From State Rep. Tom Weber:

Auditor General Finds IDES Lost Billions

Fraudsters stole more than half the money paid out by the state from a special pandemic unemployment fund, pilfering nearly $2 billion in federal money that was supposed to help out-of-work Illinoisans, according to a state audit released last month.

The audit covers much of the period the program was in use, from July 2020 through June 2021. The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) acknowledged in November 2020 that more than 212,000 fraudulent unemployment claims had been filed, but has never released a dollar estimate on the theft despite requests from reporters and lawmakers.

A Tribune investigation published a year ago found the problems in Illinois were exacerbated by IDES’ failure to follow federal recommendations to adopt free fraud-fighting tools made available before the pandemic, while also being slow in developing other processes to ferret out fraud. 

The audit didn’t review those failures, let alone determine how much they may have boosted the fraud tab.

But the audit found that, of the $3.6 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance paid out from July 2020 through June 2021, nearly $1.9 billion was tied to fraud, the vast majority in the form of identity theft. 

Auditors called the level of fraud “unprecedented,” with “fraudsters using highly sophisticated techniques to take advantage” of the pandemic’s unique conditions. 

According to the Chicago Tribune, this audit may not show the full scope of pandemic-related fraud in Illinois.

Under another federally funded program that boosted claim checks the state paid out an additional $3.8 billion.

The audit also doesn’t address the thousands of Illinoisans whose names and accounts were improperly used to hijack legitimate claims.

I joined colleagues in calling for hearings to determine what steps need to be taken to repair the broken system, recover those funds from those who committed that fraud, make amends to those who had their information stolen, and safeguard the process so that this won’t happen again. We owe it to our constituents and those rightfully applying for benefits to shore up the integrity of the unemployment system.