February 2, 2010Governor David A. PatersonCapitolAlbany, NY 12248Re: Proposed closure of Ogdensburg Correctional FacilityDear Governor Paterson:I respectfully request that you remove the proposed closure of the OgdensburgCorrectional Facility by April 2011 from your proposed 2010-2011 budget during the 30 dayamendment period. I do not feel that the state will be well served by closing this facility and itsclosure will have a devastating effect on the City of Ogdensburg and the North Country.In the early 1980’s when the state needed to add capacity to the corrections systemOgdensburg welcomed the facility, especially given that they were facing the downsizing of thestate operated St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center. Other areas of the state fought the location of aprison in their community. A few years later Ogdensburg welcomed a second facility, RiverviewCorrectional Facility. The location of two facilities in Ogdensburg and the three others withinthe hub has resulted in hundreds of North Country residents becoming state correction officers.The correction officers at Ogdensburg and the other four Watertown Hub facilities are all NorthCountry residents. Further, hundreds of correction officers working at other facilities throughoutthe state are North Country residents, putting in their time until they have enough seniority totransfer back to the Watertown Hub.The direct economic loss to Ogdensburg as calculated in your proposed budget is at least$22 Million of the $23.9 Million in operating expenses, which is attributable to employeecompensation. The loss of $22 Million in compensation will be extremely devastating to theNorth Country economy. However, that is only a fraction of the direct compensation lossbecause those hundreds of North Country correction officers hoping to transfer back up northwill likely abandon their efforts and permanently leave the area, taking their compensationelsewhere. The impact on the property tax base compounded with the crushing loss of dollarsand benefits that are pumped into the local economy will ravage Ogdensburg and St. LawrenceCounty.There will be little state savings related to salary expenses by closing the facility.Correction officers will not lose their jobs, instead they will be reassigned to other facilities andprofessional staff will have the same experience. They will not be looking for other work locallysuch as in the green jobs sector. They will uproot their families to finish out the roughly five toten years most of them have left and will retire elsewhere, possible even out of state.

The proposed budget also asserts that there will be $12,431,000 in five year capital costavoidance. Of that figure, $9,431,000 is designated for replacing the hot water boiler house.This proposed capital project is baffling. There is no need for a new boiler house. In fact thefacility receives FREE steam heat based on a 25 year contract that the state’s Office of MentalHealth has with a private facility located on the psychiatric center’s grounds. There are nineyears left on that contract and that private facility is actually trying to work with OMH to makechanges to their contract so that they can expand their operation to generate 26 MW of powerfrom biomass, creating approximately 50 permanent new green jobs. The proposed upgrade of the perimeter closed circuit television system for $800,000 is not an immediate need, nor is the$200,000 rehabilitation of the Flower Building basement. The upgrade of the shower controlsfor $300,000 should actually pay for itself in reduced water consumption. The estimated capitalcost avoidance is a theoretical and remotely possible savings.Another compelling argument against closing the Ogdensburg facility is the impact thisclosure will have on the security staff and inmate population. Throughout our state’scorrectional facilities there are 4000 double-bunked beds. The Ogdensburg Correctional Facilityhas double bunked inmates just like other facilities. Dormitories are designed for fifty inmates.Ten of those beds have become bunk beds (double bunked), so a dormitory unit now houses upto sixty inmates. The closure of the Ogdensburg facility will exacerbate this problem. Evenwhen factoring in Department of Corrections projections of a reduced inmate population, therewill still be double bunking and the closure of the Ogdensburg facility and other mediumsecurity facilities will max out the current double bunks and require further double bunking.Double bunking dormitory style facilities presents increased risk to correction officers andessentially warehouses inmates. The state has been working to get away from the warehousingof inmates that occurred in the past within the Department of Corrections. We are finally seeingthe numbers of inmates that our facilities are designed to hold and the proposed closures willonly mandate further warehousing.The Ogdensburg facility is the type of facility we should keep open. Ogdensburg is amodel of the kind of facility the state has been working to achieve through recent reformmeasures. At the Ogdensburg facility there are rare inmate on inmate incidents as well asinmate on staff incidents. The facility runs smoothly and repeatedly scores high on their regularinspections. While I understand there are concerns about the distance family members musttravel to visit an inmate in Ogdensburg, the fact that there is minimal violence and inmates havean environment conducive to making progress in their rehabilitation and educational programssurely out weigh those inconveniences.The state will not be well served by closing the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility. If closed the actual cost savings will be minimal to the state, other facilities will be forced towarehouse inmates at unsafe levels, undermining rehabilitation efforts and a community that hasalways been a good partner with the state will be devastated. The state would be better servedby reducing the amount of administrative staff at the Department of Corrections. While theinmate population has decreased markedly in the past decade, the amount of administrative staff,particularly in Building 2 at the Harriman Campus in Albany has exploded, essentially doublingin size. Cutting staff in Building 2 by twenty percent (20%) would immediately save the stateroughly $15 Million in salary and benefit expenses. Those 180 jobs can be more easily absorbedin Albany than they can be in Ogdensburg.