NYSCOPBA Blasts Governor's Proposal to Layoff Over 2,000 Corrections; Launches Campaign to Keep New York Safe

ALBANY, NY — Today, New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) President Donn Rowe launched a campaign calling on New Yorkers to join the union in protecting public safety by opposing Governor Paterson's proposal to cut 2,021 jobs from the Department of Correctional Services.

The union will be airing radio and television ads about the impact of the proposed cuts. In addition, NYSCOPBA will be sending out direct mail, opinion editorials, and hold rallies, calling on this administration to protect the safety of New York's Correctional Officers.

In a letter issued to State employees last month, his Governor Paterson explicitly stressed the importance of "protecting the health and safety of our citizens" in the midst of the 8,700 person layoff ordered by his office. When a list of cuts was released, it included a disproportionate 2,021 person cut to Correctional Services, the agency explicitly charged with protecting public safety.

"Sadly, this Administration has dropped the ball," said Rowe. "These ill-advised cuts of frontline correction officers would strain an already dangerous situation."

DOCS itself has acknowledged that New York State prisons are operating at 104% capacity, with maximum-security facilities operating at a dangerous 123%. Yet, DOCS continues to try to discredit this fact to justify proposed cuts.

"While we applaud Commissioner Fischer's willingness to play fast and loose with the facts when it suits his purpose, the reality is that the 104% figure is a federally mandated measure of the true capacity of prisons, and it's a measure used by DOCS itself," said Rowe.

Instead of cutting vital front line personnel, NYSCOPBA has called on the Commissioner to trim waste from DOCS.

"We at NYSCOPBA have repeatedly called on the administration to achieve savings by reducing the number of highly paid managerial employees at DOCS," said Rowe. "Yet, as more and more cuts have been made to those behind our prison walls, the Commissioner of Corrections has increased the size of his already bloated administration with expensive and unnecessary management," said Rowe.

Currently, there are over nine hundred employees working at DOCS central office, sixty of whom make well over one hundred thousand dollars per year, not including the layer upon layer of administrators that work at each of the seventy prisons across New York.

"Our members work in some of the most dangerous and stressful conditions imaginable and in return all we ask is that we work in a safe and secure environment," continued President Rowe. "Yet, when it comes time to make cuts, the Commissioner turns to those on the front line, proposing we guard more inmates with less staff. It is time that the Commissioner put the safety of Corrections Officers above his bottom line."

New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), Inc. is the Union representing over 23,000 New York State Employees in th Security Services sector. As corrections officers, NYSCOPBA members do some of the toughest work there is, so that all of us stay safe.