The Detention Center
Schoharie County Correctional Facility
- Operated bySchoharie County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address157 Steadman Way, Howes Cave, NY 12092
- Rated capacity69
- Year built2020
- BoardingThe county page says the facility boards people held for other counties
- PREAZero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse and sexual harassment; verbal, written and anonymous reports accepted
- BailAccepted in person or through AllPaid (code 1861)
- Jail AdministratorLieutenant Roger Butler, Jail Administrator
Source: Schoharie County Jail · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built2020
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds69
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Albro Fancher
- Runs the jailYes - the Sheriff's Office runs the Schoharie County Correctional Facility at Howes Cave
- UndersheriffSamie Lizzio
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Schoharie County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
New York's county and supreme court justices are state judicial officers, not county officials; city, town and village justices also set bail for people arrested in their areas.
Schoharie County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-20
The County Legislature or Board of Supervisors
They pay for the jail. In most counties the sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe jail budget, the building itself, and the agreements that rent its beds to other agencies. Several counties also have an elected County Executive. In Westchester a county Department of Correction runs the jail rather than the sheriff.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations, and state oversight. The sheriff is separately elected and keeps the jail in most counties (NY Correction Law art. 20), while the State Commission of Correction sets the standards, inspects the facility and investigates every death in custody. The five New York City counties have no county sheriff jail at all — the city Department of Correction runs them.
- NoteSupervisors elected from each of the 15 towns; chairman elected annually from among them.
- The boardSchoharie County Board of Supervisors →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county jail page is unusually full: rated capacity 69, built 2020, named jail administrator, inmate rule book, visitation rules and waiver, PREA zero-tolerance statement and bail instructions.
- The county posts monthly segregated-confinement statistics for the jail on its own document portal.
- The county's budget portal on www2.schohariecounty-ny.gov lists adopted budgets back to 2015, but our reader could not open a budget document to confirm a jail or sheriff line, so budget is recorded 'no'.
- Commissary and phone are handled by outside vendors; no rates are published on the county site.
- No in-custody list, inspection report or death-in-custody record found on the county site.
- State inspection/oversight: New York's State Commission of Correction oversees every local correctional facility in the state, sets the minimum standards they must meet, inspects them, and investigates every death in custody.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Schoharie County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the legislators who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered