This week, two bills have been introduced to combat fraud at the unemployment department which would cross check unemployment claims against records in state prisons. The separate bills were introduced by State Senator Shannon Grove and Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris.
The first bill, SB 39, was introduced by Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) who also sent a letter to Governor Newsom supporting District Attorneys throughout the state and demanding that he provide adequate resources for them to investigate and prosecute EDD fraud cases.
“While employers were forced to close and unemployed workers couldn’t lawfully obtain unemployment benefits, Governor Newsom’s administration somehow allowed fraud to run rampant so that rapists, murderers, and death row inmates could receive benefits.
“Newsom’s administration was told months ago to take action to prevent this kind of fraud and their inability to do anything has now placed a potential $2 billion screw-up on the backs of our struggling businesses. Considering this negligence was caused by Newsom’s own administration, instead of stalling investigations to fix the problem, the governor ought to be supporting these investigations in any manner possible.
“Legislative Republicans are here to fix the mess left behind by one-party rule in California. Our taxpayers and employers who are on the hook for this fraud deserve nothing less than immediate action,” said Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield).
On Friday, Assembly Accountability & Administrative Review Chairwoman Cottie Petrie-Norris has introduced AB 110.
This bill requires the Employment Development Department (EDD) to access incarceration records for the purpose of cross-checking benefit applications. With this common-sense code change, EDD would be required to perform these regular checks as part of its fraud prevention efforts before approving benefits, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) would be required to work with EDD to facilitate the cross-check process.
“The government must do a better job as custodian of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” said Assemblywoman Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach). “AB 110 will enable EDD to implement basic business processes so these outrageous failings aren’t repeated.”
Earlier this fall, District Attorneys across California uncovered multiple fraud rings involving state prisoners who coordinated with non-incarcerated accomplices to file unemployment benefits under the federally funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Cross-checking lists of unemployment benefit claimants against incarceration data is common fraud prevention practiced in other states. However, California law is unclear whether or not inmate information can be shared with other state agencies. This bill is needed to enable EDD to easily cross-check claimants’ information, including social security numbers, against the relevant information in the database of inmate information maintained by CDCR and by the counties.
AB 110 is co-authored by Assemblymembers David Chiu and Adrin Nazarian, and Senator Ben Allen. The bill includes an urgency clause and would take effect immediately upon enactment.
