MALONE — Franklin County Legislators spoke with one of the county’s representatives to Albany at a meeting at the courthouse, Thursday.

Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, apprised the county board of the first weeks of this year’s legislative session and spoke about the recently unveiled executive budget proposal presented by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this week.

According to Stec, the state’s budget process is in its initial stages.

“It’s way too early to panic about what the governor has proposed,” he said. “It’s early yet. (Hochul) is going to hear it from both sides of the aisle because a lot of what she proposes is impacting big chunks of upstate, both suburban, urban and rural. I think you will have a good bipartisan opposition to most notably her school aid.”

Stec compared the impacts on school aid this year to what counties went through last year with medicaid reimbursement.

According to Stec, last year federal Medicaid reimbursement that was supposed to pass straight to the counties was intercepted by the state during the budget process.

“It was a significant increase, as we were preparing a budget, to have to cover that, quite frankly,” County Manager Donna J. Kissane said. “This is the first year that the state is keeping more of the federal government money and not passing it down to the county. We have had to increase our budget to cover Medicaid expenses locally. We always paid a portion but the support we are getting is less than what it has been in previous years.”

Stec said one issue with this year’s state aid proposal dealt with the impact of enrollment.

“It’s not something you deal with here in this building but you are all taxpayers, you all pay school property taxes as well,” he said. “Basically, (Hochul’s) proposal for what she wants to do with the aid formula is get rid of the hold harmless (provision). There’s a formula, it’s a complicated formula, and among other things it factors in enrollment. If enrollment goes down your aid will go down but there has always been a hold harmless provision that says if the new year’s number is less than last year, you aren’t going to get a cut. It will just be frozen at last year’s number.”

During his meeting with county legislators Stec also talked about the potential closure of up to five state prisons that was a part of this week’s budget proposal.

“A few years ago it was negotiated into the budget that the governor would have discretion to close a certain number of prisons,” he said. “(Hochul) wants permission, with 90 days notice, to pick and close up to five prisons. I haven’t seen the list, I’m sure there is a list, she is claiming that it’s going to save $77 million that seems like a very specific number.”

Stec said past arguments to close prisons have centered around a lower inmate population across the state.

“That’s probably still part of the argument, but the other part of the argument is simply going to be they can’t get enough corrections officers,” he said. “You guys are all corrections families, you know how this works. They are all getting stuck, they are all tired of all the mandated overtime. That’s great for a while but it impacts family life and obviously is impacting recruitment and retention. I think their rationale is going to be, we will consolidate work forces.”

Stec said he will work to oppose the potential closures.

“While you may have champions here that are looking to improve safety, staffing and protect the jobs, there are people out there who just despise the very existence of prisons and think that the whole system is unfair and unjust,” he said. “I think that will be a very interesting fight in the legislature.”

There are 44 state prisons across New York, including three in Malone: Bare Hill, Franklin and Upstate correctional facilities.

Adirondack Correctional Facility is located in Ray Brook, in Essex County, while Altona Correctional Facility and Clinton Correctional Facility are located in Clinton County.

Kissane said that there are a couple of issues she would like to discuss further with the county’s state representatives.

Kissane said indignant legal services, specifically eligibility criteria, is one of them.

“How they do the calculations, on who is eligible to receive free legal representation from us, there’s a lot of deductibles to reach that,” Kissane said, “You can deduct car payments, mortgages, food costs, daycare, the whole nine yards.”

In December, a resolution from county legislators allowed Franklin County to move $100,000 out of contingency to the assigned counsel’s budget.

The transfer of funds was to cover a shortfall in the assigned counsel’s budget due to mid-year unfunded mandates from the state increasing the payments to private attorneys that the county assigns cases out to, according to the resolution, which states this is the second transfer out of contingency this year.

Kissane also spoke about issues surrounding the incarceration of individuals with intellectual challenges in county jail.

“The same kind of scenario where someone is intellectually impaired and ends up in Franklin County and we cannot find placement and we are housing them in an inappropriate placement because we can’t get access to the mental health facilities that we need to have access to or the appropriate OPWDD (Office for People With Developmental Disabilities) housing,” Kissane said, “It is just disheartening to see that with all that we have out there that there is such a challenge in gaining an appropriate placement.”