ALBANY – In light of the expected loss of revenue to New York State's budget due to this year's Wall Street meltdown, the state's Department of Correctional Services announced late last week that it will cut its farm program operations, which are currently offered in 12 of the state's correctional facilities as a method of rehabilitation and training for inmates. Three of the area's prisons — Eastern, Wallkill, and Sullivan Correctional Facilities — offer such programs, and over the next six to eight months, will be phased out to save the agency a total of $3.4 million a year.

"Agencies were ordered by Governor Patterson to cut 10.35% of their operating budget for this fiscal year," says Erik Kriss, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections (DOC). "So far, I would estimate we're at about three and a half percent, but we're going to look for more." Interestingly, Kriss points out that the DOC and the state police were exempted because of the importance of maintaining public safety. When asked why the cuts were made despite the exemption, Kriss's says, "If we can do it without compromising safety or security, we should do it."

Eastern Correctional in Napanoch has dairy, beef, beef processing, and a sawmill as part of their farm operation, and employs nine corrections officers, and six civilians, says Kriss. However, the facility's program operates at an annual loss of $460,000, a figure which swells in size when considering that eleven other state-run prisons all operate similar money-losing programs.

Add to that the fact that many of the prisoners come from urban environments, and as such, may not benefit much from vocational farm training upon their returns home, and the decision to cut the farm programs makes fiscal sense.

"We want to give them practical, marketable skills they can use to get jobs," says Kriss.

The farms' programs also provide a portion of the food for the inmates, though not a very significant amount. "You're giving 61,000 inmates three meals a day — that's a lot of food. The farms are productive, but most of the food is not grown on our farms," he says.

The farm programs employ 39 corrections officers and 41 civilian employees, though Kriss points out that no one will be laid off because of the cuts. The corrections positions will be phased out through attrition — meaning that positions which become vacant will not be filled — and the DOC is working with the Department of Civil Service to try and find new jobs within the system for the civilian employees, though Kriss points out that such placement is not guaranteed.

However, another question this cut raises regards just what will happen to the land on which the farms have been operating. John Adams, Napanoch resident and farmland preservation advocate, is looking to find an answer.

"For the last thirteen years, I've been trying to convince the state that they should put agricultural conservation easements on the prison land," he says. "The way the law is right now, as long as the land is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections, it can't be done." However, were the land transferred to another state agency's jurisdiction, the easements could be added.

He's hoping that now that the prison's farm operations will be ended, the land can have those easements placed on them, thereby ensuring that they stay viable farmland in New York State. Without such easements, the land could be sold to a developer who could, conceivably develop housing on the land, which would then in turn destroy the land's agricultural possibilities, as well as limit the amount of tax-revenue the currently untaxed land could generate for local municipalities.

According to Kriss, the DOC is undecided regarding how the farms — land and equipment, both — will be decommissioned, and is looking to the Department of Agriculture and Markets for assistance in that regard. The land and equipment may be sold or leased to private farms, which would likely be able to run farms on the land with much greater cost effectiveness and efficiency.

"I'm sure it costs us a lot more to run a farm than it would a private entity because they don't have to provide security," he says.

"Everybody has to look at the big picture," says Kriss. "This state, more than any other state relies on Wall Street for revenues. In fact, New York State government relies on Wall Street for 20% of its revenues…and everybody knows what's happening with Wall Street.

"As a result, every agency has to look for savings and efficiencies, and we have to do our part. And to the extent that we can close farms that lose money and that don't have the highest priority in terms of giving inmates skills they need for when they get back home, we've got to do those things."

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