Audit: Ga. labor department ‘missed opportunities’ | savannahnow.com

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Labor Department failed to have adequate systems in place to detect and recover millions of dollars in unemployment benefits improperly paid over a three-year period despite a widely available system to cross-check new hires, according to a federal audit.

The Office of Inspector General with the U.S. Department of Labor found the state agency “missed opportunities” and did not implement a system to detect overpayments of unemployment benefits until December 2011, even though that system had been available since 2008. During that time, Georgia overpaid $58.7 million in unemployment benefits and recovered just $14.9 million, or 25 percent, the audit said.

State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, who took office in January 2011, has taken steps to prevent overpayments and catch them when they do occur, according to agency spokesman Sam Hall.

“We feel that in the last couple of years we have made significant inroads with some of the issues that resulted in the overpayments,” Hall said Friday. “When Commissioner Butler came into office, he was aware of the fact that some of our technology was outdated, and he made a commitment very early on to start upgrading that technology, both hardware and software, and updating the systems to bring the department more into a situation where our technology would allow us to do the job that we need to do.”

via Audit: Ga. labor department ‘missed opportunities’ | savannahnow.com.