By Joe LoTemplio
Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, N.Y.
PLATTSBURGH — The state budget office is rebutting assertions that State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision budget cutbacks are contributing factors in the escape of two murderers from Clinton Correctional Facility.
“Their budget is growing, not shrinking,” Morris Peters, public information officer for the State Division of the Budget, told the Press-Republican on Tuesday.
Peters was responding to claims from people who work at or recently retired from the prison that cost cuts have affected staffing levels to the point where security may have been compromised.
Inmates Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 35, escaped June 6 when they went through holes cut in their cell walls, made their way down a catwalk, climbed down into the underground levels of the maximum-security prison and went through a steam pipe and out a manhole cover on Bouck Street.
CHANGES
Correction officers, both active and retired, have told the Press-Republican that two of the towers on the wall along Route 374, the main street of the Village of Dannemora, are not staffed some nighttime hours anymore due to cutbacks.
Officers would have had a clear view of someone coming out of the Bouck Street manhole cover if they had been stationed in the towers, they say.
Tad A. Levac, president for New York State Correctional Lieutenants, brought up that point to the Press-Republican shortly after the escape and that it is a security issue.
Officers have also said that after a major riot in the recreation yard about a week before the escape, Clinton officials wanted to lock down the prison, but that requires more staff, so it did not happen.
Lockdowns are discouraged, they say, because of the expense.
And Levac said he has been trying, without success, to get a field lieutenant added to the staff at Clinton for more than a year to provide experienced supervision in the yard.
HIGHER BUDGET
Peters said he could not speak to how DOCCS makes its decisions but said it is not a budget issue.
The DOCCS budget has risen from $2.47 billion in the 2011-12 budget year, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office, to $2.69 billion for 2015-16.
“The overtime budget is up, too, so that dispels the notion that it is linked to the budget,” Peters said.
STAFFING RATIO
The inmate-to-guard ratio in state prisons has improved from 2.9 inmates for every 1 officer to 2.8 inmates to 1 officer in the same time frame, he said.
“The ratio is getting better, not worse,” Peters said.
DOCCS officials are not commenting on anything to do with the escape of Matt and Sweat.