By Miranda Vagg<br><a href="mailto:vaggm@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Miranda</a>
The Journal-Register
May 18, 2008 09:34 pm
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ALBION — The Orleans County Jail Committee is reaching out to elected state officials, asking for some financial help with the pending jail project.
During the committee’s meeting Thursday afternoon, state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, and Assemblyman Stephen Hawley, R-Batavia, talked with legislators and committee members about the project and exchanged ideas about financial relief. The project is currently slated to cost between $25 million and $27 million and has previously been touted as an unfunded state mandate that would be shouldered by the taxpayers.
Legislator Lynne Johnson said the county has been looking into available state funds. The committee has met with the U.S. Marshals Office to see if funds would be available there, in return for housing federal prisoners. According to Johnson, the U.S. Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are not able to give funding, but both have expressed a need for bed space.
“(ICE) will make no monetary commitment, but they will rent bed space,” she said.
After reaching an apparent dead end there, the committee reached out to the state and invited Hawley and Maziarz to attend a meeting to discuss options.
“State funding for capital projects like the jail are few and far between,” Hawley said. He had previously met with Johnson and Legislature Chairman Henry Smith Jr. and discussed the possibility of shared county jails for the region.
The Genesee County Jail only has the capacity to house male inmates, while Orleans County is able to house both male and female inmates. Sharing bed space with Genesee County could help alleviate some of the tightening of the purse strings on the capital project.
Maziarz said one way to open the possibility of shared jail facilities would be to have the chairman of the governor’s Commission of Corrections on their side. The nominee for the chairman position is Niagara County Sheriff Thomas Beilein.
“Part of the nomination process would be to get Sheriff Beilein to explore the possibility of shared jails,” Maziarz said. “It’s a unique opportunity to have.”
With the possibility of regional jails, Maziarz said if the governor supported the idea, they should look at doing a pilot project between Genesee and Orleans counties. If Beilein becomes the commission’s chairman, as is expected, then the county would have someone in that position who is aware of the situation here.
“We don’t want to be the catalyst for twisting our sister county’s arm,” said Chuck Nesbitt, chief administrative officer.
Orleans County is already in the role of handling the “spill-over” from Genesee’s jail, said Legislator Gary Kent, because of the county’s inability to house female inmates.
Johnson said that by doing a pilot project and housing Genesee’s female inmates, it would make for a collaborative approach to a regional jail.
The governor’s budget has a $700 million line item for capital projects, and Johnson questioned if some of those funds could be used for the new facility. However, the money in the budget is geared for upstate revitalization and economic development, said Janique Curry, a representative from Gov. David Paterson’s office who attended the meeting.
“We’re on your side and we’re going to try to do as much as we can to assist,” Hawley said.
Contact reporter Miranda Vagg at 798-1400, ext. 2225.
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