Empty Beds Cost Millions

The Post-Journal

March 8, 2009

by Patrick Fanelli

GREAT VALLEY - A few miles south of Ellicottville lies the empty corridors, classrooms and dormitories of Great Valley Residential Center, which hasn't been home to a single child in more than five months. The empty 25-bed facility for troubled youths must be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it costs approximately $1.7 million a year to maintain regardless of how many children are present. That amounts to $68,000 a year for each bed. The Great Valley Residential Center and a similar 25-bed facility in Cattaraugus are scheduled to be closed later this year under a plan put forward by Gov. David Paterson and Gladys Carrion, state Office of Children and Family Services commissioner, as the state faces an unprecedented fiscal crisis that threatens all New Yorkers with significant tax and fee hikes. Closing the two facilities and several others in Upstate New York will save $16.4 million this year alone, and the savings could be substantially higher in years to come since many, if not all, of those facilities won't be closed until later this year, according to OCFS officials. Keeping Great Valley open, says Ed Borges, OCFS communication director, is a waste of taxpayer money since it is so costly to maintain, isn't being utilized and doesn't need to be kept open. ''In good times, that's unreasonable and ridiculous,'' said Borges, who has been providing tours of the underutilized facilities for reporters to underscore the need to restructure OCFS operations. ''In bad times, that's absurd.'' Great Valley Residential Facility is located on a winding road that cuts through the picturesque forests and hillsides of Cattaraugus County a few miles northwest of Great Valley, a tiny hamlet south of the bustling village of Ellicottville. Nestled on a quiet hillside covered with pines, the facility is made up of two long, one-story buildings painted green that resemble a motel complex. One building is home to the administrative offices and classrooms. The other, which is attached to a red barn complete with horse stables, is home to the dormitories, dining facilities, library and gymnasium. On the side of the road approaching the facility, hand-written signs on poster board object to plans to close the facility. The employees inside, some of whom have worked there for more than three decades and are still some time away from retirement, are afraid for their jobs. The last time a child walked the corridors of Great Valley Residential Center was Oct. 2. The reason for that, says Borges, is that judges are sending far fewer children to these facilities than before. As of Oct. 27, judges in both Chautauqua and Cattaraugus County only sent one child to OCFS for placement in a non-secure facility like Great Valley in 2008, according to Borges. The vast majority of offenders are sent to private facilities or other programs for troubled youths, he says. And the vast majority of children being sent to OCFS facilities come from the downstate area, according to Borges. That's why it makes sense to close the underutilized residential centers like Great Valley in favor of local programs while maintaining other, better-utilized facilities, the nearest of which is in Rochester, he says. ''Investment-wise, it's better for taxpayers because it's more efficient and effective,'' he said. Ruben Austria, founder and executive director of Community Connection, a youth program in the Bronx, favors at least some of the money OCFS is going to save to bolster youth programs and services across the state. According to Austria, that's not expected to happen. ''Right now, all the money that will be saved will go to closing the budget deficit,'' said Austria, who accompanied Borges to Great Valley on Friday. Opposing the restructuring initiative is the New York State Public Employees Federation, the union that represents many of the workers who could lose their jobs under the plan. According to union officials, the restructuring plan isn't in New Yorkers' best interest because treatment provided for troubled youths at public residential centers is much better than services provided by the private sector. At private facilities, says Kevin Hintz, the union's Western New York region coordinator, children have a much easier job going absent without leave, and the recidivism rate is higher. ''After a kid flunks out of a private facility two or three times, they finally get the clue that it's better to put him in a good facility, i.e. an OCFS facility,'' Hintz said. According to Darcy Wells, the union's public relations director, the teenager who shot a Rochester police officer recently was AWOL from a private youth facility. And at the private facility closest to Jamestown, the Randolph Children's Home, as many as 20 children have been AWOL at a single time, according to Ms. Wells. OCFS officials point to the fact that judges are sending children to private facilities more than public facilities as evidence that places like Great Valley aren't needed anymore. At the same time, union officials say OCFS isn't actively promoting their services the way private providers do. ''We feel strongly that OCFS deliberately emptied the facilities now proposed to close in order to point at them, empty, and declare that it's a waste of taxpayer dollars,'' Ms. Wells said. Borges is dismissive of the union's claims, especially since union officials represent those with the most to lose from the restructuring plan - the workers at the public facilities scheduled to be closed. ''People here are trying to protect their jobs, which I can understand,'' Borges said. ''(But) we can't continue to support this.''

Why Waste Money on Mostly Empty Juvenile Facilities?

Buffalo News Op-Ed: Another Voice / State spending

March 19, 2008 

By Mishi Faruqee

 In January, New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services announced the closing of six juvenile facilities because they are costly and ineffective. Yet State Sen. Catharine Young, R-Great Valley, and the New York State Senate leadership are fighting to keep these facilities open even though they are either mostly or completely empty.

In its proposed counter-budget released on March 12, the Senate included funding to keep three of these facilities open — Auburn Residential Center in Cayuga County, which has 24 beds and houses no children, Brace Residential Center in Delaware County, which has 25 beds and houses three children, and Great Valley Residential Center in Cattaraugus County, which has 25 beds and houses 11 children.

Each empty bed costs the state $140,000 to $200,000 per year, and the total cost to keep open these three facilities would come to more than $4.2 million in the next fiscal year. These facilities hold mainly non-violent juvenile offenders and are located hundreds of miles away from the children’s families. They also do not work. The state’s own research found that more than three-quarters of all kids who enter the state’s juvenile justice system are rearrested within three years of their release.

With the cost savings from these closings, Children and Family Services can create a network of community-based programs as alternatives to incarceration. Studies have long demonstrated that the most successful juvenile programs are those that work with an entire family rather than only with an adjudicated youth, addressing the reasons why the children committed crimes in the first place. Extensive research has shown that these programs can lower the rearrest rates by 25 percent to 70 percent.

So why is the Senate willing to throw away taxpayer money to operate under-utilized and unsuccessful facilities?

The answer is a few dozen jobs. In order to lock in the jobs in these facilities, the Senate budget resolution prohibits the transfer of staff or children from the three facilities, proposes to mandate a two-year advance notification of any facility closure (it’s now one year) and to convert the Great Valley center from a nonsecure facility to a limited secure facility.

Last year, the Senate successfully restored funding for the Gloversville facility, although the facility has not housed any children since April 2006. The Senate now would like to pay the 24 staff members at the Auburn residential center to report every day to an empty facility that doesn’t house any children.

Notably, when OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion announced the facility closures, she made a public commitment that her agency will work closely with the Department of Civil Services to ensure that all staff from the affected facilities will secure positions at other facilities or other state agencies.

Mishi Faruqee is director of the Juvenile Justice Project of the Correctional Associationof New York.

OCFS wants to close underutilized youth facilities

By Steve Francis - 3/26/2008 4:37 PM     News10Now

 

Watch the Video 

ALBANY, N.Y. -- "It was hard for me to transition back to the community when I was upstate," said Kyle Sullivan.

After being arrested at the age of 14 on a nonviolent charge, Kyle Sullivan said spending months in an upstate youth rehabilitation facility did little for him. He returned not once, but twice.

"We're here today to support the New York State Office of Children and Family Services' plan to close six underutilized youth facilities," said Juvenile Justice Project Director Mishi Faruqee.

Juvenile justice groups said Sullivan shares a common story that they said involves a system that for too long has been about filling beds and passing the high cost to taxpayers.

"The Senate has proposed keeping open the Auburn youth facility, the Brace youth facility, and the Great Valley youth facility," said Faruqee.

The Office of Children and Family Services planned to close six facilities to save taxpayers $16 million. But to their surprise, three of the facilities are in the Senate budget to remain open - even though there are few or no children receiving services at the sites.

"We are in a fiscal situation where the state has to close a gap of between four and five billion," said Queens Assemblyman William Scarborough. "Meanwhile, the department has to maintain facilities when in some instances you have two children and 25 or 26 staff."

This, as OCFS hopes to move to a more targeted community-based program that costs $15,000 per year, per kid - instead of using the facilities that can cost above $100,000 per kid, per year.

Officials said the alternative programs are not only cheaper, but they believe they're more effective.

Ruben Austria, a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellow said, "You know what happens when we put young people upstate - 81 percent of the boys reoffend within three years."

A spokesman for the State Senate Majority told us why the facilities would remain open under their budget saying, "Three would be kept open for a number of factors, including economic factors, and we are trying to find alternative uses for the facilities."

 

OCFS Announces Decision to Close Juvenile Facilities Upstate

On Friday, January 11th, OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion announced that OCFS will close six underutilized facilities and downsize another, saving the state $16 million annually. “Instead of continuing to pour money into this broken system and confining these children to facilities hundreds of miles from their homes,” the Commissioner said, “OCFS has aggressively been moving toward more community-based alternatives to incarceration where these children can maintain and strengthen connections with their families and the significant adults in their lives.” OFCS Press Release