By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – Once again, Illinois Republican lawmakers are calling out the Pritzker administration. This time it’s over unemployment money going to people who do not have it coming, and in some cases are not even alive.
Reacting to a financial audit showing about $150 million the Illinois Department of Employment Security misspent in just seven weeks, State Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) said Gov. JB Pritzker acts as if he is too good to be transparent.
“What is even more concerning is that it is just the beginning,” Plummer told an online news conference Thursday afternoon. “We know that his offices have been mismanaged. We know that his offices lack effective leadership. However, we had no clue how extensive the failings were, and we have no idea yet today how much money the state has lost — taxpayer money the state has lost.”
Plummer’s district is near St Louis, but he says Illinoisans as far away as Chicago have called him, asking for help.
Calling the IDES situation one of the governor’s most mishandled elements of the pandemic, State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) added, “This audit makes it clear that it’s worse than many originally thought,” saying the governor’s office had pegged the fraud at less than ten percent of what it was.
In an e-mailed response, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco said:
Throughout the pandemic, IDES has been transparent as to the challenges created by the previous federal administration’s decision to leave each state to stand up their own PUA system with poorly designed and constantly changing federal guidance. Today’s audit findings are the result of that burden placed on state unemployment systems across the country as they simultaneously worked to quickly get billions of dollars into the hands of an unprecedented number of claimants in the middle of a global pandemic and economic crisis. It is no surprise that in states across the country the PUA program has been the epicenter for widespread fraud and overpayments, not to mention the issues legitimate claimants may have accessing the system. The Department agrees with the auditors recommendations and has already been working to make improvements to the program that address the recommendations based on the department’s own internal reviews.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]
