Chambana Sun

State Rep. Mike Marron (R-Fithian) recently recounted advocating for his constituents trying to navigate a complex Illinois Department of Employment System during the early days of the pandemic.

Marron shared this experience after an audit exposed more than $5 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims from IDES, stretching across a two-year period.

“Back in the early days of the pandemic, I stood outside the Governor’s mansion in the freezing cold until he would actually take my phone call advocating for the hardworking constituents in Illinois trying to navigate a broken system,” Marron said in a press release. “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown, IDES offices were closed throughout the state, concerned citizens could not get anyone on the phone, and the IDES online portal was a complete disaster.”

In his statement, Marron reminded the public Gov. J.B. Pritzker repeatedly mandated the closure of businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Governor shut down our main streets and spent over three years issuing executive orders from his cushy mansion in Chicago telling us all in Illinois that he and his staff knew what was best for us. Meanwhile, our working families had to wait months to even begin their unemployment claims,” he said. “The Pritzker Administration avoided our calls and failed to adequately provide us with any real information to help our constituents. This audit is another example of the expensive price tag that accompanies the complete mismanagement and failures of the Pritzker Administration.”

CARES or ARPA funds should have been utilized by the state to cover the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund liability in its entirety so that employers would not have been burdened because of the pandemic. Marron argued that rather than taking that path, Democraticlawmakers funneled cash into their pork projects and "raised the state budget line up billions without any sustainable revenue streams,” which resulted in a more difficult situation for Illinoisans.  

“Now, as we predicted, workers and job creators are on the hook for this incompetence. The disaster at IDES is like many of the state agencies run by our ‘Executive Order’ Governor,” Marron said. “I hope the Governor will finally take responsibility for the fiscal malfeasance and broken promises he made to Illinoisans, because the taxpayers of Illinois should never have been on the hook for this level of incompetence.” 

The recently released audit, sought by State Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet), has shed light on the extent of wrongful payments amounting to $5.24 billion made by IDES from 2020 to 2022. Auditor General Frank Mautino said IDES could not accurately track how the bulk of the funds were spent, Chambana Sun reported. 

Read the Auditor General’s audit, report, and findings here.

The 104th District includes parts of Champaign and Vermilion counties in east-central Illinois.