It has been one year since some members of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision held a wildcat strike.
“Yes, it’s illegal to strike under the Taylor Law, but if you have people that are your employees, state employees, and they’re telling you that we can’t go further under these working conditions, you should really sit down at the table and try to fix it,” said Erie County Sheriff John Garcia.
What You Need To Know
During the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision employee strike, state prisons stopped taking inmates sentenced to more than a year, leaving local jails having to make room.
One year later, the Erie County Sherrif’s Department is almost back to their normal state-readied inmate numbers, but they are still waiting on approximately $2 million in backlog pay.
The New York State corrections law for reimbursement is $100 per day per inmate on the 11th day an inmate is in custody.
But Garcia says that last year’s strikes still has the local sheriff department feeling the impact of the backlog of state-ready inmates.
“As of today, we have about 32 state-readies, and those include people that have been sentenced and parole violators. At our height, we had in our custody, over 160. So it was very taxing upon our staff and also on our budget,” he said.
The New York State corrections law for reimbursement is $100 per day per inmate on the 11th day an inmate is in custody.
“So between day one and day 10, we don’t get anything. So on day 11, if they’re still in our custody, then we get $100 a day,” Garcia said.
It’s a number he says is nowhere near enough.
“One-hundred dollars a day in today’s day and age, with inflation and everything else. When you look at housing, food, medicine — that’s gone through the roof. And unfortunately, I would say about 90% of our incarcerated individuals have some sort of medical condition, be it physical or mental,” Garcia said.
And to add to the financial strain, local sheriff’s departments don’t receive reimbursement for medication costs for state-ready inmates.
“What’s happening is this state is doing all these different mandates, MAT (Medication-Assisted Treatment), HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement) and everything else, and the costs are passed on to the counties,” Garcia said.
Erie County is expecting a reimbursement payment of approximately $2 million that would cover a backlog from April 1 to Sept. 31, 2025, and Garcia thinks other counties are due the same.
“The bad decisions that were made at a state level, the domino effect came to Erie County and the other 61 counties, because I could tell you every single sheriff, it doesn’t matter what the capacity is of your jail, if you’re holding the state-readies, you’re not prepared for that. And the costs you incur are not something you budget for,” he said.