4/11/22 - $140 Million Going to Agency With Issues

More money is going to the Unemployment Insurance Agency. The agency has seen its share of fraud and staffing issues.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation pumping 140 million dollars into the Unemployment Insurance Agency.  The bi-partisan bill would draw most of the funding from federal funds.  The lion’s share of the money will be spent on eliminating abuse, fraud, and waste in the system.

This comes after an audit found the Unemployment Insurance Agency hired thousands of workers without conducting adequate background checks.  State Representative Steve Johnson of Wayland.

"Once again we're seeing another failure from the Unemployment Agency.  This has been a continuation of one failure after another.  It's really time for Governor Whitmer to step up and get this fixed."

The agency hired over 160 employees who had been convicted of financial crimes, a condition that should have made them ineligible to work for the state agency.  The UIA released a statement saying they made corrections to those hires within a few months of discovering the errors.

The agency was also criticized for its mishandling of unemployment claims, as well as for handing out funds for ineligible recipients.