Lawmakers grill Department of Corrections after audit shows dozens of
failures
[April 15, 2026]
By Ben Szalinski and Maggie Dougherty
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers are fed up with the state Department of
Corrections after another audit found the it has ignored state spending
rules and failed to fix many mistakes that have languished for years.
The Legislative Audit Commission, a bipartisan commission of state
lawmakers that reviews audits of state agencies, demanded answers from
Corrections Director LaToya Hughes on Tuesday. An audit of her
department in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 that was released in September
revealed 40 shortcomings at the agency, making it one of the worst in
the state.
The department allowed employees to earn overtime hours while working
during paid leave, violated state purchasing rules and failed to
maintain a list of paroled inmates who moved to other state facilities,
according to the audit.
“I don’t know why the two worst-run departments in the state are the
ones that deal with lives of people … We are being fleeced – the
taxpayers,” commission co-chair Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said. “You
are putting people’s lives at risk.”
The audit revealed numerous problems that could cost the state millions
of dollars or jeopardize public safety.
“There is literally nothing that you guys can say that I would believe,”
Rose said. “And honestly, it’s about the safety of people in the state
and the safety of the men and women that work there.”
The commission did not vote to accept the findings of the audit, meaning
the department will have to return to answer more questions from
lawmakers on their progress addressing the problems.
Overtime pay
Auditors took issue with how the department allows employees to earn
overtime. Eighty percent of the employees reviewed by auditors recorded
overtime on the same days they also received paid leave. Employees who
took time off were still coming to work and getting paid for both their
time off and having the hours they worked that day counted as overtime.
“Someone could take 37.5 hours, or 40 hours depending on what their
schedule is, they could take a week’s vacation, they could come in and
work a four-hour shift and that four hours would be paid in overtime
even though they haven’t been in the office?” asked Rep. Amy Elik,
R-Godfrey.
Hughes, who took over the department in 2023 and was confirmed by the
Senate the month after the audit was released, said Elik’s assessment
was correct and blamed the practice on DOC’s union contract.
Auditors wrote in their assessment that the problem has persisted since
2014 despite prior commitments from the department to address the issue.
The Department of Corrections had a $2.1 billion budget in FY24 and
overtime cost the state $150 million.
The department is also behind the times on timekeeping.
“The department at one point in time did attempt to digitize the
timekeeping process,” Hughes said. “They were unable to do so at the
time so that process is still a manual process.”
Purchasing issues
The department has also resorted to more frequently using the state’s
emergency procurement process, according to the audit, which allows it
to circumvent the slower bidding process for contracts and purchases.
The department spent millions on new vehicles through the emergency
process in early 2023. It was not clear why all vehicles were purchased
outside the normal bid process.DOC chief administrator Jared Brunk said
the department’s vendor for vehicles wasn’t able to make an order for
vans through their contract and the department made the decision to buy
them under an emergency designation.
The department also made a $692,640 emergency purchase for sliced bread
in mid-2023, a product typically made by the department itself at
Illinois River Correctional Center in Fulton County.
“Isn’t it foreseeable that you need sliced bread to feed inmates?” Rose
asked.
Brunk said DOC ran into a supply chain issue at the time and decided to
purchase the bread instead.
Public safety
Other revelations in the audit pertained to possible public safety
issues.
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Illinois Department of Corrections Director LaToya Hughes was
confirmed as department director in October and has led it since
2023. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)
Auditors found the department did not have a list of people on parole or
mandatory supervised release who became residents of state facilities
run by the departments of public health, human services or health care
and family services.
More than 15,000 people are in DOC custody on parole or supervised
release and the department is required to notify local police agencies
when a person under those release conditions is living in their
community.
State law requires DOC to supervise sex offenders on mandatory
supervised release and report to police agencies on their compliance
with release conditions. But the department has failed to do so.
In addition, some people in DOC custody were improperly labeled as
violent sexual offenders, despite having not committed such a crime.
Alyssa Williams, assistant DOC director, blamed state’s attorneys and
courts for not providing pushed back
“It’s sort of the ultimate irony that you’re housing people accused of
violating the state law and then you guys are violating the state law,”
Rose said.
Mail scanning update
Corrections staff also provided an update to a legislative oversight
committee on a recently adopted rule that allows the department to scan
and digitize incoming mail and books.
The rule, which faced pushback from families of those in custody and
their advocates, was introduced following a number of illegal substance
exposures in correctional facilities left DOC staff hospitalized.
Critics argued mail scanning would intrude on privacy of those in
custody and deprive them of the comfort that physical mail can provide.
Some also said the department had not done enough to prove that
exposures were coming in via the mail, and the rule would fail to
improve safety for staff and those incarcerated.
On Tuesday, the department released its first data comparing drug
exposures before and after the rule change in a report to the Joint
Committee on Administrative Rules, and critics of mail scanning say the
data confirms their concerns.
That data shows little change in the rate of exposures in the six months
preceding and following the ruling, instead showing an increase in total
drug discoveries from 392 to 414. Discoveries in cells and on people
also increased, with nearly 40 more incidents of in-cell drug
discoveries made.
The report also showed a slight decrease in mail discoveries and five
fewer instances of alleged drug exposures, from 133 in the six months
before the rule change to 128 after.
“The numbers just aren’t there to justify this amount of work and
keeping the actual mail away from the people who are in custody,” Rep.
Dave Vella, D-Rockford, said.
He asked DOC officials to explain the numbers and if they were exploring
other ways drugs were getting into facilities, such as through prison
staff and visitors.
DOC Chief Compliance Officer Michael Crum answered that the newness of
the rule implementation could account for the trend, as contraband
substances could have entered prisons before the rule change and then
been found later.
Crum also said that visitor and staff searches were of “utmost
importance” and said, “it is certainly a multifactored approach, with
mail being just one piece of it.”
To prison reform advocates like the John Howard Association, this is
confirmation that mail is not the primary way contraband enters prisons.
“This underscores what has been clear from the beginning, drugs mostly
enter prisons through people who enter and exit the facilities and until
more is done to crackdown on this the problem will persist,” JHA
Executive Director Jennifer Vollen-Katz said in a statement.
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