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    • Ohio unemployment worker wrongly handed out million in federal benefits
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    Ohio unemployment worker wrongly handed out $3 million in federal benefits

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    During the COVID-19 pandemic, a call center worker improperly handed out more than $3 million in federal unemployment benefits — including some money for himself, according to a new report from Ohio’s inspector general.

    The subcontractor, Ericka Holland, was hired to answer questions about federal unemployment benefits amid a surge in claims due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Netherlands ignored fraud alerts on claims, verified individuals’ identities, checked their eligibility and resolved other unemployment claims issues, according to the report released Thursday.

    The result: $3,247,402 in benefits was paid to ineligible claimants. Holland did not know these people personally, the investigation showed.

    However, Holland is also accused of handling her own application for unemployment benefits, worth a total of $56,780 in federal benefits — even though she was not laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    She was hired as a call center agent on June 28, 2020, and was fired two months later for making outbound calls without her supervisor’s permission and working outside of scheduled hours.

    Dutch employment underlines the chaotic number of subcontractors deployed in 2020 to tackle the huge backlog of unemployment benefit applications. She worked for Randstad, a subcontractor of Harte Hanks, a subcontractor of Deloitte, a subcontractor of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

    During the pandemic, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services paid out $7.6 billion between mid-2020 and mid-2021. Millions were spent on fraudulent claims, most prevalent in federal unemployment benefits.

    Ohio’s inspector general sent its findings to the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office and the Ohio Auditor for possible charges. It also told the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to:

    • Recover overpayments from ineligible recipients.
    • Develop safety measures to prevent employees and contractors from exceeding the scope of their duties.
    • Improve ways to detect suspicious activity.

    “The actions taken by the contractor in this case are unacceptable. This case demonstrates our commitment to identifying potential misconduct and working with the Inspector General to ensure that those who abuse the public trust are held accountable,” said Bill Teets, director of communications for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. “We did that. have instituted numerous fraud controls since the pandemic and continue to make fraud prevention a top priority.”

    Jessie Balmert covers state government and politics for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations in Ohio.

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