New York’s total bill to post the National Guard in prisons — a response to last year’s corrections officers strike — is set to swell past $1 billion, officials said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget includes another $535 million to keep troops in the state prison system. That’s on top of $700 million that the state says it is spending on the deployment through the end of March, Budget Director Blake Washington said.
The proposed expenditure shows the prisons' ongoing staffing issues, which were exacerbated by a three-week wildcat strike that began last February. The continued expense of the Guard is also fueling the partisan divide over what to do about persistent staffing shortages in the state’s 42 prisons.
“It’s really unsustainable,” said state Sen. Julia Salazar, a democratic socialist from Brooklyn who chairs the chamber’s corrections committee. “I'm grateful that National Guard members are supplementing the insufficient staff-levels in facilities, but it's definitely not an ideal solution.”
Thousands of corrections officers walked off the job, complaining of higher violence, excessive required overtime and a 2021 law that limits the amount of time incarcerated people can be placed in solitary confinement.
The state pushed officers to return to their posts by temporarily suspending parts of the 2021 law and offering incentive pay. Hochul ended up firing around 2,000 officers, and called out the National Guard to fill staffing holes.
Around 3,000 troops remain in 34 prisons, officials said. There were around 13,500 corrections officers and sergeants working prisons before the strike — fewer than the 14,600 people called for in a department staffing plan at the time. As of this month, there are 10,919, according to a fact sheet.
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, has broadened its hiring standards by lowering the minimum age for an officer to 18 from 21 and allowing out-of-state applicants. The corrections department launched a special recruitment drive, increasing the number of people graduating from its training academy by 36%, a department spokesperson said.
But it hasn’t been enough.
“DOCCS has really been doing yeoman's work in doing that, but it's tough sledding. It’s slow-going,” Washington said. “So, the governor is not going to leave the incarcerated folks or the professional staff, or the correctional officers themselves in a lurch.”
National Guard personnel now volunteer for the prison deployment, according to the state’s Division of Military and Naval Affairs. Troops get their base pay of at least $1,671 plus a $2,000 supplement every two weeks, as well as a housing allowance for personnel who travel.
The biweekly starting salary for a corrections officer is about $2,550, excluding overtime. Guards are also eligible for bonus pay depending on location, and the department pays $3,000 recruitment bonuses, a department spokesman said.
The union that represents correction officers doesn’t oppose the deployment.
It is “understandable based on the staffing shortages that still exist — before the strike and afterwards,” said James Miller, spokesperson for the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.
State Sen. Mark Walczyk, a Watertown Republican, has three correctional facilities in his North Country district. He said Hochul should permanently roll back the solitary confinement restrictions and push for tougher visitor and mail screening that would reduce drugs and contraband in prisons.
“The governor should address the safety concerns that the corrections officers have brought up,” said Walczyk, who is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve. “It’s bad for the National Guardsmen. It may be bad for their long-term mission in retention and recruitment. This is certainly not why somebody signs up to serve their community or their country.”
Salazar said the state should close more prisons to reduce the number of required corrections officers. The corrections department announced in November it would close the Bare Hill Correctional Facility, near the Canadian border. State prisons were operating at 76% capacity as of October, according to the Correctional Association of New York, a watchdog.
Salazar also supports legislation that would reduce the prison population by making it easier for older incarcerated people to be released on parole.
“There are many people who it is truly and demonstrably not in the interest of public safety for them to continue to be incarcerated,” Salazar said. “And it incurs an enormous cost to the state to needlessly incarcerate those people.”
