BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Erie County Sheriff John Garcia is asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to reverse a state decision denying more than $617,000 in reimbursement for parole violators housed in county jails during last year\u2019s state prison staffing crisis.<\/p>\n
Garcia says Erie County incurred additional costs while holding people who otherwise would have been transferred into state custody during the 2025 correction officer strike.<\/p>\n
The state has already reimbursed Erie County more than $2.2 million for other state-ready incarcerated people who remained in county custody. But Garcia says the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision denied a separate $617,700 claim covering parole violators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe collectively kept custody of thousands of incarcerated individuals who would have otherwise been transferred into state custody, including some who were arrested after violating the conditions of their parole,\u201d Garcia said in a statement to Spectrum News 1. \u201cThis increased both our census and our operating costs. It is only fair that we are properly compensated by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an Aug. 24 letter to Hochul, Garcia said the extended stays increased costs for housing, food, medical care, transportation and staffing. He said Erie County\u2019s jail population reached 900 during the summer of 2025, a level the county had not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
The dispute centers on whether the state is required to reimburse counties for parole violators who remained in local custody while awaiting transfer back to state facilities.<\/p>\n
Garcia argues New York Correction Law Section 601-c supports the county\u2019s claim. The law provides for reimbursement under certain circumstances when a state-ready incarcerated person remains in local custody for more than 10 business days.<\/p>\n
Garcia contends parole violators who have been ordered returned to state custody should also qualify. In his letter, he cited a 1988 New York Court of Appeals decision in support of his interpretation.<\/p>\n
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is backing the sheriff\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, some of their inmates that would have been transferred to state facilities would have been in our facility for, say, like 10 days, 15 days,\u201d Poloncarz told Spectrum News. \u201cAnd some of them were there for three or four months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poloncarz said the county wants to recover the full cost of providing those services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want us to get fully reimbursed for the cost that we have incurred,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Garcia also pointed to the state\u2019s spending on the National Guard during the corrections crisis. In his letter, he said New York spent roughly $700 million in fiscal year 2026 to deploy Guard members to state correctional facilities and plans to spend another $535 million in fiscal year 2027.<\/p>\n
Garcia questioned why the state would spend that money responding to the prison crisis while denying reimbursement to local governments that also took on additional responsibilities, writing that Erie County taxpayers were left \u201cholding the bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sheriff is now asking Hochul to overturn DOCCS\u2019 denial and approve the $617,700 claim.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 asked DOCCS to explain why the reimbursement request was rejected and whether the department would reconsider its decision.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 also asked Hochul\u2019s office whether the governor supports DOCCS\u2019 decision and whether she plans to intervene. Hochul\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear whether other counties have submitted similar reimbursement claims for parole violators housed during the state corrections crisis. Garcia said sheriffs across New York collectively kept thousands of people who otherwise would have been transferred into state custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Erie County Sheriff John Garcia is asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to reverse a state decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1611,136,138,137,117962,139,40140,41582,50,25636],"class_list":["post-282630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-buffalo","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-nai-rhoden","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}