Moved by the plight of students ousted from a West Side home for the disabled, Gov. George Ryan on Monday rescinded a decision made during a budget cutting frenzy to shutter the state-run center.
After reading in the Tribune on Sunday that some students were being transferred to facilities far from their families, the governor changed his decision to close the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education–even though he doesn’t know how he will pay to keep it open.
“I was assured by the department last November that the students could be well-cared for in the Chicago area,” Ryan said in a written statement released late in the day. “I was troubled by what I have now found, and I have directed the Department of Human Services to keep the center open.”
Ryan also ordered the director of that agency to get in touch with Lorne Mackey, a 21-year-old student featured in the Tribune story, and to find “an appropriate Chicago-area facility of their choice” for him. That could include a return to ICRE, state officials said.
Those who have been working to keep ICRE open since Ryan’s announcement in November welcomed the decision.
“I know that the families of [ICRE] residents and the employees who are so dedicated to them are going to be thrilled,” said Roberta Lynch, deputy director of the local branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, which represents workers at the facility and filed a lawsuit against Ryan and the Department of Human Services (DHS) to keep the center open.
“On the other hand, we wish that DHS had not provided misleading information from the outset, because there have been so many months of trauma here, in which many of these students have been heartbroken,” Lynch said.
Juanita Robinson, the only mother Mackey has known since he was 3 years old, was relieved Monday by a phone call she received from human services officials. “I feel much better today than I did on Friday,” she said. “I am so happy now that I know he’ll be coming back.”
At least three other students moved out of the center in recent weeks will also be given the option of returning, officials said.
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The reversal comes two months after Ryan ordered the closure of ICRE, home to some 50 disabled students who live and attend education programs at the center. Facing a budget shortfall of nearly $500 million, Ryan cut deeply into the state’s human services budget, reducing payments to state hospitals and closing the West Side home.
Now Ryan says he thinks that is a bad decision, even as the state’s budget picture is worsening. Lawmakers recently declined to give the governor special budget-cutting powers to deal with the current crises, and Ryan said Monday he thinks they’re unlikely to do so when they return to town this week. Meanwhile, his own Bureau of the Budget said the state will probably take in even less money than expected this current fiscal year.
Ryan aides said the governor doesn’t know how he will pay to keep the center open, but that his staff will figure it out in the months and weeks to come. The closure was supposed to save $2.5 million in the current fiscal year and an estimated $6.5 million in next year’s budget.
But that didn’t enter into Ryan’s thinking Monday. Early in the day, he said in an interview on WGN radio that he was seriously rethinking his decision.
`A tough decision’
“I knew when we did it, it was a tough decision,” Ryan said in the morning interview. “But I may change my mind and look at this. I’m going to call the director in today to find out why we’re shipping people from Chicago to southern Illinois. I read the article and said `What is this all about? … Why are we doing this?'”
Late in the afternoon, his staff made it official.
This isn’t the first of his budget cuts that Ryan has rescinded. After announcing devastating cuts in payments to hospitals that serve the poor, Ryan scaled back those reductions by millions of dollars even though he didn’t know at the time how he would pay for it.
2 legislators pleased
Lawmakers who had lobbied against the closure were relieved at news of another change of heart. A few weeks ago, state Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) and state Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago) joined the AFSCME suit.
“I hope that’s the first of many rescissions,” said Yarbrough.
Ronen said the General Assembly ought to help Ryan by offering up its own special pet project funds.
“I think our first responsibility as legislators is to provide funding for necessary and needed state services, and meeting the basic needs of families and communities,” Ronen said. “We have to take care of the basics before we can talk about money discretionary to legislators. Why not cut the pork? I think it’s time we gave that a real close look.”
Reaction was even stronger at the facility.
ICRE student Tony Nichols, 20, threw a fist into the air when he heard that the center he calls home would stay open.
Around him, smiles spread over the faces of other students, whom he calls “his family.” Tears ran down some faces.
“We have voices. We can speak for ourselves, and I’m glad we were heard,” said Nichols, who has lived in the center for two years.
The students said they fought to keep the center open because it brought them educational opportunities they couldn’t get elsewhere. The past few weeks brought them some new lessons in politics.
After hearing the news that the center would be closed, students organized a rally in front of the James R. Thompson Center, chanting and waving signs of protest from their wheelchairs. They passed petitions around the neighborhood. They made television appearances and gave radio interviews. They called state legislators.
`At rock bottom’
So the news Monday felt good.
“We felt like we were at rock bottom,” said student Corey Gowin, 19. “And now, I feel like I just won the lottery.”
Worrying about what would happen to them once the school closed weighed heavily on the students, especially after news that Lorne Mackey had moved to a nursing home.
Gowin and other students viewed the chain of events as a sign of the power of disabled people standing up for themselves.
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“We may not be able to physically stand on our feet,” Gowin said. “But we did it emotionally.”