Fewer beds, smaller jail

But will Albany accept the plan?

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — “If we don’t build a new jail soon, inmates will start suing us.” That’s one of the things lawmaker Kathy Labuda said when describing the inevitability of building a new jail in Sullivan County. The county has been working with the New York State Commission of Corrections (COC) in Albany for the past four years to come up with a plan for the jail. The current jail, at about 100 years of age, is the oldest in the state and is rapidly deteriorating.

The COC wanted the county to build a new facility with 450 beds. In 2007, the existing jail, which has 202 beds, had an average daily population of 196 inmates. A 450-bed prison would see to the county’s incarceration needs well into the future. The problem with that large a facility, however, is that it would come with a price tag of over $100 million, a figure that lawmakers say the county simply can’t afford. On June 19, lawmakers voted to support a new jail with 303 beds, which would cost the county an estimated $78 million.

The only other option to building a new jail is to send most inmates to jails in other counties.

Before lawmakers voted on the 303 bed option, county manager David Fanslau presented an analysis that compared the cost of building the new, smaller jail with the cost of the boarding out option. According to the analysis, starting in 2012, when the new jail would be complete, the cost of housing an inmate would be $206 per day, as compared with boarding out, which would cost $218 per day. The figures take into account the cost of building the jail and servicing the debt.

The analysis further showed the savings would grow every year because of decreasing debt. Therefore, by 2036, the cost of boarding out an inmate would be $366 per day, while the cost of housing an inmate in the new jail would be $177 per day.

Officials at COC have to sign off on the 303-bed proposal before it can be built. County officials are hopeful that the state will approve the plan, because the 450-bed solution was arrived at when casinos seemed likely to come to the county. With casinos off the table, virtually all county lawmakers agree that the smaller jail will meet the county’s needs.

John Caher, the director of public information for the Division of Criminal Justice Services, said that COC needs to see a basic plan for the jail before it begins to consider whether it would accept the proposal. He also said, “We realize that operating a county jail is an expensive and even burdensome proposition; we’ll be happy to look at anything they send us.”

Before that happens, however, the county has to select a final site, which has been narrowed down to two choices: one off Route 17 at exit 104 and another on Route 17B near Hamilton Avenue. Both sites are in the Town of Thompson.

Even if COC accepts the smaller size, the county is still going to have a hard time paying for the jail without raising property taxes. Along with the jail, there are new costs associated with the landfill, whether or not a new one is built, and the county wants to move forward with other projects, such as the agriculture-industrial park in Liberty and the green technology park at Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake.