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| Help wanted at jail |
| By Mark Scheer - Lockport Union-Sun & Journal |
| Published: 05/03/2009 |
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NIAGARA COUNTY: Help wanted at jail By Mark Scheer - Lockport Union-Sun & Journal The Niagara County Sheriff’s Department would like to hire three more full-time corrections officers at the county jail. Sheriff’s Department officials argued this week that the new officers would almost pay for themselves by helping to trim overtime costs at the correctional facility. “We don’t want to add staff,” said Sheriff James Voutour. “We don’t want to spend money. But, it’s going to burn us if we don’t.” Voutour and Capt. Daniel Engert presented their case for hiring the officers to members of the county Legislature’s Administration and Community Services committees Tuesday. Engert suggested the move would be essentially cost-neutral. While each full-time position would cost the county $52,000 in wages and benefits, Engert said his estimates show the true cost would be about $2,000 per officer, because he expects the correction’s division to realize a drop in overtime costs of about $50,000 for each guard who is brought on duty. The sheriff’s department is under pressure to comply with a staffing recommendation from the New York State Commission on Corrections. Following a 2004 analysis, the commission determined that the county’s jail needed at least six more full-time officers to meet minimum staffing levels. Three of those officers were hired by the county last year. The commission has set a July 1 deadline for hiring the remaining three. Failure to do so could result in the county losing a variance that allows cells for federal inmates who are awaiting trial to be double-booked. Engert said the county receives $95 per day for each federal inmate it houses, and loss of the variance would cut jail revenues by about $1.7 million. Engert said the jail can ill afford such a loss, considering state lawmakers cut from this year’s budget reimbursement for local jails that house inmates awaiting transfer to state prisons or those who have been incarcerated for parole violations. Engert said the cut will cost the correction’s division between $300,000 and $340,000 in revenue this year. “We have to take them and we get no reimbursement,” Voutour said. Engert and Voutour presented lawmakers with figures from other similar-sized jails in New York state, arguing that Niagara County is among the lowest in terms of staff. According to Engert, the jail has 126 full-time and 149 part-time officers guarding 489 inmates on average. By comparison, at Onondaga County’s jail there are 220 full-time staffers to watch 558 inmates. In Erie County, there are 272 full-time corrections officers for 545 inmates. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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