Lake County Gazette

State Rep. Tom Weber (R-Lake Villa) is demanding more accountability from the Illinois Department of Employment Security during this time of crisis.

“It is May 2021, and Illinois Department of Employment Security offices remain closed,” Weber recently said from the House floor as the issue was being debated among lawmakers. “Unanswered calls and unanswered questions from an unresponsive agency are unacceptable.”

Weber argues Illinois residents simply deserve better from Springfield.

“We have a lot of confusion, appeals and important questions that our residents would have better handled in person,” he added. “Some people don’t have the means to do services online. They’ve called in vain for months to get help and they’ve come up empty.”

As complaints about the level of service from the government agency have only grown louder, some Republican lawmakers have taken on the responsibility of trying to do more to help their constituents get the help they desperately need.

“Some Illinoisans continue to struggle accessing their legitimate unemployment benefits,” state Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Vandalia) recently told the Metro East Sun. “If you are still having these issues please do not hesitate to call us. IDES is a mess and the numerous failures from this department, along with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s inept leadership, have caused countless problems and hardships for Illinois families and small businesses.”

According to The Center Square, IDES is now probing more 212,000 suspected fraud claims, with many of them targeting individuals who were rated as their companies' highest earners. With the state having issued more than $17 billion in unemployment assistance since the beginning of the pandemic, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco claims much of the potential fraud can be blamed on data breaches outside the confines of the agency.

Weber said all of those episode demand for the need for the governor and all other state lawmakers to now be in Springfield doing everything they can to help the people they’re empowered to serve, with offices like IDES open to the public to also lend assistance.

“Offices like the Secretary of State have been open for months, only closing during the worst of pandemic,” he said. “Why haven’t we seen the same effort from IDES? I don’t understand why the agency isn’t doing everything to get back to serving the people of Illinois in a full capacity. This isn’t a Republican and Democrat issue. I ask for this body, IDES and the governor to do more.”