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The last hope LDC
supporters had, an appeal to Logan County Circuit Court Judge Donald
Behle to block the Department of Human Services from moving the
remaining LDC residents, faded Friday afternoon when Judge Behle
declined to issue a temporary restraining order.
That means DHS can go
ahead with its plan to close the Lincoln facility completely by the
end of this month, as Gov. George Ryan ordered the agency to do last
June.
The issue of funding,
which was cited by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board
when it granted DHS a permit to close the Lincoln facility, came up
again in Judge Behle’s ruling.
Behle said he could
not find “good cause” to grant the stay, because it would require
“the expenditure of funds without appropriation by the government or
legislature, which is in violation of separations of power.”
Also, he said, there
would be a risk to residents who remained at LDC if there was no
money for their care.
DHS attorneys have
argued that, since the legislature appropriated only $5 million to
fund LDC in the current fiscal year, the facility would run out of
money by Aug. 31 and there would be no legal way to pay its bills.
Gov. Ryan cut LDC’s
funding for the current fiscal year (July 1, 2002, to June 30, 2003)
to $11 million in February, down from the previous year’s $35
million, when he announced a plan to keep 100 residents on the
campus. Later, when he announced that LDC would be closed entirely,
the funding was cut to $5 million.
Two area legislators,
state Representatives Jonathan Wright, R-Hartsburg, and Bill
Mitchell, R-Forsythe, filed an amendment to restore the funding to
$27 million, which would have allowed LDC to keep 240 residents, but
the bill failed to get out of the rules committee. Last fall,
before DHS began moving residents, the Lincoln facility had 375
residents and about 700 employees.
Judge Behle’s Friday
ruling also questioned of the success of the legal challenge to the
ruling of the Health Facilities Planning Board, saying he did not
find “a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits” of the
challenge.
Plaintiffs in the
suit, which include the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees and parents of an LDC resident, have declared
the Planning Board’s ruling illegal and are asking the courts to
overturn it. They asked for the temporary restraining order to keep
LDC open while the courts decided the case.
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Robert Seltzer, an
attorney for the plaintiffs, said the appeal of the ruling still
stands, even though the temporary restraining order was not issued.
He said ultimately both sides will file evidence and arguments and
the courts will decide the issue.
“It raises an
interesting question if the courts decide the planning board
shouldn’t have granted the permit, and yet the facility is closed.
I can’t even begin to speculate on that,” he said.
Reginald Marsh,
spokesperson for DHS, said the agency will continue to move
residents as planned. All residents will be out by August 30;
August 31 will be the last day for staff to be present.
He said the moves are
proceeding in an orderly fashion, with all parents and guardians
receiving notice 24 hours before the move of a family member.
“Parents and
guardians know that all residents will be moved by Aug. 30.
Guardians were told in June, and we have held continued
conversations with them since then,” he said.
Marsh said he did not
know of any plans for future use of the facility. “Our main concern
has been to get residents out and in their new homes.”
In the report given
to the Planning Board, DHS indicated that the physical plant would
revert to the jurisdiction of the Illinois Department of Central
Management Services.
Union officials said
Friday they intend to carry the fight for LDC into the political
arena.
“We will be working
to get candidates elected who will restore LDC and bring those
individuals back whose families want them to return to the area,”
said Don Todd, president of AFSCME local 425.
Both gubernatorial
candidates have indicated they would support reopening LDC, if
possible.
“We will also
continue to work to get the truth about LDC told, not the
manipulation of information that has been given out by DHS,” Todd
said. “We would like to see an impartial outside agency investigate
what happened at Lincoln so the truth can come out.”
AFSCME has charged
that the allegations of abuse and neglect that led to LDC’s closure
were overstated and that the facility was “set up to fail” by DHS
officials who wanted it closed. DHS contends that LDC has had a
long history of infractions, which it repeatedly tried to correct
but without success.
[Joan
Crabb]
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