In a second piece of unflattering news released on the Friday afternoon before Christmas, the Colorado Department of Human Services said Friday it must invoke the same “special circumstances” it used six months ago for failing to meet the requirements of a 2012 court order.

cited In June the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo said it was overwhelmed by the courts’ requests of competency hearings.

“The number of people that courts are referring to CMHIP is outpacing our capacity at a rate that shows no signs of slowing,” Robert Werthwein, director of the Colorado Office of Behavioral Health, which oversees the hospital, said in a statement Friday. “The department is enacting a multi-faceted strategy to address this issue, but no efforts by CDHS alone can curb the inflow of court orders to the degree that is required.”

The advocacy organization Disability Law Colorado won a concession from DHS five years ago, when the court said those sent to the state hospital must receive a mental health evaluation or treatment within 28 days. DHS said Friday that the average wait for a competency evaluation is 38.9 days.

The 2012 settlement allows the hospital to invoke circumstances beyond its control “due to the unique and often unforeseen nature of these events.”

The exception cited Friday gives the hospital a six-month exemption from the court settlement’s requirements, the same exemption the state invoked six months ago.

The competency evaluation determines if defendant is mentally competent to participate in his or her defense. That could be followed by mental health treatment to restore competency before trial.

The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee provided DHS with emergency money in September, which DHS is using to hire vendor to provide outpatient competency restoration services. DHS hopes to have that program up and running by May. The hospital is using contractors on a case-by-case basis until then.

DHS said it’s hoping lawmakers address several funding issues at the hospital during the next legislative session.

Shortly before announcing the problems with competency evaluations at the hospital Friday, DHS announced that an employee there in November had fallen for a phishing scam that potentially exposed the personal data of 650 employees.