Full Text of HR0085

HR0085 LRB104 10243 ECR 20317 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Department of Human Services (DHS), through its Office of the Inspector General (OIG), is responsible for investigating allegations of abuse and neglect that occur in mental health and developmental disability facilities and community agencies licensed, certified, or funded by DHS to provide mental health and developmental disability services operated by DHS; and

WHEREAS, The OIG is essential in assisting agencies and facilities in prevention efforts by investigating all reports of abuse, neglect, and mistreatment in a timely manner to foster humane, competent, respectful, and caring treatment of persons with mental and developmental disabilities; and

WHEREAS, In December 2024, the Office of the Auditor General released a report of the program audit of the OIG and DHS that covered FY21 through FY23; and

WHEREAS, The audit found significant problems with the quality of investigations being conducted by the OIG, causing misconduct allegations within DHS to increase and OIG to become slower to investigate complaints; this audit resulted in 12 recommendations, including improving the timeliness of investigation completion, involving interview procedure and supervisory review, determining the OIG must fulfill statutory requirements to appoint members to the Quality Care Board, and declaring the OIG and DHS should work together to identify and mitigate the bottlenecks in the hiring process and address pay structure imbalances; and

WHEREAS, The timeliness of case file reviews has worsened since the FY20 audit; during FY20, it took the OIG on average 41 days to complete a supervisory review of substantiated cases; during this audit period, the average number of calendar days to review substantiated cases for FY21 was 71 days, for FY22 was 66 days, and for FY23 was 86 days; case investigations took an average of 205 calendar days to complete during FY23 compared to an average of 180 calendar days during FY20; and

WHEREAS, The Quality Care Board (the Board) is required to monitor and oversee the operations, policies, and procedures of OIG to ensure the prompt and thorough investigation of allegations of neglect and abuse; the Department of Human Services Act requires the Board to be composed of seven members appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and two members are required to be a person with a disability or a parent of a person with a disability; and

WHEREAS, The OIG continues to show improvement in meeting the statutorily required Board membership; for example, in FY20, the Board had five members compared to having four members in FY17; as of September 10, 2024, the Board's website showed that there were seven members on the Board, meeting statutory requirements, but three members were serving on expired terms; and

WHEREAS, During the audit period of FY21 through FY23, the OIG requested to hire for 38 positions; 17 positions had been filled as of August 17, 2023, and 21 were still vacant; once position requests were posted, two positions were filled within three months, ten positions took between four and six months to fill, and five positions took between seven and 12 months to fill after the hiring request was made; and

WHEREAS, The OIG has struggled to retain and recruit employees to improve their efficiency as employees are overloaded with work and vacancies require employees to take on additional responsibilities; employees are so overwhelmed with responsibilities that the DHS State-operated facilities' 5,024 employees accumulated 1,606,962 hours of overtime during FY23; and

WHEREAS, The OIG officials stated that a lack of investigators worsens timeliness, increases caseloads, and creates detrimental effects on residents and employees; the requirement for completing cases per OIG directives is 60 working days; during the audit period, the OIG completed 42% of cases within 60 working day during FY23; however, there were also 858 cases during the audit period that took 500 or more days to complete; and

WHEREAS, The OIG cannot effectively carry out its statutory mandate of investigating allegations of abuse and neglect as these issues persist; the lower quality and longer time an investigation is conducted, the more its usefulness is diminished; all of the underlying issues must be effectively addressed to allow the OIG to perform investigations of abuse and neglect and fulfill their obligation which is imperative to ensuring the safety of residents living within State-operated facilities; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Department of Human Services (DHS) to review the audit findings and implement the recommendations listed in a timely and satisfactory manner; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge the OIG to work to improve the timeliness of investigative case completion by identifying the barriers that are preventing timely completion and seeking the appropriate remedies for the issues identified and recommended in the audit; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge the OIG to work with the necessary entities relevant to strengthen its investigation process, including State agencies such as the Illinois State Police, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), and the Department of Public Health (DPH); and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to DHS and the OIG.