Two upstate New York prisons are closing. Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration announced today that Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County and Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg will shutter November 6th.
The state budget signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in April allowed for the closure of up to five state correctional facilities.
The legislation states that at least 90 days notice would be given for the closures that are determined necessary for cost savings and efficiency. The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision cites a “dramatic decline” in prison population.
The department says it reviewed operations at state 44 correctional facilities before the announcement.
Matt Keough, Vice President of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association union, says he was informed of the closures on Wednesday.
“Myself and President [Chris] Summers were notified yesterday that we were to be at Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III’s office. He's the commissioner of corrections, along with leaders from PEF and CSEA and the Council 82, the lieutenant’s union, and they informed us that they were closing the following facilities: Great Meadow Correctional Facility and Sullivan Correctional Facility,” said Keough.
Keough says NYSCOPBA represents 475 corrections officers and 33 sergeants at Great Meadow, and 269 corrections officers and 20 sergeants at Sullivan.
The announced closure at Great Meadow comes a decade after the shuttering of Mount McGregor, a former state facility in neighboring Saratoga County, and two years after Moriah Shock in Essex County closed.
“There are officers that transferred from Moriah Shock to Great Meadow. I personally know some of them, and now they're going to be displaced again,” said Keough.
Republican state Assemblyman Matt Simpson, whose 114th district includes Great Meadow, says hundreds of families will be affected.
“There's over 600 people that are directly, 600 families that are being directly impacted by this news, this announcement of closure. That's not counting all of the other people that are impacted, businesses that are currently working there. Labor unions. I mean, we have steamfitters and pipefitters there. We have electricians,” said Simpson.
DOCCS says all staff will be offered employment at other state facilities.
A statement from the department says “the decision to close these facilities was a difficult one for all involved” and that correctional agencies across the country “continue to struggle to meet staffing demands, and the Department is no exception, despite new and aggressive recruitment efforts.”
Republican State Senator Jake Ashby of the 43rd district says the Hochul administration did not consider the impacts to local economies in making its decisions.
“Think of this, we’re leading the nation in outward migration. We have exceptional population loss here. And what are we doing in upstate? We’re gutting local economies,” said Ashby.
Ashby, who said he discussed the closure with Town of Salem officials Thursday afternoon, hopes to have more community conversations.
“I would imagine that myself and Senator Stec, Assemblyman Matt Simpson, Carrie Woerner, yeah, we will be coming together and I would expect we will be doing some outreach,” said Ashby.
DOCCS says it will work with the Office of General Services and Empire State Development on the re-use of the closed facilities.
Over the last 15 years, the state has closed 25 correctional facilities.
