This presentation tells the story of Washington’s Unemployment Insurance program during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, from the first American coronavirus patient diagnosed January 21 through the end of the year.
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Emergency federal unemployment programs launched early in the COVID-19 pandemic included provisions that opened state unemployment benefits to fraud, the Office of the Washington State Auditor found in three audits released today.
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An audit released today provides the first, high-level accounting of some of the circumstances surrounding the major fraud scheme that targeted Washington state’s unemployment benefits in the spring.
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It’s crucial that each staff member understand not only their day-to-day duties, but what those duties are meant to achieve (the why). However, this concept can be more difficult to apply due to some common missteps in the way we discuss internal controls.
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Everyone knows a strong system of internal controls is the best way to deter fraud in your organization, or detect it quickly should it occur. But designing and evaluating internal control systems can be overwhelming. So where do you start?
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Failure to perform bank statement reviews might seem like a small oversight, but it could have drastic consequences. Read more to find out some best practices for your review.
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It’s important that local governments provide employees and citizens with a safe and trusted process for reporting concerns such as potential fraud or misappropriation. Doing so helps you find out about issues and address them promptly, mitigating financial and other negative effects to your organization.
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This week, we will highlight resources and important information to help state and local governments update their fraud fighting toolkits. We encourage you to check out these resources and share them with your agency.
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Automated Clearing House (ACH) frauds have been on the rise for a while, and we want to tell you some simple steps you can take to properly verify ACH and payroll bank account changes before making changes.
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At the State Auditor’s Office, we’ve heard from members of the public, the Legislature and the media interested to know about the work we are conducting at the state Employment Security Department (ESD). The agency was targeted in a major unemployment benefits fraud scheme earlier this year. SAO is conducting a series of audits of ESD to address three main areas of concern in the unemployment insurance program.
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