By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
ALBANY — With only days left in the 2024 legislative session, Assemblyman Joseph Giglio, R-Gowanda, remains concerned about the Collins Correctional Facility.
The 2024 state budget contained provisions to close up to five state prisons. State officials say 90 days notice of closure will be given to staff of prison facilities.
“We fought hard in the budget to keep the state from closing five correctional facilities,” Giglio told the Olean Star Thursday.
Efforts of Republican assemblymen to force the Department of Corrections to justify cuts in the number of prisons to be closed and require a year advance notice fell on deaf ears, Giglio said.
With no declared fiscal crisis, the state budget should not be the way to authorize prison closures, he explained.
“They (Department of Corrections) say they are right-sizing prison capacity,” Giglio said. COVID-19 led to fewer convictions and fewer inmates sentenced to state prisons, but Giglio said the prison population is again on the rise post-COVID-19.
The possible closing of up to five state prisons has not helped employee morale, Giglio said. “It’s been a little difficult for everyone.”
The Gowanda assemblyman said the state has not kept its word about redevelopment of closed prison facilities. “There’s not going to be any reuse. The population will go back up and we still need to have public safety.”
Corrections officers are wary that their prison might be on the closure list and they might have to move if they are reassigned to another facility, not within driving distance. They also fear having to uproot their family and take their kids out of their school, Giglio said.
“It also makes recruiting state corrections officers more difficult,” he said. To deal with the uncertainty, a growing number of state corrections officers are taking jobs in county jails, Giglio added.
A couple of things bode well for Collins Correctional Facility, Giglio said. First, the prison has good staffing and a small number of vacancies in the prison population.
Secondly, when the adjacent Gowanda Correctional Facility closed in March 2021, not only did some of the inmates transfer to Collins Correctional Facility, but so did a number of staff including corrections officers.
A spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul told the Buffalo News this week that there is no decision on what prisons may be facing possible closure.
GIGLIO ALSO commented on the end-of-session issues that could derail plans to adjourn the session on Thursday, June 6. “It will probably go over by a day to two,” he said.
Since this is an election year, many legislators are looking to pump up their legislative appearance by proposing one-house bills that will never become law.
The Assembly Rules Committee had 75 bills on its agenda on Thursday, Giglio said. “That means we’ll be getting 75 bills or more on Monday.” Most have no Senate companion bill and have no chance of getting to the governor’s desk.
“The majority is pushing to get their bills out of committee so when they go home they can point to an accomplishment,” Giglio said. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 in the Assembly.
“At some point, we have to finish,” said Giglio, who spent 19 years in the Assembly and is not running for re-election this year.
“If anything real controversial comes up, we’ll come back for an extraordinary session after the election,” Giglio said.
