MOOSE LAKE - Watching cable TV on a new 50–inch flat screen TV sounds like a comfy setup for anyone, but Minnesota taxpayers might be surprised to learn they footed a hefty bill for that nice set-up for dozens of convicted sex offenders serving time in Moose Lake.  The perks caught the Minnesota governor's attention and action Tuesday.

It's a posh television set most only dream of owning, but up until Tuesday, sex offenders court-ordered to a treatment facility in Moose Lake were enjoying 25 big screen TVs paid for by tax dollars. They were installed at the new building just constructed at the Minnesota Sex Offenders Program, or MSOP.

"This was clearly a bonehead decision," said Governor Pawlenty Tuesday morning outside his residence. Pawlenty found out about the perks from state employees who got the news from a newspaper report. Tuesday, per Pawlenty's orders, staff at MSOP began removing the televisions from the buildings.

Still, the taxpayer money is gone.

The Department of Human Services (DHS) confirms each TV cost $1576 plus $706 for a mounting bracket, totalling $2282 per set. Crews installed five of them per residential unit in the MSOP's new building, which includes five units. That brings the total bill for taxpayers to $57,050. It's money approved in a 2006 bond.

"The governor is reviewing how this happened and believes those involved should be reprimanded at a minimum," said Pawlenty press secretary Alex Carey on the phone in St. Paul.

The DHS argues the televisions were needed for therapy and for staff to study how the sex offenders, or clients, react to what is on television. They said the tv sets allowed guards to more easily keep an eye on more clients who sat in the same area watching the television together.

As for the clients' future viewing, DHS staff said the clients are allowed to own their own televisions in their rooms. They enjoy cable television programming, which DHS said the clients pay for themselves through a social and welfare account they contribute to. Meanwhile, the DHS has been ordered to sell the televisions in order to try to recover the money spent on them.

A spokeperson for the DHS said the department is working with the Department of Administration's surplus program to do that.

MSOP currently serves 250 convicted sex offenders of all levels, who were court– ordered to undergo treatment there. DHS said MSOP is a treatment facility, not a prison, which is why the men at MSOP have more privileges than inmates.