BATON ROUGE - According to the office of the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, a recent audit of the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) exposed multiple errors in the organization's implementation of rules, and some of these errors may have resulted in LWC's misuse of thousands of dollars. 

First of all, auditors discovered that 27 percent of the pandemic-related Unemployment Insurance (UI) claims they reviewed had inconsistent or missing information, which may indicate individuals were not entitled to the benefits they were applying for, or possible identity theft. 

In addition to this, auditors found LWC’s use of Special Leave – Act of God did not follow State Civil Service Rules and may have resulted in improper compensation for department employees totaling approximately $786,000. 

Auditors also report that LWC did not have sufficient controls to ensure accurate financial reporting for the Unemployment Trust Fund’s Annual Fiscal Report.

This flaw was underscored by the fact that federal revenue and amounts due from the federal government were understated by $65.2 million, UI benefits expense and other liabilities were understated by $46.5 million, and cash was understated by $17.7 million. 

According to auditors, for the second consecutive report, an official analysis revealed LWC did not have adequate security controls in place for the Louisiana Wage and Tax System and the UI mainframe system and did not adequately monitor sub-recipients of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programs as required. 

In addition to this, for the fourth consecutive report, auditors say LWC’s contract with Geographic Solutions, Inc. lacked an adequate source code escrow agreement that would allow LWC to continue operations of the UI program if GSI could no longer provide services.

Click here to view the full audit report regarding LWC.