By Sandra Tan and Robert Gavin
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
ALBANY, N.Y. — During a widespread prison strike last year, local jails were called upon to house state inmates.
Those convicted of serious crimes and slated for transport to state prison are typically held in local jails for short periods. But last year, they were held for months, with the state ultimately calling in the National Guard to assist with the shortage of prison staff.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia wants New York to pay for the costs the county incurred as a result of the situation, which he says is $617,700 beyond what the state has already paid.
“I ask you to do the right thing,” he said in a letter last month to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The state ultimately reimbursed the county $2.22 million for housing state inmates during this period, adhering to its policy of reimbursing local governments $100 per day for each incarcerated individual that was meant to be transferred to a prison facility after 10 days.
Burden of high number of state inmates still housed in Erie County jails ‘not fair’
The strike by state corrections officers in February may have ended in March, but the chronic problem of understaffing in the state prison system continues to create serious burdens for county jails in Erie County and across the state.
But that reimbursement rate was never applied to inmates who were held in either the downtown Erie County Holding Center or the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden due solely to a parole violation. If that person was returned behind bars for failing to adhere to parole requirements and committed no other crime, the state provided no reimbursement for those inmates, no matter how long they were held in Erie County jails.
Garcia said that’s wrong.
“This was not just an Erie County issue,” Garcia told county legislators during midyear budget hearings in July. “This was Monroe, Onondaga, all the big counties. We’re contemplating doing a class action lawsuit against the governor and DOCCS, or looking to our county attorney to do so.”
The Sheriff’s Office sent the state Department of Correction and Community Supervision an invoice seeking reimbursement for parole violators held from February 2025 through May 2026, according to Garcia’s letter. But the invoice was denied.
Nicole March, a spokeswoman for DOCCS said in an email to The Buffalo News, “We are incredibly thankful for the locals’ partnership during, and immediately following, the illegal job action that occurred in 2025. We understand that the impact of the job action was not limited to DOCCS and we are grateful for their support. DOCCS adheres to all reimbursement requirements under New York State law, which do not provide for reimbursement in the circumstances described.”
The state’s position has been that DOCCS has never reimbursed county jails for holding parole violators. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the state did not reimburse for this classification of inmates. In addition, the state has pointed out that in cases where local jails have housed inmates with high medical needs, the state has allowed those people to be transferred and treated at state prison hospitals at no cost, despite having legal authority to do so.
Issues at state prisons leading to consequences for county jails and – potentially – taxpayers
As the state grapples with critical understaffing in New York prisons, local county jails face rising numbers of convicted state prisoners who are still awaiting transfer.
That accommodation should cut both ways, from the state’s point of view.
The state and the New York State Sheriff’s Association disagree on the legal language regarding the state’s obligation to reimburse local governments for parole violators.
“We advise sheriffs, when they ask us, we tell them that we believe the statutes require, and the case law requires, DOCCS to pay for the parole violators that were held in the county jails due to the strike,” said Peter Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Sheriff’s Association. “The state doesn’t agree with that, but so it’s a legal question: We think we would win if the lawsuit was brought, but it’s up to the individual counties if they want to do that.”
There may be a more compelling reason for larger counties to sue over this issue than for smaller counties, where the number of state parole violators is too small to make the cost of a lawsuit worth the effort, he said. He counted Erie and Monroe counties as the two counties hardest hit by the state’s exclusion of parole violators.
He also said that if there was a groundswell of support from county sheriffs for a class action lawsuit, the association would pursue it, but that has not yet occurred.
Garcia acknowledged that the county has, in the past, not demanded reimbursement for parole violators. But in this case, he told The News, the financial burden to the county was sparked by mistakes made by the state.
Referring to the matter hypothetically, he said, “I create a mess. You’re a partner. You help me out. I should make you whole, right?”
In his letter to the governor, Garcia referred to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent last year and budgeted for this year to cover National Guard costs for keeping the state prisons secure.
“I can’t understand why the state doesn’t think local governments deserve their fair share,” he concluded. “I am asking you to do the right thing. Reverse DOCCS’s decision to deny our request for reimbursement related to the incarceration of parole violators. It would demonstrate strong support for local efforts to help our state partners in our time of need.”
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