(The Center Square) – The Illinois Senate Appropriations Committee questioned representatives from the Illinois Department of Employment Services over fraudulent benefits during the pandemic.
According to a state audit from 2021, IDES lost nearly $2 billion in funds due to fraudulent claims. However, as of recently, IDES still is unsure of the entire scope of all the fraud. There are also questions about overpayments.
Reporting by CBS showed that Illinois gave away $26 million in regular unemployment benefits and another $27 million in enhanced COVID-19 unemployment benefits.
State Sen. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, asked members on Thursday what happened to the funding.
“Can you address the overpayment and some of the fraudulent issues that have occurred with unemployment benefits,” Bryant asked the IDES representatives.
IDES chief counsel Kevin Lovellette said overpayment waivers happened because federal guidelines allowed for it.
“This was part of the CARES act enacted by Congress, that was fully federally funded,” Lovellette said. “As part of the continued assistance act and then continued in ARPA, Congress allowed for a waiver of overpayments.”
Bryant also asked IDES about their system for recording the data from the claims, as many claims have been listed as being “waived” by IDES.
“It says that overpayment recoveries totaled approximately $20 million from January 2021 to April 2022, but there was $55 million waived,” Bryant said. “So if you could address that amount that was waived.”
IDES Acting Director Ray Marchiori said the department and the state were not prepared for a global pandemic.
“This was an unprecedented health crisis that we have never seen before worldwide. The systems were clearly overworked, it was a tsunami effect,” Marchiori said. “We have testified to those numbers before.”
Illinois taxpayer have already paid off the $4.5 billion the state borrowed from the federal government for unemployment from during the pandemic.
This article First appeared in the center square