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Attorney general describes YDC litigation, settlement fund and DOJ workload as major fiscal items
Summary
Attorney General John Formella told House Finance Division I the YDC civil litigation and criminal investigations remain a significant, ongoing workload for the Department of Justice; the office estimates multi‑million annual litigation costs and said roughly 900 claims and more than 1,300 civil suits have been filed to date.
CONCORD — Attorney General John Formella told House Finance Division I that litigation tied to the Youth Development Center (YDC) and other high‑profile matters is a substantial, ongoing commitment for the Department of Justice.
Formella said the YDC case workload breaks into three streams: civil litigation, criminal investigations and prosecutions, and administration of the YDC settlement fund. He said the department’s ongoing cost to litigate civil YDC cases has ranged roughly from $3 million to $5 million per year, criminal investigative and prosecution costs are on the order of $1 million to $2 million annually, and administrative expenses associated with the settlement fund have ranged from about $1 million to $3 million a year. “I don’t expect that resource burden to go up” beyond recent peaks, Formella said, but added the cases are resource‑intensive and will continue to require sustained attention.
Formella said approximately 900 claims have been filed in the settlement administrator process and that “somewhere between” 1,400 and 1,415 civil suits have been filed in superior court. He emphasized that each case is evaluated individually and that decisions about awards and fee limits must be revisited as the claims portfolio evolves.
Asked about attorney fees and the 33.33% statutory cap on contingency awards, Formella said the cap was originally set as a maximum and that the administrator retains discretion when awarding fees; he acknowledged the need for continued scrutiny and said the cap did not require that every award reach that maximum. He also said the office would watch for any practices that appeared to shift settlement proceeds away from claimants and toward legal fees.
Formella discussed other major DOJ topics for the committee’s budget review. He noted the office’s role as chief prosecutor and chief legal counsel for the state, described an increase in general‑fund appropriations for the department since FY 2019 (driven partly by grants and rent for office moves), and said the office’s workload has grown in areas including election law enforcement, elder‑financial exploitation cases, data privacy enforcement and multistate consumer actions such as PFAS and opioid litigation.
On federal grants and a recent administration memorandum proposing a temporary pause on certain federal funds, Formella said DOJ and other agencies were still assessing how a narrow pause would affect outstanding grants. He described the issue as complex, with legal and programmatic variations across grant awards.
Formella also said the Human Rights Commission remains administratively attached to DOJ for back‑office support but that the commission’s adjudicatory independence was preserved. “That was done to provide administrative support while preserving the commission’s independent decisionmaking,” he said.
Formella told the committee the office will continue to provide requested budget and case‑load details and to coordinate with the legislature and other state agencies on high‑impact, multi‑year matters.
