Baker calls for audit of unemployment

Posted 12/14/16

HAWLY, PA — In a letter to Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, Sen. Lisa Baker has requested financial and performance audits of the Service and Infrastructure Improvement Fund …

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Baker calls for audit of unemployment

Posted

HAWLY, PA — In a letter to Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, Sen. Lisa Baker has requested financial and performance audits of the Service and Infrastructure Improvement Fund (SIIF) and the unemployment compensation system to assess how more than $178.4 million has been spent over the past four years and whether continued funding is justified.

The program was originally created as a temporary resource to assist in replacing aging infrastructure, and its funding is set to expire at the end of the year. The Senate has been asked by the Department of Labor and Industry to approve another $57 million transfer of state funds. According to Baker, the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf has so far been unable or unwilling to provide the detailed accounting of the funds, and she is therefore urging DePasquale to take swift action to help provide the necessary answers.

The House had approved new funding, but the Senate ended the session without addressing the matter, prompting Wolf to warn that some unemployment call centers would have to be closed.

Baker wrote in her letter, “The funding request is an indication that the centers and the personnel are necessary parts of the system. Yet threatened action to close centers and furlough employees suggests they are not essential.”

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