Choate workers’ union files lawsuit to block state from gutting mental
health facility
[September 18, 2026] By
Molly Parker
ANNA — The labor union representing hundreds of employees at Choate
Mental Health and Developmental Center has filed a lawsuit challenging
the state’s planned downsizing of the facility, arguing Gov. JB
Pritzker’s administration failed to follow state laws governing
reductions in healthcare services, the closure of state facilities and
the preservation of psychiatric beds.
The Illinois Department of Human Services announced to staff in late
July that it planned to significantly reduce staffing and beds for
patients with mental illness and developmental disabilities.
As of Aug. 1, Choate had 75 mental health beds and 150 beds for
individuals with developmental disabilities. The state’s plan calls for
eliminating all psychiatric beds and all but 40 beds for individuals
with developmental disabilities. Those 40 beds would be reserved for
forensic patients who are typically admitted through the courts after
being found unfit to stand trial in criminal proceedings.
The state’s planned downsizing would eliminate about half of Choate’s
roughly 500 workers, with most represented by the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees.
AFSCME Council 31 filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Union County Circuit
Court, joined as plaintiffs by Union County State’s Attorney Tyler Tripp
and AFSCME Local 141 President Tina Winfield. The lawsuit names the
state of Illinois, Pritzker, IDHS and IDHS Secretary Dulce Quintero as
defendants.
The lawsuit alleges violations of three state laws and asks a judge to
block the state from moving forward with key portions of the downsizing.
First, AFSCME alleges IDHS violated the Health Facilities Planning Act
by failing to obtain a permit or exemption before eliminating Choate’s
general developmental disability and mental health operations. The union
argues the changes substantially alter the scope and operation of the
facility and reduce its bed capacity enough to trigger the law’s
requirements.
The lawsuit also alleges violations of the Illinois State Facilities
Closure Act. Although the Choate campus would not fully close, AFSCME
argues the law’s mandates are triggered by plans to shutter the
psychiatric hospital and general residential program for people with
developmental disabilities, and that the state has taken no steps to
comply with the closure act.
Finally, AFSCME alleges the state’s plan violates the Mental Health
Inpatient Facility Access Act, passed in 2022 amid a shortage of
publicly funded psychiatric services. The law prohibits further
reductions in state-operated inpatient mental health bed capacity, with
limited exceptions.
The Pritzker administration has said the need for mental health beds is
greater in northern Illinois and plans to phase out Choate’s 75 civil
psychiatric beds by March while adding beds at Madden Mental Health
Center near Chicago.
But AFSCME argues the state has begun moving patients out of Choate
without first adding enough state-operated psychiatric beds elsewhere
and that moving capacity north would severely reduce access to inpatient
psychiatric care in southern Illinois.
The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the state from eliminating
Choate’s psychiatric operation and to require IDHS to maintain 75
inpatient psychiatric beds there until it creates 75 additional beds at
other state-operated mental health centers. It also seeks to block
layoffs tied to the psychiatric closure until those replacement beds are
created.
The union also accuses the administration of abruptly reversing course
after years of assurances about Choate’s future.
In 2023, when the state announced a three-year “transformation” of
Choate, state officials told union representatives the plan did not
include closing the facility or laying off workers, according to the
complaint. In 2024, the state announced an expansion of mental health
services at Choate, and as recently as the budgeting process for the
current fiscal year, DHS officials assured state and union
representatives that the budget did not “contemplate any layoffs,” the
lawsuit alleges.
Then, on July 23, just weeks after the new fiscal year began, the state
announced plans to end Choate’s general developmental disability
operation by Sept. 30 and phase out its mental health operation by
March.
“DHS never explained what had changed and why it reversed course,” the
lawsuit alleges, accusing the state of beginning “an unseemly rush to
transfer residents of the facilities to other placements.”
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Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center employees rally in
downtown Anna in August, protesting the state’s plan to eliminate
all but 40 beds at the facility, and to lay off about half of its
500 workers. (Jackson Brandhorst/Saluki Local Reporting Lab)
“AFSCME members who work at Choate care about the individuals they
support and are committed to the mental health and disability services
they provide,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said
in a statement. “Southern Illinois needs these services, and state laws
exist to protect them. That’s why we’re asking the court to step in.”
Second lawsuit filed challenging the closing
The AFSCME case is the second lawsuit filed since the state announced
the downsizing in July.
Earlier this month, Tripp, the Union County state’s attorney, filed a
separate lawsuit in Union County Circuit Court along with Sheriff David
Wilkins and Justin Emrick, the legal guardian of a Choate resident. That
case was subsequently moved to U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Illinois, where it was moved at the request of the state
defendants.
That earlier lawsuit raises some of the same claims about the loss of
psychiatric beds, but its claims are broader than the AFSCME-led lawsuit
filed this week and also alleges violations of federal law.
The lawsuit alleges that criminal defendants in southern Illinois have
routinely remained in county jails for weeks while awaiting state
psychiatric placements, and that reducing Choate’s capacity would worsen
an already strained system. It seeks a temporary restraining order and
preliminary injunction to prevent the elimination of Choate’s
psychiatric beds and its remaining general developmental disability beds
while the case proceeds.
Among the records attached to the lawsuit is a July letter from IDHS to
a Union County judge demanding placement of a defendant who the state
had determined needed psychiatric care at Choate. That letter asked for
the judge’s patience while the state awaited an opening. The letter said
there were 217 people statewide waiting for admission to the state’s
forensic treatment programs, while another 109 were awaiting evaluations
to determine whether inpatient admission was necessary.
The case also raises federal constitutional and disability-rights claims
and includes an individual challenge brought by Emrick on behalf of his
ward, identified in court filings as J.B., a Choate resident. Emrick
objects to the state’s plan to transfer J.B. to Murray Developmental
Center in Centralia. Emrick said that having to travel farther to visit
J.B. would interfere with his care.
The federal Fourteenth Amendment and Americans with Disabilities Act
claims in the lawsuit allowed the state defendants to move the case from
Union County Circuit Court to federal court.
An IDHS spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending
litigation.
Pritzker has defended the decision to reduce operations at Choate,
pointing to longstanding problems at the facility. In a yearslong
investigation that began in 2022, Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica
documented a culture of abuse and coverup at the facility that had
persisted for years despite numerous calls for reforms. In response,
Pritzker’s administration announced a series of reform plans, though
intended to keep the facility open.
Speaking to reporters in southern Illinois in late August, Pritzker said
he’d hoped to resolve the challenges there but made clear several years
ago that if that didn’t happen “the only option that we really would
have is to stand down on that facility.”
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.
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