SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Republican lawmakers representing parts of the Peoria area are voicing concerns about a recent report from the Illinois auditor general that shows $5.2 billion was overpaid in unemployment benefits during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report released on Wednesday shows that much of it was paid in fraudulent claims, and that the total amount may be significantly undercounted.
$3.2 billion was overpaid in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, aimed at those who would not traditionally be eligible for benefits. The remaining $2 billion was in regular benefits.
The report also shows that $6 million was paid to 481 dead people and $40.5 million was paid to incarcerated individuals.
47th District State Senator Neil Anderson (R-Andalusia) serves on the state’s Legislative Audit Commission, which oversees the state’s audits. In a statement after the report’s release, he says the audit was a “complete gut punch” to Illinois residents.
“This audit shows what we’ve feared all along, which is that Illinois taxpayers and businesses were being robbed by the Pritzker Administration’s incompetence. The disaster and dysfunction at IDES resulted in over $5 billion in wrongful payments—all while rightful beneficiaries waited months to receive owed unemployment benefits from Pritzker’s forced shutdowns. Now, it’s on the taxpayers to pay for the failures of their state government,” Anderson said.
37th District State Senator Win Stoller (R-Germantown Hills) says the report was “unfathomable.”
“To top it off, out of this $5 billion, only roughly ten percent has been recovered by the state. Additionally, the state borrowed $4.5 billion from the federal government for unemployment benefits, only for us to find out in this report that money was essentially used to cover fraud,” Stoller said in a statement. “The people of Illinois deserve better than this disastrous mismanagement by the Pritzker administration.”
The audit also reports how the state failed to follow federal recommendations issued in May of 2020 to prevent fraud, something 53rd District State Senator Tom Bennett (R-Gibson City) referred to in his statement on the report.
“While constituents needed help during this time of need, IDES was creating chaos and causing significant losses for taxpayers. The Governor’s Administration disregarded the warnings and insisted everything was under control when clearly everything was a disaster,” Bennett said. “The administration did not follow its own protocols and ignored the recommendations from the federal government, which led to scammers and fraudsters taking advantage of the system and stealing the taxpayers’ money.”
44th District State Senator Sally Turner (R-Beason) said she was “outraged” by the report.
“It is truly hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that more than $5 billion of unemployment benefits were improperly paid out in just two years and that only a tenth of that money has been recovered,” Turner said.
