Michigan’s UIA frustrations continue

(The Center Square) – More than 17 months after the COVID-19 pandemic struck Michigan, the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) is still a giant mess, several Michiganders told the House Oversight Committee Tuesday.

Emily Mitchell, a then-Michigan State University student, was thankful after collecting her final pandemic unemployment insurance benefit on May 1, 2021.

But on July 21, 2021, the UIA retroactively deemed her ineligible for those funds, claiming she wasn’t employed in 2019 or 2020, although she had two jobs. The UIA hit her with bills of $25,751 and $27,000.

“I followed all the rules and I was transparent about everything,” Mitchell said. “Why should I and others be punished for doing what we were supposed to do?

Mitchell says she has students loans and other bills to pay. She sent a restitution waiver but says UIA never responded.

She’s not alone. Michigan sent out roughly 700,000 letters asking residents to recertify because of the state’s mistake.

Meanwhile Lisa Ruby, an attorney with the Michigan Poverty Law Program, said some of her clients haven’t been paid since March 2020 – more than 500 days ago.

Other Michiganders have the opposite problem, or the “worst of both worlds,” House Oversight Chair Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, said.

Ilona Boilore says she hasn’t worked at a W2 job for more than 30 years, but that didn’t stop the UIA from giving out benefits to someone who committed insurance fraud in her name.

She filed a fraud claim in Nov. 2020, but roughly 270 days later, she says the UIA is still doling out taxpayer dollars for which she’ll be taxed. She hasn’t been able to contact a UIA employee.

“How hard is it to track where the actual money is going? I’m trying to get you not to pay the money,” she told lawmakers. “A simple phone call to me would have resolved this, but you can’t talk to anyone.”

Boilore said American Express immediately notifies her of possible credit card fraud. She questioned what fraud protections the UIA has, and the disparity in customer service between the public and private sectors.

“So even though you told the agency, ‘hey, this isn’t me. I didn’t request this money. You should probably stop sending this fraudulent person taxpayer dollars,’” Johnson said. “They’re still continuing, and now you actually have to pay taxes on some of those dollars.”

The UIA has been under fire since March 2020 when the unemployment rate spiked to 22.7% in April, topping the state’s unemployment rate from the Great Recession while the state shuttered in-person unemployment offices as well as much of the economy.

While Michiganders have struggled to get benefits, multiple UIA employees have abused their status to pay out false claims, with one UIA employee implicated in a scheme to defraud $2 million from the agency, while the UIA struggled with a backlog of 140,000 unemployment applications.

The UIA also paid out false claims to fraudsters using the celebrity names of “Kimberly Kardashian” and “Kylie Jenner.”

In Nov. 2020, then-UIA Director Steve Gray resigned and took with him a confidentiality agreement and an $85,872 severance package.

The UIA hasn’t yet sent responded to a request for comment.

Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square