Even more prison cutbacks in North Country

New York’s Department of Correctional Services says even more cuts are coming for North Country prisons.

This time DOCS isn’t shutting whole facilities, according to the Watertown Daily Times.

Instead state officials plan to consolidate dorms within the existing facilities.

Randy Page, the northern region vice president of the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, said the 10 prisons being consolidated north of the state Thruway, including two units in Franklin County, will be “a devastating blow for an officer working downstate right now.”

“Those are 65, 68 jobs that are no longer available to those people working downstate that are trying to come up,” he said. “That won’t mean those dorms won’t be filled up eventually. But I don’t see it, with the numbers falling the way they are.”

Savings to the taxpayer, according to DOCS, will be around $9 million a year.