Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released a statement Tuesday encouraging all Ohioans who received a notification about an overpayment of unemployment compensation to appeal their cases if they think their notices were sent by mistake.
“It’s no secret that despite the state’s Herculean efforts, it was crushed with the unprecedented volume of new claims flooding in simultaneously,” Yost said. “We will aggressively pursue any cases of fraud, but we want to make sure any non-fraudulent cases referred to us for collection have been thoroughly reviewed and appealed as is your right.”
People thinking of appealing these notifications have 21 days to file their appeal online, via fax, or through mail from the date the notice was sent, according to Yost’s press release.
Two weeks ago, almost 24,000 Ohioans received a notice saying that they would have to pay back the money they received as a result of overpayments.
Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) Director Kimberly Hall said that there is nothing she could do about the overpayments because it’s a federal issue, not a state issue, according to News5Cleveland.
“Any overpayment has to be repaid, whether or not it was due to fraud or due to lagging wage information,” she said.
Over the last 14 weeks, the ODJFS has handed out more than $4.4 billion in unemployment compensation payments to over 716,000 claimants. Since mid-March, Ohio has seen nearly 1.4 million unemployment claims. This means that only around 51 percent of Ohioans have received unemployment benefits.
On June 11, the Ohio House unanimously passed House Bill 614 that seeks to reform the state’s unemployment compensation system.
“House Bill 614 goes above and beyond in addressing constituents’ concerns heard by all State Representatives, regardless of party,” Mark Fraizer (R-Newark) said. “I look forward to working with interested parties to make sure the system never fails our constituents ever again.”
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of Star News Digital Media. If you have any tips, email Zachery at [email protected]. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
