Thirteen incarcerated New Jersey state employees received sick leave payments.
Another inmate received nearly $40,000 in unemployment over more than a year while incarcerated on a drug-related offense.
And another person imprisoned for the sexual assault of a minor received more than $37,000 in state pension payments in prison.
A patchwork system of verifying benefit eligibility among state agencies allowed thousands of inmates to inappropriately receive more than $23 million in unemployment benefits and other government assistance over the course of 22 months between July 2009 and April 2011, according to an audit released Wednesday by the Office of the State Comptroller.
And at a time of increasing poverty and high unemployment, inmates received benefits including food stamps, cash welfare payments and Medicaid coverage, the report said.
The Department of Treasury, for instance, searched news clippings — not official prison records — to determine whether retired state employees should have their pension payments halted because of an arrest.
Public sector retirees can lose part or all of their pensions if they’re found guilty of committing certain crimes.
“Suffice it to say that when thousands of inmates are collecting unemployment checks from behind bars, there is a serious gap in program oversight,” Comptroller Matt Boxer said in a statement. “These are vitally important social programs.”
In some cases, inmates received government payments into bank accounts that could be accessed by friends and relatives, Boxer said.
Prison inmates are ineligible for a host of government programs ranging from Medicaid to unemployment to food stamps, and receive most services — like health care and food — for free.
More than 20,000 incarcerated individuals received some type of improper payments during the audit period. Boxer’s office drafted a series of recommendations to be followed by the agencies.
State agencies are in the process of “scrubbing” their programs to ensure no inmate inappropriately receives benefits in the future, he added.
Many of the problems, the audit said, stemmed from the failure of several state agencies — including the Department of Labor — to identify inmates improperly receiving government benefits using county incarceration data.
For instance, though the Department of Human Services can check Medicaid recipients against prisoners incarcerated at state prisons, it didn’t have an agreement with the state’s court systems to access similar data for county inmates.
“The implementation of adequate controls would limit or eliminate improper and unnecessary benefit payments, thereby saving taxpayer funds,” the audit said.
At the same time, state government has long operated with antiquated computer infrastructure, some as much as 40 years old, that makes information-sharing between agencies difficult.
Democrats in the Legislature and Gov. Chris Christie sparred over funding to pay for technology upgrades in 2011 after a series of high-profile computer crashes at the state Motor Vehicle Commission.
Much of the allegedly misspent money, about $10 million, came in the form of unemployment benefits — even though inmates are ineligible to receive such assistance, Boxer said. About 7,600 inmates received unemployment benefits during the audit period.
The audit also detected $7.1 million in improper Medicaid payments, with some apparently going to individuals using an inmate’s Medicaid card. Cases remain under investigation and may be referred to prosecutors, according to the audit.
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