An Audit Report on the Unemployment Insurance Program at the Texas Workforce Commission
September 2005
Report Number 06-008
Overall Conclusion
The Texas Workforce Commission (Commission) has done a good job of employing national best practices designed to prevent and detect unemployment insurance overpayments and to prosecute fraud. These best practices and other aggressive actions have resulted in the following:
- The Commission has increased the number of cases referred for prosecution from just 3 cases in 2000 to 223 cases in 2004.
- According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Commission's overall overpayment rate dropped 4.4 percent between 2003 and 2004. The national overpayment rate increased by 0.6 percent during that time.
The Commission's efforts have resulted in the U.S. Department of Labor's considering Texas as a leader among state workforce agencies. Furthermore, these best practices enable the Commission to comply with the Governor's Executive Order Relating to Preventing, Detecting, and Eliminating Fraud, Waste and Abuse.
The Commission has opportunities to further reduce and better track overpayments:
- Inadequate responses by many Texas employers to the Commission's information requests cost the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund (Fund) approximately $9.9 million in overpayments and appeals processing costs during calendar year 2004.
- The Commission's Benefits Payment Control System (BPC Subsystem) does not adequately track overpayments.
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