State officials were in Saint Peter Friday, promoting Governor Mark Dayton’s 63-million-dollar bonding request to upgrade the Minnesota Security Hospital. Acting Human Services Commissioner Chuck Johnson says about a quarter of the money would remodel three buildings for the Minnesota Sex Offender Program which prepare inmates to leave the facility. Johnson says, “Right now we have 89 beds and they’re full. This proposal would add 50 more beds and some programming space…. We have 28 men already waiting to go into those 50 beds.”
14 million dollars would build assisted-living facilities for those in the Sex Offender Program who can’t live on their own without help. Over two million dollars would go for a new heating and air conditioning system in the building where 730-thousand meals are prepared each year. Johnson says, “Every year you put off that work, not only do the problems get worse, but the cost of fixing them goes up.”
There would also be six million dollars for upgrades at the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center.