The new Ulster County jail has plenty of empty beds; although the number fluctuates, at one point this week only 281 of 426 beds were full. Dutchess County, meanwhile, must “board out” hundreds of inmates each year to comply with a state-mandated population cap at its overburdened jail. So why aren’t Dutchess County inmates being housed in a facility that is one third empty just 22 miles and 40 minutes away?
“I can’t get into the reasons because I can’t speak for the (state) Commission of Correction,” said Ulster County Sheriff Paul VanBlarcum, referring to the state agency that must approve all boarding arrangements between county jails. “But it’s nothing we’re doing wrong.”
In October, the Commission of Correction gave the Ulster County jail the go-ahead to begin accepting inmates from other counties. With the going rate for boarded prisoners running $100 per day, VanBlarcum said the jail – which finally opened in the spring of 2007, three years late and more than $40 million over its initial $51 million price tag – was expected to earn about $110,000 in boarding fees next year. So far, the Ulster jail has sought and received commission approval to house prisoners from Greene, Rockland, Putnam and Suffolk counties. VanBlarcum said he and his counterparts in the Dutchess County Jail have been working on getting approval for a contract between the two facilities but, so far, the commission has declined to grant it.
“We really want to start doing business with Dutchess County,” said VanBlarcum. “We’re actively lobbying to make that happen.”
In Dutchess County, meanwhile, an ongoing deadlock over a proposed expansion of the county jail to ease overcrowding has added increased pressure. The Commission of Correction has demanded the county double the capacity of the current jail with a 300-bed expansion. In a January 2005 party-line vote, the Dutchess legislature’s Republican majority approved a $560,000 bond to design an addition on the jail. But County Executive William Steinhaus vetoed the proposal, citing the high cost of actually building the addition, a price he estimated at $133 million. Two months after the veto, the Commission of Correction revoked a decades-old variance that allowed the jail to operate with 32 more inmates than its mandated maximum capacity of 257 prisoners. Now, nearly three years later, there are still no plans to expand the jail. Dutchess County Corrections Administrator Gary Christensen said the county budgeted $2.5 million for boarding fees in 2007, a figure that does not include fuel, overtime and other costs associated with transporting inmates to out-of-county facilities. Currently Dutchess has commission approval to board inmates at about 10 county jails, including facilities as far away as Warren County, which lies three hours away in the Adirondacks.
Resistance to mandates
Just weeks away from the swearing-in of a new Democratically-controlled legislature, led by some of the most vocal opponents of the 2005 expansion plan, Steinhaus had nothing to say about a permanent solution to the overcrowding issue. In response to an e-mail seeking comments on his stance on the jail-expansion issue, Steinhaus replied through an assistant with an e-mail reading simply “...Under New York State law, elected sheriffs, not county executives, administer county jails.” The e-mail went on to refer questions about the jail to Dutchess County Sheriff Adrian “Butch” Anderson. Anderson, in turn, referred all jail questions to Christensen.
Michael Kelsey, assistant to outgoing Dutchess County Legislature Chairman Gary Cooper (R-Pine Plains) said that he believes the jail issue would have to be tackled in a non-election year like 2008, but doubted it would be high on the agenda of the incoming Democratic majority.
“It’s just not an issue that resonates with voters,” said Kelsey.
Kelsey added that he believes the Commission of Correction was using approval of Ulster County as a substitute jail, like the 32-inmate variance, as a stick to prod county lawmakers into action.
“They see it as trying to propel us to do an expansion,” said Kelsey. “But there’s going to be resistance to another state mandate.”
A statement from the Commission of Correction said simply that the agency would “re-examine” the issue of boarding Dutchess inmates in Ulster County in response to requests from officials in both counties. The statement also referred to the jail expansion controversy, saying Dutchess County and the commission had been unable to reach a “consensus” on the matter. The statement did not give any reason for the apparent delay in the approval process.