underwent a background check shortly after being hired, which is required for people with access to federal tax information.

DOL and the Department of Finance say in the report the investigation ended in August 2023, but the heads of those departments did not report the embezzlement to state lawmakers or the public.

“They answered a lot of questions that nobody asked,” said John Flaherty, spokesperson for the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. “The two questions that we had asked, they ignored, about why they did not report this embezzlement in a timely fashion, why the news media is the one that reported it and whether there are any other instances of embezzlement that they haven’t reported.”

Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn said there wasn’t a lot of new information in the report and hearings were needed to determine why the embezzlement wasn’t disclosed to lawmakers when it was discovered.

“There are probably still some questions that some members have. There may be questions that, if we announced the hearings, the public ends up contacting us with that we can ask the departments,” he said. “But I think we have a duty as that equal branch of government … to engage in a dialogue and have these questions answered to our satisfaction.”