SPRINGFIELD – Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza toured the Wells Center in Jacksonville Monday, a crucial addiction treatment center serving Central Illinois and suffering from three years without a state budget.
Over the years as the state has paid Wells less and late, the center had to shut its detox unit and end most of its contracts with state prisons, Executive Director Bruce Carter said. It is still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars various state agencies have not turned over to The Comptroller’s Office.
In her three months in office, Comptroller Mendoza has tried hard to help Wells and the other over-stressed social service agencies whose clients have become political pawns in Gov. Rauner’s failure to introduce a budget. Just last week, the Comptroller forwarded $131,000 in past-due payments to the Center. Only a fraction of that was new money for the center as a large share of that the center had already gotten advances on through the state’s Vendor Assistance Program.
So Thursday, the non-profit’s board voted to end the 49-year-old organization, Carter explained. They have been talking with an agency they hope will take over operations. The Comptroller's office will continue working with them to help keep the center functioning until a successor agency can take over, so that services can continue as seamlessly as possible to clients of the Wells Center.
The Wells Center could be the first of many dominos to fall, said Sara Moscato Howe, CEO of the Illinois Association of Behavioral Health, who joined Mendoza and Carter for the tour. She explained many other social service agencies, like Wells, have maxed out their lines of credit during these years without a balanced budget or adequate funding for social services. Every $1 invested in addiction treatment actually saves $7 on juvenile state services and $14 for adult incarcerations, Howe noted.
Governor Rauner needs to fulfill his constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget that the General Assembly can then act on, bringing relief to the state’s beleaguered social service agencies.
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