Lobbying, advertising highlight efforts
Members keep up pressure to save state programs
By SHERRY HALBROOK
In April, PEF Region 10 activists traveled to Albany to buttonhole state legislators and ask for their help in restoring funds to keep Fulton and two other state correctional facilities open.
Joined by PEF Division 365 Council Leader Fred Simmons and member Sherry Johnson from Fulton, PEF Region 10 Coordinator Jennifer Faucher had meetings with state Sen. Guy Velella, Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chair Herman (Denny) Farrell and top staff from the Assembly Office of Program and Counsel.
“Sen. Velella is now taking a keen interest in Fulton and may add his support for it in the Senate,” Faucher said.
The PEF members said they were heartened by their meetings and felt lawmakers in both houses would try to preserve the three minimum-security programs — Fulton, a work-release facility in the Bronx, and Camps Pharsalia and McGregor upstate.
PEF’s Region 10 members persuaded two dozen Assembly members recently to write to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to call his attention to the valuable service Fulton provides the Bronx community in providing “prisoners who are close to being released with the effective tools to place each one in good stead in the outside world,” and say “The Assembly should fight to preserve services at facilities such as Fulton that prepare inmates for reintegration into the community.”
Union members at Pharsalia and McGregor have won strong support from state Sen. Tom Libous and upstate Assembly Members Roy McDonald, Teresa Sayward, Jim Tedisco, Betty Little and others.
Nevertheless, Faucher and PEF Legislative Director Brian Curran caution the union must keep up the pressure to save these programs, as well as Middletown Psychiatric Center which Sens. John Bonacic, William Larkin and Libous have stepped forward to defend.
The union has been running ads in the Legislative Gazette to help keep the programs before the public and policymakers’ eyes.
“It’s very important to have lots of local legislative support for these programs,” Curran said, “but the struggle won’t be over until the state budget is finished and these programs are saved. It’s even more of a challenge for the correctional facilities because money to keep them open has to be added to the governor’s proposed budget.”
“It’s all about money — dollars and cents,” Faucher said. “It comes down to who pays for what.”
Meanwhile, Simmons said, the employees at these threatened programs keep working hard to do their jobs.
About 60 percent of the employees at Fulton live in the Bronx, he said, and they worry “where we will end up if they close us down in the Bronx.”
The inmates and people in the communities are speaking up about what those services mean to them.
“I’ve been very touched by the support of former inmates who have successfully transitioned into productive, law-abiding citizens,” Faucher said.
“When we held a rally in front of Fulton in March, a former inmate drove by in a truck and honked in support. He shouted, ‘I’ve got this job because of Fulton!’”
Curran said that after PEF brought this issue and the Maine statute to the attention of Assembly Member Susan John and Senator Nicholas Spano, they took the initiative to introduce the bill.
“PEF members have identified a number of examples where the state is using expensive private consultants that cost substantially more than having state employees do the work,” Curran said. “The goal of this bill is to curb that abuse.”
Curran asked PEF members to call their senators at 1-877-255-9417and urge them to support bill S.198.
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