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The state’s largest employee union is
asking the General Assembly for $155 million to restore many of the
cuts made last spring in the Department of Human Services, the
Department of Corrections, and the Department of Children and Family
Services.
This includes $15,375,000 to reopen
Lincoln Developmental Center, which Gov. George Ryan closed on Aug.
31.
It also includes $8,777,050 to reopen
Zeller Mental Health Center in Peoria, along with money to restore
cuts to other mental health centers, reopen the Sheridan
Correctional Center and several work camps, and restore cuts in
child welfare programs. The supplemental appropriation would support
each facility for half a fiscal year, until the next budget session.
[LDN file photo]
[Lincoln Developmental Center]
The funding request will be introduced
in both the House and Senate in the legislature’s November veto
session, which starts Tuesday. Gary Hannig, D-Gillespie, is
sponsoring the bill in the House, and Vince Demuzio, D-Carlinville,
is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
So far 75 House members and 17 senators
have signed on as co-sponsors, according to a press release from
AFSCME Council 31.
Although the state is facing at least a
$2 billion deficit next year and Gov. Ryan is asking for deeper cuts
in programs, AFSCME representative Anne Irving said the money to
restore state services can come from general obligation bonds. The
legislature has the authority to appropriate up to $750 million in
bonds, much less than AFSCME is asking for, but the governor has not
chosen to use the state’s bonding power, she said.
AFSCME Local 425, which represented
most former LDC workers, will be taking a busload of demonstrators
to Springfield, local president Don Todd said Friday. Todd believes
there is a real prospect of LDC reopening.
"All indications are that
Governor-elect Blagojevich is committed to reopening LDC. Council 31
staff has talked to him and says he is putting a team together to
formulate plans to reopen it."
Getting residents and employees back
would not be a big issue, according to Todd, who said he talks to
parents every day who want their sons and daughters to return. "I
talked to one mother this morning who is ready to bring her son back
right now.
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"Some former residents in
community-based homes want to come back, too, and some in state
facilities want to return, if for no other reason, because of the
distance between themselves and their parents and loved ones," he
added. He said there are also clients on waiting lists at other
facilities.
Plenty of former LDC employees are
ready to come back to work, he said. "Some former employees are
working in other facilities, driving 100 miles a day. They are just
waiting to return to LDC."
Todd said the main issue is getting the
physical plant at LDC back in shape. "The Department of Human
Services literally gutted it," he said. "It’s boarded up, and they
ripped out all the kitchen equipment."
DHS held an auction in mid-October to
sell "surplus property" — all equipment left at LDC after other
state facilities for the developmentally disabled were allowed to
come in and take away whatever they could use.
Todd said he believed LDC has a good
chance of reopening also because its 80-acre campus is still empty.
The 63-acre Zeller Mental Health Center in Peoria is slated to be
taken over by East Peoria-based Illinois Central College. The
community college has been looking for a satellite campus in Peoria,
officials said.
The 80-acre LDC campus is empty because
it is still in the process of transition from DHS to Central
Management Services, according to Jodi Schrage of CMS.
"It will take a few more weeks to get
the transition complete," she said Friday. "Because LDC is 125 years
old, title searches and other legalities are taking longer than
usual."
The procedure for disposing of "surplus
property" such as LDC or Zeller is first to ask if a state agency
wants to use it, then determine the fair market value and offer to
sell or lease it to other governmental units. In the case of LDC,
that could be the city of Lincoln, Logan County or even Heartland
Community College.
If these public agencies turn it down,
it could be offered for sale to the private sector, Schrage said.
Because a
new governor will be taking office in January, he might have other
plans for the facility, she said. "I can’t speak for what he would
want to do."
[Joan Crabb] |
