Some state workers and contractors at agencies designed to help people find jobs are now accused of making money off those people and stealing from the state.
The Charlotte branch of the Employment Security Commission helps thousands of people every year. But Eyewitness News discovered the State Bureau of Investigation is investigating one of its workers for doing just the opposite: selling people's confidential information.
The SBI report doesn't say how long it was happening or whose information was being sold.
Over the past two years, North Carolina's SBI documented 39 cases of state workers and, in some cases, state contractors stealing taxpayer money. It adds up to more than $77,000.
An employee at an ESC office in Salisbury is accused of stealing $7,600 from the office last spring. Eyewitness News learned the employee was fired and ordered to pay the money back.
But state records say nothing about that case in Charlotte involving confidential information being sold.
Eyewitness News sent the ESC several requests for more information and even went to its headquarters in Raleigh. But officials said they weren't commenting because the case is under investigation, and they gave Eyewitness News a one-page letter stating "the information you're requesting is not releaseable as public record."
So Eyewitness News went to the assistant director of the SBI, which is handling the investigation.
“You're ensuring that that's not continuing to happen?” Eyewitness News asked.
“That would be one of our ultimate goals -- to ensure that individuals’ personal information would not be disclosed,” SBI Assistant Director Erik Hooks said.
But it's not just at the ESC where workers are accused of cheating the system.
Eyewitness News went through hundreds of records and found two people contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services to help people with disabilities find employment. Instead, they're accused of billing a state office in Union County for services they never provided and making off with thousands of state dollars.
William Bullock runs Primary Care Solutions, the agency where they worked. He fired those employees and said he has added more oversight.
“We do cold calling out to the parents now," Bullock said. "To the parents and the consumers just to follow up with them to see how services are going and they're being seen."
The SBI says all state departments need to take a closer look to make sure they have systems to check employees and prevent crimes like these.
“It's all troubling," SBI Assistant Director Erik Hooks said. "And it's something that each agency should strive to be very vigilant in addressing."
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