 Good morning. You are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We started out this morning hearing from our Executive Director of Racial Equity, Susana Davis, and also from the H-196 bill sponsor, Kevin Christie. Thank you for joining us again, Kevin, from coming up the stairs from the Judiciary Education Committee. Is that where you are now? I can't remember. Judiciary. Okay. Yeah, it's hard to keep track of where folks land now that we don't have the opportunity to poke our heads in other committee rooms while they're doing their work. But thank you, Coach Christie, for coming to join us again. We have with us Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, Mark Hughes. And Mark, I would love to welcome you to share your thoughts on the concepts that are outlined in the short form bill H-196, which proposes to add some staff to the Racial Equity Director's Office. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know everybody's been on all kinds of Zoom calls today, so I'm just going to say it. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, all right. So I appreciate Mark Hughes Racial Justice Alliance Executive Director for the record. I appreciate the opportunity to come and share a couple thoughts on what's going on with the Racial Equity Executive Director. I'm sure you can appreciate from the work of the Alliance Injustice for All in 2017 what emerged from that was Act 54, if you recall. For those of you who are freshmen, not the call representative, but I don't know who else is a freshman on here, but maybe you weren't watching, but Act 54 is Racial Disparities in a Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel. And I think you recall those of you who were around that, from that emerged the Attorney General's and Human Rights Commission's task force where we reported out racial disparities across all systems of state government. And then following that, the next year that served as momentum for us to introduce S-281 in the Senate, which ultimately produced the Racial Equity Executive Director and Panel. I think you should note, and I want to place heavy emphasis on this, we came before you asking for that to be an independent commission in 2018. We still feel that way. I also would like to note that I did observe the testimony of Representative Christie. Hey, Coach, how you doing? Good to see you. And also the testimony of the Racial Equity Executive Director this morning, so all of that testimony is noted. I also would like to just also preface what it is that I would offer on this bill with the fact that the testimony offered from the Racial Equity Executive Director is testimony, that is testimony that must be framed in her capacity as a political appointee, as well as serving at the pleasure of the governor. So I'm sure there may have been things that you could have heard from her if it was otherwise. I think that is consistent throughout all her testimony. And I just want to make it very clear as much as I love and adore Susanna Davis and was happy when she arrived and consult with her frequently. And at the end of the day, we must never forget that, you know, in her capacity, well, in short, I will just say that we asked for an independent commission for a purpose, for a reason. It was very clear. We made it very clear to you that we didn't feel strongly that she would be able to operate to her fullest capacity without having an independence, a certain level of independence. I just want to just loop all the way back to that. And also, obviously, the testimony of Kevin Coach Christie, who's black as I am, but still yet a legislator, I just want to make it clear that at the end of the day, he is a legislator. I'm pretty sure you all knew that, but sometimes I like to show up and be the consummate stator of the obvious. So when he does show up and provide that testimony, we just keep in mind that he does have legislative plates on his car, and he does operate from a different level of privilege that we do with all due respect with any testimony that he might bring about any policy that may come before you. So and then just in opening, I would also just just think, Andrea, I think there was some confusion in the backfield. We tried to call an audible and get myself as well as some other folks from the Alliance in tomorrow. That communication that came across today was intended for me to be on your calendar tomorrow. I only found out that I would be before you about 10 minutes ago. So, but I'm glad to be here. I want to give a shout out to the work of the committee and also all of the great and exciting work to you. You know the government operations is my favorite committee. You know that. Okay. So also, especially want to lift up the vice chair Representative Gannon, you're still in that position, right? Okay. So it's good to see you back. So as far as the bill, it's the proposed bill itself, we certainly support this work that this, you know, we have been asking, you know, you may recall that we asked for a incredibly, we asked for a robust racial equity capability within, you know, as an independent commission two years ago. We asked for additions to this office in, you know, I think Representative Christie had mentioned that our first round at seeking to get this position fulfilled was vetoed. Any executive order was issued, I think that is still on record. In fact, I don't think it was ever defeated by the legislature. And, you know, during that process, when we came back in 18, Act 9 is actually a special session policy that was passed. It was during the budget process of 2018. When we came back and got this position approved, the only obstacle that really stood between us in getting this position in place was the fact that the governor vetoed it because he did not have the ability to unilaterally terminate this position. And he deemed that to be constitutionally inappropriate. The ledge console would go on after that to to indicate otherwise, but the ship had already sailed. So we did come back, but it was always our intention to have this office staffed. It was always our intention to bring forward a robust capability. Now, before I go into the policy itself, I do want to pivot really quickly and talk a little bit about data, because it was always our intention as well to have a data apparatus as well as a capability within his office. What do I mean by apparatus? I'm glad you asked. The apparatus piece we were talking about was we wanted to see the technology infrastructure implemented. Some of you may recall these conversations, and I think most of it fell on the floor in Senator White's committee on the other side of the building. It was our intention to implement a platform in infrastructure which could correlate aggregate as well as provide presentation level analytics of racially disaggregated data across all systems of state government. That is the purview under which she is operating. So I think it's unrealistic to expect her to have those expectations in her policy to say, hey, we want you to collect data and not give her a place to put it or not give her a place to a method whereby which she would analyze it. So I'd ask the committee to really take that into consideration. And the pivot that I'm making is over to House Judiciary. And so I'm glad that Coach Christie is here, that Representative Christie is here, because I do know that there is, I think it's a house bill that's emerging that is referred to as the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics advisory panel. And this is an executive director of racial equity and justice statistics that is coming out of that committee. This is relevant, and I do understand you may think I might be wondering, but I know there was a conversation about data today as justification and data, her position does start and end with the collection, the correlation and the analysis of racially disaggregated data. And that is how she, that is how we measure our progress, that is how we create policy. So I want to make sure that you understand that I still am on point here. So this, this bill actually seeks to appropriate $539,960. I think this is going to be coming out in the near future. And the reason why I bring this up is not as a counter point to this, but as an augmentation, because I think when we're reimagining, because there's nothing in this policy, and this policy is in pages long, they don't even mention the racial equity executive director. And, but it only pertains to justice data, so-called justice data, I stand corrected. So it only pertains to the data that's being collected in the justice system. This is, you know, this is relevant because there's a good model here whereby which there is an individual with a staff who would have that responsibility and, and hopefully a capability to collect these data, but to have it completely separate in a whole another universe from the racial equity executive director is, is a boom dog at best. So I think that what we ought to consider is, is as we're having this conversation here, is that we closely consider the creative work that's come out of the judiciary in the house, which is, which would ordinarily be just being, you know, pretty close. You could just, like she, like you said, Madam Chair, poke your head in there. So, and the other thing is, is the expansion of the data, the data points. And if there are no established data points as they are prescribed here in housing, in education, in health services access, in economic development as well, then what we should do is we should be flagging those areas. But we should at least provide that framework, the infrastructure, the technology, because if we're going to, if we're going to throw some money at this thing, and we're really serious, if this is a, if racism is a, is a, is a, is a public health emergency. And if we're really seeking a moral budget, then what we should be doing is, is we should be making our, placing our full commitment to getting this done, unlike what we did a couple or two or three years ago. So I'll leave that alone and I'm sure Coach can tell you more about that particular policy. And I will turn the corner. And instead of going to the particulars in this policy, and actually I'm almost done, is is that there is a policy that is emerging in short form that we have submitted that addresses the racial equity executive director. It will probably be released, if not this afternoon or in the coming days, probably maybe the top of next week or something like that. The statement of purpose of that bill was to add to FTE positions is to positions one policy and research analyst, and one outreach and education coordinator. What I'm doing is I'm just showing it parallels, but I will show where we contrast it if I, if you could just be patient with me for just, just a little attitude here. So what we have is is, this is the outreach and education. Okay, so then in title three, again in chapter 68, this is, this was designated to support the work of the racial equity. Oh, looky there, it actually gets larger. The racial equity and mitigate systemic racism in all branches of state government. So the bill also provides, the purpose is to provide, now where I'm going here is, is I'm encouraging you to, to marry these bills up, you know, to, to figure out if, if there's something that you'd be willing to entertain and we'll come back and provide some testimony on this in particular later. But the bill also proposes to provide the director with the response, with the responsibility, because this bill is also not just about capacity, it's also about authority. It's also about empowering the office, which I didn't really hear this morning. So the bills, it also proposes to provide the executive director with responsibility for statewide racial impact assessment program. You talked a little bit about racial impact assessment. It is actually somewhat beyond the scope of her in acting, her in acting statute. What we're proposing is, is that that be codified just like we tried to do it a couple of years ago, racial impact assessment program as a part of her responsibilities to assess the racial impact of existing and emerging policies in statewide racial equity monitoring program, tasked with continually continuously reviewing hiring appointment and promotion processes across the state government. So expansion of responsibility a little bit, because we know these to be areas of concern. The bill also proposes to establish the racial equity, the racial equity programs statewide framework for ensuring uniform policy, systemic racism awareness training and data collection, and racial impact assessments across state government and agencies. And then towards the end, we propose to establish and fund the infrastructure for systemic collection, systemic collection of racially disaggregated data across all state government systems, including but not limited to housing and education, employment health services access, economic development, and the so-called justice system. The bill also compels all state agencies to comply with the programs of the racial equity director surrounding data collection, policy training, racial impact assessment and hiring, appointment and promotion processes. This bill requires all state agencies to integrate racial equity compliance into annual evaluation requirements and the individual at individual as well as state government levels. This bill also establishes that the racial equity director office be established body that is independent of any agency of branch government. We sought, we seek to appropriate $1.25 million to get this done. This is the technology infrastructure to support, and again, these are these are iterative steps. The first tranche to get a couple of FTEs on the ground, obviously you're probably looking at a quarter mill, we'd be looking at another million dollars to initiate the feasibility study as well as the impact assessment surrounding technology infrastructure implementation and so forth. That is going to be an elongated process, but we need to start it and we need to start it with commitment. That will be for the collection and the management of racially disaggregated data. So that is the, those are the similarities and contrasts to the policy that is emerging as opposed to the one that's on the table before you. There is a specific emphasis that I place quite intentionally on the work that is emerging in judiciary. There is also a specific emphasis that I placed as well on the need for independence and authority for this particular capability. I thank you for your time. Thank you for inviting me. I would love to get some other folks out from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and others to testify before you on this matter. I'd love to also get out and talk to you more about the whole idea of the combination of this so-called public safety apparatus that's going on as well. So thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have and I'll just stop there. Thank you so much for being with us this morning and I apologize for the crossed wires. We certainly can make some time to have you and or other folks back tomorrow to talk more about this. I have a noon meeting that I have to jump to right now so I'm going to leave Representative Gannon to facilitate questions but I just want to say thank you for coming. Thank you for being a voice for our continued focus on these important issues. And so committee, go ahead with questions and Mark, I'll see you again another day. I appreciate you, Madam Chair. Any questions? Okay, there's a hand. Mike first and then Peter. Yeah, any questions? Yeah Mark, thanks for coming in. I just wanted to say I really appreciate you and the alliance you know trying to help us get this work right because what we're talking about with these two positions here in H-196, it does relate to that work that's going on in judiciary, going on healthcare and we've got that tendency to be siloed. And so I just want to invite you to you know continue to give us feedback and make sure these things stay connected and that they aren't siloed so that we can do the work effectively. And I know you know Representative Christie and others will be a part of that too but yeah I just want to invite you to continue to do that and say that you know got your email as well about the presentation that we had in the joint session yesterday and that we will before we take any action there definitely want to hear from a lot of more voices so I just wanted you to know that we had heard that. Representative McCarthy, thank you so much and thank you for the positive feedback and all the work that you're doing. I really appreciate you and your voice. Great Peter. Thank you very much John. I'm not having the benefit of looking at or reading the bill presented or before the Judiciary Committee what I'm struggling with given the testimony this morning from Susanna. I just think even with two assistants it's pretty obvious that as I think Tanya mentioned this is an incredibly daunting assignment or list of duties that is slowly aggregating and I'm just wondering back to taking the advice of Susanna what is practicable even with three people I'm wondering whether or not data collection and I'm distinguishing by the way collection from massaging analysis conclusions correlations the kind of analysis that is possible once you have disaggregated data but to go back I'm wondering whether or not the burden of collection as it is in the VSB and the judiciary should fall on the relevant agencies and not be lumped on top of the other seemingly from my point of view more important things than simply collection. I understand the technology that would enable analysis correlation massaging all that really needs to be housed with the Executive Director but I worry that the Executive Director would be spending all her time reprimanding various agencies for failing to do one thing or another and not get to the more important policy work which is identifying systematic problems that should be called out. Thank you. Representative Anthony first of all I just want to give a shout out to Barry because it's one of my favorite towns in the state so I spent a lot of time in Washington County I've only been up in Chinden for a couple years so I'm not that Chinden guy but I appreciate what it is that the point that you bring forward and let me tell you why because as we were deliberating on the creation of this position in 2018 we covered all of this and we talked about not just the importance of data and not just the importance of an infrastructure being implemented but also who's going to manage it who's going to be the what we call business owner of the project and its implementation and its turnover and to production that makes sense that the business owner you know because I'm an old IT guy I come out of a cyberspace okay so I understand you know how you know project implementation project management program management so the business owner of this particular project we have to understand it to be the racial equity director the racial equity officer um so that's one important point but it doesn't mean that she has to their office would be responsible for the administration because you have economies of scales that that are that that increase you know when you have shared resources in the enterprise so what we're really talking about is is some some type of deployment of a an implementation of a technology infrastructure that is a it's centralized and it's actually just a point of aggregation because believe me almost every one of these systems that are currently deployed are already collecting some type of racially disaggregated data or have the ability to be configured to do so in some way whether it's at the application level whether it's at the database level or whatever so I don't want to get too much in the weeds but really what we're talking about is we're talking about pushing and pulling data across the enterprise we just put something on the freaking Mars today okay so we can do this so this is this is about you know this is about you know having a political will to do it uh and and it's you know you're going to get a lot from the business units and they're going to be saying oh we can't do that it costs too much you know again it's a centralized it's a centralized infrastructure where we would be deploying technology where data could be aggregated uh where it could correlated and where it could be analyzed and so forth most of the data collection as we know it it's simple as our daily activities and our input into all of these systems you know it's just a matter of being able to extract that from the appropriate areas or first of all determine which areas are the appropriate areas to go in and find those data extract them and then to push or pull them to the appropriate areas for that particular business use which is racially disaggregated data analysis this is going to help you you asked this morning how's this going to help us when you get this your policy is going to be better your policy is going to be better because it's data-driven hopefully right it's not crime research group data-driven it's data-driven in another way so um so i appreciate your question i hope that helps um and um your point is well taken any other questions um i i have a couple questions mark for you first of all the big guys on me thank you for testifying today and thank you for your comments with respect to our joint hearing yesterday um the optics of that were not good um being surrounded by a number of law enforcement officers who i wasn't even sure why they were there um given that we were doing a walkthrough of a bill i was it was just it was odd so i appreciate your comments with respect to that um so my question is um you raised a good point about judicial judicial data um and i know that we also have a bill in health care um h210 which deals with creating an office of health equity um and i just thought on this i mean should all of this be centralized under the racial equity director i mean does that make more sense or should we be spreading it among different state agencies you cut out right at the end but i got it i think i got your question and um h210 is one of ours uh you're going to you're going to see some some other ones emerging um you're going to see um racism as a public health emergency a joint resolution that's going to be probably dropping if not today or over the next couple of days um we're going to get the rest of that freeman language out of title 24 uh the appendix of title 24 on all of the charters we're going to be working on uh you'll see another reparations bill in your committee uh shadow slavery reparations bills coming back uh cultural and economic empowerment home and land ownership uh data equity data ratio data and racial equity which is what we're talking about right now uh public so-called public safety and also even yes representative gannon the cannabis policy is coming back to for racial equity so we're doing a lot of stuff in question is is the um you know and we got some traction with senator sears and in uh in in senator benning and in and also us maybe not so much senator piercin but we'll talk about that later but then we've got some traction on that we'll talk more about it so so in a perfect world you know i think there's a possibility where you know what we're talking about is is we're not talking about a director and what's really strange about this policy that i told you about outed over in uh judiciary and i'm not picking on anybody here okay we just we got to just tell you know just say what it is because if we get so nice to each other that we're not really saying what we really want to say then we're not going to really do the best thing for everybody that we're trying to do it for you know just like today when sudana said um you know i can't answer that question you know i can't go so it was a bridge too far well why the reason why is because she is a political appointee because she works for the governor so she can't say that and that is where that ends and i and the reason why i bring that point up is is because we got to see that for what it is and understand that that we have constraints within the systems that we've designed that that are precluding us for being able to get the work done that needs to get done for the people we need it most so that goes back to that independent so again you know when you think about this structure of what this ought to really look like you know and this is just let me just spitball for about 30 seconds this is i think you know in a perfect world what we have is because we've got a a department or an agency or you know we tried to make her a commissioner for crying out loud okay so we've got a commission a public safety an independent uh racial equity commission in these functions that are health equity related these functions that are judiciary data related or i should say i don't i don't want to just stay on data because we're talking about policy training data we're talking about you know how we go about reviewing existing and emerging policies we're talking about hiring promotions as well as appointment processes um so it's the whole shebang but as they pertain to these particular entities these particular what we say we'll just call them social constructs for lack of better term then she could have those capacity that capacity under her so what we've been doing is is just segmented by function you are policy you are outreach you are training and education but what we ought to be segmented by is is these the constructs that we have within our our state government and because that's where the the um just a little bit more than 30 seconds but that's where the the the disparities that are are being produced these um these uh determinants that we call housing education employment health service economic development so-called criminal justice those disparities are being pushed from those systems so i hope i beat that into the ground enough for you um but yeah the one word answer yeah probably so and i hope that the will is here in this committee this year because folks if we can't do it now i mean now today february 18 2021 you know with the last four years in our rearview mirror in the middle of a global pandemic and a racial reckoning which we probably never seen before we and we're probably never see again if we can't do it now what are we gonna do it thank you mark um any other questions for many members well thank you very much for coming today mark and i'm sure we'll bet you again i appreciate your again everything and again uh mr chairman i appreciate the time thank you so much i wish you all a great session and thank you for the hard work that you're um that you guys are putting in i really appreciate you all you got again you're my favorite committee