The 22-day unsanctioned correction officers strike at New York prisons is costing New Yorkers more than $100 million a month due to the New York Army National Guard response, state Budget Director Blake Washington told reporters Monday in the state Capitol. 

The total cost of the wildcat strike that formally ended March 10 with the firing of more than 2,000 prison guards is going to cost "many hundreds of millions of dollars," Washington said.

He added the state is now paying "well over $100 million per month post-strike" for the National Guard mission and other interventions taken in the facilities to protect workers and the incarcerated population. Members of the National Guard remain in prisons to help staff shifts.

Washington said state officials were still reconciling the numbers from payroll periods to come up with a more precise cost of the strike.

For weeks, correction officers rallied on picket lines outside of state prisons, demanding an end to 24-hour shifts, better recruitment efforts and the repeal of the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement, also known as the HALT Act.

The union representing the COs did not sanction the strike.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said recently that she is excited about efforts to redo the prison system in the wake of the three-week strike.

“I’m going to keep the National Guard there for a while but I want to rethink the whole system,” she said.