Iowa Not Sure How Many People Got Extra Unemployment Benefits by Accident

DES MOINES, Iowa — Bureaucrats at Iowa Workforce Development admit they don’t know how many people were paid extra unemployment benefits in March, nor can they say whether any of the overpayments were handed back to the state.

Exactly 85 people contacted the agency to report receiving extra unemployment benefits, so IWD officials claim the computer problem that caused it to issue those benefits resulted in overpaying exactly 85 people.

But testifying under oath before the Iowa State Senate Government Oversight Committee recently, IWD Unemployment Insurance Division Administrator Michael Wilkinson and Regional Operations Manager David Eklund reluctantly conceded the agency doesn’t actually know how many people received extra benefits.

A computer problem prevented IWD from updating its list of qualified unemployment benefit recipients for the week ending March 8, so the agency used the previous week’s list instead, even though that meant benefits might be paid to people who didn’t request them.

An email written by Eklund, and obtained by the committee through an open records request, laid out the agency’s solution to the overpayment problem: Wait to see if anyone voluntarily returned the payments. “We can gladly accept their offer to return the benefits, with a ‘thank you,’” Eklund wrote in the email dated March 13. But Eklund admitted he didn’t know how many of the 85 people who contacted IWD actually returned the extra benefit.

“We didn’t force anyone to pay it back,” Eklund said.

“If an individual honestly asked me, ‘Do I have to pay this back,’ I was equally honest and told them they were not required,” Eklund explained.

“My fear, in essence, was that we would be penalizing the honest and rewarding the dishonest who did not come forward,” Eklund told the committee. “And to my own personal compass of fairness, that did not seem right.”

“I don’t even know what to think of what he said,” Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, said. “I was surprised by that. Clearly it’s not the best way to administer the unemployment program.” Still, Wilkinson assured the committee it was legal. “The actions that we took were within the Iowa code, precedents and administrative rules,” Wilkinson said.

Petersen said the committee will to press IWD to provide more information. “Basically what we’ve found out today is that we don’t know how many people received an overpayment. And I believe IWD is trying to keep it that way.”

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