* House GOP…

Illinois House Republicans sounded off on Governor JB Pritzker’s management of the Illinois Department of Employment Security and the breakdown of the unemployment system that has led to massive delays and fraud at the department during a Zoom press conference on Wednesday.

State Representative Mike Marron (R-Fithian) has been a vocal critic of IDES’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented number of unemployment claims caused by Governor Pritzker’s Executive Orders that closed businesses across the state. Along with addressing systemic fraud, Marron says Pritzker must explain why his administration has not reallocated staff from other state agencies to assist IDES.

“My office and the offices of my colleagues have been dealing with the failures at IDES for almost 10 months now. The heartbreaking long line of desperate constituents calling our office has not gotten smaller, and the department is as nonresponsive as they were when the pandemic began,” Marron said. “When we demanded State employees be redirected to help with the unprecedented workload at IDES, the Governor falsely claimed that federal rules kept him from hiring adequate numbers of staff or transferring state employees to help at IDES. We know what he said is not true. It is unacceptable how the Governor and the Department have responded to this crisis that they themselves have caused.”

State Representative Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) says the administration must assist in policy making to help displaced workers avoid being punished because of failures at IDES. Keicher says Illinoisans are receiving notices that they owe money to the State of Illinois that they cannot afford and should not have to pay.

“I support immediate passage of legislation to forgive the full amount of PUA the Governor is attempting to claw back from Illinois residents,” said Rep. Keicher. “Most displaced workers approved for PUA in 2020 were awarded amounts calculated by IDES in error because the Governor refused to hire staff starting in April to help. Imagine you are a hairdresser who has been unable to work since March, and in July you finally get some money to pay your bills. Then in October, the Governor comes to you and says, ‘Sorry but we did bad math and we need that money back, can you please pay back the money you no longer have?’ It’s unconscionable.”

State Representative Mike Murphy (R-Springfield) is proposing a system that would flag out of state or multiple failed applications to help cut down on fraudulent claims. Murphy also favors instituting employer contact reference checks to stop fake applications from being approved.

“If the administration would simply institute basic fraud protection measures like flagging out-of-state claims for review and pursuing employer reference checks, we could easily curb much of the fraud plaguing the system. This shouldn’t require legislative action,” said Murphy. “But the fact remains that we still have numerous unanswered questions and must have public hearings to find solutions to not only rein in the larger problems, but to ensure the families rightfully in need of unemployment benefits has access to them. I sincerely hope the Governor will speak up before the Lame Duck Session begins and join our call for public hearings so we can find these solutions to take action together.”

* From Kristin Richards, the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s Acting Director…

As IDES has been saying for months, we are working hard to respond to an economic crisis and stand-up five new, complex federal programs while battling fraudsters who have used stolen identities to file for benefits nationwide. Just this week, IDES started paying out the renewed FPUC wage supplement for eligible claimants, and we believe we are among the first states to be in a position to do so. We are eagerly awaiting federal guidance on the new round of programmatic changes made in the federal Continued Assistance package and will be standing up a sixth program – Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation. The Department will again find ways to reach claimants and share information on highly complex programs.

We sound like a broken record when we say this, but it is so important: IDES has seen an extreme reduction in its headcount over the course of the last decade; the current headcount is roughly half of what it was ten years ago. This, coupled with the lack of continuing modernization to agency programs, and IT equipment for agency staff, left the Department in a difficult position of needing to scale quickly during a global crisis. Thanks to the General Assembly and Governor Pritzker, IDES was given an increased headcount for FY21, but adding full-time employees, as all state hiring does, takes time. This is especially true for IDES, whose employees possess a unique and complicated skillset to work on issues and deliver services to claimants. In the interim, the Department has partnered with contractors where it could, training more than 1,000 contractual employees in 2020 on basic information needed to answer and return claimant phone calls. And, IDES continues to add more employees, permanent and contractual, as quickly as possible and where needed. The legislators’ call for moving state employees from one hollowed out agency to another ignores the nuance of what is involved in these jobs and positions and would create productivity deficits in the agencies from which state employees would be pulled.

When legislators such as Reps. Marron and Murphy hold these types of press conferences discussing anti-fraud measures within IDES, they would be remiss to think fraudsters are not also watching, paying attention, and attempting to discover new ways to access IDES systems. Simply put, the fraud prevention measures in place, and those we continue to implement as we work with law enforcement partners to understand new tactics used by fraudsters, are not a blueprint the Department is ever going to disclose.

Not everyone who files an unemployment claim is eligible to receive unemployment benefits. There seems to be a broad misunderstanding amongst claimants, media, legislators, and the general population that once a person gets in touch with us, it will result in that person receiving benefits from the Department. This is not the case. Though this pandemic pushed many people to unemployment agencies for economic relief, unemployment insurance programs, by design, are not set up to provide blanket stimulus. There are many eligibility requirements claimants must meet to receive benefits. Equally important to understand is that disbursement of unemployment benefits is dependent upon certification. In the regular unemployment insurance program, certification is a bi-weekly requirement; payment will not be rendered if certification is not completed. Payment does not happen automatically; it is an active process, not a passive process, and requires the claimant consistently certify.

IDES has anti-fraud measures built into its systems. The legislative proposals referenced by these legislators (flagging out of state claims; employer notices; multiple failed claims) are measures the Department already takes when processing unemployment claims. Information about each of those proposals can be found numbered below.

Out of State Claims: when an out-of-state claim is filed, the system automatically flags the claim and requests the claimant submit identity verification documents. IDES agents review this information, and ask additional questions if necessary, to prove identity.

Employer Notices: when a claimant files an unemployment insurance claim, the chargeable employer receives notice. Employers may protest a claim for various reasons, including that the employee was fired rather than being laid off, or that the employee is still currently working (which would make it a fraudulent claim). If an employer does not protest the claim, the Department moves forward with processing the claim and determining eligibility for the claimant with the information available at that point.

The Department’s relationship with the employer community is critical because it helps identify instances of unemployment fraud and identity theft, but it is imperative employers communicate with the Department and respond to notices of claim as soon as possible so that unemployment insurance benefits are not being paid to claimants who are not eligible to receive them. IDES strongly suggests that all employers in Illinois register for electronic notification of Notices of Claim through the State Information Data Exchange System (SIDES). This greatly increases the speed at which employers and IDES can exchange information and identify fraudulent claims. Information regarding SIDES can be found here.

Multiple Failed Claims: failed claims applications are flagged and put into a bucket, so fraudsters are unable to open them again and attempt to move the claim forward.

NOTE: The above-mentioned anti-fraud measures, and many others that are already in place, have the effect of slowing down the process of distributing UI benefits — and that is an unavoidable and necessary thing. But it demonstrates the cruel irony that IDES is being simultaneously besieged by historic unemployment claims and besieged by a globally orchestrated fraud scheme, and that solutions to these problems work against each other. Legislators are telling us to hurry up and make payments but slow down and put more barriers in place to stop fraud.

The idea that IDES has disproportionate trouble processing new claims or paying out claims is misleading. A claimant who provides all the necessary data and submits their claim will be processed in a timely and efficient manner and will receive benefits if they are deemed eligible and continue to certify. You can find here a national service delivery comparison of states, of which Illinois is outperforming peer states – through September 30, 2020 (the latest available data) 78.3% of first payments were made within 14 days; 90.9% were made within 35 days. These are both above the national average.

The claims these legislators make shed light on the misunderstanding some legislators have of IDES and unemployment insurance. IDES has devoted hundreds of hours to answering legislators’ questions because we hope it helps the claimants we are trying to reach. Further technical training however, is necessary, and IDES will work with these legislators to create the first cohort of targeted training for elected state officials.

The Department understands legislators are advocating for their constituents who are frustrated that the federal response to the pandemic has been to drive them to the unemployment agency for help. But these legislators are ignoring the work of another portion of their constituents – employees of IDES. These employees show up to work during a pandemic, amidst constant criticism of their performance from the very legislators who promised to represent them and their best interests. This rhetoric does nothing but decrease the morale of the Department’s employees, without whom none of the accomplishments of the last ten months – and billions of dollars of unemployment benefits in the hands of claimants who desperately need them – would be possible.