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IDES
REPORT DETAILING SCOPE OF ILLINOIS UNEMPLOYMENT FRAUD REMAINS
UNPUBLISHED ONE YEAR LATER
Illinois Policy Institute/
Patrick Andriesen
Nearly a year after Illinois lawmakers
requested a comprehensive audit of state unemployment fraud during the
COVID-19 pandemic, IDES, the state agency in charge of issuing
assistance, remains unable to tabulate how much money was lost to
scammers.
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 Illinois lawmakers are calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department
of Employment Security to publish a full state audit detailing how much
fraudsters stole in unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The demands for transparency from the state agency in charge of dispersing
pandemic unemployment assistance comes on the heels of initial audit from July
2021 revealing IDES paid out $155 million to scammers in the first seven weeks
of the program’s rollout.
Nearly a year later, those lawmakers are still waiting for the full fraud report
to be published with no indication from IDES when it will be released, or just
how much money the state lost.
U.S. Department of Labor data through the first half of 2021 estimates nearly
$430 million was given out in fraudulent claims instead of to unemployed
Illinoisans. But security experts caution the full figure could be more than $1
billion.
State Rep. Marty McLaughlin, R-Barrington Hills, said the agency’s continued
inability to estimate 2021 state unemployment fraud is frustrating given the
approval of $25 million last year to improve security against scammers.
“Let’s have a metric so we can follow whether or not those tax dollars have had
an impact on stopping fraud or tracking,” McLaughlin said during a recent House
appropriations committee meeting with IDES Acting Director Kristin Richards. “As
of right now, we don’t have that answer a year later.”
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Richards said Feb. 9 that all the department can
provide is a perspective of the workload to compile such data. That
same day, Kentucky’s auditor of public accounts released
unemployment fraud estimates showing the state lost more than $195
million to theft through May 2021.
Lawmakers further pressed Richards about the governor’s plan to
refill Illinois’ unemployment trust fund that remains $5.8 billion
underwater. IDES is reportedly seeking an appropriation of $100
million to pay down interest on that loan in 2023.
State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, asked why the state isn’t
using its remaining federal aid dollars to pay down the debt.
“It seems like the road that we want to go down is increased costs
to employers, which ultimately increases cost to the employees and
reduces their benefits package,” Halbrook said.
Richards told the committee Pritzker wants to use a “substantial”
amount of the federal money to fill the unemployment trust fund
deficit. But added she was prohibited from discussing the matter
further.
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