While the Washington Department of Labor and Industries may be be patting themselves on the back for catch a cheater, what I see is the utter failure of the government of the state of Washington. How did this go on for so long with so many employers before the state finally caught up with the guy?
This guy was able to keep cheating the government because the beauracracy in the Washington state government prevented an automatic cross check of data when the first employer filed the first tax withholdings for Mr. Smith.
If the different departments in the Washington state government were sharing a database, they could have caught the guy in days rather than years.
Look how much it will cost the state taxpayers because it took so long. A common database would have stopped Mr. Smith while his crime was just a misdemeaner. The state wouldn’t have had to spend the money for a long investigation as well as for extraditing him from another state. The case could come to trial quickly and a simpler punishment could have been arranged. It’s going to cost a fortune to incarcerate him and the state worker compensation fund may never recover their money.
Worst of all, the system is so full of holes that, for this one cheat that was caught, many others never will be. It doesn’t really have much of a deterrent value.
If the Department of Labor and Industries and the state Congress really wanted to stop workers compensation fraud, they would bring in technology that prevents it instead of wasting taxpayer money chasing after cheaters.
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While the Washington Department of Labor and Industries may be be patting themselves on the back for catch a cheater, what I see is the utter failure of the government of the state of Washington. How did this go on for so long with so many employers before the state finally caught up with the guy?
This guy was able to keep cheating the government because the beauracracy in the Washington state government prevented an automatic cross check of data when the first employer filed the first tax withholdings for Mr. Smith.
If the different departments in the Washington state government were sharing a database, they could have caught the guy in days rather than years.
Look how much it will cost the state taxpayers because it took so long. A common database would have stopped Mr. Smith while his crime was just a misdemeaner. The state wouldn’t have had to spend the money for a long investigation as well as for extraditing him from another state. The case could come to trial quickly and a simpler punishment could have been arranged. It’s going to cost a fortune to incarcerate him and the state worker compensation fund may never recover their money.
Worst of all, the system is so full of holes that, for this one cheat that was caught, many others never will be. It doesn’t really have much of a deterrent value.
If the Department of Labor and Industries and the state Congress really wanted to stop workers compensation fraud, they would bring in technology that prevents it instead of wasting taxpayer money chasing after cheaters.