At the behest of Governor Paul Cellucci himself, State Secretary of Health and Human Services William O'Leary has reportedly reached an informal agreement with advocates to channel millions of dollars into services for mentally retarded adults languishing on lengthy waiting lists.

The settlement flows from a July 14 court ruling, in which US District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock ordered all 2400 mentally retarded adults who are eligible for the federal Medicaid program in Massachusetts to be taken off the state's waiting list and given housing and support services within 90 days. Five families had sued Cellucci, the Department of Mental Retardation (DMR), and other state agencies in March 1999 for denying them assistance (for decades, in some cases) in violation of the federal Medicaid Act.

Despite Woodlock's much-touted decision, however, the Cellucci administration failed, over and over, to put forth a credible alternative with its own timeline.

Neither advocates for the mentally retarded nor state officials are commenting on the current settlement, except to confirm that it's in the works. "We made an agreement to maintain confidentiality during talks," says Leo Sarkissian, who heads the advocacy group ARC Massachusetts. Attorneys, he says, are scheduled to meet throughout this week. The pending deal is expected to devote as much as $114 million over the next five years - nearly $23 million each year - to eliminating the DMR waiting list.

This latest development comes after a flood of sharp criticism surrounding the Cellucci administration's handling of the case - and not one, but two stinging rebukes from the bench. Woodlock first denounced the administration for its "bush league" and "outrageous" behavior in March, when he discovered that state officials had tried to strike a deal with the federal government to thwart the plaintiffs' efforts. And then, just last month, Woodlock blasted the administration for its slow response to his July order. "I have no tolerance for the soft language used by the Commonwealth," the judge said at an October 25 hearing. "You've given me all sorts of stuff unrelated to my [timetable] question."

Considering all this, of course, it's hard not to view settlement talks as a last-ditch attempt by the state to save face and avoid defeat. But even so, advocates and thousands of mentally retarded adults have gotten the final word. As Sarkissian says, "This plan will wipe out the whole wait list. On that, we won't compromise."