Coronavirus in Oklahoma: How much did state pay out in fraudulent unemployment claims?

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Oklahoma may have paid out tens in millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims since the start of the pandemic, records show.

In a blunt email, the state's chief information officer, Jerry Moore, blames the loss on a disconnect in culture at the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, the state agency responsible for processing claims.

"Fraud is certainly a crime, but I feel it is just as criminal an act to not perform the civic responsibilities of the services entrusted to us," Moore wrote in the email Thursday to the director of another state agency, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.

"I do not know how to move forward and help Oklahomans without business process and leadership change."

He specifically complained that Robin Roberson, executive director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, did not accept his guidance. "She continued to not only not make adjustments, but entrench in current process," he wrote. "At this point the entire OESC staff is oriented to impede progress."

Roberson stepped down Friday after learning commissioners were planning to call a special meeting to replace her. On Sunday, she called Moore's remarks disheartening and defended her efforts to improve the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission in her few months there.

"I'm really shocked at what he's saying," she said.

"I have made so much change since I've been there," she said "There's so much that we did in a short amount of time. I can give you example after example."

She said she got sideways with Moore in part because she refused to fire three of her employees. She claims Moore and others wanted her to take the action "for optics."

Moore began helping the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission in early April with a way to process claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, she said.

"As you know, PUA is still not working," she said of the program created to help the self-employed and others not eligible for regular out-of-work benefits.

"He's probably under a lot of pressure to get the PUA out and can't. And he's probably just deflecting that frustration over to me," she said.

The five commissioners at the unemployment agency voted 4-1 last week to turn control of its information technology systems to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which already had been helping. Commissioners voted 3-2 to put OMES in charge of "business practices" involving claims.

"We need help. We need a lot of help," Commissioner Trent Smith said. "And this is not your fault, Director Roberson. I mean you were thrust into a completely unwinnable situation here. But we've got to get the help we need from OMES."

The state's chief information officer pushed for a change in leadership more than once.

In writing Thursday about the "disconnect in culture," Moore described the attitude of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services as "we are trying to stop fraud and pay deserving Oklahomans."

He described the attitude of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission as "wants to keep doing things the way they used to — and that simply can’t meet the current citizen demand."

He attached to his complaint earlier emails and responses that he described in some instances as examples of resistance to help and change. In one email May 1, he was told that he could not ask questions directly of the private company that issues payment cards to the unemployed.

A few of the attachments reveal to a degree that millions of dollars may have been lost to fraud.

In a May 3 email about fraud, Moore wrote about discovering more than 80,000 claims had invalid area codes for phone numbers. He wrote payments were being blocked on those claims but noted "41,087 of these claims were getting weekly payments totaling $17,415,044 this week."

In an email May 8, he was critical of an Oklahoma Employment Security Commission official for stating "my belief is that the system we have now is working well for fraud." He wrote Thursday that the official made the statement only a week after $14 million in fraud was found.

On Sunday, Roberson acknowledged that the fraud loss in Oklahoma is surely in the millions of dollars, "just like it is everywhere in all the states." She also acknowledged "Jerry's team" uncovered thousands of fraudulent claims.

Moore also wrote Thursday that Roberson apparently had a plan in April to have "her company" develop a process to pay Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims. He wrote he considered that an ethics violation and she pushed back "but we were able to move forward."

Roberson said Sunday she considering using a company that she has a 5% interest in "because I know what they can do, I knew what needed to be done here and I knew we could get it done quickly."

"We wouldn't be in this mess" if the state had, she said, adding that she would have "recused" herself.

Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Moore in February to serve as the state's chief information officer. He reports to Steven Harpe, director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.

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