(The Center Square) – More than $1 billion in Georgia pandemic unemployment claims had not been reviewed to verify eligibility as of June 30, 2025, and it’s not known if the claims remain unverified.
The finding is included in the state’s Single Audit Report that outlines the state’s expenditures of federal awards. Truth in Accounting noted the finding in its annual “State of the States” report that measures the states’ fiscal health.
The Center Square, through several attempts prior to publication, was unsuccessful getting comment from the Department of Labor on whether claims have been verified since the June 30, 2025 audit.
In addition to the $1 billion in unverified pandemic unemployment claims, auditors said there was not “sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support the balances and financial activity of the unemployment compensation fund.”
“Internal controls over the recording and reporting of the receivables, revenue, unearned revenue, benefit expenses and payables were not adequately designed or operating effectively,” auditors said in the report dated March 24. “In addition, as of the date of our audit report, management was still in the process of determining the receivable and payable balances related to overpayment of certain unemployment insurance claims.”
In the state’s second part of the Single Audit, the Department of Labor said that issues with verifying benefits are ones the department has struggled with for years.
“In addition, GDOL’s current UI Information Technology system was developed in 1982 using mainframe legacy technology,” the department said in an audit. “Due to its age and structural limitations, many automated processes and corrective controls cannot be easily implemented. As a result, numerous tasks, including the validation and processing of all PUA and DUA documentation to determine eligibility, must be performed manually by staff.”
A 2022 audit found delays in timely payments during the pandemic, when the unemployment rate was as high as 12.5%. Republican Labor Commissioner Barbara Rivera Holmes said in an Oct. 14 debate with Democrat Nikki Porcher that the department is “aggressively” modernizing the system. In a November 2025 release, Holmes said the project would be completed in fall 2026.
Porcher said that has not happened.
“We are optimizing our team members, and we’re continuing to move this department forward, so that it moves at the speed of business, and so that workers can have their benefits, the resources that they rely on from the Georgia Department of Labor reliably and efficiently,” Holmes said in the debate.
The lack of verification could have consequences for Georgia, said Sheila Weinberg, CEO and founder of Truth in Accounting.
“The federal government could come back and claw that money back if it found problems,” Weinberg said.
Criminal charges were filed by the Department of Justice against three former state legislators who failed to disclose income while collecting pandemic-related unemployment benefits.
Georgia state Rep. Sharon Henderson pleaded guilty in July to making false statements to obtain funds administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Prosecutors said the Covington Democrat lied on federal documents to collect $17,811 in unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Henderson did not resign her post and was suspended by Gov. Brian Kemp. She later ran for a state Senate seat and lost in the Democratic primary.
Stone Mountain Democrat Karen L. Bennett pleaded guilty to federal charges of making false statements to collect $13,940 of pandemic unemployment benefits. Valdosta Democrat Dexter L. Sharper pleaded guilty to the same charge for collecting $13,825 of pandemic unemployment benefits.
Bennett and Sharper resigned after they were charged.
Eight state employees were indicted in 2023 when it was discovered they were working full-time for the state and collecting pandemic-related unemployment benefits, according to the Georgia Office of the Inspector General. The inspector general did not name the employees, but said the total amount involved in the fraud was $107,931.
The lack of verification of Georgia’s pandemic unemployment benefits was one of the findings in Truth in Accounting’s annual report on the state’s finances.
The state has $52.8 billion available to pay $36.1 billion in bills, a taxpayer surplus of $4,900, according to the report, which gave Georgia a “B” overall.
The teacher’s pension plan generated more than a 14% return on its investments, Weinberg said.
Unfunded retiree healthcare benefits also decreased.
“Not because they promised less benefits but because the people looking at the numbers, estimating how much the state’s going to have to pay for these – the actuaries- estimated … because of change in assumptions like age, medical costs, their estimates of what medical costs are going to be in the future, that the liability went down by $1.1 million,” Weinberg said.