Pritzker administration to lay off workers, reduce operations at downstate Choate facility

Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration is significantly reducing staffing at a long-troubled downstate center for people with mental health issues and developmental disabilities, state and union officials said Thursday.

A statement from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents employees at the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna, said the state plans to let go “some 250 employees” and end most operations at the facility.

A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services did not confirm the number of employees who will be laid off but said operations at Choate “will be reduced.”

The Choate facility is about 20 miles south of Carbondale. As of July 1, the facility had about 523 staff, according to the state, 468 of whom were represented by AFSCME.

The moves follow Pritzker in 2023 announcing he planned to repurpose Choate while expanding opportunities for residents to move into smaller group homes in the wake of repeated reports that many Choate residents were abused, neglected and otherwise mistreated. The alleged maltreatment was documented in stories by the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica, Lee Enterprises and Capitol News Illinois.

The announcements Thursday appeared to be a culmination of the administration’s plans, though advocates for workers still expressed disappointment and surprise that layoffs would come shortly after the state enacted what was billed as largely a maintenance budget.

“This decision aligns with the state’s commitment to reducing institutionalization across Illinois, enabling individuals to live in the least restrictive environment of their choice,” a spokesperson for the department said.

Since 2023, the department “has been steadily reducing available beds for individuals with developmental disabilities,” according to the statement from AFSCME, which is objecting to the layoffs.

“Unfortunately, the department chose to forge ahead with a plan which will weaken services for the most vulnerable mentally ill individuals and upend the lives of hundreds of Choate employees and their families,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said.

The Pritzker administration assured AFSCME that the budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 would not include layoffs, Lynch added.

The Tribune has previously reported that many people in state-operated developmental centers who have sought less restrictive homes, such as a placement in a smaller group home, have languished on waiting lists. Illinois has a troubled track record of transitioning residents to group homes, and supply remains low.

More than three years after the governor’s 2023 announcement, the population across the state’s seven state-operated developmental centers has been reduced from 1,639 to 1,413, the IDHS spokesperson said.

At Choate specifically, there were just under 200 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in March 2023, according to IDHS. As of Thursday, that number was down to 16, the agency said. A block of 75 beds for behavioral health patients will be phased down in March, and a 40-bed forensic unit will remain, the department said.

“This is a devastating blow to Southern Illinois. The state’s decision will cost our region hundreds of jobs, uproot vulnerable patients, and create chaos for families and employees who deserve far better than this,” Republican state Sen. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro said in a statement.

The question of how to deal with the facility has long been a lightning rod for the state, the employee union and residents and their advocates, many of whom have pushed for residents to transition to less restrictive living arrangements.

Equip for Equality, a federally mandated independent organization helping oversee the governor’s plan, said in a midpoint assessment report in 2025 that Choate residents who are supposed to be transitioning to more homelike settings were waiting too long to be moved or that Illinois officials are sending those residents to other large, state-run facilities.

An investigation in 2022 by ProPublica, Capitol News Illinois and Lee Enterprises found that Illinois State Police had launched at least 40 criminal probes over the past decade into alleged employee misconduct at the Choate facility.

Employees there have been charged criminally more than a dozen times over the years on allegations that include everything from beating up residents to forcing a resident to drink a cup of hot sauce. Workers have also been cited for not reporting abuse, obstructing investigations and lying to state police.

The governor’s plan called for “new safety enhancements” at not only Choate, but across all other state-run developmental centers, among other provisions.

“The transformation at Choate moves Illinois in closer alignment with nationwide, research-informed best practices, advances the state’s commitment to equity and the civil rights of people with disabilities,” Pritzker’s office said in a 2023 statement. “It also reflects the state’s legal duty to ensure residents with disabilities have a full opportunity to live in the least restrictive environment of their choosing.”

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