Will County Gazette

Veteran GOP state Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) is among Republican lawmakers leading the charge in calling for a performance audit of the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES).

Rezin’s demands come in the wake of the release of a recent Illinois Auditor General report that details longtime shortcomings within the system.

“To say that the findings of this report weren't good would be an understatement,” Rezin said in a post to Facebook. “Despite the report only covering the first few months of the pandemic, it revealed massive failures by the Pritzker administration. When it came to protecting the identity of Illinoisans, sadly it shows the administration was unable to implement even the most basic processes to identify ineligible claimants.”

Rezin recently joined fellow Republican state Sens. Jason Plummer (R-Vandalia), Dave Syverson (R-Rockford) and Win Stoller (R-Peoria) in demanding that the last 13 months of IDES activity be thoroughly scrutinized, warning that deficiencies within the system could add up to an astronomical price tag for already cash-strapped taxpayers.

“The ongoing issues in IDES are one of the governor’s greatest mishandlings throughout this pandemic,” Rezin said. “This audit makes it clear that it’s worse than what many originally thought. Because of lack of implemented safeguards, IDES distributed over $154 million to ineligible claimants and failed to validate the identities of almost 5,000 claimants before paying them over $42 million.”

Rezin said the people of Illinois deserve answers.

“The governor has an obligation to inform the people of Illinois of how much money they have lost because of his shortcomings,” she said.