Who is trying to hide audit showing Kansas lost $466M in unemployment fraud? Here's what we know.
A forensic audit found up to $466 million in potentially fraudulent unemployment payments in Kansas, but the final report hasn't been released to the public.
The audit had been long awaited amid differing estimates on how much taxpayer money was paid out to fraudsters. A legislative audit put the figure at up to $700 million while the Kansas Department of Labor estimated $290 million.
Despite state law requiring the forensic audit "shall be made publicly available," the document wasn't made public when it was discussed Wednesday by the Unemployment Compensation Modernization and Improvement Council.
Committee chair Rep. Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, said the report would be handed out to committee members then picked up at the meeting's conclusion.
"We've had some discussions on transparency, and how we're going to run the meeting," Tarwater said after the meeting started several minutes late. "The department of labor has pointed out a couple of things in the report that might be confidential.
"So we're going to hand the report out, and we're going to go through it. ... We will pick up the reports at the end of the discussion for possible redaction to post online."
Who made the call to keep the unemployment fraud audit secret?
At least for now, the audit isn't publicly available as the law mandates.
After the meeting, Tarwater told reporters he didn't agree with the decision. He said the entirety of the report should be public.
"There's nothing in there that puts Kansas at risk," he said. "Every single redaction, we have already discussed in this room out loud. It's just that the administration does not want the details of this report out because they are damning."
Labor Secretary Amber Shultz told reporters afterward that "I don't know" why the report wasn't released and who made the decision, directing questions to Tarwater.
When told of Shultz's answer, Tarwater said it was Shultz and KDOL who wanted to redact the report.
"She had in her hand a report — the same report we went through today — with scribbles through everything she wanted redacted out of it," Tarwater said.
He also said labor officials objected to discussing it publicly at Wednesday's meeting.
"They called me in the room back there before the meeting to tell me that we couldn't go through that report, said that it needed to be redacted and it couldn't be redacted until next week," Tarwater said. "I said (expletive), we're going to go through it."
Tarwater said he would have preferred to release an unredacted audit Wednesday but didn't want to be blamed for any fallout.
More: Kansas Department of Labor, legislative auditors at odds over scale of unemployment fraud
Open records and meetings laws
The attorney general's office advises that, under open meetings law, public records reviewed and discussed during an open meeting generally can't be closed.
The report must be disclosed, but it could still be appropriate to redact it, said Max Kautsch, a Lawrence First Amendment attorney and legal adviser to the Kansas Press Association. The people making the redactions would have to articulate which exceptions are applicable.
He urged the council to release the report.
"But certainly, the Council's decision to keep the report from the public is questionable because the statute clearly requires publication by a certain date and is silent on the necessity of redaction," Kautsch said. "Moreover, failing to disclose the report pursuant to the statute reduces public trust in government."
The Capital-Journal has filed an open records request with KDOL for the complete and unredacted report as provided to the council.
The audit was conducted by FORVIS. The Labor Department's request for proposals explicitly said the final report would be public and made no mention of redactions.
More: Worker pay is worth less due to inflation this Labor Day as businesses struggle to find employees
Redacted cybersecurity audit to get further redactions
The move comes after a previous preliminary audit focused on cybersecurity issues was discussed behind closed doors in May. That report wasn't deemed confidential until the morning of the meeting.
Tarwater said it was a "mistake" for the May meeting to be held in executive session.
More: Security breach? Confidential audit of Kansas Department of Labor identifies 31 recommendations
The council planned to discuss a redacted version of that cybersecurity audit on Wednesday but tabled it for a later date, in part because officials wanted further redactions.
Shultz said it was the Kansas Information Security Office that reviewed the document for redactions.
In response to a previous Capital-Journal open records request for the cybersecurity audit, KDOL officials determined the necessary redactions would be so extensive that the document would become meaningless.
Council member Jake Miller said his copy of the redacted audit "is all black except for a website link."
"By the end of the day, we're going to have a big black page," said Tarwater, who has contended that none of the report should have been redacted.
Jason Tidd is a statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jtidd@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Tidd.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Why Kansas' unemployment fraud forensic audit is being kept secret
