DeKalb Times

State Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Rockford) has recently blasted  Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s habit of unilaterally dealing with issues like the COVID-19 crisis.

“With his announced changes to the state’s COVID-19 mitigation plan, including a new mask mandate for students, teachers and staff in all K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status, Gov. Pritzker continues his unilateral approach to pandemic decision making, which actively undermines Illinois’ ability to have broadly accepted mitigation strategies,” Syverson recently posted to Facebook.

The lawmaker recently started a petition that he’s urging parents across the state to sign demanding that the governor allow them a greater voice on the issue.

“Sign my petition if you believe that locally elected school boards with parental input should be allowed to decide what safety precautions and protocols are in place for their students and staff,” he added.

Pritzker’s dictum also called for all state employees working at congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities and veterans' homes, to have been vaccinated by Oct. 4.

Syverson has also recently made it a point of blasting the Illinois Department of Employment Security's (IDES) handling of the crisis.

"When the governor and state health people chose to shut down thousands of businesses, putting tens of thousands of people into unemployment, we knew there was going to be a problem,” Syverson said in a video posted to Facebook. “At the same time, the governor chose to close all of the unemployment offices and we warned back then that this was going to be a disaster for laid-off workers trying to get help and trying to get benefits. The results of this audit do not surprise me."

Syverson’s views on the IDES front come in the wake of the release of a new Illinois Auditor General report that details longtime shortcomings within the system. He recently joined fellow GOP state Sens. Jason Plummer (R-Vandalia), Sue Rezin (R-Morris) and Win Stoller (R-Peoria) in demanding that the last 13 months of IDES activity be thoroughly scrutinized, warning in advance that deficiencies within the system that he has long spoke out against could carry a soaring price tag for already cash-strapped taxpayers.

The Auditor General claims Pritzker and his administration failed to validate the identities of roughly 5,000 claimants before paying out somewhere in the neighborhood of $42 million to them and paying out benefits to dozens of deceased individuals.

“My office firsthand has been dealing with this for over a year, trying to help families get their cases resolved,” Syverson said. “This has been clearly the number one issue my office deals with. They’ve been frustrated by two major areas. The first are those trying to enroll and can’t get through to anybody and the second are those that go to enroll and find that someone has already enrolled under their name and they’re trying to get that resolved.”