Reports

This audit report assessed what factors caused delays in the Kansas Department of Labor’s unemployment claims processing during the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, we spoke with officials from the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL) and reviewed KDOL staffing, incident, and call center reports. This audit also includes an updated unemployment insurance fraud estimate. In February 2021 we released the first part of this audit. In that audit we reported a preliminary estimate of how much fraud could have occurred in Kansas in 2020. In this report, we used KDOL claims data from January...

The California Department of Housing and Community Development administers the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which received $316 million in federal funding to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic (ESG-CV) for individuals who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Th e following report details our conclusion that the department failed to expedite access to federal funding to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the homeless population.

This interim report is being issued as part of an ongoing investigation by the Office of the New York City Comptroller into the City’s planning and preparation for and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of this investigation is to identify the problems encountered by the City preparing for and combatting the pandemic and to recommend actions to prevent similar fiscal and operational challenges from arising in future public health emergencies.

We have audited the accompanying financial statements of the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund (Trust Fund), an individual nonshared proprietary fund of the State of Illinois, Department of Employment Security, as of and for the year ended June 30, 2020. We found that the Department outsourced unemployment benefit claims processing to a service organization for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the corresponding Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation benefits. The system processing these claims had material weaknesses in the design and operation of internal controls and...

Federal agencies were allocated more than $5 trillion in pandemic response funding to be disbursed to the public and to state and local governments, where a state or local government could have received pandemic response funds from multiple federal programs to improve the overall pandemic response in their communities. Access to information about the total amount of funds received, the purpose of those funds, and the progress made toward achieving the program goals and objectives is not always centralized and can be difficult for the public to track down or may not even be available to the public. The PRAC will conduct impact case studies at 6 different locations and seek to identify the federal pandemic response funds provided to the 6 locations and the purpose of those funds, and to determine if the federal program spending aligned with the intended goals and objectives. The 6 locations identified for this project include: Springfield, Massachusetts; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Marion County, Georgia; Sheridan County, Nebraska; White Earth Indian Nation, Minnesota; and Jicarilla Apache Nation, New Mexico.

This report summarizes the results of the Survey of Employee Experiences During the Pandemic, issued by the Auditor’s Office in September 2020. Responses overall were generally positive. However, in analyzing the data and reading over 8,000 written comments, it is clear that employees have had very different experiences.

The objective of this audit was to determine if the Office of Mental Health is adequately monitoring the delivery and performance of telemental health services and ensuring that related telemental health activities are conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

The objective of our audit was to determine whether adequate controls were in place at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to approve and disburse funds through the selected programs in compliance with internal requirements and applicable program criteria.

The Comptroller’s Office surveyed Ulster residents on potential uses of the American Rescue Plan funds. The survey was promoted on social media from March 24 through May 3, 2021, and in electronic newsletters to the Comptroller’s Office distribution lists. Two hundred and twelve people responded. Respondents were provided with 14 potential options for the use of funds and asked to grade each on a score of 1 to 10.

As 2020 began, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was already facing challenges in balancing its budget, along with missed capital commitment goals, capital funding risks and escalating debt service costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these troubling trends. The MTA was able to balance its 2020 and 2021 budgets with federal emergency relief and funds that had been earmarked for capital purposes. The authority now faces out-year gaps it intends to close with additional federal aid and borrowed funds, and it must advance a capital program that has barely started.