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It’s a high-stakes job: Two- or three-member board panels determine the fates of thousands of incarcerated people every year. They decide cases at a rapid pace, historically spending mere minutes on each one.

And there aren’t enough commissioners. For at least a decade, the board has been several down from its full capacity of 19, according to available state reports. As a result, each commissioner hears, conservatively, nearly 1,000 release cases annually — on top of hundreds of other types of administrative meetings — according to the limited available data. Parole commissioners in most other states have far smaller caseloads.

As part of her first State of the State policy agenda in 2022, Hochul promised to fully staff the board. Her efforts have resulted in one mishap after another.

Three of Hochul’s seven known parole board nominations have crashed and burned. One of her picks didn’t make it through the confirmation process after state senators, who vote to confirm or reject the governor’s nominees, grilled him over his role in violent protest crackdowns during his time as a top police official. After that, Hochul tapped Stradford — a local bureaucrat and failed politician — at the legislative schedule’s last minute, giving senators mere hours to vet him. Later, around the time of Stradford’s ouster, Hochul nominated another candidate — only to have senators dismiss him because they surmised that she had nominated him as a political favor.

In the aftermath of the nomination chaos, most of which has not been previously reported, the Board of Parole remains understaffed. What’s more, 11 of the parole board’s 16 current members are serving on expired terms — so-called zombie commissioners — including three whose terms expired over five years ago. Hochul hasn’t sought to renominate or replace them.

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