Illinois' unemployment office (IDES) was already experiencing a lack in staff and leadership by having top office positions vacant even prior to COVID-19. This came as a direct result of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's' holding off filling those vacancies due to his plans of merging the department with another.
"Starting in March, as authorities shut down businesses and schools and two million Illinois workers flooded the state for jobless benefits, the state Department of Employment Security was already at one of its weakest moments in recent history, records and interviews show," David Jackson reported in an article for The Pantagraph.
"At that moment, agency staffing was at an 'all-time low,' according to its then-acting director. Veteran employees were retiring in droves to be replaced by rookies. And when key jobs were filled it was sometimes with political aides who had little or no agency experience," said the article.
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Since the pandemic began, the administration has given nothing but explanations for its inability to be able to handle the surge of unemployment claims and Pritzker has been putting blame on his Republican predecessor "for hollowing out" the administration.
But documents show the agency has been short staffed at every level during Pritzker's administration. The agency has even had staff vacancies before the pandemic started.
"In recent months, IDES has issued around 1% of its unemployment checks within seven days of the initial applications, making it the slowest state in the nation by that measure. Before the pandemic, it was among the fastest," Jackson wrote for The Pantagraph.
IDES failed to meet standards in five of 10 performance checks collected by the federal authorities as well. It was also extremely overwhelmed and understaffed in June, 2020, and prioritized elected official claims over other taxpayers, regardless of whose claims came in first.
When the agency urgently asked for help, the wrote this message to Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes in an email: “Please know that I’m doing everything in my power to get you what is needed. But I need some help," reported The Pantagraph.
While Pritzker's administration acknowledged the agency had problems, Hynes said there was not leadership at the top of the IDEA to deal with the issues.
“There was not instability at the top,” he told The Pantagraph, “I think what was lacking was everything underneath there. There was great attrition in the rank-and-file employees who were at the front lines of services. There was outdated technology, a lack of investment in technology that had occurred over the last 10 years. That’s really what was lacking.”
Over the summer, Pritzker named a new acting director for the IDEA , Kristin Richards, former chief of staff to state Senate Presidents, John Cullerton and Don Harmon.
“More so than anything, I feel a responsibility to try and bring some stability for claimants, find some stability for people that are attempting to reach us,” Richards told The Pantagraph. “It’s a really big problem-solving exercise but it’s the right time to throw every bit of muscle we can to try to do it, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
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