Illinois State House District 79 issued the following announcement on April 10
State Representative Lindsay Parkhurst (R – Kankakee) called on Governor Pritzker to utilize federal and private sector assistance to fix the Illinois unemployment website. Below is a statement:
“I am disappointed our governor continues to pander to political allies instead of putting the needs of Illinoisans first regarding the failure of IDES. This IT failure is fixable and was avoidable. Illinois is full of top-notch private IT consultants and there is federal assistance for IT for state unemployment claim processing. However, Illinois is not on the list for federal IT assistance and the governor refuses to call on the private sector to help IDES for fear of upsetting political union allies in State government. Our residents are suffering without these vital unemployment benefits needed to provide food, clothing, and shelter during this challenging time while our federal government and private sector have the resources to fix this IT problem now. Instead of playing political games and appeasing political allies, the governor must ask for help from where help will be most effective to solve this IDES crisis—our federal government and the private sector. There is no excuse for the continuing IT failure at the IDES! States like New York and West Virginia already revised their Unemployment Insurance systems since the CARES Act. Those systems are serving their residents. Unfortunately, our governor criticizes the Federal Government every day. He has the federal and public-private partnership resources to fix IDES now, but refuses to get help. Every day IDES is not working is a continuing failure by the governor to our residents who were forced out of their employment and required to stay home. Please Act now to help our residents!”
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up