The Washington State Auditor’s Office (SAO) issued a new report Monday charging the Employment Security Department (ESD) with “gaps in accountability” that allegedly allowed one former employee to misappropriate $315,282 and authorize an additional $121,503 in “questionable unemployment benefit payments.”
In August when Gov. Jay Inslee ordered state employees, health care workers and others to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 18 officials issued a warning: If you quit or get fired for refusing a jab, don t expect unemployment benefits. But nearly two months after that deadline, it s unclear just how much vaccine-hesitant workers have to worry about.
Nearly a year and a half after Washington was hammered by a wave of pandemic layoffs, state officials say they ve cleared a large backlog of unpaid unemployment claims and fixed some of the bugs that caused the delays in the first place.