 All right, good morning. Welcome to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. So we have one more bill that we've been working on to try to wrap up our work before all bills turn into pumpkins today with it being the crossover deadline. So we have a number of witnesses with us to give us some more context, help us understand, especially the move in our Criminal Justice Council recommendations for law enforcement officer training committee bill. There were questions that the committee had around the move from a fixed number of hours requirements, especially in fair and impartial and bias training to demonstrate continuity. So I wanna welcome to tee up some of this testimony, Executive Director Simons and Deputy Director Raquel from Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Thank you all so much for being back and bringing some guests to help us understand this move and trends in law enforcement officer training. Good morning and thank you for having all of us. For the record, Heather Simons, Executive Director of Vermont Criminal Justice Council. I would like to, wanna introduce to you subject matter experts that can weigh on in this topic. And I think if it's all right with you, just weigh in again at the end and give them the time to bring you the context that I think that you're looking for. Two of them are from iAtalyst. John Blum is, well, let me just first say, I spoke to John this morning. Brian Grisham, I haven't spoken to yet and apologies if I tracked you down in Dubai. I think you told me that you were gonna be over there, but thanks for being here. And both of them, Brian is the Deputy Director for iAtalyst and John Blum is also a consultant with iAtalyst and both of them are on the road all the time. So I just brought that up. So you know that the turnaround time was a little short, but I think that you're gonna find the context and the expertise that they bring to this discussion around law enforcement training to be relevant and helpful. And I believe that Dr. A. Tanazer Longo is also on and he is Director of Fair and Impartial Policing for Vermont State Police. Does a fair amount of Fair and Impartial Policing training is an additional duty to his director duties? That includes consulting with command and stakeholder discussions around policy, traffic stop data, race data, and much more. And I would like for them to spend, each of them spend at least a minute and introduce themselves in terms of their experience and I can weigh in at the end. Representative Ngoz, I have a quick question. Quick question, what is iAtalyst? Oh yeah, that would be a great thing I think for one of your guests maybe to just tell us also about what iAtalyst is and set that table. We touched on it briefly, but I think we had a break and we've been working on other bills to be important to go back and set the context again. Yes, apologies. This isn't the first time I've gotten feedback on using acronyms and not explaining them. So thank you for bringing that up. And I will just, I mean, if it's okay, I'll toss it to John and let him take it over. Is that all right? To include explaining what iAtalyst is. Sounds like a plan. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. At the expense of confusing this, I'm a person of chain of command and I'm gonna punt this over to Brian since he is the deputy director of iAtalyst to let him tell you guys what it's about. Thank you, John. I'm not in Dubai, I'm back home in Tennessee. I'm Brian Grisham, I'm the deputy director of iAtalyst. It's a membership organization of primarily all the post directors in the United States, but we've gone international in our many years of experience. I retired two years ago as the director of post in Tennessee and joined iAtalyst as their deputy director. As I said, we're a membership organization of post directors and academy directors. We advocate minimum standards for training, hiring and retention purposes for law enforcement officers worldwide. And as I said, we've got membership in every state and territory of the United States and that's kind of what we do. Certify training on a national level. We do academy audits and academy accreditation, post commission accreditation and our subject matter experts on curriculum development. Also, so I'll kick it to John to tell him he's part of it. And as we're acronym busting here, you are the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training that is iAtalyst. That is quite a mouthful. Mouthful, yes. Go ahead, John. No problem. Hello everybody. My name is John Blum. I'm coming to you from the Raleigh, North Carolina area. A little bit about me. I've got 33 years of law enforcement experience. I was a short officer with the city of Winston Salem, which is about 700 officers. I was also training commander for the Garner North Carolina Police Department, which is a small suburb of Raleigh. I also worked with the North Carolina Department of Justice and I was responsible for their basic law enforcement training curriculum that's mandated throughout the state of North Carolina. They're currently 55 delivery sites, so I'm familiar with Vermont and you guys train at one place. If you can imagine, 55 deliveries throughout the state of North Carolina can be very cumbersome. I spent the last 10 years essentially building evidence-based curriculums for state posts, the U.S. Department of Justice, the COPS Office, International Association of Chiefs of Police. I do training needs assessments for large agencies, which included the New Jersey State Police, agencies that have been under consent decrees like the New York New Jersey Police Department. My real house, I guess you could put it in a nutshell is that I develop curriculum and training that's evidence-based and legally defensible and then I help agencies ensure that that training is delivered appropriately. You look for the metrics that show that the training is effective and that performance is being, that you're getting what you'd want out of the training. That's kind of, I'm right for living now, if you could put it in a nutshell. And most of all, thank you for allowing me to be here today. Thanks for joining us. And I wanted to give A-Ton, Dr. Nasred and Longo the opportunity to introduce himself as well. I had the pleasure of seeing him on Monday at the forum in St. Alvin. So I appreciate seeing you again. Oh, you're on mute. There you go. Yes, sorry. I never understand this. For the record, I am Dr. A-Ton Nasred and Longo. I am a co-director of Farron and Partial Policing and Community Affairs for the State Police, an equity advisor for the Department of Public Safety. And I am also chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Panel on Racial Disparities and the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System. Oh, I'm not a representative. We're a wiki, go ahead. Quick question, A-Ton. Do you have power back on at home? Finally, yes. It's nice not to be living with a flashlight. Yes, thank you, Michael. Our town got hit pretty hard. Yeah, this was a couple of heavy snow days. So glad the power's back on. Very Vermont-y question for those of you who are in places like Tennessee. We've gotten quite a bit of snow and had a lot of folks out for a long time with the power. So making sure everybody's safe is the number one priority. So I'll let you all tell us how you would like to proceed. I think the committee has been looking at the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Council. If you've taken a look at the latest draft of the drafting request 230959, our bill, the really key piece that we wanted to discuss a little bit more and get more context on is this move away from a fixed number of hours to competency and how we measure that demonstrated and how it'll affect the future of the training of the academy. So I would love for you to tell us that story and whichever voices you think are most appropriate. I might let Director Simons kind of facilitate and I'll turn it over to you. No problem. They all have seen the latest draft as have I without taking too much time. This takes training to a completely different level. We don't only support it, but this is a very exciting proposition for cutting edge training and stability and operations. And I'll give it over to John and he'll tell you basically why we love it and what the structure is for measurable evidence-based training around skills. Yeah, thank you, Heather. So first of all, let me commend the State of Vermont on being innovative with the competency and skills-based. My experience is this, that law enforcement tends to equate the number of hours with quality. I've seen curriculums that are in state posts that have, they say they have a thousand hours of training, but the content is not evidence-based. There's no performance or skill-based assessment tools or metrics to quantify what they're learning. Even in my own home state of North Carolina, we have annual in-service training. They mandate it for 40 hours and then they pick these topics and then they say, well, we're gonna have four hours on X topic and four hours on another topic. The problem with that is that we definitely, hours do not drive training. The training and the curriculum and what you want the student to learn drives the number of hours. So to make something more competency and skill-based moving in the right direction because you're trying, you're gonna be focused on what you want the students to learn, not how many hours they sit in the classroom. That can tend to scare little folks because people think that might be a reason to reduce the number of hours. From my experience, we tend to cram 15 pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag when we're teaching and we never give it enough time. So I found that when you build content and allow the content to drive the number of hours, the number of hours tend to go up higher. They don't go lower. So from Vermont's perspective, if there's any concern that going to a competency and skill-based will reduce the number of hours, I, in my experience, that would not be the case. Thanks, John. I think next, Brian, if you could talk about defendable training and high liability and the impact on how we build evidence-based training and connect it to the work. And then take it wherever you want. You're the expert. Well, I mean, I didn't, I was trying to be brief, but yeah, I'm an attorney, a long-time legal instructor here. And when you base all of your training on a job task analysis from the very first step and draw these evidence-based results that you want to achieve, you develop defensible training practices rather than just a checkbox. Like John said, we tend to want to mandate hours and for non-subject matter experts, that's a reasonable approach. It certainly will express the concerns of a legislative body or a post-commission in what they feel is an important amount of time in the overall scheme of things. But then again, as John said, we've got some states that I've queried that have a huge number of mandated hours and I asked why do you have that certain number of hours? Well, because Indiana had had about that number of hours and we wanted to be a little higher. So it needs to be boiled down to what the officers do, what they need to do, how they need to interact with the public and then find a scientific way to measure that. So all of this gives you a more defensible practice than just a checklist of hours to accomplish. Representative Waters Evans has a question. Thank you. Could you explain what you mean when you say defensible? Like what? Yeah. Legally defensible, so that's a good question. So to make a curriculum legally defensible, what you want to have is data to support why you're training X topic. So one of the things that I think Vermont is on the cusp of doing is what we call referred to as a statewide job task analysis. To know what cops need to be trained on, we need to ask them what they're currently doing in the field and we ask them specific questions, large survey questions. It typically takes about an hour, hour and a half to go through these surveys between first line supervisors and line officers. And we collect that information based upon what they're doing and we take that data and then let me digress here. Here would be a great example from a basic academy curriculum. We tend to do is survey officers with less than five years of on the job experience. And so what happens is that when you ask them if they're conducting homicide or murder investigations, what you find out the answer to that question is, no they're not because it's basic academy or entry level. And so you don't have a curriculum that focuses on how to conduct a homicide investigation because that's more advanced training. So the curriculum is driven by what the men and women are actually doing in the field. And when you do it that way, that gives you a legal basis and a foundation to stand on as to why cops are trained or officers are trained on X topic because the data supports that. Does that make sense? Thank you, yes. And I kind of got sidetracked on from what Brian was mentioning earlier to layer on top of that. The move that Vermont is and wants to make what it allows the state to do is what I refer to as an ROI and what law enforcement doesn't do enough of what's the return on investment for your training? For example, there's a huge move on de-escalation training and we need to have four hours of de-escalation training or eight hours of de-escalation training. And while de-escalation training is critical and we need to nail down the specific skills and competencies for that, what we also wanna do is say, well, they've had training X amount of hours and what's the metric that we're gonna show that that training actually improved performance? Law enforcement doesn't do a lot of that. We just basically go, we're gonna give them four hours of training on X topic and that's gonna be our band aid and everything is gonna be better now. Well, that's not necessarily the case. We wanna provide training and then we wanna quantify that training and say, okay, well, we had X number of hours on this topic and performance was when performance improved, community relations improved by X metric after that training. So by going to a skills and competency based formula, you can measure with greater accuracy the return on investment for your training. Would it be fair to say that it's the difference between saying, yes, this person sat in the chair or watched a series of instructional zooms for X number of hours versus this person showed us that they understood this content and could do these things? Yes, sir. Great statement. We refer to that as check the box training versus they sat there through the classroom, they've got it, but did they really learn anything? And that comes down to the testing criteria as well. So when we talk about building a curriculum, what we wanna do is we talk about skills and competencies. It's not just written tests. It's actually practical skills and rubrics that measure performance in a role playing or situational type of training. So it's not just sitting in a chair. We want to engage in more hands on practical experience that mirrors what they would do in the field. So that would be another component of why skills and competency based approach is more effective. What does the testing look like before skills like fair and impartial policing? How do you actually measure that? Well, there's lots of ways you can measure that. You can do role play scenarios in my experience or in my opinion to train someone on fair and impartial policing. It's not just that in itself is not just a standalone topic. That would be something that you would fuse throughout an entire curriculum. It would be something that would be reinforced throughout the employment life cycle and things that, so you're creating a culture of fair and impartial policing, not just this standalone topic itself. That's kind of my opinion on that. So that includes role play scenarios. That includes community engagement. That includes on the job training, actually during field training, things of that nature. So there's several approaches you can take to that, not just one where you sit in a class and you make them spit out and read a multiple question test. There's lots of different ways you can do that. So I'll just jump in and then hand it over to Dr. Nasser at Longo. I think that that's an excellent question. And thank you, John, for breaking that down, the measurables with fair and impartial policing. And I think what you're gonna hear from Dr. Nasser at Longo is that fair and impartial policing also needs to be defined as part of the work and the number of subcont topics that fall underneath it. But when it comes to interaction, an evidence-based training, it's what we would call consensus discussion in that we have to agree on what respectful behavior looks like. We have to agree on what least forceful looks like. And a lot of times that skill building structure is done as a group with professionals that will bring in the various levels of empathy to the work. So in other words, how do you feel when you're respected? What does it look like when you're treated professionally? And what does it look like and feel like when you're safe? And I think that's where the breakdown and a lot of communication training is that the receiver of the, the receiver of the information will feel a certain way, but there won't be agreement on whether the officer was being respectful or safe or professional. And what this training design does, it allows for us to build an agreed upon continuum of behaviors that we know are and are not in those categories. And that is an ongoing misunderstanding that it's too soft to measure, but it's really not, particularly when we build empathy into it. And I'll give it over to Aitan to undo anything I said that was down the wrong row, but I think we're on the same page, doctor. Yeah, I think we are too. I'm sorry, was there somebody had a comment? No, just a sneeze. There was a big sneeze. Blessing. I've had my own classroom since 1987 and I have never, ever once looked at a student and said, well, you get an A because you've been here for three hours a week for the last 10 weeks. That just doesn't happen. It's absurd. It's completely absurd. It's at odds with everything we know about education. And I was delighted to read the bill because it allows for a lot of room to expand upon what we already do. I was really pleased to hear, I'm sorry, is it Dr. Blum? I- Sir, no sir, just John. Okay, John. I was delighted to hear what he was talking about when he was saying that some of the testing could be based on scenario. We've been working to do that. We've been working at trying to get that in and have had trouble because we have X number of hours. A lot of the class that I run has to do with basically, I mean, I've developed it in consultation with a research psychologist. A lot of it is social psych 101 before we get to talking about bias, why there may be a biological basis for bias in fact. We need the expansibility that the bill currently, at least your draft bill I should say currently includes so that in fact, we can come up with a kind of teaching that is more responsive to current situations and thus more responsible. And we, Director Simons and I have been talking about this, I don't know, it feels like every night for the past three years of trying to come up with that kind of model for the kind of education we're doing around fair and impartial policing. We've also been talking a great deal about, and there's been a lot of work going on at the Academy concerning how to bring fair and impartial policing as John was saying, into all aspects of training that go on at the Academy. That is an ongoing process, but again, it's not about number of hours, it's about making sure there are certain skills and certain competencies. When something goes wrong, no one stops and looks and says to the cop, how many hours have you had on this? That's not it. They talk about what kind of skills people have. And I think that this bill gets much more to the heart of what we're trying to do both as law enforcement professionals and as activists. The other point that I would say is important to bear in mind is that there are direct connections between speaking about skills and competencies and transparency to the communities that have been either underserved or badly served by law enforcement. And I think that that's an important fact that we haven't really yet mentioned. So Dr. Nusser and Lago, I think you bring up a really good point that we want as the legislature to make sure that we're staying true to the desire that was in the creation or the expansion of the Criminal Justice Council to stay really rooted in modernizing our approach, having a greater lens toward racial justice and equity in the training of law enforcement. And so part of the anxiety that I think we have over some of the removal of the hours of fit training in particular was that that was like the bluntest instrument that the legislature could use at the time. We wrote that language that's being struck here. That was the blunt instrument we were using to say, you gotta do this. You gotta make sure our law enforcement gets trained on this stuff. And I'm hearing you say really emphatically that it's time to move beyond that. I, yes, I do believe it is time to move beyond that, but I also submit to you that you can have your cake and eat it too. There is no reason that these are mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed issues. You could say something and I'm doing this off the top of my head with absolutely no caffeine this morning. Something to the effect of, a requisite, not to be less than a requisite number of hours, you could keep that language in there, but say something to the effect of, but we, that there will be more of a focus on skills and competency rather than just this number of hours. You could have it both ways. And that way you're making everyone who's nervous about, oh my God, they're gonna strip it down to an hour. I just know that they're gonna do that. And you've made them comfy, wrapped them up and made them all very happy and warm. And then you can like go on to what we actually think we need, which is more of a focus on skills and competencies. See, I hand up for Mr. Bloom, but just before you go, Representative Hango. Thank you. I have a question that I'm not sure one of you are going to be able to answer, or if I think it's up to us as legislators to make this decision, but in the interim when this transition is occurring, will we have both number of hours and competency? Because clearly it's going to take you all a long time to come up with the curriculum and to get it right. So what happens in that downtime when you're working on the curriculum? We'll stick to what we have and we'll continue to develop training. Not all training is mandated and I don't want us to forget that. Leaders want us to have measurable training so that they can, that's another layer of accountability operationally and with personnel, but we can continue to do what I would consider to be the minimum, which is just a couple, just in these two topics, a couple of hours every other year, but there's already more training developed and agency heads are using that training and using the forum of local training, regional training, conferences. So this shouldn't get in the way of professional development anywhere. And many of them are already, they've been doing this. I just want to make sure that folks know that there's very steady leadership in this state and law enforcement and they're very aggressive about making sure that they are in line with best practices in step with their community and the needs for training around that. And this is really, this is just, this is the basic nuts and bolts. And what John Blum is talking about is also, this is a way for us to bring back to you proof that this is happening in most training anyway. We just haven't had, we just haven't had the resources or the plan to bring you the document that says this is the training and this is what we're doing and this is how we're meeting this need. And that goes along with the job task analysis, accreditation, national certification. You're gonna find that much of what we do already is there but we needed that structure to do it. This shouldn't slow anything down or excuse any attendance or lack of attendance. Thank you. So I guess my question for us is how do we know when the number, the compulsory number of hours is going to be stopped? Do we put a deadline on this? How do we know how the rollout is gonna happen? So the bill as written contemplates striking the number of hours completely or really holding this conversation. So explicitly here now as we're looking to potentially move the bill this afternoon. So the bill as it stands says, okay, we know that these concepts are being trained. We're gonna hear from, we have heard from and we'll hear additionally from law enforcement leaders and stakeholders that are very interested. And I think Dr. Nazer and Lago, a lot of his work with the RDAF and with a couple of hats that he wears, could tell us more about this. There's a stakeholder interest in making sure that this training happens and it is happening to Dr. Simon's point. But what we have in the bill right now is saying, okay, we see that that training is happening. We know that you're embarking on increased focus on this, but you need flexibility in the creation of the curriculum to weave these things in instead of having them be these separate blocks. And so what our bill has to be really explicit and answer question representative Hango is no requirement for a number of hours. But representative Waters Evans and our team has worked on a report for us when we come back in January so that we're reminded and do a check back to say, how is this going? And I think we'll hear and what I assume we will hear is that there's been increased flexibility in the curriculum has been given and that what's going to be taught at the current and future rounds of the academy is that we've moved toward this competency base and that the number of hours spent specifically on FIP on the fair and impartial policing training is kind of woven throughout the curriculum. But I don't know if A-Ton or Heather if you want to follow up on that, correct anything that I said that's wrong. If I may just interject here, let me beg you by all that is holy not to put a date by which the transition will be accomplished. Please for the love of God do not do that. We are already working on this there are so many people who are already working on this that will simply add a level of stress to the work that is unnecessary. It is holy, holy and totally unnecessary. I don't know what else to say about that. The other thing that I would like to point out to expand on a comment I made earlier when you're speaking with community members from disadvantaged communities, communities that have been ill served by law enforcement within the state, when an issue comes up, it is not solved by talking to the community members by saying they had X number of hours of training. It is in fact approached by discussing the character of the training and what people said at it not necessarily using their names, but things of that nature. Thus, this change that you all are considering gets way more to the issues of accountability and transparency to historically stigmatized communities within the state. I would also point out that right now the state is in the process and I'm on that committee too, putting together a truth and reconciliation commission that will be looking at questions like this, in fact. And again, then any kind of change that needs to be made, putting a time on it, a date on it, it's just not, it's kind of beside the point. Oh yeah, and I just want to be clear and I don't go to representatives, Daniel and Waters Evans that we just wanted to have a note for ourselves to check back in with a report on the progress, not a hard date at all, but the language in here I was just referring to the report back. That's not a hard and fast requirement. In fact, the other thing the bill does is, it pushes out and gives more flexibility around the transition and adoption of alternate routes to becoming certified. So we're actually trying to provide more flexibility for the criminal justice council in the training world, but go ahead, Representative Hanger. Thank you. No, I didn't mean in any way to imply that there would be a date on this. However, that all being said, I am not comfortable with just completely striking and dropping current requirements without knowing what the new requirements are going to be and are the folks who are entering the academy now well, as of the passage of the bill, let's say, will that new class be trained in this same way as a class, for instance, three years from now when you've finished developing this new curriculum? I don't think so. And I am worried about standards while I support the concept of going to competency-based training, I am very hesitant to drop all of today's requirements just by striking it in this bill. And that's why I requested to hear more from folks who do training, and I appreciate that the chair has called you in. If I may respond to that. And I think that's a legitimate concern and we appreciate the question. These topics, for example, fair and impartial policing, domestic violence, they receive the mandated requirement at the academy and many, many hours more that includes practice, scenarios, real-life situations, review, and additional topics on top of just the baseline. So to Dr. Nazret Longo's point, we are already doing this. So I can't, as training subject matter experts, we don't feel good just doing the basics. So we've been doing more of that for some time. What we need to do is legitimize it, certify it, standardize it so that we all know that we're talking about the same thing. And anybody on the job will tell you that that interaction between them and whoever they're dealing with is where the practice has to really come. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The actual training at the academy, the initial training that a recruit receives, that will not change from the number of hours that currently are being specified? Well, we've been doing more than those mandated hours for some time. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to tighten it up and make sure that we focus on not just the skill, but also that you know what the skill is. That's what this does. I understand that, but what I am asking is, will the number of hours that a recruit initially receives in certain subject areas change, or will those requirements remain the same and you will be doing other things as you already are doing and expanding on that? So will that minimum number stay the same? I doubt it, but again, we can't build competency-based training until we do this statewide job task analysis that will allow us to come to agreement on what the job is, what the criteria is, and what the skills are that are needed. And then from there, we build the training to deliver the skills and then it's at that time, we'll know how long it takes us to deliver the training. There is a model for building curriculum. I think it's approximately, I think it's around 30 hours to build one hour of training and another, I think 40 hours if it's remote and involves technology, et cetera. So my guess is that if anything, you'll see more time, but I can't promise you that. I would imagine that it would be more quality time and embedded throughout in a much more measurable way. And again, one more thing is that this is tier training. So this is, what you get at the Academy, you remember that's 101. You are certified to begin your career. This allows for us to have the next level and the next level and that topic for supervisors and the next level of mid management management and command all should be available for all of law enforcement because it's incorporated. Thank you, so that perfectly explains what I'm trying to ask the tier one, I guess you would call it new recruits who are graduating out of the Academy will continue to receive X number of hours, but then as they move up in the tiers and have more expertise, areas of expertise, they will receive different training, but you just said yourself that it takes about 30 hours to develop a new hour of curriculum. So during that time period, I would hate to see these folks just sort of receiving whatever you're able to give them for training and not have a prescribed amount of training in the interim process. And maybe I just am not being clear, but I see a few other heads nodding. So maybe people are understanding what I'm saying. And I see that someone has a hand up. So maybe you have an answer for me. I would hope, I started doing this work as a volunteer, oh God, 10 years ago now and became a paid person only in 2020. When I started doing the basic training in fair and impartial policing, it was roughly two hours. We currently have it up to six hours and it is currently being woven into other parts of the curriculum, as I mentioned before, and giving you a time about that is not really possible because I can't really speak to what other instructors are doing with fair and impartial policing in their classes on use of force, for instance. That's not, what I can only tell you is that number has increased in the time that I've been doing this from two to six hours and we're also looking at increasing it now. But not specifying that you're going to give six hours of training. Yeah, that is in fact specified in fact. But if we pass this bill, it will be struck. And so you're suspicious that we will go backwards if we do. I don't really know what I'm suspicious of because I have no experience with law enforcement officer training. So I'm merely questioning what I don't know and trying to get an answer for what I don't know. I guess my point is I'm not sure that the answer is available beyond what you've been given. Thank you. That may in fact be the case. That does not however mean that everyone's ready to go backwards on this. Oh, I'm sure no one wants to go backwards. I mean, this is a very important part of officer training. I just would like, I'm a rules person. I would like to see it specified in rules. Thank you. Or is that a victory? Oh, and I think, Doctor, didn't you say that there is another option of keeping hours but also extending these trainings? Great. Yeah, I mean, I just, as I said, using that old saw, you know, that horrible metaphor, I really think it's possible in this case to have your cake and eat it too. I think you could take the number of hours that people are putting in now and just say, use that as a raw minimum and then let it grow, which it will assuredly do. I want to go to Representative Waters. I've been questioned. I don't want to go in an endless lute on this question. I do want to address the concerns and anxieties around this before we pass the bill. And I appreciate Dr. Nazard-Mago's suggestion that maybe we put some sort of a floor. So I just want to ask before we move on from this, Dr. Simons, if we weave in like a minimum threshold for fit training with a, I guess, in order to accomplish what we're trying to do here, maybe with a qualifier that talks about the ability to include that in other, you know, that it's not specific, it doesn't need to specifically be a class on fair and partial policing, but that training could be a minimum number of hours that's included. And maybe we can work on that over the lunch to sort of square the circle here. Because the idea, the flexibility we're trying to give you is to not have to teach a block of fair and partial policing training, but to have the flexibility to meet the standards and also weave this into other types of training that are being provided. So I don't want to go backwards by having that floor, then mean that you have to continue to just talk at a class of recruits, for instance, for a specific block of time. I don't know if there's a suggestion there about how we might sort of create that minimum without sort of tying your hands again. Well, I would say, I agree with what Etan is saying. We're not hung up on hours, we're mostly focused on the idea that we can be a skill-based profession. And I just want to be clear outside, whatever structure vehicle that we use to move this in the short time that I've been executive director, I have not heard from one officer, or chief, or sheriff, or anyone from command that they want less training. This is a profession that is asked for more training, more skills, additional time to the academy, more in-service resources, more opportunities to make sure that we get it right, more money for backup and for backfill, and positions to make sure that each of their departments are as ready as they possibly can to not just meet the community needs, but also the safety needs of their own departments. I certainly don't mean to sound aggressive, but for us, the hours just aren't a measurement of skill. That's all we're saying, but this is what they're asking for. They want to get it right, and we are not other states, we're Vermont, and we're doing extraordinary work. And I too did not come from law enforcement, but I came from high liability training background and corrections background. And that is in the criminal justice system, and this work is no joke, and it can bring you to your knees. And there's so much more that we have to do in support of these folks that are doing the work, learning as fast as they can, accommodating the transition and leadership and changes in the workforce. And I just want to, sorry for the soapbox, but if I don't sound clear, it's because at some point, we do get into the impact of this on officers and law enforcement emotionally, which is they're working as hard as they can in this state. And Vermont is leading in many areas, not catching up, so I'll just leave it there. And your question was, can we live with something with hours? Yes. Okay, so what I may do is, I think I have an idea, so I'm gonna fire that off to legislative council right now as we're continuing our discussion and we'll see if that kind of helps address this, but I have some hands up in the room, represent Morgan, and then I'll show it back to Mr. Boone. So I'm listening to what Rob Hango's saying. I, 208 rules, first I spent 30 years in the military, so I get working in lanes and getting correct training. And I've seen the pendulum in that 38 years, I saw the pendulum swing both directions and certain trainings, somebody would get this, we used to call it the good idea, theory lands on their shoulder, and they go, hey, you should try doing this training, this way or that training that way, and then the pendulum swings one way, and they're like, oops, too far, so you're incorrect. And so I've seen that seesaw effect, so I understand her concern because this is public safety we're talking about, first and foremost, and then all of the other things fall below it, in my opinion, because we have to look at making sure that we put competent officers on our streets that do good work, that is fair and impartial, and but yet, takes care of the bad guys, I guess, to be blunt, but because that's the majority of what those folks do, but I understand her concern slash frustration to make sure that we don't just water something down, I don't think I'm hearing that, I believe I'm hearing that that's not the case at all, actually, and that's good, I'm glad to hear that, but I understand what she's saying, so I think we're going in the right direction, and we'll see if the chair comes up with for language. Thank you. And Waters Evans. Thank you. It's appealing, I think, and important that people aren't just doing their requisite for hours, and then that's kind of your done, right? And you can just say, okay, they're moving on, right? I'm curious about something like role play, for instance, like when you said, when you're evaluating them, can you or somebody talk a little bit about something that seems like it might not be a totally objective set of criteria? Like, can you just kind of walk me through it? Because the concept of it, I think, is really important. I think it's critical not only to weave it into, you know, every part of all of the training, and I was glad to hear you say that that's happening. I'm just wondering about you mentioned that there's, you know, a rubric for these different things for the evaluators. Can you just talk a little bit about that? And also what would happen if someone went through the training, you know, did the exercises and were found to not be competent? What would happen next? I'll be glad to answer that in terms of role playing. So when you talk about role playing and scenario-based training, all they should always be scripted with intended outcomes and that role players have to do their, it's like an actor. They have to do it, hit specific marks, and then the person being evaluated has to hit those specific marks. And there is actual grading and rubric for that. What you find today in most law enforcement training is this ad hoc role playing that doesn't necessarily involve scripted scenarios with grading rubrics. That is a core component and a needed component when you develop training. And with that being said, my opinion is that a failure in a role playing graded scenario is no different than taking a test, a written test. It would require remediation and everything else that goes along with it. So in my view, those grading rubrics for role plays and practical scenarios and skills would carry the same weight as a written test would. That's my position on that. Thanks. Other questions from the committee? I think the plan is that I would like to suggest and I'm looking for the appropriate place here. We have, if you look at the bill itself at the top of page three, we've said that in order to remain certified law enforcement officer, shall receive a refresher course on the training required by the subsection. So that's fair and partial police training during every odd number of year in a program approved by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. And then we've added, designed to demonstrate a chief law enforcement officer common scene, fair and impartial policing. If we add it onto that comma, a minimum number of hours requirement, would that address the concern that representative Hango, you brought up? So go ahead. Thank you. We have two draft 2.2s on our website. Which one are you? The one that's actually a draft. One is an overview of the draft. It's a summary from legislative counsel. The other is the draft. Top of page three is the new language. The paragraph begins on the bottom of page two. So just recall here that, if you look at all of section two, so it's starting in the middle of page two, we've got our minimum training standards and definitions. We're not changing anything about paragraph one that talks about fair and impartial policing policy. What we're striking was a piece that really should have been session law. It got put into the green books, but it should have been session law that going way, way back to when the statute was created, there really wasn't much of a focus on fair and impartial policing. A lot has changed in the last few years. We've come an enormous way. And we talked about this in the context of what we passed yesterday and the evolution that Director Simons and Dr. Nasrud and Lago talked about the standards that our guests from IADList are talking about. The changes in law enforcement training are on these issues have evolved a lot in the last few years. So this just our requirement that we had that should have been in session law, I think what we're hearing from our witnesses is that it wouldn't hurt at all to create some kind of minimum number of hours because they're already doing way more than that. So if it'll make us feel like we haven't abandoned that requirement, I'm wondering, we've talked a little bit, I guess my question for Director Simons and Deputy Director Raquel probably is that we've gotten away, we may have talked a little bit about what a person is attending the first training at the academy gets versus the every two years. And so if we're talking about the requirement for the sort of refresher course where we have this language designed to demonstrate achieve law enforcement officer competency in FIP, what would be sort of a reasonable minimum number of hours there? Because I'm a little bit foggy on exactly how many hours of CEUs that training is really doing. And you're talking about in-service training for FIP? Yeah. It's, is it 2.58 ton? Yes. And it's every other year? Yes. Yeah, so I won't weigh in on how many hours, but if it's in statute that also says that's all they have to take. Yeah, if we, if we put if we, if we make it clear that it's a minimum threshold, see this is the thing I was trying to avoid with a number of hours is I do not everyone had interpreted it as a floor around the ceiling, rather I, it was, I wanted to make it really clear it's a floor. So the emphasis would be on the language we have, which is that it demonstrates competency, but I'm just, I'm trying to get the committee to have a unanimous vote here on this bill. So I want to address this anxiety representative Hendo. Thank you. And maybe Tim can answer this question because I see him on section two. Is this referring to the initial training a recruit gets at the academy? Or is this, are we talking about the in-service training that Director Simons just talked about? I'm a little bit confused. Like where, where this session law is, what was that referring to, that minimum of four hours of training? You're muted, Tim, sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Tim, please. Thank you for your question, Representative Hendo. The, what appears on line 16, that subsection two, which is proposed to be struck here. This is kind of interesting bit of language that I think is probably best conceived of something that should have not have been codified but should have been put into session law because it puts in a timeline and it's December by December 31st, 2018, a requirement that all law enforcement officers should receive four hours of training. And that's kind of the way it reads. It's kind of a one-off. And so it would just kind of a snapshot in time and it can be construed, I should say, that, and this is where there's some ambiguity in the law, which should probably should be addressed here, that it can be conceived, construed as to just really those officers that were employed or certified as law enforcement officers as of January, December 31st, 2018, they needed four hours and that was it. And then subsection three would then entail every odd number year or a fresher course. So that's how I would kind of characterize the language at play here. Is that helpful? That's super helpful, Tim. One other thing I would ask that I think might help even further is that the ambiguity that this brings really, there is no ongoing statutory number of hours required for that refresher course in current statute, right? That's correct. So we're not actually removing a number of hours that's specified in current law. We're getting rid of a requirement that by 2018, all law enforcement in the state have four hours of training, but once that item in number two on line 16 to 18, once we got past December of 2018, it's not like there was any ongoing statutory minimum number of hours in current law. Well, and I would say that therein lies the rub. It can be interpreted one of two very different ways. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Representative. So after all of our discussion, I did interpret it the way that Tim just explained it. And then I go back to section one. The purpose of this whole bill is to achieve increased competency over prescribed minimum hours of training. If we have no prescribed minimum hours of training in law, in statute, then how are we gonna emphasize achieving increased competency? What is that doing for us? It's basically telling us what we're already doing. And then I go on to the next section below the stricken language in number two. And then we have number, we have letter F, sorry. That the criteria for also stricken, the criteria for all minimum training standards, on and on about a ride. And then on or before December 3rd 1st, 2021, which I understand that should not even be in here. It should be in session law. Law enforcement officers shall receive a minimum of 16 hours of training. So my feeling is this was put into, this was codified into law. And probably should be in session law because it was trying to bring everybody up to speed to where we want it to be at that point in time. We want it all law enforcement officers to be on the same page. But now going forward from 2016 and 2018, we want law enforcement officers to have equivalent training to each other. Everybody from all different agencies should have this equivalent training. What is that equivalent training going to be? Right now it appears that there's no specified equivalent training in statute for number of hours of that training. And we're envisioning that there's going to be this competency-based training, which we're already doing anyway, and we're going to hopefully expand on it because nobody wants less training. So why do we need this bill? So this isn't the only thing that's built, but it was the piece of this bill that does two things. First of all, it clears up this ambiguity about the number of hours from the 2018. And it clears up that we don't expect every single law enforcement officer to do A-Ride. We're giving the flexibility to the criminal justice council to provide the A-Ride training and not specify the number of hours of A-Ride training to those officers who can actually make use of it. Where's that part? Well, that's by striking the A-Ride. Okay, that makes sense to me. But the purpose then of this bill doesn't sound right to me. It just doesn't capture what we're doing. Basically, we're striking two things that should be in session law, and we're adding the request for a report. In that part of the bill, yes. And then the other sections of the bill have nothing to do with these training pieces we're discussing today, because I think we talked about those at the time. But those are not addressed in the purpose, either, are they? So your concern right now is about section one? I guess so. I'm all over the map on this. Here's what I think we're gonna do. This is just a really confusing bill. I don't think it's that confusing, but I think- Your opinion? We're gonna try to reduce confusion here this morning and by this afternoon have everybody on the same page. So just wanna take us back up and out of this kind of technical conversation and say we have been asked by the folks who train our law enforcement as represented by Director Simons and the guests today, folks who are involved with the creation of the curricula for our law enforcement officers as they get trained, we've been asked by them to put in statute that we wanna move away philosophically from minimal matters to competency. And so there's the purpose, I think captures that, especially in regard to FIP and the reason we've specifically talked about it in regard to FIP is that this committee in the past, and I know you weren't here, Representative Hango. So this is about the historical context was very concerned when they put in that language further down the by December, 2018 language. It's very concerned about making sure fair and partial policing was a point that was all law enforcement officers got some training. There was a real concern from past members of this committee, this body, legislature, the public about that. In the last few years, we've had amazing law enforcement leadership. The Criminal Justice Council has really evolved and this is one more step in that. So the point of this bill is we're cleaning up some language, we're acknowledging what's already happening and we're endorsing the direction that the Criminal Justice Council is going. That's the point of these parts of the bill. I don't have a response. So before we break for lunch, we will come back to this at one o'clock today. I will put our heads together as we break here and see if we need to specify some kind of minimum number of hours for the refresher, but I'm a little hesitant to do it after the conversation we've had this morning because I don't want it to ever be seen as a ceiling by any future. We could have a different director and a completely different set of people to Criminal Justice Council. And then we go, look, we only got to do two hours of training. It says it right there in statute. So that's the fear that my only hesitancy to do that. But I want to get this committee on board. So Representative Higley and then Henry. Yeah, and I don't want to add any more confusion. But again, if you go down to the council's powers and duties under rulemaking, it talks about that A-Ride enforcement training certification, including minimum hours of training through requisites and time periods for completion. And in that, it mentions minimum hours of training as well. Right, exactly. And it gives them the flexibility, the point is it gives them the flexibility to decide what the minimum hours of training needs to be, not set it in statute. That's exactly it, right? Is that in the rulemaking? It's giving the Criminal Justice Council the experts that are doing that flexibility. Representative Higley and Representative Waters. Thanks, I just want to say don't do anything about minimum number of hours on my account because I am not a law enforcement training expert. I have no idea what minimum hours should be. I don't need that. However, I do think that the introductory paragraph where it says introduced by the Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs explains this bill a lot better than the purpose, which is section one. So I don't know if that would make it easier because this introductory paragraph does not appear in the books, right? When the laws are put into the books. I believe the way this is written, this is not findings. This is a statement of purpose that would actually be included. So can you clarify that for us? Sure. The statement of purpose starting on line five of page one, that will not appear in law. Okay. The section one stated purpose of page two, line four, running through page eight, that would be kind of funny. That's what I thought. Really, yeah. Sorry, no. I spoke too soon. I apologize. Section one is session law that would appear as an annotation to the remaining language that will be codified. It will not be statutory language, but it will be memorialized in the annotations that session law typically appears as. Sorry. So I do not have strong feelings about the section on purpose. So if it would help the committee at all, happy to edit that over lunch, happy to strike it. Findings are not, but I think we put that in the drafts in order to give people a sense of what the heck are you doing by striking this? So because I anticipated, and I think many of us did, that it would make folks who were around when that requirement, the 2018 requirement, was created a little nervous to just be getting rid of those minimum hour requirements. So this is the struggle is that we've been trying to be really transparent about what we're doing. So folks have strong feelings about the findings language. That is sort of being session law. I think it helps say why we're trying to do what we're doing and provide some context, but if anybody feels strongly about it, I'm happy to work on it, because it's meant to help people understand why we're doing what we're doing. It's not the thing we're doing. Does anybody have strong feelings about it? Representative Watson, let's go ahead. I don't have strong feelings about that. I mean, I think it's fine the way it is. But I had a different comment. Yeah, please. We only get everything on the table when you work on the floor. Yes. I think that all this talk about hours and all of this stuff, but the conversation that we have this morning alleviated any concerns that I had previously before we got to this point. I think that the hard kind of conceptual leap is taking, is going from having this concrete set period of time that we know this is gonna happen to putting, I guess it's putting trust into the people who are developing the curriculum and who are doing the training, which seems counterintuitive to making a law, but that we have this checkback now worked into it, which enables us to move forward with that trust over a period of time and then reevaluate how things are going, which makes me feel terrific about the whole thing. Great. I'm gonna have to feel terrific. That's it. We like feeling terrific. Yeah. Please, I'll go ahead, please. I would simply, right now I'm speaking as chair of the ARDAP and not as one of the people who does some of this training. I would encourage you, if at all possible, to include in the language of the bill an understanding of that the change to a focus on skills and competency is directly in line with the stated goals that have been put forth across state government to increase transparency and accountability to historically stigmatized communities. That's all. Would you do me a huge favor, if you're willing, which would be, would you send me an email with that because I wouldn't mind adding something to that effect to our statement of purpose to strengthen it? Thank you. Sure. Absolutely. By when, please say like 10 minutes. So if you would be willing to do that in the noon hour, I could ask Mr. Devlin, who's our legislative counsel to add that for the draft that we'll look at after lunch. Okay. Anytime the next half hour, 45 minutes, something like that I think would be plenty of time. We'll do. Okay. If you're going to suggest we add something, then I'll flip that back to you. That's what happens sometimes here. It's like the military. I get it. Yeah. But I did an all seriousness. I think you captured something that's a desire that we, many of us on the committee had in doing this. And I want to make it clear our colleagues who weren't part of this really intense conversation, what we're actually doing here in endorsing a move to competency over minimum hours. Okay. Okay. So committee, we're at noon. I really, really deeply appreciate Director Simons, the gentleman for my Atlas. Thank you for spending this time with us this morning and helping us sort of get this philosophical and statutory cleanup bill done. We will break now and be back to pick this up again at one o'clock. Thanks so much for being with us today. Thank you. Have a copy of the bill. Absolutely. So what we will have, I'm hoping, when we come back at one is an updated draft to that will include, hopefully, Dr. Ness, Redmondo's suggestion to add to the why we're doing this and what our hopes are for it. And then we'll do a walkthrough with Tim. We also have a couple of what was caring from the network and Chief Lamas both wanted to offer some perspective before we do our final walkthrough. So we will hear that the testimony at one, take a look at a clean draft and then hopefully wrap up our.