The mess always looks worse in the light of day, and details of the gross mismanagement of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency are as bad as we could imagine.

During the past few decades, being let down by the state unemployment safety net has become a bit of a pastime for Michiganders. In fact, the UIA has become the bureaucratic equivalent of the Detroit Lions — occasionally offering a glimmer of hope for a turnaround, but ultimately delivering disappointment and agony.

It’s the one state agency where mediocrity and downright incompetence seems to transcend management. Sounds a lot like the Lions, huh?

But the most frustrating articulation of the dysfunction at UIA came a little more than a week ago when Michigan’s Auditor General Doug Ringler released a report summarizing his recent audit of the agency’s handling of claims during the pandemic. It’s an inspection triggered by a series calamity that seemed to plague the department since the first whiff of an incoming spike in filings triggered by statewide shutdowns as COVD-19 arrived in the state in spring 2020.

Ringler’s inquiry followed a series of folly at UIA that erupted the moment a gush of newly unemployed workers flooded computer and phone systems to file claims in early 2020.

The auditor found “A variety of actions and inaction by UIA’s senior leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a poor control environment (tone at the top). Those actions directly contributed to the creation of invalid PUA application and certification processes and UIA’s failure to timely or appropriately address issues pointed out by the U.S. Department of Labor and UIA staff.”

The report offers some new details we knew about the agency’s mishandling of federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments (expanded unemployment benefits offered to many, including freelancers and independent contractors who lost work because of the pandemic shutdowns). But the audit mostly ties together a series of revelations a number of journalists and outside investigations uncovered during the past several months.

Specifically, the auditor estimates state leaders paid out about $3.9 billion in benefits to more than 300,000 people who shouldn’t have received payments, according to federal guidelines. We were only alerted to those qualification problems when UIA officials sent letters last summer notifying about 700,000 people they would need to reregister for benefits already paid. That’s because state officials had allowed workers to qualify for payments under four criteria the feds said were invalid.

The auditor’s report confirms state leaders were notified of the problems as early as June 2020, but continued to issue without correcting the problem until early 2021. During that time, the agency’s director, Steve Gray, resigned under a deal where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration granted him $86,000 in severance pay in exchange for his signature on a confidentiality agreement.

Unfortunately, those technological, overpayment and leadership problems were just a few among a long string of miscues, mishaps and mismanagement at UIA. The agency has a history of being unprepared to serve influx of filings. Under Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, managers replaced droves of human claims workers with a computer system that incorrectly accused thousands of Michiganders of fraud, causing irreparable financial damage to many.

And in the midst of the ongoing PUA debacle, we’ve written about several people whose names have been used to fraudulently obtain benefits. In each of those instances, people who’ve notified the agency of the issue, including one man whose long-deceased wife apparently filed for benefits, said reporting the obvious incidents of fraud was nearly impossible.

That history of debacle, coupled with problems exacerbated by the pandemic means the agency’s new director, Julia Dale, faces a tough task. It will take massive amounts of will to pull off the reconstruction UIA so obviously needs.

In the meantime, as our time rooting for the Lions has taught us, we won’t waste time getting our hopes up for a miraculous turnaround.

No, we will reserve our celebration for results.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle