SULLIVAN COUNTY — The Legislature approved double-time pay for overtime hours worked for correction officers in the Sullivan County jail in their latest meeting of the full board on Thursday, October 24. However, after some discussion, the time period was changed from now through March to from now through January 31. 

The resolution passed, 8-1, with Legislator Joseph Perrello the only no vote, stating that while he does believe the correction officers deserve double-time, he wanted it to go through March. 

“I don’t want to go through this discussion again,” Perrello said. “Hopefully by March, we get some recruitment going on here.”

District 5 Legislator Cat Scott originally made the recommendation in Executive Committee that the resolution be amended to go through December 31. 

“I looked at the numbers, I would say about $30,000 a month - I don’t think it will exceed that,” Scott said. 

“When you look at the last nine months, on average if we were to add that extra portion of overtime it would be about $25,000. So I think that the $30,000 a month will cover their overtime, and I think this is a discussion we need to have again in December. But for budgetary needs for this year, I think that is the way to go.”

District 1 Legislator Matt McPhillips seconded the amendment by Scott. Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff stated to the Legislature that approving double-time is a “dire” need. 

“I didn’t come to get it whittled down to a point where it’s meaningless,” Schiff said. “Operations in the jail we will take care of. If someone is abusing sick leave, we speak to them about them and we do penalize them. A benefit like this should not relate to how we run the jail. It’s a secure facility, we have to run it as such. We are in dire need.”

Schiff said that Sullivan County jail administrator, Hal Smith, told him that of the correction officers from the state, 25 of them went to Orange County following the closure of Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg. 

The Sheriff also said that, he believes but did not verify, that in five years correction officers in Orange County will be making $105,000 a year and full medical for the family. 

“I said the last time I was here that we have to fix this,” Schiff said. “That will be [discussed] in the contract negotiations. We have a couple of other people that are leaving us - one for security at West Point and another looking to go to a water department. We’re losing people and we need to do something substantial here to try and keep them. We have to man these posts, so we don’t have a choice to be able to send these people home.”

Schiff pleaded with the Legislature to do double-time for a period of four months and then revisit it, as they had done it in the past with six months. 

“Give these people some hope - Christmas is coming up - that they’re making some extra money,” he said. “I hate to put money as the thing that’s going to make employees come to work, but these are employees that come to work everyday and do the job. They’re not complaining. We shouldn’t be fighting about this. We can do this thing and we should do this thing and I’m asking you, just do it.” 

Legislative Chair Nadia Rajsz reiterated that the county can’t be addressing the issue by bandaid approach, and they will be addressing it in contract discussions, which is coming up. 

“We need to address everybody’s salary in the county,” Rajsz said. “We can no longer afford to be underpaid, because other counties are syphoning off our employees and we’re suffering.”

The Legislature ultimately decided to move forward with a second amendment brought forward by District 9 Legislator Terry Blosser-Bernardo to have the double-time go from now until January 31 for $30,000 a month in addition to time and a half.

 After Scott and Brian McPhillips withdrew their motions for the first amendment, the second amendment passed 6-3 in Executive Committee. District 8 Legislator Amanda Ward, District 6 Legislator Luis Alvarez and Perrello voted no, while Perrello was the lone no vote in full board.