Leading Illinois Republican lawmakers on Friday asked the state Auditor General to probe state oversight failures at a now-shuttered South Side youth facility where foster children were physically and sexually abused.
The move followed an Injustice Watch investigation published Sept. 20 detailing abuses by staffers hired at Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center despite felony convictions, and how state officials tried to backdate documents after the facility was abruptly closed in June.
On Friday, Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, and party senate whip Jil Tracy, R-Quincy, published a four-page resolution asking the state Auditor General to probe the oversight failures by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“It is imperative that we have an independent audit and investigation of this situation outside of the executive branch,” Curran said Friday following an online news conference. “The families of these children deserve answers, and the people of Illinois deserve to know where and how their tax dollars are being used.”
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Abuse allegations went unchecked for years at state-funded center for troubled foster kids
DCFS Director Heidi Mueller declined an interview request, but her spokesperson said in an email the request from lawmakers was “counterproductive” since DCFS is conducting its own internal evaluation.
“DCFS is focused on improving individualized treatment and care for youth with complex behavioral health needs,” Mueller spokeswoman Heather Tarczan wrote. “Any efforts to distract or pull energy and resources away from that mission are counterproductive.”
Republican lawmakers have pushed for public legislative hearings to address the allegations raised in the Injustice Watch report, requests rebuffed by their Democratic counterparts, they said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say Gov. JB Pritzker believes Mueller, appointed in February, inherited the scandal and it would be inappropriate to make her testify publicly on a failure she had no part in overseeing.
Soon after Pritzker took office in 2019, his administration pointed to the Aunt Martha’s center as a model for how Illinois would serve abused foster children with mental health diagnoses.
The 33-bed red-brick facility at 5001 S. Michigan Ave., the first of its kind in Illinois, was touted as a humane haven where judges could house and treat young people scarred by family abandonment and physical or sexual abuse — vulnerable children who needed sanctuary.
The nonprofit Aunt Martha’s Health and Wellness, one of the state’s leading child welfare providers, collected more than $50 million to run the center since 2019 — with millions more in taxpayer money paid to a long-troubled private security company, A-Alert Security Services Inc.
Then state officials quietly shuttered the center in June after separate allegations of sexual assault of youth by an A-Alert guard and an Aunt Martha’s staffer. Both had felony convictions in their backgrounds.
Following the closure, a DCFS veteran tried to persuade center officials to backdate records amid an independent investigation by the agency’s inspector general. State officials first denied any wrongdoing then blamed a rogue employee for his “misstep” made in a “sheer panic.”
DCFS has continued to contract with A-Alert to protect youth at other group homes and residential facilities around Cook County, recent records from the state comptroller show. Since July 1, the agency has paid A-Alert $4.5 million under those arrangements, contract records show.
Mueller and other top DCFS officials signed contract amendments to increase payments to the company in late May and early June, as the Aunt Martha’s center was being closed.
Tarczan said many of the new payments represent old bills only recently submitted by child welfare nonprofits and court officials.
The call for a comprehensive audit was applauded by child welfare advocates including the ACLU of Illinois and Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, whose office represents foster children in court proceedings.
“The children and the public deserve answers,” Golbert said.
“How were convicted felons hired to protect and care for children?” How could anyone think it’s a good idea to backdate protective plans?” he added. “We need to understand exactly what went wrong, how it went wrong, how long the problems persisted, who knew about the problems, what if anything was done to alleviate the problems, and why any such efforts fell short.”
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