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That has some lawmakers worried, because the hospital houses the mentally ill and sex offenders and it’s near the Gustavus Adolphus College campus.
The Department of Human Services says there will be two rounds of cuts of department jobs around the state because the department overspent by $15 million.
On July 16, 63 jobs will be cut at the St. Peter facility, 16 at the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center and 14 more spread throughout the state.
Department spokeswoman Patrice Vick said the cuts are being made to make the facilities more efficient. Of the 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, Vick said.
“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.
Last week’s announcement about the layoffs caught employees at the facility by surprise, said Chuck Carlson, a security counselor and AFSCME union representative.
“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.
State Rep. Terry Morrow, DFL-St. Peter, asked, “Why are these cuts focusing on security personnel when upper management seems to be left clean of these cuts?”
State Sen. Kathy Sheran, a DFL-Mankato, who sits on the Health and Human Services budget committee, said, “I think we have to make certain we are not compromising treatment, especially not compromising security of patients, people who work here, (and the) community that hosts the facility for the state.”
Nonetheless, she wants the department to hold off on the job cuts until after they call a public meeting about them.
The second phase of the cuts is expected by early fall and would include food services employees.
AFSCME Minnesota’s executive director, Eliot Seide, was critical of the announcement. He’s expecting most the cuts to be security workers.
“Our members who work in these very dangerous settings are the people who keep us safe,” he 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.”
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Friday.
