The deeper we cut into this rotten apple, the more putrid the flesh.

At least that’s how we’re feeling as state officials continue to chip away at the layers of toxic bureaucracy built over decades at Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency. And the only cure for such a bottomless pit of dysfunction is sunlight.

In fact, we’re thankful for the latest revelations exposed in a report from the state Office of Auditor General released Friday. They’re some of the worst yet, but serve as a reassuring sign that the agency and its operations still are under a microscope.

The Auditor General found UIA officials failed to ensure staffing contractors were liable for $3.8 million in fraud committed by their employees and didn’t conduct background checks on 5,500 part-time employees hired in response to the mountain of claims that flowed in during the pandemic.

The probe found the agency blindly hired employees who had prior misdemeanor and felony convictions, including for armed robbery, embezzlement and identity theft. Worse, some of those employees continued to work at the agency as auditors conducted their work.

Auditors also found the agency failed to discontinue former employees’ access to state databases once they stopped working.

State Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Wayland, who will oversee an upcoming Oversight Committee hearing on the audit report probably reacted to the latest revelations best when he talked to Bridge Michigan.

“If anyone at this point in the game is surprised to hear that the unemployment agency failed at something, they have been living under a rock,” Johnson said. “We’re seeing an agency that didn’t follow the proper procedures and that continued to fail the people of Michigan.”

The audit report is just the latest in decades of debacle (the Snyder administration’s fraud-detecting computer run amok) at the agency that accelerated under the pressure of the pandemic. Previous inspections of its operations during the past two years – a time when the agency failed miserably to handle the gush of new claims that accompanied the coronavirus in 2020 – found the agency made about $8.5 billion in improper payments.

And turnover at the top of the massive bureaucracy during that time hasn’t helped. Julia Dale, the current UIA director, is the third leader since spring 2020.

On Friday, she responded to the audit report by saying the agency has or is in the process of installing new systems and procedures to address problems exposed thus far are addressed.

It would be far too easy for lawmakers and regulators to lose focus as unemployment rates drop and UIA becomes less central to our state’s day-to-day wellbeing. It would be simple to put off the obvious and imperative reforms for another day. But if we kick this can down the road, its flaws likely will resurface to haunt us again in the midst of the next crisis.

That’s why we believe investigators shouldn’t stop digging until they stop finding problems. As painful as that sounds, Dale’s only hope of restructuring and re-culturing the agency away from its toxic history is to expose all its rotten spots.

After all, everything we’ve seen thus far tells us there’s plenty more to find.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle