After years of cost overruns and construction delays, one of the constant (and last remaining) selling points for the new Ulster County Jail was the new facility’s eventual ability to bring in income by boarding prisoners from elsewhere in it.
So how’s business?
According to Ulster County sheriff Paul Van Blarcum, the bed-and-breakfast part of the Ulster operation started up much slower than anticipated, due to political problems. But now the facility is almost on track.
“As of (May 20) we have 29 boarders,” Van Blarcum reported. “Twenty-seven are from Dutchess and two from Greene County.”
During March and April of this year, statistics obtained through Freedom of Information requests show that there were only between two and five board-ins. Those same statistics show that for four sampled weeks the total number of inmates in the jail ranged from a daily low of 265 to a high of 286, or 71 percent of the 404-bed capacity. The “Optimum Operating Capacity” is listed as 323, or 80 percent of its overall capacity. In the sample week of March 2, the population consists of between 87 and 91 sentenced inmates and 189 to 199 awaiting adjudication.
Even with the added board-ins at the $85-to-$95-per-night range, the current inmate population was 285. The low population and the few board-ins irked Woodstock Democratic county legislator Brian Shapiro. “This is why I never voted a single dime toward construction of the Ulster County Jail. Sometimes it seems like I was the only one not drinking the Kool-Aid,” Shapiro said. “The legislature was promised that boarding would be an ongoing source of income. However, given the $100-million-plus price tag (not including interest we pay for bonding), Ulster County could have boarded out every inmate we’ve got for the next 100 years for less than we’ve already spent.”
Van Blarcum said that the county’s ability to take in boarders only recently improved when New York corrections commissioner David Stewart approved Ulster’s adjacent counties as eligible to board inmates in Kingston. Van Blarcum attributed the delay to a political dispute.
“The (old) commissioner got in a pissing match with Dutchess County executive Bill Steinhaus …. It was like pulling teeth,” he said. Stewart, a Pataki appointee and a former mayor of Plattsburgh who is about to be replaced by Niagara County sheriff Thomas A. Beilein, had refused to allow Dutchess County to board inmates there because he was trying to force that county to build a new jail.
The Greene County Legislature, which has also been ordered to build a new jail, has not even started discussing the matter. According to county administrator Dan Frank, Greene has no current plans to do so.
“We were scheduled to be boarding at least 30 inmates from the start of the year, but the only county we were authorized to board by Stewart was Suffolk, down on Long Island,” said Van Blarcum. “Eventually, it took a lot of lobbying, and quite a bit of arm-twisting, by (state assemblymen) Kevin Cahill and Mark Molinaro, along with (county administrator) Michael Hein, to get where we are today.”
The sheriff said he’d be comfortable boarding 50 inmates from outside the county as a maximum, even though his jail superintendent has suggested there could be more. To reach that number, he added, he’s been in negotiations with federal marshals to house inmates. Greene County not building a new jail could add an additional 40 to 50 customers in Ulster’s giant facility in one fell swoop.
Other regional business anticipated
“The great thing about boarding inmates from neighboring counties is that it’s easy, with little travel time and convenience for those wanting to come to visit. So far that’s working out well,” Van Blarcum said. “As for the federal inmates, they come from all over the place, and what’s being negotiated would pay us overtime for doing any transporting that’s necessary to court dates in Albany, New York City or White Plains. It would be good for us all around, although of course you never know about the inmates themselves … We’re just waiting for the phone call on that one.”
In addition to Suffolk, Dutchess and Greene counties, boarding deals now include Putnam County … and would likely include more once Beilein is confirmed.
Niagara County sheriff since 1994, Beilein was named for the position of chairman of the State Commission of Correction by former governor Eliot Spitzer in late February, only to have his nomination held up after Spitzer was forced from office – and after a photo of the sheriff with two members of an escort service surfaced on the walls of an investigated massage parlor.
The nomination now goes to the state senate for confirmation in early June, with appointment expected before the legislature’s summer recess at the end of June. Van Blarcum noted that Sullivan County was now building a new jail, and Columbia, Delaware and Orange counties are all in new facilities. The current deals at sub-$100 a day, plus the federal overtime travel pay, the Ulster sheriff said, may be the county’s best deal for the coming years. “I think we’re a little behind but strongly catching up,” he said.
Might an uptick in local crime statistics affect the county jail population? “We’re holding our own,” replied Van Blarcum. Should the economy continue to worsen, however, “We’re all going to see things change.”