The Minnesota Attorney General filed a lawsuit on May 21 against Savers, a Bellevue-based thrift store chain.

The company, known as Value Village in the Pacific Northwest, operates 15 stores in Minnesota under the names Savers, Unique Thrift and Value Thrift.

Two of the company’s top officials are Mercer Island residents.

According to its website, Value Village, a Savers brand, helps more than 120 nonprofit organizations by paying them for donated goods, which supports community programs and services. It operates 340 stores worldwide, with 20,000 employees.

Last November, Attorney General Lori Swanson released a report examining contracts and donations for 2013. She concluded that Savers pocketed more than $1 million that should have gone to charities, accusing it of underpaying some of its nonprofit partners, misleading donors of goods about what’s tax-deductible, and poorly documenting its activities.

The for-profit retailer “seriously misled the public” about the extent to which donations benefit charitable organizations, Swanson said. The lawsuit says Savers sells the donated goods at its stores for a hefty mark-up over what it pays the charities.

“We are disappointed by the decision of the Minnesota Attorney General’s office to take this action because we have made multiple attempts to work collaboratively on a resolution that benefits everyone involved. Since the AG’s office filed its Compliance Report, our company has worked diligently to answer every question that was raised and have begun implementing operational changes to address the AG’s concerns,” Ken Alterman, Savers President and CEO, said in a statement. “Rather than allow these changes to take place and then evaluate their effect, the AG’s office has decided to file this lawsuit and put more than 25 years of positive community impact and millions of dollars in annual charitable funding at risk. The money we pay our charitable partners furthers medical research and supports veterans and their families across Minnesota. We take this mission seriously, and we now have no choice but to vigorously defend our business and we are confident that we will prevail.”

Alterman, an Islander, is Savers CEO. Tom Ellison, also an Islander, is chairman of the board.

Ellison is the son of company founder William Ellison, who opened his first store in Redwood City, Calif., in 1954 under the name Salvage Management Corporation.