Republican lawmakers are calling for increased transparency after recent reports have emerged showing Illinois could owe the federal government over $700 million annually due to high error rates in its administration of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to help supplement their grocery budgets. However, Illinois has recently been found to have one of the highest error rates in the country, currently ranking worse than 38 other states in payment accuracy.

Federal law now requires states with error rates above 10 percent to repay 15 percent of total SNAP benefits. Illinois’ rate hit 11.56 percent in fiscal year 2024, one of the highest in the nation, according to USDA data.

“Illinois spends more than $4.5 billion a year on SNAP,” Syverson said. “When over 10 percent of those payments are being issued incorrectly, that’s tens of millions of taxpayer dollars essentially being wasted. It’s unacceptable for state leaders to act like this isn’t a problem.”

State Senator Dave Syverson is calling for increased transparency and urging the Administration to take immediate action to fix the errors and stop the fraud and abuse in the SNAP program.