New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

Carmen at observatidea.com.

So in Brockton, the Sewer Service Contract dispute between the Village of Brockton and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or the DOCCS, pertaining to the Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility has been resolved.

The Sewer Service Contract expired on April 30th, and the original agreements date back more than a decade.

After 60 days had passed following the expiration of the contract, the Village of Brockton began to build DOCCSs for the service.

So there's a fiscal officer who defends and explains the city budget.

So in Dunkirk, a fiscal affairs officer, Ellen Bukowiak, defended Mayor Kate Wadowski's 27-budget proposal Monday.

She fired some 2,000 correction officers for violating the state's Taylor Law, which prohibits public employees from striking.

DOCCS rehired at least 800 to 900 fired officers, but tensions remain.

Approximately 2,600 National Guard members are still at work inside the prisons, with another 400 National Guard members assisting from outside the walls.

The state, in the last of the two state budgets, has spent $1.15 billion to pay for the National Guard's president, Holcomb's administration officials said.

So that's been one of our main ways in which we've been able to support families being able to stay in contact with one another.

And as of recently, that's also expanded to our partnership with DOCCS, which has allowed us to also expand or, or really, um, resume, uh, the bus program, our free t- uh, transportation program called Loved One's Link, or LOL, which is to 20 different New York State correctional facilities, and that program is free as well.

So we're really big on family reunification and, and really focusing on making sure that those relationships are maintained as best as they can while people are incarcerated, and then, you know, doing what we can once they come out as well.

How important though is it for that connection? What is the value of...

And, and the warden will say, "Can you just call him Shawn in the me..." Like, 'cause if you've known me for 36 years, I grew up with you, it's Shawnie.

I, I get it, but being able to be in these meetings and calling shots on stuff that's gonna impact policy in the whole New York State Department of Corrections, I think it's an incredible opportunity that I didn't see coming.

And though I worked with the past four commissioners in a row, the current commissioner literally 18 minutes into being appointed called for me and my program director to run up to visit with him in Albany.

And I just thought, man, we're making movies.

His law enforcement career stretches back more than three decades.

Montegare began working for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in 1994.

Over the years, he served as a corrections officer, investigator, and eventually superintendent of Mohawk Correctional Facility.

He retired from the state agency in June of 2025.