(The Center Square) – A total of 177 Illinois state employees have been determined to have obtained Paycheck Protection Program loans based on falsified information. That’s according to the Office of Executive Inspector General, which put the dollar amount of fraud found “so far” at $4.5 million.
The OEIG released the report Tuesday. The summary shows 132 Department of Human Services employees, 25 Department of Children and Family Services employees, eight Department of Healthcare and Family Services employees, four Department of Employment Security employees, three employees each from the Department of Public Health and Department of Veterans’ Affairs and one at each of the Department of Revenue and the Department of Natural Resources have been identified “so far.”
“To date, the improper loans identified in these founded reports total more than $4.5 million in public funds,” the report said. “The OEIG’s PPP investigation project remains ongoing. These numbers do not reflect a final total of OEIG founded reports or a final total for any particular agency.”
Illinois’ OEIG investigation was initiated in 2022 to examine whether employees with the state of Illinois abused the federal taxpayer-funded program. PPP was instituted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to assist businesses in keeping employees paid when state governments across the country limited economic activity in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.
“Because a preliminary review of the data revealed a large number of such loans, the OEIG initially focused the investigation on PPP loans of approximately $20,000 or more,” the report said.
As of Sept. 12, the OEIG reported 438 PPP investigations were initiated. About 200 were concluded with 177 being referred to a law enforcement agency.
“State employees are expected to maintain the public’s trust and confidence, and misappropriating public funds is far from acting with integrity, or conducting oneself in a manner that reflects favorably upon the State,” the report said. “Acting in such a manner may result in the loss of employment.”
