Reports

Since the surge in pandemic‑related California unemployment claims began in March 2020, individuals, news organizations, and law enforcement officials have reported many cases of potential and actual UI fraud. Not surprisingly, the pandemic conditions increased EDD’s UI workloads and also resulted in changes to federal UI benefit programs, both of which have created a greater risk of fraud.

This letter report identifies 18 state agencies that will each be responsible for managing a portion of the federal COVID‑19 funds. Before finalizing our determination to add this issue to the state high risk list, we notified the 18 responsible state agencies about our preliminary determination and invited them to provide their perspective on the issue. We received responses from 12 of the 18 state agencies, and we summarize those responses at the end of this letter.

Treasury reports that the Hardest Hit Fund is in a wind down status. SIGTARP will evaluate the status of the program, and Treasury’s planning of the program’s wind down. This will include, for example, TARP dollars remaining to be spent by state agencies, as well as current and estimated future program activity. It will also review Treasury’s direction and guidance to state agencies for wind down planning, and the state agencies’ response.