KENTUCKY — It was recently reported that Kentucky’s Auditor of Public Accounts Mike Harmon, R, formally notified Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office of possible criminal activity.

This was after Harmon’s staff found “at least” 10 employees of the Kentucky Office of Unemployment Insurance accessed their own unemployment claims last spring when the pandemic took hold.

Gov. Andy Beshear responded to the claims by saying, "It was absolutely unacceptable. It was unethical.” 

Beshear has said some of the employees have been terminated but he has not said how many.

Harmon joined this In Focus Kentucky segment to discuss the report and share information related to “Volume Two” of the Statewide Single Audit of Kentucky (SSWAK) for Fiscal Year 2020.

“The $665 million in questioned costs stems from the Office of Unemployment Insurance’s decision to implement an auto-pay system, which failed to ask key eligibility questions before issuing UI payments. The amount represents the total paid in traditional UI, and two federal pandemic UI programs, during the time auto-pay was in effect,” Harmon said. “We aren’t saying the entire $665 million was wrongly paid, only that there were no controls in place to properly determine and certify claimants’ eligibility, which is a violation of federal law. At this point, auditors could not precisely determine the exact amount that was either overpaid or still owed to claimants.”