Macon Reporter

Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) recently added his voice alongside other Republicans who aren’t pleased with how the state is running the Illinois Department of Employment Security. 

“When the governor shut the state down nearly two years ago ... these (IDES) field offices got shut down and I’m sure every one of our offices got all the calls about ‘hey we've got these special situations,’ Halbrook said. "How many months or weeks longer was it for Illinois to get everything operational to disperse benefits than all the other neighboring states?”

Halbrook joined Reps. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur), Martin McLaughin (R-Lake Barrington), Chris Miller (R-Robinson) and Blaine Wilhour (R-Effingham) March 18 in a YouTube roundtable discussion on IDES and the billions Illinois borrowed from the government to keep it viable. 

The Chicago Tribune reported the state owes $4.5 billion to the federal unemployment trust fund.

In December, Illinois was one of several states that asked the federal government to freeze interest on loans for unemployment benefits during COVID. The Chicago Tribune reported that the state owed nearly $5 billion to the federal unemployment trust fund, and it is accumulating interest at a rate of 2.27% since Sept. 6.

Caulkins said the $5 billion needs to be paid now.

“We knew last year that we were going to have to pay back over $5 billion that we had borrowed from the feds,” Caulkins said. “The Democrats, rather than take the bull by the horns and deal with this last year decided that they didn't want to have to deal with this until July 1 of 2022. That's a problem because, on April 1 of this year, our exemption runs out on how to deal with funding the unemployment benefit fund.”

“This is an administration that for the last several weeks and several months has run ... an ad saying 'hey look we've balanced the books. We've got things in order,'" Halbrook said. “True they’ve got the bills kind of down to (an) overly quick pay cycle, but there has been literally 140 or 50 billion or more dollars that are going to come into the state at multiple levels, so anybody with that kind of cash flow ought to be able to balance the books, but on this very issue they seem to be having trouble and they do have access to billions of dollars.”

The Chicago Tribune reported the state owed $19.6 million in interest.

“Taxpayers should not be on the hook for interest just because the pandemic is lasting longer than projected,” Comptroller Susana Mendoza said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “States are wrestling with how best to replenish their COVID-depleted unemployment funds and they should not have to do that with the meter running.”

Last year, even as recently as September, IDES struggled to get a waiver program in place for individuals told to repay their unemployment benefits, and did not have the structures in place to speak to Illinois residents who needed help to figure out what was going on. And, the state missed a Sept. 6 payment and is now accumulating interest that will have to be paid back.