Purpose

To determine the extent of the Department of Labor’s (Department) implementation of the seven recommendations made in our initial report, Wage Theft Investigations (2013-S-38).

Background

Our initial report, issued on June 6, 2014, determined the Department was not completing wage theft investigations timely. As of August 2013, the Department had a caseload of 17,191 cases, including 9,331 active investigations and 7,860 cases pending payment. Of these, 12,938 cases (75 percent) had been open more than one year since the initial claim was received. We also determined the Department’s Workforce Protection Management system did not provide management with accurate or useful case management reports.

Key Findings

We determined that the Department has made substantial progress in addressing the issues identified in our initial report. For example:

• The Department is now completing 80 percent of its wage investigations within six months. At the time of this follow up, the Division only had 305 cases that were open for more than one year. This was accomplished primarily by identifying cases that can be resolved through compliance conferences and balancing workload distribution by having its upstate districts conduct mail/phone investigations for the New York City area, where the majority of these claims are filed.
• The Department has developed weekly reports which are provided to and reviewed by upper management. These reports provide key statistics regarding caseload and investigations completed.
• Although the Department did not centralize its payment plans collection process as recommended, officials did take other actions that strengthened controls in this area. These include instituting a uniform process for managing payment plans so that each district keeps similar records, and developing reports that track information to monitor these plans and alert senior management to accounts in arrears.

Other Related Audits/Reports of Interest

Department of Labor: Assessment and Collection of Selected Fees and Penalties (2014-F-19)
Department of Labor: Wage Theft Investigations (2013-S-38)