By Chris Serres

Minneapolis Star Tribune

The state agency charged with protecting Minnesota’s most vulnerable populations is imposing across-the-board spending restrictions after incurring millions of dollars in unexpected costs related to two high-profile lawsuits.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services, a giant agency with 6,628 employees and a biennial budget of $28.2 billion, is imposing limits on everything from filling vacant positions to out-of-state travel. The belt-tightening became necessary to bring the agency back on fiscal track after it racked up more than $4 million in costs from litigation over the treatment of sex offenders and the alleged abuse of people with disabilities, among other costs.

“It’s never easy to cut back spending, especially in an agency where the work is so critical,” Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson wrote in a Nov. 14 memo to department employees.

The fiscal pinch sets the stage for a debate at the State Capitol this spring over spending priorities at the state’s largest agency, which serves more than 1 million Minnesotans. Already, House and Senate committee chairs who oversee health and human services are girding for a debate over how to absorb millions of dollars in court-ordered costs while sustaining programs for those who are poor, disabled or mentally ill, among other vulnerable populations served by the department.

“Unfortunately, our ineffective response to problems over the past 10 to 12 years is catching up with us,” said Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, chairwoman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Housing Committee. “Now we have no choice but to act.” Lawmakers will have to wrestle with how to pay for the ongoing legal cases before considering further spending increases the agency’s programs or projects, Sheran said.

Litigation costs stand among a series of unexpected expenses that have thrown the department’s budget off track. These include $10 million in improvements to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter, the state’s largest facility for treating those who are mentally ill and dangerous; and a 3 percent salary increase for about 1,800 employees at the central offices in St. Paul.

But it’s the ongoing legal bills associated with two prolonged and complex legal cases that could pose the biggest threat to the agency’s fiscal health. One case stems from the abusive treatment of people with developmental disabilities at a state-licensed home. The other case centers on the constitutionality of indefinitely confining hundreds of sex offenders in state facilities after they have completed their prison terms. As these cases have dragged on in federal court, costs have mounted for attorneys, expert witnesses and fact-finding reports.

The department’s foot-dragging is partly to blame. In 2011, the state reached a sweeping agreement to resolve allegations that staff at a state facility for developmentally disabled people had overused seclusion and restraints, including metal handcuffs and leg hobbles.