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According to the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector
General, the employees facing discipline sought loans for small
businesses outside of their state work. But those businesses may
not have existed, or if they did, may not have earned the income
they claimed.
“Anybody that has committed PPP fraud in our administration or
not in our administration does not deserve to have a job working
for the people of the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said at an
unrelated news conference Monday.
In
total, the Illinois Department of Human Services reports that,
as of early August, 47 of its workers had been fired, resigned
or face pending discipline related to PPP loan fraud. Pritzker
says at one facility, the word got around.
“When you find out there are 37 people that have done this, they
obviously have been talking to one another at work,” Pritzker
said. “Maybe someone committed this kind of fraud then tried to
convince somebody else that they can show them how to do this.”
That facility with 37 disciplinary actions is the Ludeman
Developmental Center in Park Forest, which included 32 mental
health technicians, three supervisors, one program coordinator
and a nurse.
Pritzker said firing a large number of people will present
another set of problems.
“Obviously it causes a challenge whenever you’re letting anybody
go and you have a number of open positions anywhere,” Pritzker
said.
The Cook County Inspector General said 25 county workers were
found to have ripped off the federal PPP program during an
investigation over the past year.
PPP fraud has been a problem nationwide. The inspector general
for the Small Business Administration estimated that the agency
paid out more than $200 billion in “potentially fraudulent” aid
during the pandemic.
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