Reports

As North Carolina’s Compulsory Attendance (Truancy) Law was not waived during the pandemic of school year or 2020-2021, the audit objectives were to determine whether six public school districts complied with the Truancy Law during the 2020-2021 school year. The objectives were to assess how many students were chronically absent during the 2020-2021 school year (and how many of this group promoted to the next grade or graduated), and whether the school districts ensured that student attendance data for the 2020-2021 school year was complete and accurate. The auditor found that the Department...

The Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) administers Mississippi’s unemployment benefits programs. With the influx of jobless claims and COVID relief aid as a result of the pandemic, total unemployment benefit claims increased from $59.6 million in FY 2019 to $2.1 billion in FY 2020. With this infusion of money came massive fraud and misspending. For example, from FY 2020 to FY 2021, known overpayments increased from $118 million to $474 million. The massive loss of money from Mississippi’s unemployment fund is partially the result of MDES bypassing or altering their own...