Proposed layoffs at treatment center surprise staff

Dan Nienaber
Free Press Staff Writer

ST PETER July 04, 2008 01:23 am

— St. Peter Regional Treatment Center employees are bracing for layoffs expected to significantly reduce the number of security staff working where people who are sex offenders or mentally ill and dangerous are confined.
An announcement about the layoffs a week ago caught employees at the facility by surprise, said Chuck Carlson, a security counselor and AFSCME union representative. A total of 53 full-time equivalent jobs, impacting 63 full-time and part-time employees, are scheduled to be cut by July 16, which is the date the Minnesota Department of Human Services plans to send out layoff letters to those employees.
There are 1,069 full-time equivalent jobs at the Minnesota Security Hospital and Minnesota Sex Offender Program facilities in St. Peter. The facilities have 501 inmates.
All but 12 of the employees who will be laid off are in the AFSCME union. Beyond setting a date, the department has been vague about exactly where the cuts will be made, Carlson said.
“I don’t know how it’s going to impact us because that’s a secret, and they’re not going to tell us until they absolutely have to,” he said. “If we had more time, we could have a more coherent plan of how to deal with this. As far as I know now, this could be 51 security counselors or it could be part security counselors, part janitors and part other staff.
Patrice Vick, Department of Human Services spokeswoman, said the cuts are being made to make the Regional Treatment Center facilities more efficient. Of the 60 jobs being eliminated in St. Peter, 28 of the employees are assigned to a unit that has been vacated. Other security measures, such as fences and video monitoring, have made the Minnesota Sex Offender Program facility more secure and reduced the need for staffing.
“Like any organization, we need to constantly consider ways to be more efficient and effective and bring better value to resources available to us,” Vick said.
Carlson said the cuts aren’t just a blow to the workers.
“This does more than affect the 51 employees, it also affects their families. They are people who thought they had a secure job. They bought cars, they bought houses, they moved to St. Peter and Mankato. Now they found out, ‘Sorry, there’s a budget deficit, and the way we’re going to fix it is by putting you on the street.’”
Cuts raise concerns
Department officials have told state Sen. Kathy Sheran of Mankato and state Rep. Terry Morrow of St. Peter the staff reductions have been triggered by $15 million in overspending. The legislators said this is the first they’ve heard about the department’s budget problem because it wasn’t addressed during the latest legislative session.
They found out about the proposed layoffs late Monday. Both Morrow and Sheran said their primary concerns are the security and safety of employees, patients and the public, and the overall effect the loss of jobs will have on St. Peter and Mankato.
“I didn’t even know there was $15 million of overspending,” Morrow said. “It would have been good to know there was a problem before we were handed the solution. I certainly hope the Department of Human Services will work with us so any questions regarding public safety can be answered, and we can learn how the department got itself into this situation.”
The legislators also sent a letter to Department of Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman Thursday asking him to address several concerns related to the department’s overspending, security decisions at the facilities and employee relations. Morrow said Ludeman was not at his office Thursday and he didn’t know if the commissioner planned to respond.
More cuts coming
A total of 111 positions are being cut statewide, including additional layoffs at the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center. A total of 2.5 full-time equivalent jobs also are being eliminated from Mankato’s Crisis Center, a 10-bed short-term facility.
The total cost savings for the state through the proposed cuts is estimated to be nearly $4.3 million, well short of the $15 million cited by Morrow and Sheran.
In his memorandum to human services employees, Mike Tessneer, State Operated Services chief executive officer, said another round of layoffs will be coming in September. Those job cuts will include food services and support employees at both the Minnesota State Hospital in St. Peter and the facility in Anoka, Tessneer said.
The announcement drew harsh criticism from AFSCME Minnesota’s executive director, Eliot Seide. He’s expecting most the cuts to be security staff. Administrators should have consulted with employees before making what are expected to be sweeping changes in facilities that house some of the state’s most dangerous people, Seide said.
A new facility, which will serve as a forensic nursing home, is being built on the Regional Treatment Center campus and is scheduled to open in spring 2009. If the layoffs were considered part of a restructuring, union members would have priority to be trained for jobs there, he said. Because the layoffs are taking place to address budget cuts, those assurances don’t exist.
“Our members who work in these very dangerous settings are the people who keep us safe,” Seide said. “We think workers who keep the public safe shouldn’t be disposable and treated like trash. We all want efficiency, but the front-line people are the ones to talk to for that. Not some bureaucrat in St. Paul.”

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