A comprehensive audit report of the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) was released this week, and results showed that a staggering $5.24 billion in taxpayer funds were wrongly paid out to fraudsters. After reading the report, State Senator Don DeWitte (R-St. Charles) issued the following statement:
“Every person in this state, regardless of Party affiliation, should be appalled at the total disregard of structure, policy, rules, and regulations that were designed and available to prevent these kinds of illegal, unauthorized, and undocumented transactions from flourishing at taxpayers’ expense. There must be a level of accountability looked into following these findings. This is $5.24 billion in taxpayer dollars that were completely wasted.”
“Decisions were made to purposely remove the many safeguards that would have prevented this from happening. The Legislature needs to determine who made those decisions, especially since the choice to ignore proper protocols was made, clearing a path for the Pritzker Administration to simply put money into people’s hands as quickly as possible without any level of eligibility verification or scrutiny. These decisions, given the billions of dollars involved, represent a total abdication of fiscal responsibility, and confirm a total inability to account for taxpayer dollars.”