Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Earlier this month, the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning released a preliminary draft of a comprehensive facility and operational needs assessment for the two facilities operated by the Erie County Sheriff's Office: The Erie County Holding Center in Downtown Buffalo and the Erie County Correction Facility in Alden.
This consultation provided the Sheriff's Office and other county officials a number of options when it came to the possibility of building a new, or significantly renovated consolidated facility, replacing the other two facilities. The proposed new county jail would ideally be in Downtown Buffalo.
However, the cost for such an endeavor, regardless of the options outlined in the assessment, ended up being upwards of $700 million or more. That's a price tag Erie County Sheriff John Garcia knows is too much to bear for the taxpayers of the county.
"When I came in office, I think it was pretty evident to all of us that we needed a new facility. It was never put on the table before, we moved it along with a study, thanks to the county executive and the legislators. This was a bipartisan, common sense, no-brainer study, and now they came back with a great plan, the study, except the cost. The cost is $700 million," said Garcia in an interview with WBEN.
The $700 million price tag was a shock to Garcia and other county officials. Garcia says it's something the financial people in county government have to examine to see what the interest cost would be on a bond like that moving forward.
Garcia says the study conducted by the County Department of Environment and Planning backs up his assessment that something needs to be done to improve the current jailing system.
"You have a facility today that was built in 1938. If you think about it, it's the same year the Aud and the Rock Pile were built, and those are stadiums. This is a place where we house people, our staff works in, and the only other remedy would be to invest $250 million into two different facilities that are half an hour apart. That's putting lipstick on a pig, at the end of the day," Garcia said.
Heading into the endeavor, Garcia thought the cost for a new county-run jail in Downtown Buffalo would be in the range of $350 million.
Garcia notes a consolidated facility in the city would help save the county and taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year.
"We are showing that one consolidated facility in Downtown Buffalo, close to the city court, county court, federal court, would cut in staffing, it would cut in transportation. We could show $25-to-$30 million a year in savings, and that's significant. Very significant," Garcia detailed. "And also the fact that it would be a modern, 21st century building, where we could do things to stop and decrease the recidivism. To make it a place where people want to work, because we're struggling with staffing."
With this project, Garcia knows it's one that has to be with the future in mind, and that can last for upwards of 75-to-100 years.
"This is a generational project," he said. "We don't have one building that could accommodate the 800 or so incarcerated individuals that we have today, but we also have to think about the future. What does the future bring? The bail reform laws that are in place today, are they going to be in place five years from now? 10 years from now? Are we going back up to 1,300? I don't know that answer, but it's up to us to make sure that whatever we do today, it's going to work today, and it's going to work into the future."
Garcia adds the Sheriff's Office and other county officials are looking into other options or alternatives to make this a possibility in the future. The assessment continues to remain ongoing.