Monday, Nov. 18

 

AFSCME lobbying to reopen
Lincoln Developmental Center

[NOV. 18, 2002]  Members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees will be rallying in Springfield on Tuesday to support a plan to reopen the shuttered Lincoln Developmental Center.

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]

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