One is almost tempted to wonder if taxpayers will get a refund for this:

A former state employee has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he manipulated computer files kept by the Department of Labor and Training in a scheme that bilked the state’s unemployment insurance system of almost $500,000 in benefits, federal and state authorities said Thursday.

The former employee, Ambulai R. Sheku, 37, of Providence, an interviewer at the DLT, exploited his senior position to gain access to the department’s computer files and fraudulently obtain unemployment benefits for himself and co-conspirators, says information that federal prosecutors filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, in Providence.

Will the state budget go down a commensurate amount in the upcoming fiscal year, or is state government operate under Darwinistic rules of corruption whereby the discovery of one insider cheat means there’s more taxpayer money available for the others to take?

And by the way:  With the Unified Health Infrastructure Project (UHIP) linking every social service program in the state through one interface, how much larger are the possible scams and how much more difficult to spot the smaller ones?