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State management is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining internal controls to ensure the financial statements are fairly presented, and to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and to prevent and detect fraud. We identified deficiencies in internal controls at the Employment Security Department (ESD) that adversely affected the State’s ability to prevent and detect fraud.

This report contains the results of our investigation of the illegitimate unemployment claims and payments at the Department from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020. The purpose of our investigation was to determine if a misappropriation had occurred and to provide the Department with recommendations to improve internal controls.

The novel coronavirus quickly became a global pandemic in 2020. In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act to help provide support for those affected by the pandemic. Washington’s Employment Security Department administers the state’s unemployment compensation program. From early in the pandemic, news organizations reported on customer service delays and fraud in Washington’s Unemployment Insurance program. Th is audit examines the scope of and reasons behind substantial fraud and customer service delays in the state’s unemployment benefits program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on our risk assessment for the years ended June 30, 2020, 2019 and 2018, the areas examined were those representing the highest risk of fraud, loss, abuse, or noncompliance. We examined the following areas during this audit period. Accounts payable – general disbursements and electronic funds transfers, Payroll – gross wages and overtime, Paid family and medical leave – billing and compliance with eligibility, Procurement – information technology contracts and change orders.

This report describes the overall results and conclusions for the areas we examined related to the Unemployment Tax and Benefits (UTAB) system’s application and general information technology (IT) controls. In most of the areas we examined, controls were not adequately designed and implemented to provide reasonable assurance of complete, accurate, secure and available data.

This report summarizes identity theft trends in New York during the coronavirus pandemic.

The purpose of this report is solely to describe the scope of our testing of internal control and compliance and the results of that testing, and not to provide an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control or on compliance. This report is an integral part of an audit performed in accordance with Government Audit Standards in considering the entity’s internal control and compliance. Accordingly, this communication is not suitable for any other purpose.

In accordance with Revised Code of Washington 43.88.027, the Office of Financial Management has prepared this Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of the state of Washington for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020.

This report presents the results of our internal controls and compliance audit of the Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division for the period July 2017 through March 2020. The objectives of this audit were to determine if the Department of Human Services had adequate internal controls and complied with certain legal requirements and state policies and procedures related to oversight of grant agreements and payments to grantees.

Representative John Barker requested this limited-scope audit, which was authorized by the Legislative Post Audit Committee at its February 24, 2021 meeting. Our audit objective was to answer the following question: How did causes of death during the COVID-19 pandemic compare to those before the pandemic? To answer this question, we reviewed death record data from 2019 and 2020 for the last third of each year (September 1 – December 31).