The state’s leaders are nonetheless not exactly positive how Massachusetts got here to spend the improper cash on pandemic-era unemployment advantages, and even how a lot, however you may wager the erroneously spent {dollars} have been a subject of debate.
Beacon Hill was abuzz final week, after a routine audit revealed that the Baker Administration, in the course of his second time period, apparently spent $2.5 billion in federal funds on unemployment insurance coverage payouts that have been purported to be lined by Massachusetts tax {dollars}.
Gov. Maura Healey was the legal professional normal when that cash was spent, so it might be incorrect to suggest there’s blame to put at her ft for the error, nonetheless, the state’s present chief govt was instantly requested to reply for the obvious misplacement of billions in COVID funds after she left a day assembly with the House Speaker and Senate President.
“This is something that we became aware of very, very recently,” Healey mentioned alongside Speaker Ron Mariano and Sen. President Karen Spilka.
According to Healey, whereas it’s clear that in the course of the pandemic there have been federal funds coming into the state from varied pots following the passage of a number of totally different pandemic response payments, it isn’t clear how cash was drawn from the improper account or when it’s going to should be returned.
“What happened is that there were multiple funds set up, as you know during this COVID pandemic time, and for whatever reason money was drawn from a federal pot instead of a state pot,” she mentioned. “Our plan has been to continue discussion with the U.S. Department of Labor on this and to hopefully be able to resolve things in a way that minimizes any impact to the Commonwealth.”
“We’re sort of in a fact-finding stage right now,” Spilka chimed in. “I think it’s too early to speculate what action we would be taking.”
“We don’t even know how much we owe,” Mariano added.
The audit confirmed that in 2020 and thru the pandemic, the state labor division withdrew federal aid funds for unemployment claims that ought to have been lined by the state’s Unemployment Trust Fund, which Massachusetts employers pay into, in keeping with labor officers.
“In broad strokes, it was money that was really set aside as a federal account, a federal bucket and we had a state bucket. At some point these two got merged and money was unfortunately drawn down from this federal account,” Healey mentioned.
A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson confirmed they’ve been in dialogue with state officers concerning the oversight and are “working with the state on options to rectify the situation.”
The governor mentioned she is assured that steps have already been taken to verify this kind of mistake doesn’t happen once more.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”