CATTARAUGUS COUNTY
Abers, agency head spar over youth center proposal
LITTLE VALLEY — Cattaraugus County Legislature Chairman Crystal J. Abers is standing behind the Legislature’s resolution last November opposing the closings of state-run youth-residential treatment centers in Great Valley and Limestone.
The legislation was passed just before a well-attended forum led by State Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean; Assemblyman Joe Giglio, R-Gowanda; and the New York State Public Employees Federation, which represents the 50 employees who would be impacted by the closings.
When one facility was to be converted to a secure treatment center for juveniles, Young secured funds for a study of community-based treatment, which prompted the State Legislature to order the state Office of Children and Family Services to update its figures showing an 80 percent recidivism rate.
About the same time, the state decided to switch its focus to home-based treatment and proposed closing residential facilities. Cattaraugus County officials feared local youths would be sent far from their families if the only local options were closed, and Giglio said he and Young had researched the issue and were planning to meet with Gov. David A. Paterson to discuss the proposed closings.
On Thursday, Abers, R-South Dayton, sent a blunt letter as a retort to Commissioner Gladys Carrion’s Jan. 7 correspondence, which Abers said had upset legislators.
Carrion wrote that she was “surprised to find that during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression that you oppose closing facilities which are underutilized or, in the case of Great Valley, is just plain empty — and costing state and county taxpayers $4 million a year.”
Carrion also pointed out that almost 80 percent of the residential center cases come from Long Island, New York City and Westchester and Rockland counties.
She noted that in 2000, Cattaraugus County sent only 15 children to the Limestone and Great Valley facilities, down to a single child in 2007-08, while the facilities’ 50 beds cost up to $200,000 a year to maintain. She added that Western New York children will be treated in the future at the Residential Center in Industry, located in Monroe County.
“. . . The County Legislature would have avoided the embarrassment of voting on and passing a resolution that was filled with factual errors,” Carrion said.
“The Cattaraugus County Legislature finds your letter to be condescending and inappropriate for a public servant,” Abers wrote in her letter of response.
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