Of the $5. 2 billion, the Illinois Department of Job Security (IDES) overpaid about $2 billion for normal unemployment insurance and $3. 2 billion for the federal unemployment pandemic (PUA) that were established in the wake of the COVID outbreak.
In total, $2800 million classified as identity theft: cash that is not considered recoverable because it cannot be recovered from the victim of identity theft. According to the audit, only about one-tenth of the $5200 million in total was recovered.
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A store is closed near Wall Street as the coronavirus kept money markets, and businesses in general, closed on May 8, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Unemployment rose in Illinois, as in the rest of the country, at the start of the pandemic in 2020 after Gov. J. B. Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Businesses were forced to scale back operations or even close, putting many Illinoisans out of work and creating an unprecedented hotspot of unemployment insurance claims.
“IDES is not ready to satisfy the desires created through the pandemic,” the report said. “IDES did not have a plan to respond to recessions and potential increases in claims. “
In such an environment, the state is happy with some safeguards to meet demand, but it has also opened the door to further fraud.
“Several of IDES’ fraud defenses may simply not handle the exponential backlog of claims,” according to the audit. The matches took time to complete and particularly limited the processing system. These cross-matches have been temporarily suspended and/or processed offline. This has allowed IDES to better manage the backlog in claims processing traffic. However, this has made unemployment systems more vulnerable. to fraud. »
Perhaps most surprising, IDES sent tens of millions of dollars to the incarcerated and dead through normal unemployment insurance and the PAU program. Overall, auditors found that 3448 incarcerated Americans earned 92,811 bills totaling $40. 5 million, while 10,527 bills were made totaling $6 million. 481 Americans died.
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Auditors found that 3,448 incarcerated Americans earned 92,811 bills totaling $40. 5 million, while 10,527 bills totaling $6 million were made to 481 deceased Americans. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/File)
The report notes that it is possible that all payment figures are “underestimated” as they are estimates and auditors are still looking to account for all fraudulent payments.
Following the release of the audit, lawmakers are calling for accountability in handling Illinois’ unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
“This audit made clear that the administration’s handling of the COVID unemployment formula was an absolute crisis of historic proportions,” Republican Sen. Chapin Rose of Illinois said in a statement. “It is transparent that the company did not adhere to its own safety protocols and, according to the audit, allegedly still refuses to adhere to the common sense recommendation of the federal government. Meanwhile, the company dropped the ball entirely on the one thing it said was aimed at getting unemployment benefits at an opportune time. path for other people who desperately needed them. “
In reaction to the audit, IDES partly blamed the Trump administration and its implementation for a “poorly designed new unemployment insurance program with a new logo” that Illinois will have to handle with the conversion of federal guidelines.
“Because the federal program did not require the mandatory regime and cross-identity checks built into the state’s normal unemployment insurance system, the likelihood that overpayments and fraud recovery efforts nationwide will be negatively impacted is not surprising,” an IDES spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Federal evidence consistently underscores that the implementation and acceleration of new federal systems will continue to challenge states, especially given the inability of the federal budget model to adapt to changing economic conditions. “
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Illinois’ auditor general has released a report showing how the state-owned company that distributes unemployment benefits issued “overpayments” of $5. 2 billion in fraudulent or overstated claims from fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/File)
According to the audit, IDES delayed the implementation of fraud prevention teams through the U. S. Department of Labor. U. S.
“IDES decided not to use the Integrity Data Hub equipment [recommended through the Department of Labor in May 2020] because other IT-related projects were deemed more urgent for the pandemic,” the report says. “IDES began employing Integrity Data Hub equipment in September 2021. “
The auditors also found that claimants whose invoices were missing or misappropriated experienced significant delays in reissuing their invoices due to an insufficient procedure put in place through IDES for those issues. According to the report, for example, the company took an average of 198 days. to reissue misappropriated normal unemployment insurance bills and 445 days for diverted PUAs bills.
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“The citizens of Illinois are disgusted by how poorly their cash has been managed and how little has been done to account for outright theft and blatant incompetence,” Rose said. “The other people who were meant to serve as guardians of their resources absolutely let them down, and their incompetence served to embolden and help criminals abuse the formula and seek borrowed benefits. “
The Auditor General gave several tips to EDI to improve its operations. One tip was to expand a plan that takes into account classes learned from the pandemic to prepare for prolonged periods of immediate, intense spikes in jobless claims.
Aaron Kliegman is a political reporter for Fox News Digital.