NORWICH – Figures provided Thursday by Commerce Chenango estimate that the county’s economy would take over a $13 million hit if Camp Pharsalia were to close.
That figure, which Commerce Chenango President and CEO Maureen Carpenter said was a “conservative” estimate, factors in the camp’s annual payroll, community service projects, tax contributions, expenditures and revenue generated by family visits.
When combined with other expected closures, like that of Procter & Gamble’s Woods Corners facility in Norwich, the county is facing a loss of $24 million and 340 jobs in 2009, Carpenter said at a rally for the camp in The Eaton Center Thursday.
“The numbers are overwhelming,” she said.
The rally gathered roughly 90 to 100 corrections officers, civilian camp employees, their family members, area legislators, union representatives and community members in the center’s 5th Floor Summit Room.
Several of Pharsalia’s corrections officers are asking the community at large to support their cause, considering the services the camp can and will provide.
“Anytime the community wants something done, we can do it,” said officer Peter Heggie. “The more community support we can get, the better.”
Pharsalia inmates do roughly 78,000 hours of community service and maintenance work for state government and local organizations. That translates into $940,000 worth of work a year, according to Commerce Chenango statistics.
“We want to push the issue as far as the effects on Chenango County,” said corrections officer Tim Burrell. “The public needs to know how important it is. With this (rally), it really might help.”
The state Department of Correctional Services announced in January that Camp Pharsalia, along with three other minimum and medium security facilities, are planned to close at the start of 2009. This is the latest in what seems to have become an annual battle come budget time to keep the camp open.
Senator Tom Libous (R-Binghamton), surrounded by roughly 50 officers and their family members at the front of the room, told Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was not on hand, that the closure of Camp Pharsalia – removing 104 jobs and $13 million from the county – is a flat contradiction to the promises he’s made to revitalize Upstate under his $1 billion executive budget plan.
“The message we have to send today is that you (Spitzer) are playing with people’s lives,” said Libous.
The state legislators and union officials plan to gather “transparent” information regarding the necessity of the prison closures. They claim the “numbers don’t add up” at this point, when budget figures are compared to money allocated for the camps.
Libous added emphatically: “We’re going to keep this camp open. We’re going to keep the other camps open.”
Other speakers included Senator Jim Seward (R-Oneonta), Assemblyman Gary Finch (R-Auburn), Rod Decker (a representative for Assemblyman Cliff Crouch (R-Guilford), who was at a hearing regarding the camp in Albany), James Flanagan Jr., President of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, and Tom Haas, the head of NYSCOPBA in central New York.
Camps like Pharsalia have become outdated in the system, the Department of Corrections claims. It adds that closing the Pharsalia and others will make room for expensive sex offender security programs mandated by the legislature.
The state has said it will find jobs in other prisons for the officers at the camp. It will also develop a reuse plan for Pharsalia, located on Center Road off of State Rt. 23 west of Norwich.