Sen. Linda Berglin: TVs the tiniest of ills at Moose Lake

Mike Kaszuba, Star Tribune

The new sex offender facility in Moose Lake, Minn.: Other states have figured out ways to keep the public safe from sex offenders without breaking the bank.

Why doesn't the governor ask about the real runaway costs of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program?

By LINDA BERGLIN

Last update: October 26, 2009 - 11:40 AM

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Last Wednesday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty stepped in front of the media to announce he was yanking big-screen TVs from the new treatment center for sex offenders in Moose Lake. The governor also said he will investigate who made the decision to order the TVs.

The irony here is that the chain of command leads to the governor's own appointees, and the buck should be stopping with the governor himself. However, the real problem is that the governor's media event should not be about TVs, but about the runaway costs of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program.

When Pawlenty took office in 2003 there were about 200 "patients" in this program. There are now 566. That number is expected to nearly double in the next seven years. Each one of these "patients" cost taxpayers $134,000 a year.

The problem is that the sex offenders who are committed to this program are supposed to receive treatment and eventually be returned to society. So far, over half a billion dollars has been spent and no one has ever been released. The only way anyone has ever gotten out is to die. This fact produces an ever larger group of inmates who are technically classified as "patients."

While perhaps appropriate, removing the TVs does nothing to address the ongoing runaway costs. We are left with a program that is too expensive. It is growing more costly every year. It is unsustainable. However, the governor and his administration have not proposed effective measures to fix the flawed program and bring its skyrocketing costs under control.

The governor's media event should have come last winter when the facility at Moose Lake was not completed on time. Then his administration came to the Legislature saying the construction delays were producing cost overruns in the sex offender program and required $16 million in emergency funds just to keep the program going.

Other states have figured out ways to keep the public safe from sex offenders without breaking the bank. The governor should be looking for solutions to reduce the $134,000 cost per patient each year. Removing the TVs may be the right move, but it is more important that he take responsibility and address the program's runaway costs. Taxpayers expect it.

Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, is a member of the Minnesota Senate. She chairs the Health and Human Services Budget Committee.

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