POUGHKEEPSIE – Almost an hour of comment was heard during the Duchess County Legislature’s public hearing on the 2017 budget proposal Monday night. Several addressed the county’s largest infrastructure project ever, the proposed Justice and Transition Center, replacing the antiquated county jail.
Some who spoke urged the county to look at saving some money by downsizing and emphasizing alternatives.
Former county legislator Fred Bunnell recalled working on re-entry issues across the aisle with then-legislature chairman and now Poughkeepsie Mayor Robert Rolison, a former law enforcement officer. That led to the eventual establishment of a re-entry center in Poughkeepsie.
Bunnell said the initiative seems to have stalled.
“I’m understandably concerned that we have not committed, now, to fully funding the likely needed program to properly implement the very fine initiative which I greatly support, taken by this county administration, in the criminal justice field,” Bunnell said, arguing that moving in a more creative direction on re-entry and alternatives to incarceration could diminish Dutchess County’s ability to attract grant money for such programs.
The County Legislature plans to vote on the budget this Thursday.
County Executive Marcus Molinaro’s $467 million spending plan lowers the tax levy slightly while maintaining services.
