New Hampshire lawmakers last week agreed to put $20 million to fund settlements for people abused at the state-run youth detention center, out of the $55 million that was originally requested.
There are about 1,700 unresolved cases brought by people who say they suffered abuse while held at the former Youth Development Center. So far, around 400 victims have received settlements since the fund was established in 2022 by state lawmakers.
The request for $55 million came from the new administrator of the state’s youth detention center settlement fund: retired circuit court judge Gerard Boyle.
It’s the first major challenge for Boyle, who began his role in May. His job is to help survivors reach financial settlements with the state. Boyle spoke with NHPR’s Rick Ganley. Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Listen to NHPR's podcast, The Youth Development Center
You're almost two months into your new position as the administrator of the state's YDC settlement fund. What are your top priorities?
Right now, we're just getting to look at all the policies and procedures that have been in place in the past. Looking to see how we can streamline those and make a few changes. And we're going to begin our hearings the second week of August. So we're getting the team back together and perhaps bringing on some new folks to the team as well.
You've been a lawyer and a judge, both for decades. I know you represented kids who were sent to YDC. And as a judge, you sent kids there, and you visited them at the facility. How does that background experience inform your new role?
When I had my private law practice, I probably had about a half a dozen of the juveniles I represented sent down to YDC over a 20 year period of time. I obviously went down and visited the juveniles while they were there, and then I was with that juvenile several times a year while they were having review hearings in court. As a judge, I probably only sent about six juveniles to YDC.
Every juvenile that I sent to YDC, I went down and had either breakfast or lunch with them. I sat there at a table of eight in the dining hall, and it was myself and the juvenile I'd sent down there, and six juveniles sent down there by other judges, and we'd have a conversation about anything and everything for over an hour. Not once did I hear from anybody that I represented as an attorney, or anybody I had sent down there as a judge, that there was anything inappropriate going on at YDC. So when all of this broke about four or five years ago. I was absolutely shocked.
But then as I started to dig into it further, I learned that most of these were not from the Sununu Center. The Sununu Center was developed in, I believe, 2006, a state-of-the-art facility and had cameras everywhere and recording equipment and a lot of staff. But most of the claims that we have before the commission are prior to that. They were from a prior configuration and prior staff members. And so it was a completely different facility then. It was run differently. A whole different procedure from what it is today.
And I have since then, of course, started to dig into some of these files as we're getting ready for hearings. And frankly, the abuse that I have discovered is absolutely horrendous.
This isn't a job that you were pursuing. I know you were tapped by the governor.
Not at all.
Well, I want to ask you though, there's been lots of controversy and friction among lawmakers to keep this fund going. Not that there hasn't been impetus from lawmakers to do this, but how are you approaching the politics of what you need to do in this role?
Well, I have met with the chairman of the Fiscal Committee, state Rep. [Ken] Weyler, [and] had a great meeting with him for a couple of hours a couple of weeks ago. And tomorrow I'll be meeting with the head of the Senate Finance Committee. I believe that what I need to do as an administrator here is make sure that the people that are funding this procedure are fully informed and are fully on board with what we're doing. So I'm going to go out of my way to make sure that these people have all the information that I have, that they are fully informed about the types of cases that we have, about the monies that we have that are available, and how we go about issuing an award.
You know, you began by saying that I had asked for $55 million to get the program up and running again, and that would take us through the end, I believe, of fiscal year 2027. The Legislature was only able to come up with $20 million, and I fully understand that. They've given me $20 million of money that the state, frankly, doesn't have. But they were also very clear that I could come back and go before them again. Perhaps I will do that in September to renew my request for the additional funding.
Well, how confident are you that you can get the rest of that money?
I'm very confident. I had a very good hearing, I think, last Friday with the members of the Joint House and Senate Fiscal Committee. They were all very upbeat. They were all very concerned about moving the process forward. They're very committed to the process. There's no doubt in my mind they'll come up with the funds.
And indeed, the Legislature set this fund up originally because the idea was to save the state money in case all these independent cases went to trial. Right?
Well, that's correct. You know, we've only had one case that has gone to trial so far, and that was a case where a jury of our peers decided that the claimant in that case was entitled to $38 million. Right now, we have about 1,700 cases that are pending. If each of them came back with a $38 million award, it would be a devastating financial impact to the state. The legislators understand all of that.
And one of the things you're looking to add is this mediation process that would take place before settlement hearings. What are the kinds of issues that you're seeing with that?
I am. We're looking to begin that probably in the late fall. I want to begin the hearings first, and I want people to understand where I'm coming from with the hearings and decisions, and that will lay a better framework for people to take into mediation. But I'd like to set up a mediation process where the claimants and their attorneys can meet with a representative from the Attorney General's office, and they can sit down with an experienced and skilled mediator and see if they can come to a resolution of their case.
You know, as a judge, I would sit every week on civil cases, and I would always tell the litigants that I'd strongly encourage mediation, because with a mediation, everybody comes out a winner. Everybody gives a little. Everybody takes a little. But if I have to make the decision as a judge in the courtroom, one of the parties is going to leave very excited. The other party is going to leave the courthouse very disappointed.
One of the things that you've been trying to do as well is reduce administration costs.
I have looked at the structure of the administrator's office and restructured that. And I am looking at the contracts that have been in effect for the last few years for some of the people who have been providing us services, and I'm looking to streamline those things significantly.
When you say significantly, how much savings would that afford the state?
I am looking at somewhere in the vicinity of one half of what has been spent on administrative costs so far.
What do you want the almost 1,700 people who are going through the settlement process right now to know?
I want them to know that the process is up and running again, that we are going to begin hearing these cases generally in the order in which their claims were filed and complete. There will be some exceptions to that. Some people may be seriously ill, or some people may be elderly. There may be reasons why a case should move to the head of the pack. But I want them to know that we're on top of it, that we've got a great team that is assembled to hear their claims and to reasonably adjudicate those claims.
Is there a timeline for how long it would take to go through those 1,700 cases?
If you look at the history of the fund, there have been about 450 cases resolved over a period of two and a half years. If we do that, then we're probably talking four or five or six years down the road before we can complete the remaining 1,700. My goal is to complete this within three years, and to do that by moving on with the mediation process, which would be a lot quicker for claimants then having a hearing, but also doing six hearings a week to see if we can't get these things resolved all in the next three years, because the longer it takes, obviously, the longer people are not being compensated for the abuse that they had incurred. And the longer it takes, the greater the administrative costs are to run the fund. So it's in everybody's best interest to get this resolved as quickly as we can.
