(The Center Square) – The number of complaints of wrongdoing by state agencies under Gov. J.B. Pritzker has increased nearly 30% in the most recent annual report.
The Office of Executive Inspector General released its annual report for fiscal year 2025. The report found nearly 4,000 complaints, or a 29% increase over the prior fiscal year.
“These published reports also illustrate a continued trend of misconduct involving employees’ conflicts of interest and/or improper secondary employment,” the OEIG’s Illinois Ethics Matters newsletter for December said.
Asked about the report Monday at an unrelated event in Springfield, Pritzker said it’s good people are filing complaints.
“I want people to, if they’re doing something wrong, they should get caught,” Pritzker said. “If people feel like somebody is doing something wrong, they should report it and it should be investigated. So I encourage people to do it.”
One case summary the OEIG shared found an agency deputy director continued to have a financial interest in a vendor and was involved in decisions to award work to the vendor.
“[A]nd there was an increase in payments to the vendor and an increase in the vendor’s billing for subcontracted work,” the report said.
The OEIG said in response to the work, the agency is auditing that vendor’s billing and reconciliations and implementing new policies and procedures for conflicts of interest.
“The Governor’s Office is also mandated training for agency fiscal officers relating to reconciliation for vendor payments,” the report said.
Pritzker acknowledged ethics training.
“I do the training every year,” Pritzker said. “We have a lot of training, that we do and I do think that we’re attracting good people to government and that’s, you know, sometimes hard to do.”
State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, said the report shows there needs to be more scrutiny on Pritzker’s management of state operations.
“We know that when there’s government money that there’s going to be all kinds of fraud, we know there’s going to be all kinds of abuse,” Halbrook said. “This stuff has to be fine-tooth combed so that we can begin to root that out.”
Among the reported wrongdoing, the OEIG said of more than 500 Paycheck Protection Program fraud investigations, 378 resulted in founded reports. The report shows dozens of state employees from the Department of Children and Family Services, Department of Human Services, and other state agencies defrauding more than $20,000 each from the PPP.
“If employees were still employed by the State at the time reports were issued, the OEIG recommended their termination from State employment,” the report said. “Many employees resigned in lieu of termination; for those who did not resign, they have either been terminated or the disciplinary actions are still ongoing.”
The report also states the Illinois Attorney General’s Office has criminally prosecuted a number of the individuals for PPP fraud.
The report also highlights were two six-figure fines leveled against state employees after being found to have violated revolving door provisions of the state Ethics Act. One high-profile case involved the former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
In January, the OEIG announced Ezike agreed to “a violation of the Ethics Act and the facts comprising the violation, in that she accepted employment and compensation from an entity which had contracts involving IDPH with a cumulative value of $4.2 million and over which she had exercised regulatory and licensing authority in the year before her departure from State employment.”
Halbrook said there needs to be more oversight from majority Democrats at the Illinois Statehouse.
“There’s lots of things that we need to get in the open,” he said. “We need to discuss and bring people to the table to sort this out.”
