Murray Center closure delayed

The fate of Murray Developmental Center in Centralia may not be decided until 2014, thanks to a recent court decision that forced the Quinn administration to delay the facility’s closure.

The state had been planning to close Murray Center – home to men and women with developmental disabilities – on Nov. 30. But in October, a U.S. District Court judge sided with the Murray Parents Association, allowing a lawsuit to move forward and preventing the state from moving forward with its plans.

The lawsuit – which AFSCME supports – claims the state’s plan for closing the facility and moving residents into community-based care is inadequate.

That claim was bolstered recently when Stewart Freeman, the state guardian responsible for wards of the state who reside at Murray Center, published an affidavit on the numerous problems he saw at community-based care facilities.

According to news reports, Freeman found the facilities suffered from “inadequate security, inadequate staffing with long day and hour shifts, lack of staffing experience, lack of supplies and home supports such as fire proofing, padding, and bedding, unsafe conditions such as exposed hazards, lack of knowledge as to client care, low pay, little training and little to no decoration or personalization for the residents.”

Despite this and its losses in court, the state has maintained that it still plans to close the center as part of a “rebalancing plan” that has already resulted in the closure of other facilities in Jacksonville and Tinley Park.

A trial that could decide the ultimate fate of the facility and its residents has been postponed until January 2014.

Since June, the state has been under a temporary restraining order that forbids it from moving residents out of Murray Center without the permission of a guardian.