The state mental hospital can’t keep up with judges increasingly assigning people there for mental competency evaluations, the Colorado Department of Human Services said Thursday. That means some people might spend more time than necessary locked up.

Under a 2012 court settlement with the advocacy organization Disability Law Colorado, those sent to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo by a judge must receive a mental health evaluation or treatment within 28 days. In October 2015, the Disability Law called out the hospital again for long past-due attention for patients.

When the second suit settled last August, DHS was put under the watch of an independent consultant for at least the next two-and-a-half years.

Thursday, DHS invoked “special circumstances” allowed by the settlement, citing an untenable spike in caseload.

The hospital said the situation has nothing to do with dire staffing shortages at the 449-bed hospital that forced administrators to act fast last week to avoid losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding, about 13 percent of its $91 million budget.

“Rather, the situation is directly attributable to an increase in court-ordered competency evaluation and restoration services that go beyond the hospital’s capacity,” DHS said in a statement.

The agency noted that last August’s settlement “intentionally included a safety valve provision for just this type of circumstance – a situation in which demand has significantly outpaced capacity and is beyond CMHIP’s control.”

Invoking special circumstances suspends the settlement’s requirement until Dec. 23.

Jennifer Brown of the Denver Post, who first reported on DHS’s declaration Thursday, said the increase was attributable to judges becoming more conscious of underlying mental health issues for some defendants, from misdemeanors to capital murder.

Nancy VanDeMark, the state director of behavioral health, told Colorado Politics about the struggle finding an adequate workforce to work at the mental hospital in a strengthening state economy. The hospital will work internally and with the state legislature to find solutions, she said.

In the wake of staffing crisis at the hospital, its superintendent, Ron Hale, resigned. He was hired in 2015.

State Senate Republicans who spoke to reporters and editors from Colorado Politics and the Colorado Springs Gazette Thursday morning volunteered that they’re concerned about the state hospital.

“Right now we’re having some serious leadership problems in getting our hands around these issues on a bipartisan basis,” said Sen. Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs, before Thursday afternoon’s announcement about the hospital being unable to keep up with mental health evaluations.

“I’ve talked to (Sen.) Leroy Garcia, a Democrat down in Pueblo, and he’s just as incensed by some of these things as we are. It’s not just a political divide, but we really, really need to hold some of our executive departments accountable for what they’ve been doing.”