BATON ROUGE - Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) was flagged again by the state's auditors office for failings handling the unemployment claims from the start of the COVID lockdowns in March until the end of July 2021.

Possible violations include a nearly $3 million dollar payout to people enrolled in multiple programs offered by the agency. As a result, claimants were given more than the allowed amount of federal and state law.

In the audit period from March 2020 to April 2021, $898,400 improper payments were issued, violating federal law.

The State Legislative Auditor's office started the audit due to the alarming amount of benefit increases to the numerous among of applicants for pandemic financial assistance.

LWC handled nearly $10 billion in payments to around 794,515 applicants over the past 17 months.

The state unemployment office's response and corrective actions can be found inside the full report that can be read here.

WBRZ has reported the state's unemployment office also made errors following their own rules, resulting in the possible misuse of thousands of dollars.

2 On Your Side previously reported the missteps of LWC to answer the phone for applicants experiencing extensive wait times to get their claims handled. Results from the On Your Side Investigation had the state agency hire more people to return hundreds of calls.