More than 1,000 cases of child care overpayments in Illinois over 5
years
[January 22, 2026]
By Greg Bishop | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – In the past 5 years, the state of Illinois has
found more than 1,000 instances of taxpayer funded overpayments to child
care providers.
In a response to a public records request by TCS, the Illinois
Department of Human Services said there were 1,004 instances of
overpayments to providers and families for child care funding. However,
the agency said it couldn’t immediately say which were fraud and which
were not, as it would take them 167 hours to go through the thousand
case files.
“While reviewing the overpayment file, IDHS-[Divison of Early Chilhood]
staff and/or Child Care Resource and Referral agencies may note concerns
about intentional program violation or fraud in the case notes or on the
overpayment referral form; however, there is no method to independently
track which overpayments are intentional or unintentional in CCMS,” said
Sean Reddington, associate general counsel of IDHS.
A narrow request for fiscal year 2025 information is pending.
In their response to the initial public records request made Jan. 2, the
agency did note founded fraud cases are reported to the Illinois
Department of Health and Family Services Office of Inspector General.
“Specifically, [the agency] refers allegations to [HFS-OIG] when they
[are] unable to determine if a program violation is intentional without
further investigation,” Reddington said in an email. “In these cases,
HFS-OIG is responsible for investigating the childcare benefit fraud
referral and determining whether the allegation of fraud is
substantiated or unsubstantiated.”
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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is pictured. Photo: Greg
Bishop / The Center Square
The HFS Inspector General annual report for fiscal year 2025 show
three substantiated provider cases and two substantiated beneficiary
cases, some referred to law enforcement.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul was asked what he does with
such cases.
“Prosecute them, and we work with the OIG, we work with the
inspector general from the federal government, [U.S. Health and
Human Services],” Raoul told TCS when asked at an unrelated event
Tuesday. “And so when the case is referred to us and we have the
capacity to prosecute it, we prosecute. Some of the cases may go to
the federal government, for prosecution or other prosecutorial
agencies. But prosecute them.”
The IG report for fiscal 2025 shows when including Medicaid
overpayments, the estimated provider overpayments was $55.7 million.
When combining child care program cases with SNAP overpayments, the
IG says the established client overpayments totals nearly $317,000.
Jim Talamonti contributed to this story.
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