S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s scandal-scarred Department of Employment and Workforce (SCDEW) doled out $54.5 million in “improper claims” last year according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL).
In fact over the last three years the agency has an improper payment rate of 14.7 percent – one of the highest in the nation. No wonder South Carolina’s unemployment insurance burden keeps growing for businesses and taxpayers alike.
“How can our employers keep footing the bill for this, it is their money remember!” S.C. Sen. Kevin Bryant (R-Anderson) wrote on his website. “How can our employers afford to hire more workers when dew keeps spending their money on fraudulent claims?”
SCDEW has been an unmitigated disaster under Haley. Last year the agency was the subject of a scathing audit by the S.C. Legislative Audit Council (SCLAC). It was also placed on alert by USDOL due to its “continuous failure to meet the minimum standard of performance” related to the distribution of unemployment benefits.
Who’s paying the price for its incompetence? We are.
Who’s taking responsibility? Not Haley – and certainly not retired general Abraham Turner, the agency’s embattled director.
Of course the bottom rungs on the totem pole are feeling the heat, as SCDEW shed 75 front-line workers last week on top of the 136 jobs it shed last October. Also earlier this week the agency announced it was shuttering seventeen offices. Of course while people working the front lines are getting axed, the agency’s upper management – led by Turner – continues to add staff and enjoy lavish taxpayer-funded retreats.
In fact while the latest layoffs and office closings were being announced, the agency’s senior management was once again enjoying the amenities at Kingston Plantation in Myrtle Beach, S.C. – on your dime.
It’s a great day to be a bureaucrat, people …
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8 comments
…. This is unacceptable! Has Nikki informed potus about this? Just get another bail-out loan – it’s perfectly ok!
I know someone who abused unemployment benefits. He worked at his normal expected salary for an employer while he still got full funds from SCDEW as if he was employed. Know what he told me? ……. If I get caught, “The only thing they will do to me is make me pay it back in payments each month.”
Hello? Hello? Hellooooo???? Where is the deterrent in that??? SC should be sending some of these criminals to prison! Examples have to be made, but they are not – and never have been.
Bottom line, SC is one fucked up run state. No wonder if ranks high in corruption. Even the politicians are lying, swindling crooks!
“Also earlier this week the agency announced it was shuttering seventeen offices.”
William aka Sic:
They are not “shuttering seventeen offices” as you wrote, rather they are removing the unemployment insurance program from certain offices because of low or no traffic (ie. customers). It was a business decision, isn’t that the type of reaction you want to see from your government, reallocating under utilized resources to save money?
Also, DEW only operates a couple of offices throughout the state, the rest are operated by local governments and organizations.
You need to find yourself a better source, you keep spouting off on stuff that you know very little about.
You need to define what you mean by “operates” a couple of offices.
You need to be better informed as well. (Or is it, “more honest”)
If you know so much about the inner workings of SCDEW, you know that:
1. SCDEW is not paying rent in many of the state-wide agency locations which they have given “functional supervision” over to the Workforce Investment (WIA) Boards. These agencies are regional and overseen by local boards according to strict federal quidelines.
2. SCDEW was admonished by the Federal Department of Labor (DOL) to give up managing trying to manage the WIA functions.
3. SCDEW Director has hired a battalion of clones to manage these very offices which he has been told to leave alone.
4. SCDEW just used an arbitrary test whose results were used to thin the ranks of these front line workers. (Not their evaluations or performance histories.)
5. In the face of these reduced local services, he is requesting a 39% increase in his administratice budget to fund the inexperienced management clones to oversee the agencies he’s been told by the DOL to leave alone!
The function of the agency is a joke. It’s Director has no clue how to manage anything.
SC, you sound like an insider apologist for an “Emporer who has no clothes.” Get real.
The problem is worse than just the money being spent on illegitimate claims. The real problem is that employers are paying the tab, and SCDEW is either unwilling or incapable of responding to complaints from employers when they uncover these illegitimate claims.
unwilling
The business owners are the bad guys…trust me. Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with them for years…but my rates go up anyway.
I should clarify with quotes, in their mind “bad guys.