(Radio Iowa) – A house at the Glenwood Resource Center has been closed and the head of the state agency that oversees the facility says other units are being consolidated, to better manage staffing levels. The facility that cares for patients with intellectual disabilities is Glenwood’s largest employer. Department of Human Resources director Kelly Garcia says her agency got extra money a year ago to hire more staff.

Eight patients were in the housing unit that closed. Garcia says one transitioned to the community and the other seven were transferred to Woodward Resource Center, the other state-run facility that cares for patients with intellectual disabilities.

In December, U.S. Justice Department announced its investigation of Glenwood concluded the constitutional rights of patients had been violated by their forced participation in deviant human experiments. Garcia took over as D-H-S director in late 2019 and three weeks later the state was notified of the federal investigation into operations at Glenwood.

A consent decree in this case would be an agreement between the State of Iowa and the federal government. The U.S. Justice Department investigation, released December 20th, found reasonable cause that Glenwood residents had been subjected to unreasonable harm. The department’s Civil Rights Division indicated it had given state officials a list of steps necessary to address what it had uncovered at Glenwood.