Kane County Reporter

Sen. Don DeWitte (R-West Dundee) calls the audit report by the auditor general’s office on pandemic unemployment fraud "scathing."

Illinois Republicans have been trying for months to get a dollar amount estimate of unemployment payments that were made fraudulently during the pandemic, and finally, an audit report has been released by the office of the auditor general. The audit states more than half of the payments were fraudulent. DeWitte said in a Facebook post that Illinois lost almost $2 billion to fraudulent unemployment claims, and he said Gov. Pritzker's administration is to blame.

"The Auditor General's report on IDES is out and it is scathing. While the Pritzker Administration is on record as estimating $14.2 million was lost to fraud, the AG found that at least $2 BILLION went toward fraudulent claims," DeWitte posted. "Pritzker was quick to blame Trump, but a Tribune investigation found that his administration failed to follow a federal recommendation to adopt free fraud-fighting tools that were made available to them. The AG said the records are such a mess, that he cannot determine the true extent of money lost to fraud. Experts have suggested the true total could be as high as $10 billion."

Auditor General Frank Mautino released a report last week which said that out of the $3.6 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments that Illinois sent out between July 2020 and June 2021, more than half was fraudulent, Illinois Newsroom reported. Almost $2 billion worth of payments were sent to scammers. "Overpayments associated with identity theft and traditional fraud within the PUA program was unprecedented and resulted in fraudsters using highly sophisticated techniques to take advantage of the current economic condition created by the COVID-19 pandemic," the audit stated. Nationwide, an estimated $163 billion in unemployment payments were fraudulent. Republicans in Illinois are now demanding that the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) should be investigated regarding whether they followed procedures in making unemployment payments to determine whether the agency failed to follow recommendations for fraud prevention.

After Pritzker ordered businesses to shut down in the spring of 2020, Illinois saw a huge spike in unemployment claims, leading to the accumulation of billions of dollars of unemployment debt, the Center Square reported. Even though Illinois took the help of some federal relief funds to reduce the debt, there is still a remaining balance of around $1.8 billion accruing interest. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has reported that around 1 in 5 unemployment claims made during the pandemic nationwide may have been fraudulent.

House Republicans supported using federal relief dollars to pay off the debt in its entirety. Illinois received more than $8 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021, according to NBC Chicago.