FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Unemployment Insurance Task Force is looking for what went wrong when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“This was an unprecedented time, an unprecedented challenge,” Kentucky State Auditor Mike Harmon said during Monday’s meeting in Frankfort.

Harmon published an audit of the system earlier this year, laying out a long list of problems with the unemployment system starting last March. The list included hundreds of millions of dollars in “questioned costs," 400,000 unread emails seeking help and people working in the unemployment office claiming benefits they weren’t entitled to.

Harmon called it a failure of leadership.  

“A lot has been said about the concerns of the dated computer systems and the lack of sufficient employees,” he said. “And what I’ve always said is you can have the best computer system and you can have the best employees, but if you take those key controls off, you’re still going to have problems.”

The task force is 80% Republican, and many criticized Gov. Andy Beshear’s handling of the system.

“This is a complete breakdown not of the computer system, of just following the rules and regulations they had in place,” Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, said. “And if they had listened to people, they would not be going down the path they are now.”

Following Harmon's audit in February, Beshear said he relied on guidance from the federal government throughout the process. He also echoed prior comments he made criticizing past leaders for neglecting the unemployment office.

Rep. McKenzie Cantrell, D-Louisville, one of only two Democrats on the task force, said the Beshear administration has already addressed Harmon’s audit.

She also said Harmon’s just trying to score political points.  

“You’ve been a little cagey about, ‘I’m not auditing state agencies right now’. It’s because you’re running for governor,” she said. “And that’s kind of a clear bias against our current administration, some would even say a conflict of interest.”

Harmon said there are safeguards in place to protect against bias, even as he makes a run for governor.  

“Once I made that announcement, we have put additional safety protocols even beyond what we already had,” he said.

The state auditor’s office is working on a new report for the most recent fiscal year— due out early next year.  

Numbers provided by the Labor Cabinet say Kentucky has 139,903 unresolved unemployment claims, including 92,570 with no fraud or identity issues. One-third of those unresolved claims were filed before December.