State to lay off hundreds at troubled southern Illinois mental health
facility
[July 25, 2026]
By Jackson Brandhorst and Saluki Local Reporting Lab
ANNA — The Illinois Department of Human Services announced Thursday that
the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna will lay off
staff and undergo several operational changes in the coming months,
including the elimination of the state-run facility’s entire general
residential program for people with intellectual and developmental
disabilities.
According to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees — the union that represents the majority of Choate staff —
IDHS said it intends to lay off about 250 of the facility’s more than
500 employees over the coming months.
In a letter to Choate staff, IDHS said that the changes are a result of
the “success” of the state’s three-year plan, which aimed to repurpose
the facility over three years in partnership with the Southern Illinois
University School of Medicine.
According to the letter, IDHS plans to cease operations for the
intellectual and developmental disabilities general units by Sept. 30.
The department will also “phase down” 75 civil mental health beds at
Choate while adding beds to the Madden Mental Health Center in Chicago.
This phase-down, says IDHS, which is planned to be completed by March
2027, is because the “need for mental health beds is greater in northern
Illinois.”
In its letter, IDHS did not specify how many employees would face
layoffs as a result of these reductions, but acknowledged that layoffs
will occur.
“We will work with our labor partners to support employees,” the IDHS
letter states. “This includes working closely with directly impacted
staff who may be subject to the contractual layoff process.”
Choate currently serves 58 patients — 16 of whom are in the intellectual
and developmental disabilities unit — and employs roughly 524 people
across its campus. Of those employees, 468 are represented by AFSCME
Council 31.
AFSCME responded to the announcement in a news release with comments
from Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch, who said that IDHS
should have consulted with the union to develop a more rational plan
that would be more fair to Choate’s employees and the individuals in
their care.
“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,”
Lynch said.
Choate’s 40-bed forensic developmental disabilities unit will continue
operations, as will the other IDHS administrative offices on the Choate
campus.
Culture of cruelty
The IDHS decision to reduce operations at Choate comes after decades of
documented issues at the southern Illinois facility, including resident
abuse, neglect, criminal investigations and repeated failures by
employees and administrators to report or stop misconduct.
A 2022 investigation by Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica found that
residents had been beaten, sexually assaulted, humiliated and
dangerously neglected at Choate for roughly a decade. At least 26
employees have been arrested on felony charges connected to their work
at the facility while they were entrenched in a “code of silence” in
which workers withheld information, coordinated their accounts or
protected colleagues accused of abuse.
In March 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker announced a three-year “transformation”
plan that would move about 123 residents — roughly half of Choate’s
population at the time — into community placements, family homes or
other state-operated facilities. The state also promised stronger
oversight, additional training, cameras in common areas and a
partnership with the SIU School of Medicine to help determine how
Choate’s remaining programs should operate.
Officials said at the time that the plan was not a closure and did not
include layoffs.
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Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center (File photo by Whitney
Curtis for ProPublica & Capitol News Illinois)
In February 2024, a newly installed security camera recorded an employee
throwing a resident to the floor and punching him. The incident went
unreported for 11 days and was discovered only after an anonymous letter
prompted investigators to review the footage.
Choate’s general developmental disabilities population has since fallen
from 199 residents at the beginning of the transformation to 16. IDHS
now characterizes the elimination of those units and the phaseout of
Choate’s civil mental health beds as the completion of that plan —
though the layoffs mark a departure from the state’s original assurance
that the restructuring would not cost employees their jobs.
AFSCME said the administration assured the union during the recent
legislative session that its proposed fiscal year 2027 budget would not
include layoffs.
“Had we been aware of the planned layoffs, we certainly would have
opposed the budget as introduced,” Lynch said. “The AFSCME collective
bargaining agreement with the State of Illinois includes well-defined
rights for employees slated for layoff and AFSCME intends to ensure that
all such requirements are fully met if the department continues down
this irresponsible path.”
Legislators respond
State Sen. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, called the IDHS decision a
devastating blow to southern Illinois, saying in a news release that it
will cost the region hundreds of jobs, uproot vulnerable patients and
create chaos for families and employees.
“I have consistently advocated for Choate to continue serving our most
vulnerable residents here in Southern Illinois,” Bryant said. “I am
disappointed to see those calls ignored through this announcement. The
people who depend on Choate deserve to be treated as individuals, not
numbers on a spreadsheet.”
Republican state Sen. Paul Jacobs of Pomona also called the decision
devastating, saying in a news release that he is disappointed that
southern Illinoisans are being left to deal with the consequences of a
state decision.
Newly appointed Republican state Rep. Scott Doody, an Anna resident who
represents Illinois’ 118th District, condemned the IDHS decision in a
press release Friday, calling on Pritzker and IDHS to immediately halt
the implementation of these reductions.
“Taxpayers invested tens of millions of dollars to improve Choate’s
facilities, and they have decided to walk away from that investment and
the employees, residents, and families who depend on Choate,” Doody said
in the release.
“After years of promises to transform Choate, the administration’s
answer is now to eliminate services, relocate residents, and lay off
hardworking employees. Southern Illinois deserves better.”
Jackson Brandhorst is a student at Southern Illinois
University Carbondale, and a senior member of the Daily Egyptian,
SIU’s student newspaper. Brandhorst can be reached at jbrandhorst@dailyegyptian.com.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state
government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is
funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation. |
