Big-screen TVs damaged in transfer to vets homes

12-10-2009 Minnesota:

The saga of the big-screen TVs that were removed from the Minnesota sex offender program by Gov. Tim Pawlenty is not over.

More than a month after Pawlenty announced that some of the 50-inch, flat-screen TVs would be given to veterans homes across the state, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs reports that eight of the 14 TVs it received were damaged when they arrived. Of the remaining six TVs, four have been installed in veterans homes in Minneapolis and Fergus Falls.

"We are disappointed that the TVs were damaged in the transfer and we are hoping FedEx is able to resolve this matter as quickly as possible," said department spokeswoman Sarah Graves.

TVs INSURED: Graves said that the TVs were delivered in mid-November and that the state had insured the shipments. "The department has filed the necessary paperwork with FedEx," she added.

The governor ordered the TVs removed from the state's sex offender program in Moose Lake after the Star Tribune reported that the program had bought two dozen large-screen TVs, even though 90 percent of the program's patients had TVs in their rooms. According to state records, the TVs cost $1,576 each and state officials used brackets that cost another $706 apiece to mount the TVs in common areas at a new $45 million treatment facility that opened in July. ..Source..