As the enhanced unemployment money is set to end at the end of July, an audit of the Louisiana Workforce Commission discovers the agency made approximately $1.08 million in state and federal Unemployment Insurance payments to 374 deceased individuals.
Auditors say the amount represents about 0.013% of the $8.57 billion in unemployment benefits paid out by LWC between March 2020 and April 2021.
Of the $1.08 million in payments, $629,091 auditors say was unpreventable but did not disclose how it could not be prevented.
However, the auditors say $337,007 in payments should have been prevented by LWC, and $123,194 could have been prevented if LWC conducted a weekly match with the Louisiana Department of Health’s death data instead of a monthly match.
Although LWC could not prevent all of the payments, LWC can attempt to recover all of the potentially improper payments according to the auditor’s report.
The full audits are available here.
