Audit says the dead get state pensions

Sat., May 6, 2006

Richard Roesler Staff writer

OLYMPIA – In the past two years, the state Department of Labor and Industries wrongly paid $255,000 in pensions to half a dozen dead people and lost $180,000 worth of computers and other electronics, according to a new state audit.

“We always take audit findings seriously,” said Labor and Industries spokesman Steve Pierce. He said the agency’s been working for months to fix the problems. “We’ve already done a number of things.”

Labor and Industries, with 2,600 employees, is the state agency that monitors workplace safety and runs the workers’ compensation system that helps support injured or killed workers and their families. Much of the agency’s money comes from industrial insurance premiums paid by employers. The problems comprise a fraction of the agency’s $104 million in equipment and the $500 million in pension benefits it pays out each year.

Each year, people getting the payments must file a state form certifying that they’re alive, haven’t remarried, and aren’t in prison. If they don’t file the form, benefits are supposed to be cut off within 90 days.

But the report, one of three released by State Auditor Brian Sonntag Friday, found that the department:

•Paid more than $600,000 in pension benefits to claimants and survivors who weren’t eligible.

•Paid more than $1 million to 59 others “who may not be eligible.” (The department has since suspended payment to 38 of those people.)

•Lost 105 items, including camcorders, computer printers, cameras, computers and a videocassette recorder.

•In a written response, Labor and Industries agreed with some of the findings but said that the amount improperly paid out is lower than auditors suspect. One dead person’s checks were never cashed, the agency said, and in other cases, the agency has since won repayment.

The agency, which already tries to match its clients against a Social Security database of deceased people, said it is working on a similar system to detect people who have remarried. It said it has improved its equipment tracking.

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