 Welcome everyone to the joint meeting of the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs with our colleagues in the House Judiciary Committee who are up in their committee room joining us by Zoom. Thank you, Chair Lalone, for working in tandem with us today. First thing I want to do is go around and since we have a number of folks here from various agencies and folks watching to just quickly introduce each of the members of the committees that are here. I'm Representative Mike McCarthy from St. Albans and I chair the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee. I'll turn it over to Vice Chair. Thank you. Representative Matt Byrong at Addison 3 District, I reside in Virginia and represent five other municipalities in that area. Representative Lucy Boyden. I represent District Memorial 3, which is Cambridge and Waterville and this is my first term. Representative Lisa Hango, Franklin 5, which is four towns on the northern border. Berkshire, Richford, Franklin and Highgate. Michael Morgan represent all of Grand Isle County and the western corner of Milton 2nd term. Good morning. I'm Mike Warwicky from Wyndham 4 District of Putney and Dumberstyn in the southeast part of the park. I set the chase, called Chester. Shay Winters-Evans from Charlotte and a bit of Hinesburg. Hey, Agent, newly elected person of self-relief. Great. And Representative Higley, you want to introduce yourself? I'm Representative Mark Higley from Lowell. I represent the Orlees-Lamoille District, which is Lowell, Jay Westfield, Troy, the towns of Eden, Irisburg, Coventry and Newport Town, Tatoozee District. Representative Lalone, do you want to go around your table and then I'll have my couple of folks who are just getting seated. Perfect. Yes. And we have a quorum now too. So, Mark Lalone, Chair of Health Judiciary, and one of five representatives from South Burlington. Tom Burdett, Vice-Chair of Health Judiciary, and I represent West Rutland, Clarendon, Wallingford and Rutland Town. Karen Dolan, and I'm one of the representatives from S Extension. Ella Chapin, I represent East Montpelier and Middlesex. Tom Aller, I represent Swanton and Sheldon. Ken Gosling, I represent Northfield and Burlund. Let's all of us for now. Great. And Representative Hooper of Burlington, would you like to introduce yourself? I apologize, Mr. Chair. Our caucus ran a little long this morning. Hooper caucus? Hooper caucus. Nice to have you. Bob Hooper of Burlington. Representative Hooper of Randolph. Jay Hooper of Brookfield, Bringsfield, Randolph, Grandville and Roxbury. Pardon me. And in case you missed it, we have three mics and two Hoopers on House Gov Ops and Military Affairs, so it can get a little confusing around here. So before we start with our first witness, and we're going to take about three hours of testimony today, most likely, and we'll take a break in the middle, I just want to take a quick minute to frame why we're taking testimony today about the role and responsibilities of the Office of Sheriff in Vermont, and acknowledge the context of the national conversation in regard to law enforcement. Over the weekend, pretty horrifying videos were released that show a 29-year-old Memphis man, Tyree Nichols, pepper sprayed, running away in fear, and then being brutally beaten to death by police. This is just the latest in a series of black Americans killed by police, incidents that we've seen because of the prevalence of body cameras, cell phones, and other footage. Many of us keep asking why George Floyd had to die this way. Why Breonna Taylor was shot in her home, why Philando Castile, and so many others were killed by police, people who should be alive today. It would be easy and a comfort to say that Vermont is different, that we are immune and we don't have the same problems with excessive use of force, racial and class disparities, or corruption here in our rural state. Unfortunately, in my own community of St. Albans, a series of incidents, the most egregious being a St. Albans Police Department officer who punched a detained woman, it exposed a need for more community oversight and we established a police advisory board, a belonging equity and inclusion committee. We got new leadership and officers and we focused on new use of force, incident reporting and other policies that have shown me that law enforcement agencies with systemic problems can change. I'm proud that I was able to see my community take action in the face of bad headlines and public outcry and transform our police department. That work is not done. Last August, just after the primary election, video was released that showed a man in the custody of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office kicked repeatedly by the sole candidate for sheriff who appeared on the ballot, Captain John Grismoor. Mr. Grismoor was terminated from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office. However, after facing a write-in challenge, being charged with a simple assault and being called to step aside by both the Democratic and Republican County Committees, he will be sworn in today as the new Franklin County Sheriff. Our constituents look at this and other headline grabbing incidents like embezzlement, corruption and abuse of the public trust in several counties and are dismayed. Today, we will hear about the Office of Sheriff. We'll hear from sheriffs who I respect and value for their leadership and their commitment to making the office what it should be. We will hear from state's attorneys and court administrators who rely on sheriffs and their deputies. We'll hear from a high bailiff who had to assume the Office of Sheriff. We'll hear about questionable financial practices that have been uncovered by our state auditor and not one but at least two county sheriff's offices recently. I deeply value and respect those who take an oath to serve our communities and our state who faithfully protect public safety. We are not here today to tear down law enforcement. We need to support good policing, but we have to understand what is going on with the Office of Sheriff, what systemic issues can be addressed and what powers and duties the General Assembly has to address them. We have many excellent law enforcement leaders as elected sheriffs in Vermont, but as we consider a bill and a constitutional amendment over the coming months, I'd ask all of us to consider if we need more accountability, professional qualifications and basic transparency so that we are not so reliant on and subject to the personal character of whoever happens to be elected sheriff every four years. So with that, I would like to welcome our first witnesses, Legislative Council, who will talk about the way the Constitution constructs the Office of Sheriff and tell us a little bit more about our powers and relation to that office. So thank you, Ben and Tim, for being here this morning. Thank you very much, Chair McCartney. For the record, my name is Tim Devlin, Legislative Council. We've been asked to provide some remarks on the constitutional and statutory framework for the roles and responsibilities of Vermont sheriffs. I will speak to these items insofar as they fall within the jurisdiction of this House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs. My colleague, Attorney Ben Novograsky, will speak to what falls within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee for the most part. As I have previously said to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs, it is in that committee's jurisdiction to consider matters relating to the administration of public safety. That is the practical functioning of the state law enforcement apparatus, including the departments that interplay in the aspects of being a law enforcement officer as a profession. This administration of public safety should be understood as distinct and apart from matters pertaining to the public civil liberties, which often come up in discussion of policing, but are more so in the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee. Various aspects of the roles and responsibilities the Vermont sheriffs are found in both the Vermont Constitution and the Vermont Statutes Annotated, the VSA. Put simply, the Constitution controls the qualifications for sheriffs and how they enter and exit into office. While the statutes largely entail the structure and funding of sheriff's departments and the duties performed by the sheriffs, the Constitution states elections and bonding requirements for entrance into office. I should note that the enumerated qualifications for office of sheriff, that is elections and bonding, are exclusive qualifications, meaning that altering qualifications for office would require a constitutional amendment. Constitution requires the removal of a sheriff from office to be by impeachment. impeachment is also excluded as a remedy, meaning that this is the only means of removal without a constitutional amendment. I will now turn to the statutes, the way to describe the administration of public safety as they relate to sheriffs. Structurally, L24, VSA, section 298, establishes the sheriff's department in each county. The various sources of sheriff's department funding are described in titles 24, specifically chapter 5, county officers, powers and duties, and also in different parts of title 32, taxation and finances. These sources of funding include state funds appropriated for all of the Vermont state's attorneys and sheriffs, portions of annual county budgets, sheriff salaries, fees for civil process, transportation and care of prisoners, juveniles and disabled persons, and funds from sheriff's supplementary contracts to provide law enforcement and other related services. Title 24, chapter 5 also requires sheriff's departments to follow accounting procedures set by the state auditor. Now I'll turn over to my colleague. Thank you, Tim. My name is Ben Novogrowski from the office of legislative council. As my colleague Tim, our attorney Tim Devlin mentioned, I'll talk about more of the judiciary related aspects of sheriffs, but inevitably there is a little bit of crossover between the two areas. For instance, with sheriffs, the purview of the House Judiciary Committee would be that of the performance of their law enforcement duties and sort of consequences that may result or the examination of those duties as well. That would involve investigations, interrogations, potential lawsuits and what those look like. For instance, right now, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, they're dealing with a bill, S6, that talks about juvenile interrogations and what law enforcement officers can and cannot do in those situations. So that is a more sort of judiciary related topic. However, part of what goes into the interrogation of any suspect is the training that law enforcement officers, which include sheriffs, involve. So for instance, there are various statutes that describe sheriff responsibilities and they can probably be put into four broad categories. One, duties that are prescribed to sheriffs by particular statutes entitled 24-5. So these duties involve transporting prisoners, serving and executing lawful rits, warrants and service of process and quote unquote preserving the peace. A second category would be duties of a sheriff as a law enforcement officer. So this includes sheriffs in those duties, but also municipal police officers, state police officers, they're all subject to these set of duties as well. And the underpinnings of these duties can be found in federal, state statutes and also our court cases, common law. Third, there's the training and certification of sheriffs and all law enforcement officers that is administered by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Those statutes and controlling provisions are found in Title 20, Chapter 151. Sub-Chapter one of that describes the trainings and certification levels. So for instance, sheriffs like all law enforcement officers can obtain three certification levels. Level one is the lowest level, so it involves security, transport, vehicle escorts and traffic control and other techniques based on circumstances. Level two certification is everything of level one, but they can respond to crimes in progress and investigations of crimes involving the mistreatment of animals, arson, disorderly conduct, violations of abuse prevention orders, drug possession, motor vehicle violations and others. And then level three is the highest level of authority, which gives full law enforcement authority to anybody that is trained and certified as a law level three officer. Some of the training that's dictated by statute is anti-bias training, domestic violence training, animal cruelty training, and fair and impartial policing training. And there are also very statewide policies that sheriffs like all law enforcement officers are subject to, which include the fair and impartial policing policy of the state, race data collection policies. So for instance, every time that there is a someone's pulled over, there's certain data that needs to be collected about the driver. Electronic control devices, GPS monitoring, there's a statewide policy, the statewide use of force policy, and then the usage of body cameras. So those are the training and certification levels, but then there's also in sub-chapter two, unprofessional conduct statutes that govern sheriffs. So this includes requirements for sheriffs departments to adopt internal affairs policies in line with the Vermont criminal justice council, but also empowers the departments themselves to investigate various misconduct. And then depending on the situation, refer those investigations to the council. So there are various levels of misconduct that can fall under this statute. So category A conduct, or misconduct includes felonies that are committed on or off duty, misdemeanors committed on duty, and others committed off duty like assault, domestic violence, solicitation, and other similar misdemeanors. Category B misconduct includes gross professional misconduct or the willful failure to comply with state policies or substantial deviation from those, from an agency's policies, or if there's no policy that's covering the specific misconduct, if it includes sexual harassment, misuse of the official position, excessive force, bias enforcement, use of a chokehold, which would be against statewide policy or interference of investigations, those are other bases that fall under a more stringent level of discipline that can be associated with that conduct. And then category C really includes misconduct related to council procedures. And then ultimately the sanctions, and this is mind you limited to their law enforcement certification itself. So this would apply to sheriffs in the sense that their law enforcement powers can be subject to a written warning by the council, to suspension, to revocation, with the option of recertification depending on the council's discretion, or permanent revocation. So those are all the various forms of trainings and disciplines that sheriffs are subject to in addition to those mandated by federal and common law. Okay, so I'm going to ask a couple of clarifying questions, turning it over to the committee. So Tim, you had said that altering qualifications would require a constitutional amendment. So if I'm understanding your description and Ben's description of the relationship between the law enforcement certification that the Vermont Criminal Justice Council charge of, even if a sheriff is, has their certification suspended or they're fully decertified because of misconduct, they can, they are still the sheriff, they just can't perform the investigative law enforcement duties. Is that my, a correct understanding? Yes, that's correct. And do we have the power to say, for instance, require that a sheriff be a certified law enforcement officer in order to conduct the duties and hold the office? As a qualification for office, doing such would require a constitutional amendment. Short of impeachment that you mentioned as the only remedy for removal, are there any other ways that somebody who's an elected sheriff that, you know, is found guilty of crime, is decertified? Is there any other way to remove them from office? No, the impeachment as a means of removal for office is an exclusive remedy in modifying that or introducing a new means for removal from office would require a constitutional amendment. And is this unique to sheriffs in law enforcement leadership in the state of Vermont? For instance, you know, if the chief of police works for the city council in St. Albans, if the chief of police, you know, if he's hired, he can be terminated for misconduct. He's subject to that body's political decision making. Is there any other executive law enforcement officer where the only way they can be removed from office is impeachment in Vermont? I think a state's attorney would probably be the only other. But yeah, it's unique to sheriffs as far as ones that are acting in a purely law enforcement role. You mentioned police chiefs and municipal police officers. You know, by statute, they're governed by a legislative body of the municipality or, you know, the town manager. However, it's set up. So yeah, sheriffs are unique in that sense. The only thing I would add to that because they're an elected official, really, that's, I think, the qualified difference between most other law enforcement executives and sheriffs. And my colleague Tim can actually probably elaborate a little bit more on this, but it's really fascinating in the sense that sheriffs, the history behind a sheriff versus that of a police officer, I mean sheriffs really come from, you know, England and, you know, really when you think of like Robin Hood and the sheriff of Nottingham. I mean, it's really this old position that exists that has sort of come literally across the ocean and is now being implemented here. And so it's because of sort of the history behind it that you can probably speculate and say, well, that's why sheriffs are unique comparatively to other law enforcement officers. Representative Chase and then Representative Kigley, I see your hand up. So we'll go to Representative Chase first. Could follow up. If a sheriff was convicted of a crime and in prison and refused to step down, they could still theoretically be a sheriff while in prison. Correct. Okay, thank you. Representative Kigley. Yes, thank you. Question I have, I guess, under that exclusive remedy of impeachment. What would that look like? What does an impeachment process look like? Um, that's something that's being currently being looked into by legislative counsel as far as what the actual procedure is. It's been quite some time that it's been done in Vermont. But on a broad level, it would be something conducted within in the House of Representatives where the Senate would essentially sit as a jury or a similar entity like that. But as far as the specific procedures and the details of impeachment, that's something that's still being researched right now. Okay, thank you. Representative Byron. Thank you. Okay, so sheriffs are a unique role, but sheriffs are not unique to Vermont. How did they deal with this in other states as far as oversight accountability? That's a good question. And one that from my perspective, I'd probably have to look into a bit more. Sheriffs are just knowing about Vermont law itself. Sheriffs are usually in other jurisdictions, county-based officers. Vermont, the Vermont county structure is unique comparatively to other states like New York or Florida, larger states that have much more infrastructure at the county level. So while I'd have to do research, I'd speculate that there are differences between what's done in Vermont and other states, but I couldn't tell you exactly what those differences are at the moment. So there are a couple of questions in House Judiciary, I think, and then we'll come back. Yeah, I have one. Thank you. I'm just wondering if the people of a county could call for a special election to remove a sheriff? Recall is I'm kind of returning to the supremacy. Recalls would not really be permitted in circumstance for removing somebody from the office. It would have to be either by natural exploration of term, if they opted not to run again or resignation, or maybe the closer to political solutions there. But I'd have to reiterate, rather than a recall, it would really have to come down to an impeachment as the means to remove somebody from office. Just a couple other quick questions, I think. So is where in the Constitution is it just section 43 that relates to sheriffs, or is there someplace else that I'm missing? Sure. There are a few references to sheriff's constitution in, let's see, language pertain to the election of sheriffs appears in chapter 2, section 50. And that states that sheriffs are elected every four years by the voters of the respective districts as established by law. There's additional election information or language in so far as the sheriffs are elected at the general elections. That's in chapter 2, section 43, which I think you just mentioned. Let's see the manner and certification of election in filing a filling of vacancies in the office. The sheriff shall be established by the law. That's in chapter 2, section 53, and then in chapter 2, section 25, sheriffs before entering upon the duties of their offices shall be given sufficient security in such manner and in such terms shall be determined by the legislature. So that's the bonding requirement, which I think is $100,000. I have to check. Another question, state's attorneys to be elected, they don't have to be a licensed lawyer. Is that correct? I don't know that off the top of my head. It would be counterintuitive, but I believe that that suspicion is correct, but I'd have to do some more research just to confirm that for you, Charla Loan. Yeah, it's just that I mean, if we're able to have that requirement of being a licensed attorney, I don't understand why we couldn't require a sheriff to be certified law enforcement, but you're probably right, as far as that not being a requirement, but if you could just double check that that'd be helpful. Karen Dolan has a question as well. Yes, and I think you already shared this, but I'm hoping you can just clarify for me. I appreciate your overview of sheriff's roles and responsibilities. And so it seems like there's one piece of oversight, if somebody is certified as law enforcement, if they do something against that, they can be decertified and so no longer law enforcement. So I get that piece of it. If you could summarize, what are the duties outside of law enforcement? So say a sheriff has been decertified in law enforcement, what are they able to do still? Sure. So we understand it. They largely fall to remaining administrative duties as far as care for the sheriff's department as it exists from namely administrative and personnel. Firing and firing. Okay. So law enforcement is the main role. So could I just ask as a follow-up to Representative Dolan's question, the sheriff who was decertified and went through the misconduct process, either had their certification suspended or taken away by the Vermont Justice Council would still be able to control the budget. They'd still be able to hire and fire deputies. They would still have all the administrative authority of the office. They just wouldn't be able to perform law enforcement duties. That's correct. The only thing that might be at least shared is budgetary because assistant judges, at least from a county level, the ones that administer the county budget. But as far as the sheriff's department itself, yes. All right. So I have a couple of quick questions here. And then I do want to move on because we have a number of witnesses in the room. And this will not be the last time that I think we have legislative counsel in because we'll be, I believe, here in a bill before too long. Representative Hoover and then Representative Hango. Sorry. I'm just going to skip you. I don't know if you'll be able to answer this, but what if every town in the county were to drafts articles of impeachment for a town meeting day to say, to ask the question to the voters every time? Well, I think that's a good question. But as far as to ask you a question in return, would it just be to to actually draft the articles of impeachment itself or like sort of the towns expressing approval that, yes, they should go forward with articles of impeachment or or actually drafting the articles themselves to be voted on. So each individual town confronts the identical question of whether or not to keep or throw out the sitting sheriff. And then, oh, I guess. Well, I mean, would every town have to agree on a certain would every town have to vote yes, throw them out or. There isn't any provision that would allow towns to do that at all, right? We have no recall. What if that did happen, though? I think it would be largely symbolic, you know, of the towns sort of expressing their will. But ultimately, it wouldn't have a practical effect on the sheriff's position. Okay. Representative Hango. Thank you. First, let me address Representative Hooper. Nice idea, but it's too late because the warnings have already gone to the printers for town meetings so if you were to have something like that on the ballot, on the warning, it's too late to do that. So the question I had, and it's not really a question going back to follow up on Representative Byron's statement or question earlier, I would really like to know what other states that do not have county government do in a situation where they are faced with an official who is in this position, you know, and they would like to discipline or remove that person from office. So, I mean, clearly we do not have county government in Vermont for all rights and purposes. I'm sure there are other states that are in similar positions and maybe have faced this in the past. So rather than us inventing the wheel, maybe we can figure out. So do you have access to that type of information that you could get that to us? We do and I would just say that I think a lot of it as far as process maybe, you know, informative of what could be done here, but ultimately, you know, Vermont is bound by its constitution and the share of status as a constitutional officer. So while there might be some authority out there that could inform a process, ultimately, its application is maybe excluded based off of what's unique to Vermont. That's all good information and I think that will help us if and when we have to deal with the constitutional issue because apparently there is a constitutional amendment coming to us. Thanks. Representative Hooper. I just put a bow on Jay's question, Representative Hooper. Impeachment is the only mechanism and the only body effectively of power to do the impeachment is the one we're sitting in. So everything else is off the table at this point. Full removal from office. Short of a resignation or the termination of these terms that is new Jay. Is there any way to change the the term like the number of years that they serve? Or how would you put it? The term is written into the constitution. So to change that would require an amendment. All right, Representative Hooper, then I'm going to give our colleagues in House Judiciary a last chance and then I'd like to move on to some of our witnesses who I think may. Well, I don't want to harp on this silly idea that Hango's just squashed, but. There are only two ways to put an article on the ballot for town meeting day, correct? One select board simply drafts and adopts the question or to 5% of under voters of the town to get a petition to do the same. Is there any other way for like, let's say the state to put a question on the ballot for town meeting day for town for counties or towns? Towns can nominate things from the floor, right? So I think another way to answer this question and to get at and to get at this is the provisions in the Constitution. They say the sheriffs are elected in their districts and while I think we're going to hear from other folks who are testifying today about the sheriff's contracts as providing law enforcement services for towns. That might be something where the town could take action and say we no longer, you know, want to have the sheriff have the law enforcement contract for highway control or other law enforcement services, right? So towns could definitely have the power to do that but that removal of that contract or determination of that contract is, wouldn't remove that person from office as the sheriff. I'd agree with that summary. Is that the distinction that we're getting at? Representative Cooper? I guess what I'm trying to figure out is are there ways to put the question to the towns and the voters before we would take legislative action so as to confirm the outcome that is preferred by voters. I think it's the towns could certainly have non-binding resolutions that could signal the voting populations preference on some issue. However, procedurally, I think that impeachment would start in the house and so it would be up to its members, the leadership of the nature. House rules, procedures there to actually initiate the process which I think would be distinct from any sort of municipal signal. And no, I start to finish how fast does it, how long is the impeachment process? I don't know. There hasn't been one since the 1970s. So is your question right? 17, 1917. Well, there was not a successful impeachment, but there were articles of impeachment adopted and there was a trial in the Senate in the 1970s and it happened to be a sheriff from Washington County, I believe if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it did not, the sheriff was not impeached in that case, but the articles were passed by the House, but the Senate did not convict, if I understand that my history correctly. Yeah, and I think it would just depend on the articles of impeachment, what's contained in them, and then what it takes to essentially prove them one way or the other. So like litigation, it's hard to really know how long it would take, especially in a process that's more esoteric than litigation is. Okay, so I want to move on. So Representative Hango, I'll let you have the last word in here and then I want to jump over to Judiciary and thank you. I really appreciate that. I have another question going back to the duties of a sheriff if they were decertified and there were still performing administrative tasks. So would they be able to oversee criminal investigations if they were in that position? I would say probably not. And it depends what you mean by overseeing a criminal investigation. I mean, if they're making sort of broad decisions on a discretion of which way an investigation should go, I mean, that's in my view performing law enforcement duty so they would not be allowed to do that. If it's whether or not hiring or the pay of someone that would be in charge of that investigation, sure, but the investigation itself is a law enforcement duty. Yeah, the investigation itself. So really they would be strictly limited to things like hiring and approving time sheets, real administrative duties only. And they'd still be getting paid their salary from whatever they would have made if they hadn't been decertified. I think there's a slight reduction. Okay. Five or 10 percent. That's it. Okay, thank you. Representative Lalonde, anybody in your room have any questions? I don't see any other questions here. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you, Tim and Ben. Next up, John Campbell and Annie Newton. Are you going to be testifying together? Would you like to talk together? Yeah. Come on. Chairman McCarthy, would you like us to stand by or? I don't think that's necessary unless you would like to hear some of the flavor questions that are being asked. Because I have a feeling we'll be hearing a bill coming from the Senate, potential constitutional amendment. We may have other things that will be related to this in terms of there's a Vermont Criminal Justice Council housekeeping bill that may have some pieces that are related to this. So if you find it useful to stay, I welcome you to do that, but I know we're in intense drafting season, so I want to give you the discretion to get out of here and work on other bills. You could just watch via Zoom. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you. All right. So John Campbell is the Executive Director of the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs with Paul and Annie Noonan. Relations and Operations Manager, I really appreciate both of you coming in to tell us a little bit about the role of your office and let's understand how it works a little better. Thank you. For the record, John Campbell Executive Director for the State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. Annie Noonan, Labor Relations and Operations Manager Department of State's Dirties and Sheriffs. I have a title that she does all the work. First of all, thank you very much for having us here. We've obviously been before a couple of committees regarding issues that, unfortunately, have come to light throughout the state. And I think it's important and what we'll do is I'll go through, just explain how the department came to be and then Annie can take over to explain the financial operations and what exactly the relationship is with the certain portions of the sheriff's departments. Back in the 70s when there was a time when the because they're both county government, both the state's attorneys and the sheriffs would come here to Montpelier to request a budget for each year. And so finally, the Appropriations Committee said, wait, this just doesn't make sense for us doing 28 budgets. Why don't we establish the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs and they will be in essence the financial pass-through for and they'll come up and present the budget to both through the legislature with the House and the Senate. So that's why that was formed and we each year come before the legislature and request a budget for the state's attorneys for their for their total operations. However, for the sheriffs, the only thing that we really do that involves the sheriffs is the is their salaries and their benefits flow through our department. And then we also have the state dep state paid deputies, which are the ones that do the transportation for those who are incarcerated or for mental illness or for juveniles. And however, the day-to-day operations of sheriffs, their contracts, any other activity is solely within their purview. And we're not involved in it and we're not able to really oversee it. Last year, the in fact, actually up until last year, it was even difficult with the transport deputies to for us to say what they could and couldn't do because they became under the sheriff. So some sheriffs, you know, if they were transporting their number one job was transporting deputy or transported prisoners, but some sheriffs had used them also for other duties, whether it be law enforcement or if they weren't doing anything else, some of them had used on contracts. So then the legislature last year fortunately gave us more authorization that we are now able to tell the transport deputies what type of jobs they can do and what they can't. And so at this point, we are still down to the point of really having no oversight with the sheriffs and just now limited oversight with the transport deputies. I'm going to let Annie take it over from here, but I would like to at the end, I'll make a general comment and also just to let you know to the question with the state's attorney that it doesn't, you won't find it really in statute where they have to be an attorney, but it's sort of implicit under one of the statutes about attorneys and prosecuting cases because if he goes into court and also under the professional rules of conduct of an attorney is there, they would have to be a licensed attorney to appear in court in that position. There's also a question if the state's attorney was not a licensed attorney but had deputies who were, could that happen could they work that way? That is, is that if you had the professionals or professionals of conduct as attorneys say that you cannot supervise a non-attorney cannot be supervising a licensed attorney. So I think there would be difficulty there. So with that said, Mr. Chairman, if I could turn it over to Annie. Thank you. Good morning. Nice to meet some of you for the first time and see some old friends here. So as John said, we are, our agency takes the money for the sheriffs for their salary and benefits and for the state transport deputies. Under the statute, what it says that we do is we provide administrative and budgetary oversight and structure for the transportation work and extradition work that's done by the state transport deputies. As you know, there's 14 sheriffs. There are about 20 state transport deputies. Their state employees, their salaries are from the general fund. They have state health insurance, state retirement. They're in group C. Most of them, some of the older people are still in an old group F, in group F, but most of them are near everything with state employees. As you might remember for those who were here last year, the legislature passed a bill allowing the state transport deputies to unionize under VSEA. The department supported that effort and they are not yet, we have not yet started negotiations. VSEA just let us know that they're ready. So there, those folks will be at some point working with VSEA as their collective bargaining agent. All of our state transport deputies are currently certified as level two or level three by the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council. We have, I believe, only two people who are level two and all the rest are level three. How that helps in the work of the transport deputies is it allows them, if they have to pick up a prisoner at a federal facility, they have to be level three to transport them back, federal prisoners. So in addition to that though, the statute was written in a way that said that their primary work is the transportation of, I believe the term says prisoners, persons with mental health issues, juveniles. So that's a lot of the work that they do, but they also are engaged in civil process which is basically an administrative serving of papers. And they, it also says that they can do general law enforcement duties. So I know over the years there's been questions about, so what happens if in a county there's not a transport available that day, there's nobody's looking for somebody to come to court which does sometimes happen if the court has a day of training or some other thing that the court's engaged in. They are allowed to do general law enforcement duties. We ask the sheriffs because they are state employees to make sure that they're working with us so that we know what those duties are doing. Of course they cannot work on a private contract where, you know, because on those days they would be serving on our dime so to speak, they're being paid by the state so then they can't go charge pike if they're running a blue light on the interstate for a construction project, right? Because that's a different pot of money. So we're very careful. We work with the sheriffs very carefully to make sure that we know and that they know and, but really what I think is should be of interest to the committee here is how much work the sheriffs transport deputies are folks do and the sheriffs own deputies do in support of the infrastructure of public safety and law enforcement in the state of Vermont. So I'll just first talk about our folks and the kind of things that they do. So of course they are assigned to the transport of folks but they also serve as security in the courts. So if they are standing in the courtroom, they are in the courtroom the whole time that they have somebody who is in there for a hearing and they are basically additional security in the courtroom because they're law enforcement folks. But in addition to that, if they're not doing transports that day, we allow them to go actually to the court houses to back up security, work getting people in if there's a jury day, there could be 70 people coming through that need to be screened. We allow them to assist the judiciary regularly with court security. So for example our Addison County sheriff because we don't have a lot of transports in that corridor right there because although he backs up the Rutland Sheriff of Fairmount. He has been providing court security to the Addison County court for months and months and months. So we back up other state agencies so it's not just what they do. DOC uses us. DOC, as you might know, that during the period of time where there were remote hearings, so you pick somebody up at a facility, you bring them up to Springfield for example, say from Brattleboro to Springfield and they decide it to appear at a later date. Now they're released. How do they get back from Springfield to Brattleboro? There's not a bus running down the interstate. So what we did is we developed a program in connection with the court and DOC that said as long as they are willing to stay in our custody until we get them back to Brattleboro, we'll give them a ride back to the home area, not to their home, but to Brattleboro where they're from. That really was a big issue particularly during the pandemic because so many things were remote. So we call it post-release arraignment program so we're doing that with DOC. We also get requests from DOC on occasion. As you know that DOC is really understaffed. We get requests for helping to move people from facility to facility and if we're available, we do that because they don't, they have to take somebody out of the unit otherwise to do that. So we've been backing DOC up a fair amount and I think you'd hear that if you talk to DOC. We assist Department of Mental Health, of course, DCF. You're going to hear from Sheriff Anderson. I see Sheriff Anderson and Sheriff Marcu are on the call but you will hear from them some of the extra work that they are doing. And Sheriff Anderson has a program now where he's supporting DCF with supervising and housing kids before they have an actual placement available. I'll let them talk to you about some of their extra program because it's really pretty remarkable about the infrastructure that they're supporting. We've been contacted just recently by OCS saying, can you help us serve process on people who are not, we can't find them. People are not paying child support. Can you help us? I was in the cafeteria hand to God this morning having a cup of coffee and I was approached by DOL who said we're looking for help with wage enforcement citations. Can we talk to you about it? Nice, it's sure. But after this hearing first, let me get through this. Yeah, we may not have anybody to do that. Really quickly before we move on I think there's a question. Sure. In our Judiciary Colleges Room. Okay, boy. Yes, I actually have two questions. Thank you for this overview of it. So my understanding, it sounds like the deputy transport sheriffs are kind of different from the county-based sheriffs that we're talking about. I'm curious, do the deputy transport sheriffs, do they require to be certified law enforcement? Yes, our job description for the state transport deputies requires them to be certified at level two or three. That's helpful. But my other question is, so it sounds like for the county-based sheriffs and deputy sheriffs that your office bundles the money to them. Like we create it in the budget and then you get it to the county. Is that correct? No. No, the only money that passes through our office, our department, is the salary and benefits for the sheriffs themselves, 14 sheriffs, and these 20 state transport deputies. Okay, but for the county sheriffs it passes through. For the sheriffs, the 14 sheriffs themselves. Not the department for the individual sheriffs salary. Okay. Yes. Yes. Sorry. So it just makes me, because we're talking about how we can't hold folks accountable. We can't get rid of somebody if we don't think they're, but I'm wondering if there's a monetary piece that we hold maybe we don't send funding to sheriffs who are not certified. So just putting that out there. Again, I think that I might, I might be able to touch upon that towards the end, if that's okay. So I think that would be a good when we, because next we're going to have Sheriff Mark Anderson and Sheriff Roger Mark who are coming up next. Representative Dolan. And I think they may be able to talk a little bit more about the way the different sheriff's offices work. And I want to prepare them and maybe flag that it's my understanding that the kinds of contracts and the types of duties that each sheriff's office takes on across the state very widely from county to county. It would be a fair round. So so like let's take your let's take Franklin County, for instance, if if the Franklin County Sheriff he has gets his salary, but he pays, he has to pay for if he wants his deputies or he wants transport deputies, he pays and sheriffs will be able to take a little bit more detail, but they have to pay for the cars. They pay for the uniforms to pay for everything. But where they get their money to do that, generally, most of them don't just give their salary to do that, but it's either through the contrast they have or if they're if the assistant judges, if they in the county budget, if they provide them with any funds, I don't know that from county to county. Again, it's within their office. So if the sheriff did not have funds unless he wanted to dip into his own salary, it's probably unlikely that he would be hiring deputies or buying cars, what have you. And also just if while he whops on that is to let you know that also when a sheriff, the one thing that happens when a sheriff, this goes back to law enforcement powers, once a sheriff, if a sheriff is currently indicted or if been charged with a crime, they lose their they lose their ability to access our VCIC, which is a divine crime institute where so they're really limited as far as what they can do from a law enforcement standpoint. Then that's probably a question, you know, more opposed to the council or to Jeff Wheeland at the VCIC. Okay, thank you. I have a couple of hands in here. Is there anybody else in the house to share before I come back into gov ops with a couple of questions? No, we're good. Thank you. Okay, great. Sir, I present to you the representative Byron. Clarify, John. Is it the sheriff that loses that accent or is it the sheriff that's off? Sheriff loses the access. And if there was a deputy, that is a question that I I think I know where you're going with it and I will get an answer for you on that as far as so if they have deputies that we just as deputies get access. So, but Annie, I think have some other further questions. Yes, purpose environment. So we've established the fact that they can be removed from sort of all of their accreditation, their functional capacity to engage in a traditional enforcement manner. But within the structure of the organization of the department, there's still the boss, right? They can still help dictate what tasks or investigations may or may not occur. Yes. And again, you're looking at that with all, you know, with elected officials. So it's not the first time we've had elected officials that were have committed what many of us would think is either a criminal act or or something that certainly does not let them be fit for office. And as the Ledge Council mentioned to you, unfortunately, right now, you look at the sole remedy is for the actual taking them out of office is is impeachment and it is a arduous process and which I think most of you know now, but it is one that can be initiated. That's certainly probably faster than four years. So thank you for taking taking the question. Danny, go ahead. Sure. So one of the things John just started to mention about the five percent. I know that that's been a question as to how that all works. So I do want to say that the sheriff's departments are set up in this very odd structure where it was created to be both, you know, to take in money public and public money and private money. So the public money is basically the general fund money that comes through us to support the sheriff's salary and benefits plus the transport deputies. The county the provisions around what the county can support. It can support the sheriff's office is in so far as rent administrative support. So, you know, their bookkeeper, their chief administrative person, some supplies, some phones. You can check with the two sheriff's sheriff Marku and Anderson, but it doesn't. As far as I know, the county money is not paying for for their own deputies. Let me call them their own deputies as opposed to the state transport deputies. But so the money that they so the structure that was set up basically tells them, go out and find contracts, go out and do those contracts. And for that, you can keep five percent of the contract money. Now, from that money, they buy their cars, they buy their uniforms, they pay the people who are on the contracts. They assume the general liability, the worker comp liability. There's a lot of stuff that is involved with what is coming in on the contract for that. And, you know, I just want to point out for I know people here you know are involved in state government and nonprofit world. It's not unlike when you see a state agency charging a federal government what they call the indirect cost rate. I was most people know I worked as commissioner at labor for six years and we had federal fund funding, 92 percent federal funding. And a lot of the money streams that were coming in had indirect cost rates associated with that. And our the point of that was it was paying for the staff that was assigned to that project, but it was also paying part of the commissioner salary, part of the general counsel salary, perhaps the director of the program for which it was coming in. Because we were responsible to make sure it was staffed. We were responsible for the oversight of the contract, the performance measures, the reporting measures, all of that stuff. So, you know, it seems like why do they get that? Well, you know, so there is that money that comes perhaps one of the conversation points that I think both sheriffs agree with is, you know, maybe there's needs to be I've called it bumpers, parameters around the 5 percent, like, so how much can you use what is it used for? I think the sheriffs themselves would adopt a policy talking about that very specifically. And I think that that's one of the things I know that Doug Hoffer and I talk a fair amount about is kind of building building better best practices around operations and money and fiscal things. So I do want to could I just ask a terrifying question though? So my understanding is that other than the sheriff's salary itself and the money for the state transport deputies, the sheriff's really in charge of their budget. They are. There is very little outside oversight except for an audit every two years. So that's correct. Exactly what you said. But I do think that the sheriffs understand and are interested in looking at doing more things uniformly and perhaps adopting practices that will assure citizens of Vermont that they are working diligently and professionally. So I do think that those kinds of suggestions will be coming forward to the committees to take a look at that. And I think, you know, you have to look at it. Let's, you know, go straight out. The fact that there have been people in the job a position of sheriff that have done things that my personal, just in my personal opinion, that never should have been done. And there are some that they are now being charged or they're now being having to deal with that in other ways. Some of them have left office. So the question is, we have we have some bad actors. Do you go ahead and get rid of the whole system as a result of that? Again, this is not within my department. So I'm just kind of giving you my personal, I know the jobs that they do for the state for where they have a contract with it into 5%. I know that the work that they do for AHS and and decent, especially specifically DCF and handling some of the out of control youth that we have sometimes because you need to have people that are there to help them when they're in these going through a mental health crisis. The homeless situation situation is a perfect example like during COVID. If it wasn't for Sheriff Marku and Sheriff Anderson and a couple of the other sheriffs there, we probably, that would not have worked because they were providing security 24 seven at these places. And, you know, that's something that that you can't just go out and hire, you know, or they had Wackenot guards or whatever. They're just not going to cost a fortune. So there are a lot of good things that come out of the their ability to man or staff up to do these contracts. And without the 5%, obviously they don't, they're not going to, I doubt they're going to go into their own personal salaries to do it. So I would just, when you're when you're discussing this and when you're with during your inquiries, if you can talk to the sheriffs and find out more about what they do. So this is not defending the actions of some of these other sheriffs that we're here about or that we know have done things that have been questionable. They don't belong in law enforcement. They don't belong as part of any type of state government in my mind. But I think we just have to be careful and realize that there are some really good people out there that have been helping and have been very dedicated to making, you know, the the state not only a safer place but also assisting in areas that nobody ever wants to do. So I know there's a question in judiciary. I'll make time for one or two here and then I'd like to invite the sheriffs to to follow up on that. I think we've done a couple of good segues here. So over in House Judiciary, take away representative Lolan. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Campbell for acknowledging that. Like I think that is the piece we want to work on is, you know, keeping our sheriffs at the highest level possible and continuing the good work of them. And so that's why I continue to get stuck on the certification decertification piece. And I think when we have legislative council here, they did mention that for our sheriffs, if they are decertified, there is a lower amount that we pay. Is that correct? Can you confirm that? No, I there's, I think what they may be referring to is if the certification and this can be confirmed by Sheriff Guarco is that if they're not level three certified, their salary is 10% less than what a regular fully certified sheriff would be. Okay. And that's the only difference. So it doesn't go down at all anymore. Okay. That's something we could look into. And I'll follow up with the sheriffs. We're good. Let's hang up. Oh, sorry. Did you have other questions in Judiciary? Oh, we're all set. Thank you. Okay, great. Representative Hango. Thank you. I'll hold until the sheriffs comes with a great representative Morgan. Just real quick folks. Majority area represents Grand Isle County. No law enforcement in any of the five communities. There are no local policing entities. For honestly, a police, I believe would be charged with overarching component of that correct. But the sheriff there, they do a lot of that under contract with those towns. So is that the same subset of 5% apply? It's that same type of component where they would retain and then the balance of that then goes, I guess that's another piece of where that balance reside. Did I miss that? So for Grand Isle, like Sheriff Allen, we pay his salary and benefits. He does not have any state transport deputies. So that's all that passes through us for him. He does contracts for general law enforcement duties and patrol and general security. I think if there was a homicide or something, the state police would come up and support. So sort of the big critical cases. And I don't so hit that, that money, whatever contract Sheriff Allen has, that money is basically in his, his Sheriff Department budget paying for some of his other non state deputies and his administrative staff. That's right. Yeah. Although the county may be assisting him with some of the administrative support for, you know, but very, very small amounts. Yeah. And the cars and things that they buy, you know, let's say if they buy cars, that becomes property of the department. That's not the property of the Sheriff's, of the Sheriff's themselves. So their cars are owned by that Sheriff's Department. Okay. So, okay. I understood it correctly. I just want to make sure. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Representative Murwicky and then Representative Hango, and then I would like to move on here from the Sheriff's. Check us out. A logistical piece here. Thank you for your testimony. There's a lot to put out there. As a visual learner, it would be helpful. You have written testimony that we have some notes I'll put into a memo for you. Okay. Is that for the committee? I would be happy to get a memo from Ms. Newman. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I will circulate. I will circulate that. Representative Hango. Thank you. Just really briefly. So if a Sheriff loses contracts, there, obviously their revenue goes away. A lot of it. So they're curtailed as to what they actually can perform for law enforcement in that county. Okay. Thank you. Byron. Last word. Yeah, last word. I think I actually know the answer to this, but I just clarify. So the laws of the Class III certification, et cetera, results of a salary reduction. Now, that essentially would render them house cats. So with that extra administrative capacity, could they not source more contracts because they get the ability to take a portion of the contract correct as the Sheriff? They're allowed to do that? In terms of, could they take some of the 5% to supplement the 10% reduction? I'm not saying they're like stuck in the office all day. They can just chase more contracts and make up for the difference in theory. Correct. Okay. So it's kind of a theoretical lost income, but could be made up. At least in my tenure with the department, I've never seen anybody lose a certification at this point. Usually it's as they're coming in the door, we have to assess with criminal justice training council, we determine whether or not they are level two or three certified. And that's when their salary is set. And that's their salary by statute. And that's actually a statutory provision that says if they're not level three, it's a 10% reduction in their salary. Yes. But if they lose that level three, they lose the 10%, they could just pursue more contracts and make up that difference in theory. Correct. I would think if they lose level, I don't, this is probably for criminal justice training council, but I assume that if they were in some way decertified, losing level three would also level two. So yes, they would kind of, it would be a very, it would be a, you know, they would be reduced by our department, but then, yeah, but then they could make that up. Correct. We will be speaking with the criminal justice council not today, yet, certainly because lose so far for sure that they're having today, but we will have to maybe talk about how that works. That's right. And that is something that I just wanted to flag for everyone that we, we, introduce here. Was there a question? Yes. So one more question, please. Go ahead, Barbara. So this is for Annie, which I've been thinking about your testimony. And the rest of state government, and you mentioned nonprofits, have what, when they're using general funds or federal money or probably other state money, but let's just talk about general funds and federal money. So there are requirements to put in other income. For example, any nonprofit that goes through the state rate setting process has to put down other income they're getting. So if it's a United Way grant, if it's doesn't matter, fee for service, whatever it is, that's going on the same sheet that the state is looking at all the expenses and deducting that applied income from the expenses. Indirect, there's the allowance for indirect rate, like you said, which makes sense, but I'm just wondering why maybe this is for the chair, why do we not have consistent rules across state government for sort of the accounting part of when do we look at other income that comes in and how much they spent. So the the state auditor's audit of every other year and then so or when a sheriff leaves office for any reason, there's an audit done of the books. That is of and that is an audit of the sheriff's private side of the business so to speak. Right. Or actually in whole, but there but it's a deep dive into all of the sheriff's other business what's coming in. So it's an audit and then the second in between year it's a compliance review and then an audit again. So there's a fair amount of review. Now the state auditor contracts with an auditing firm. Doug Hofford does not do it himself. He contracts right now with McSully as an auditor. They've been doing this sheriff's audits for quite a number of years. They're very familiar with the setup and the operations of the sheriff. So I do think that that information is available. It might be good to have that the auditor show you like what is produced in a sheriff's audit when they're doing the full audit what information they are looking at and what they're collecting. So can you That's the fact. That's the fact. Not in a budget approval. Representative Rachel we'll be hearing from from the auditor and talk a little bit. Thank you. And the sheriff's who are about to testify may have more to say about this as well. Thank you. Annie and John thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. So next we have two sheriffs Sheriff Mark Anderson who is the president of the Vermont Sheriff's Association and the Memorial County Sheriff Roger Marcu. Thank you both so much for joining us. I know we're scheduling tight against your being sworn in again today I think. So I really really appreciate your time. And if you'd like to I believe you want to testify jointly. So sorry if I set that up wrong. Morning problem. I don't know how to I don't know how to do this over zoom jointly because we're usually looking at each other whether you take this one and I'll take that one. But Mark I defer to you as the president. Great. Representative Chair McCarthy and Chair Laun members of the the Joint Committee thank you for the time for the record. I am Mark Anderson I'm the Wyndham County Sheriff and President of Vermont Sheriff's Association. I guess Mr. Chairs would you mind if I go through and kind of clear the table of the questions that have come up and some of our responses before we start our testimony. I think it might help to my clarity. Yeah I will allow you the time and thank you for doing that. I think a lot of things have come up that you might want to weigh in on. Great. So I made a list and I paraphrase so forgive me if I misunderstood a question or answering the wrong thing. Representative Chase you had a question regarding if an imprisoned sheriff can remain the sheriff in title? Yes. However, there is a statue. It's 24 VSA 294 which identifies the suspension of the sheriff from their functions. And so this is where the high bailiff's functions would be brought in and basically for all intents and purposes the office of the sheriff the functions of the sheriff are exercised through the high bailiff whereas the sheriff is a human with a title and that's about it sitting inside their jail cell. Representative Byrong you had a question regarding how other states deal with this. First I think we need to note that other states usually out west and down south have stronger forms of county government. So we're we're somewhat unique in New England and how other states deal with it. But generally speaking just very short answer recall elections county commissioners or supervisors can can suspend and or remove. And I think to representative Hooper's questions about whether or not the towns could vote to this. I mean this might be areas we want to explore with discussion around the constitution and what can be done with elected officers. We do have testimony we could offer on that in the future but just broadly I think those are opportunities we could discuss. Representative Byrong you you mentioned a question of whether the sheriff is still the boss. Yes and there's some some significant complications as the boss when you are convicted of a crime. We have relationships we law enforcement agencies statewide have relationships with the Department of Justice. There's rules that are required by federal mandate. There's laws about carrying firearms. So there's a variety of things that by nature of federal process and state process we start to lose access to as we fall into those circumstances. The FBI requires a set of rules for who can have access to what's called criminal justice information. And so just by nature of falling into a variety of circumstances there are administrative penalties that can impact the ability for the sheriff himself or even the agency itself to have access to critical resources that we generally rely on. With regards to the 10 percent reduction in salary that is accurate a level three officer or certified officer receives compensation under title 32 a reduction of that by 10 percent what the the intent my understanding the intent of that was for is to encourage a higher level of certification. So while I think right now we're looking at this as is there opportunity for punitive action based on the reduction of salary that wasn't necessarily the intent when the when that permissive was created. So to follow up on whether the sheriff would have more time to take in more contracts I have not been on the road patrolling since I took office. I've stopped a couple cars but the administrative responsibilities of my office are far too great for me to be able to regularly investigate cases or anything. So even if I were decertified today I don't think I would have the additional bandwidth to be able to go seek more contracts. And so while I certainly acknowledge the the plausibility that you suggest that they could add capacity through the acceptance of money from the 5 percent. I also think that to a degree there's not just contracts hanging out there that we can say what we have more. When we're looking at contracts we also have to look at the infrastructure and resources. So vehicles, employees, training and I just don't think that we would be squeezing more out with a reduction in that in that 10 percent. I'm going to skip over a few questions from representatives because I believe it was answered by legal counsel or others. Representative Dolan you had questions about what other duties the sheriff had if they were decertified. The sheriff is required to serve process so if somebody doesn't pay their credit card and the credit card company Susan through the civil court we're the ones who deliver deliver the mail if you will. So that process would still continue without certification. You've heard from Annie about the state transport deputies so those functions would still continue. And again the administrative functions would be there but generally speaking the law enforcement functions would cease. Representative Dolan you had a question about the relationship of the department of state deterrence and sheriffs to the county sheriffs. And Representative Maricki I appreciate the visual learner so I actually created in PowerPoint an example of what this will look like and I will submit it to the committee assistance if you'd like to see it of how funding works for sheriff's offices this is part of my testimony but briefly since the question was asked there's three sources of funding the state has a source of funding and when we talk about these sources of funding it's good to know what the state does provide and doesn't provide so in short it provides the salaries but it doesn't provide the clothing it doesn't provide the car it doesn't provide the law enforcement liability insurance it doesn't provide legal counsel and representation or human resource management I mean there's a variety of things that we do not receive and so that's one third of a pie chart other third of a pie charts what the county budget provides and that's limited under a supreme court ruling and so broadly the counties do provide a building an office for the sheriff and they pay for the repairs telephone service insurance for the property and secretarial bookkeeping assistance but it doesn't pay any of the deputy sheriff salaries it doesn't pay for dispatchers or communications salaries radio or infrastructure vehicles again law enforcement liability insurance automobile insurance unemployment insurance retirement health care and the list goes on which is where we come to the the third portion of funding which is the department's funds department is its own legal entity it's able the department is able to enter into contracts and so it's the department that's the ownership of the the funds the assets and the resources to that point the is there a way to have monetary control yes that already exists in statute and we've seen a couple renditions I believe as we continue through this discussion around S17 the the constitutional amendment and any testimony we offer to your committee we have ideas of ways that we could provide reforms that utilize some of the things that we're talking about here that are already constructs of statute that I think would generally be accepted by the the sheriffs who are doing the good work in the state Representative McCarthy I believe all of your comments or issues were already answered Representative Hango so other states that I can provide a document from the National Sheriff's Association that discuss broadly how other states do handle this and that also goes on to the differences around the country for appointed versus elected and how those work why certain systems are better or not better so I'm happy to provide that as well the generally speaking decertified sheriff would not be able to oversee a criminal investigation there's just no functional ability to do that and I would suspect the state's attorney wouldn't accept prosecution if we were the oversight authority of a criminal investigation similar to how Executive Director Campbell mentioned that non-attorney state's attorney wouldn't really be able to supervise a licensed deputy state's attorney Representative Hooper the discussion around losing access to state services Executive Director Campbell mentioned losing access to VCIC that's part of the relationship that agencies have with the Department of Justice with the FBI in terms of access to resources so certainly there are constructs that we can do represent Nujay U.S. if we could shorten the term certainly through the constitutional amendment that would be possible though I would submit that having stability across a period of time helps lay out a vision and so as we look at bad actors there's certainly a desire for us to have removal bad actors when they occur but we could also destabilize the good actors as we consider shorter terms represent Morgan U.S. where the balance of the 5% goes it returns really never leaves the department if the sheriff collects anything from the 5% it goes to the sheriff obviously if the sheriff does not collect the 5% it is invested in the department an example I use of away my department just utilized a portion of this was to repair faulty HVAC unit in our building because that wasn't part of the county budget in the cycle and well it's winter and we needed heat so some of some of that funds offsets those things and then representative Rachelson you asked a really great question around consistent rules across state government for accounting and I would I would submit I agree and I think that will be part of our testimony based on those questions and my responses is there anything I could clarify or fill in before I continue with my testimony I think I think I prefer that you go ahead with your testimony Sheriff Anderson and then we'll and then we'll save our questions for the end great so the just to be clear Mr. Chair I'm not testifying to S-17 this is just broadly the sheriff's yeah that probably has a long way to go in the Senate before it gets over to us so I'm I've been treating that as a potential vehicle for us to take up the kind of reforms that you mentioned or other things that we might find that would be appropriate in this larger context great so you heard from Ledge Council sheriffs are an office originated out of England they have they carry with it a lot of common law constructs that create what we do statutorily the service of civil process the transportation of prisoners preservation of peace and then what I consider to be the the quote unquote 80 percent all the other things that we do much of that is done through contracting because that is the construct for which we have to secure funds the if I mentioned my pie chart before and how the funds work and so to simplify and visualize this in some ways I have naked bodies that are paid for that have no clothes no equipment no insurance nothing and those are paid for by the state and so through these contracts in other ways we are able to put clothes on the body so we have professional officers so we have training for those officers and so those things do occur the difference between each county and the services they provide are important and unique in a variety of ways number one I'm able to adjust in Wyndham County to the needs of my community far quicker than any other organization and that's why we've been able to be a part of some of the immediate change I go back to when Hurricane Irene happened and we had massive flooding across the state my department pivoted 20 personnel out of roughly 22 20 personnel the next day other agencies could not move that fast we were able to respond when the state hospital flooded and emergency rooms started overflowing with mental health patients and nurses and doctors were beginning to be assaulted in the ERs we were able to respond in humane ways and actually Sheriff Marku can probably speak significantly to the ways and the creative ways in which the Memorial County Sheriff's Office my Sheriff's or my predecessor I should say and other organizations in the state to come up with safe ways that we can have mental health patients who were in the care of emergency rooms at that point because there just were no psychiatric beds we've identified new ways and there's there are bills before the General Assembly with regards to how law enforcement agencies supervise and or transport psychiatric patients those are based off of policies and creations of the Sheriff's offices in Vermont the use of software strengths ordinal restraints use of unmarked cars for transports when people are violent but at the same time is a result of their mental health condition the my office contracts for law enforcement services with about 15 different communities whereas the difference in Chittenden County is that most of the towns in Chittenden County have a law enforcement agency such as a police department and so there's not as much of a need for the Sheriff to provide contracting for law enforcement services difference in Chittenden County is that the Chittenden County Sheriff has about 100,000 more people for which civil process needs to be served the Northeast Kingdom has some unique needs for law enforcement in that some of their traffic is seasonal which creates increase in summer or winter activity and decreases in opposite seasons so the needs for law enforcement services are sometimes it's only the Sheriff who's capable of providing that the Essex County Sheriff receives funds from the state of Vermont to provide policing because the state police do not provide any patrols there Grand Isle as I believe was mentioned by Representative Morgan the Sheriff is providing a majority of the services to Grand Isle while he can access the state police then we're speaking the Sheriff who provides those services there's a variety of agencies around the state Sheriff's departments around the state that provide regional dispatching but not all of them do and so in that case I know that regional dispatch is a topic for discussion this year Sheriff Marcu has a 24-7 dispatch center which I believe Senate gov ops is going to be doing a field trip to certainly I don't know if there's interest for field trips from house judiciary or house government operations and military affairs but I would certainly extend a field trip to my office if you'd like to see our regional dispatch I'm also willing to do a virtual tour so that you don't have to take a two-hour drive if that's not in the cards I do believe to your question that we are trying to work out a tour to Sheriff Marcu's dispatch with our second police so regional dispatch is something that has already served Sheriff Marcu can talk about what his department does my department currently dispatches for three agencies and we monitor communications for fourth fire I'm sorry EMS and law enforcement agencies we have a lot of support to the agency human services so you heard Annie speak about supporting the department of corrections we are using our staff to help not only support department of corrections in moving prisoners from facility to facility to do their current staffing challenges we're also supporting the movement of males and females around the state we're trying to coordinate it so it's efficient we're supporting the department of children and families Annie alluded to a program that my department created the basic problem statement that we were looking at is that children entering the commissioner of children and families custody because they are violent they are a risk to themselves or others they're entering the commissioner's custody but there's no beds for them this ties broadly into the conversation about newberry about wood side and a variety of other programs and the reality is is that what we are seeing happen is that these children are ending up in the emergency room waiting for placement or they're ending up in the conference room of a police department so understanding the construct that they're ending up in these not ideal places and there's nowhere for them to go and they're harmful to others social workers are concerned for their own safety based on history of assaults and homicide to DCF workers there's concerns for safety and security so what we created at my department here in Bratibro was what we call the rest stop it's a program that's a trauma informed concept that DCF helped us pull together where DCF can just access the space if they need enforcement services they can work with my staff to provide the security but at the same time we want a social worker who's actually administering the care they're helping get food provide the necessary supports to the youth while we continue to wait for their placement since November we pretty much had a youth in our custody every Friday and until the following Monday and that's just it's placement issues with the current contracting model that the state's using so we have we also provide support to the Department of Mental Health again patients who require secure transport this means that they do not meet criteria to be transported in an ambulance which would probably be an ideal method of transport for a medical patient in person undergoing psychiatric care but because of a risk to themselves or others they sometimes require secure transport so this is where we've engineered systems to use softer strengths no restraints but again in a trauma-informed way to help a mental health a person experiencing a mental health issue be able to get the care they need without a stigma that they've created some or performed some criminal act that they really haven't I can dive into the weeds on a lot of these things but really I think I come before before these committees to say that that as a sheriff as a person who joined the sheriff's department in 2004 I saw the trauma and the effects of what happens when a sheriff has misconduct just by way of history the sheriff who hired and commissioned me was ultimately charged and convicted of a variety of crimes including embezzlement there's history there I won't get into unless you'd like me to but that said I saw the damage that occurs I care passionately about this issue I believe that there's ways that we can work to improve the system some of these are discussions we've had for 15 years some of these are discussions that are coming up in the last six or seven months based on new issues that have been identified I try to be an open book and so I come before you to say let's make meaningful change and I've been warmly welcomed by the chair of government operations and both the senate and the house I appreciate the opportunity to communicate with you openly and I think we can come up with ways for meaningful change that doesn't damage the good work that's happening today so Sheriff Anderson you've painted a picture of a whole variety of ways that our communities state agencies really depend on the sheriff's offices and I know that when you and I have spoken that there's an acknowledgement that there needs to be some greater change because some of your colleagues in the past I think even your predecessor and there have been issues that we might not be equipped with current constitutional structure and the law and I just want to say that I really appreciate your openness to be a partner in some of that change and I'm going to open things up to a couple of questions before we go to Sheriff Marku but I very much just want to say that I respect and appreciate the collaborative approach that you've taken in your testimony in the senate and here today are there folks that have any clarifying questions or that was a good overview I think the Sheriff Anderson did a really good job to go through all of the questions that have come up to date I appreciate that so much anybody over in Judiciary have any questions for Sheriff Anderson before we go to Sheriff Marku I don't see any we do Representative Chapin Yes Sheriff thank you so much for your testimony I am just curious to hear a little bit more detail about what it is I mean I think I have a sense but I'd like to hear a little bit more about what it is about the Sheriff's organization and how they're constructed right now that make that response in times of great need in the community so effective Simply put I mean there's been some discussion about how the the Sheriff is responsible for their budget well that's also what gives us the ability to say this is within the scope of what we believe we should do and so we can engage I don't need to go before a board of commissioners or supervisors or select board to say I need approval for us to buy a car because my car just got wrecked which last week when my car has just got wrecked and now I'm down a car so we're able to navigate through that and that's within the realm of the uniform accounting manual published by the state auditor's office but we can make common sense decisions very quickly without a lot of red tape so I would like to hear Sheriff Mark Q's comments and then we're going to take a quick bio break before I'm hearing from folks from the court from the courts themselves I didn't I'ma set the judiciary and I don't want to get confused between the House Judiciary Committee and our Superior Court Judge and Administrator so that's just to set the agenda here we will take a quick break because we've been going for a while but Sheriff Mark Q I want to hear from you first so I'll turn it over to you thank you good morning everyone my name is Roger Marku and I'm the LaMoyle County Sheriff and I just want to comment on Sheriff Anderson's excellent and very articulate testimony here we're lucky to have him as our leader he's one of the young young sheriffs that we have that we need more like him and in echoing what he said I'm very dismayed as to what's occurred in this state and I've been here 20 this is today will be my 22nd year the start of my 22nd year as Sheriff and I've got 42 years in law enforcement what the sheriffs need is structure they need to be accountable and we need a mechanism to constantly have that oversight and so Sheriff Anderson and I believe that what we're trying to do here with your help and with our colleagues or our our representatives in the Senate is to reform the sheriffs I'll tell you a little bit about my operation and because I've had the great great fortune of having support for my community and and what is the sheriff's greatest strength is also our greatest weakness and that's the ability to act unilaterally on issues I was appointed by Governor Dean in 2001 and I was I had been at the time I had been working in the field of human rights and specifically investigating extrajudicial murders in a country of Haiti for five years and when when the inquiries to my interest into taking over for Sherrifall and Welle County started my concern at the time was exactly what we're seeing I had been in municipal police work for quite a few years and I'd seen the good and the bad and the ugly with Vermont sheriffs so I made the decision to to give it a try and decided that look I I'm going to try to be the best professional I can be and and we built the department up it was already a good department and and you know we were leaders in in things like regional dispatch way back then you know 20 years ago actually the regional dispatch which included the 911 call taking started in 1975 so and and we've been going strong ever since with communities paying into that we have a 24-hour seven-day a week police department so to speak made of deputies that work for three three towns Hyde Park, Johnson and Wilkut and every year we meet with those people the leadership and see what's going right what's going wrong and they ratify our contracts so my philosophy is that you know when you're looking for contracts it's about customer service if the customers are not happy then they're not going to contract with us and for the past several years our payroll has paid out to employees here over $2 million a year so we have we've had great luck in some initiatives I'm kind of a mark is a detail guy I'm more like the the artist with the big broader picture and and sometimes fortunately I have people around me that keep me on the straight path with details but we we here given the latitude that we have we were able to work with the department of mental health and this was in concert with Sheriff Anderson's predecessor down in Wyndham but where there was a problem where the department was complaining and it was the commissioner of mental health at the time and and Senator Westman was in the house at the time about law enforcement was unwilling statewide to transport people in mental health crisis with no violence in their background they were unwilling to transport them without restraints or at the very least with soft restraints so and that that didn't seem right and and a sheriff has the latitude to make policy and we created a policy we work with the department of mental health and we came up with a training scenario where we transported people without handcuffs when they didn't have any violence in their background we transport them in plain clothes in in a soccer van or you know a minivan and where where they were not you know they might go to their dentists that they'd seen for ever since they were young and so it was a dignified humane way of of dealing with a situation that that is that sheriff's departments were able to do because we were able to track quickly we've had the good fortune here of having enough good business luck through the years to buy a property across the street from the sheriff's department and we made a homeless shelter and worked in concert with the interfaith community here in our county and now it's got its own governance but first homeless shelter in the county and I'm very very proud of that it'll be one of the things when I retire that I'm I think more of than all the arrests that I've ever made Department of Health had an issue where they wanted drugs picked up more than once every six months through the federal DEA drug take back program so we developed based on my experience with 12 years in the DEA we developed a situation where a system where we worked in concert with the municipalities and the Vermont State Police and our department goes once a month or as required to each county to pick up drugs and then inventory them and store them and then again work with the DEA to to get them out of state every six months so given the opportunity that the point of all of this is in how great I am given the opportunity the good functioning sheriff's department can really serve the community and again I have no problems and Sheriff Anderson has no problems with continuing to professionalize our group pay us on par with other state law enforcement folks and then develop some structure maybe beef up the state's attorneys and sheriffs which we can do without adding any money I believe to have a component just dealing strictly with the sheriffs particularly you know whenever our executive director and Annie decide to retire down the road which scares the heck out of me so but lastly I'll just talk about the 5% 5% there's there's always it's an easy target for the media 5% enriching sheriffs etc etc what does that mean for me I I probably you know bring in the most money out of any of the sheriff's departments for me last year if you take what what I made as paid by the state and took the 5% that I took it equaled the middle major in the Vermont state police so this there's not like $500,000 that we're paying ourselves or what have you here the I think it's certainly reasonable to either get a more bump us up to where executives in the Vermont state police are or cap the 5% we're not going to fight anybody on that down the road but I do believe that the you know we should be paid equally as well as other folks and this is going to help attract hopefully this will help attract the most professional candidates for office that we can we can have we take we have a lot of responsibility a lot of liability we have to hire our own law lawyers if there's a lawsuit and so that more on that later if if there are questions on it down the road so so that's basically you know what I have it's just to to let the committee know that we want to get this thing that worked out and once and for all and and I think it's going to take some time because it's a very complicated issue but if you for example alter what we can do now to include taking away our ability to contract which which the five percent is going to make it difficult if that goes away for some Sheriff's departments to to contract there's a lot of different agencies that are going to to be heard out there last Friday I met with Colonel Birmingham who told me that he is willing to testify as to the effects of diminishing ability for for Sheriff's to work what those effects would have on the Vermont State Police I think if you call in members of the agency human services you'd see the same thing you're going to hear from the courts I talked to Judge Zona last week about this so we're going to talk to him next and I don't want to cut you off Sheriff Mark oh that's what I need to give our committees a break and so I just want to ask if if anybody has any really pressing questions knowing that we are going to have the Sheriff's Association and I won't invite Sheriff Anderson and Sheriff Mark who back especially if we're talking about any specific bill language are there any really urgent questions that we need to get out today great overview right so unless I hear differently from our folks I believe Vice Chair Burdett is chairing in judiciary for the moment we're going to take a very brief break so I want to folks a chance and we'll be back here and start at 11 sharp we're back on our resident chef represented Byron Vice Chair and committee sure everybody has food and hot sauce here so my apologies to those of you who are missing out and now judiciary well said well caffeinated well they got cookies so we're we're back here in room 10 the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee and we're zoomed in jointly with the House Judiciary Committee hearing testimony about the roles and responsibilities of Vermont Sheriff's next up we have Judge Thomas Nune who's the Chief Superior Judge for Vermont Judiciary and Terry Corsonis who we have seen who's our Court Administrator so thank you both for being here and I'm telling us a little bit about the Court's relationships with the Vermont Sheriff's Chair McCarthy thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and do you need us to repeat as well who we are to start or no I think it's fine I keep things up well thank thank you so much we appreciate the opportunity in terms of the roles and responsibilities of the Vermont Sheriff's we assume that you would want us to talk about from the perspective of Courthouse Security because that's how we're connected and have been historically since the beginning of courthouses I think in the in the State of Vermont as the legislative council alluded to this dates back centuries in terms of the roles and we've been very grateful for the assistance that Vermont Sheriff's have provided to courthouses for security through today and I thought I'd just give a little overview in terms of what the Courthouse Security situation is at the Courthouses and then Judge Zoning was going to comment on different information that was shared this morning and the Judiciary's perspective on that if that's okay that would be lovely thank you we did provide slides that I apparently you all are accessing or can't access so again it's just this is a very broad kind of overview of Courthouse Security vis-à-vis the Sheriff's and we have a Vermont Judiciary Security and Safety program within the Court Administrator's Office that oversees Courthouse Security we have 26 Courthouses throughout the State most all counties have at least one Courthouse the larger Courthouses have two Courthouses I'm sorry the larger counties have two Courthouses typically if there are if there are two Courthouses the older Courthouses oftentimes the original County Courthouse that that has civil and probate divisions and then the newer Courthouse oftentimes has criminal and family divisions when we had the restructuring in 2010 they were unified the smaller counties might have one Courthouse then that that typically was the original County Courthouse that houses all four divisions but all the Courthouses require security each Courthouse within the State has at least one screener at the door which is kind of the main defense if you will because they screen for weaponry or anything that could increase the risk of harm for anybody entering the Courthouse and then typically within the Courthouses there's a court security officer within a criminal courtroom at all times typically in a family courtroom unless it's all remote storage and if it's a civil courtroom or probate courtroom it's as the need arises but that's kind of the general overview of what kind of Courthouse security presence there is throughout the courts we utilize originally it was all sheriff deputies that provided Courthouse security and as the number Courthouse deputies became reduced we've had to supplement through a combination of the sheriffs primarily then private security agencies and state of Vermont personnel and the next slide does give kind of a an overview of the composition presently County Sheriff deputies comprise 53% of the security presence at Courthouse today Courthouses today there are also court security officers that are employed by the Judiciary they're primarily in Shipman County but that's 25% of the Courthouse security presence then there's a private security firm called Securitas that's 14% and then recently we've also hired court officers as limited service personnel for 8% again to ensure that we have kind of the minimum security presence that's needed at Courthouse is in order to conduct court hearings and if you're interested the next slide then shows in terms of the sheriff deputy personnel there are 40 of them 40 positions throughout the state currently the next page shows the breakdown by county in terms of how many sheriff's deputies there are in per county and you'll see that there are Bennington Memorial and Rutland have six plus sheriff's deputies and then there are counties that have around three three sheriff's deputies which would be I'm sorry Caledonia Franklin Orleans and Windsor and then two or fewer in Addison Chittenden Grand Isle and Wyndham kind of the rough breakdown of how the sheriff's deputies are spread out throughout the state and then we've had far fewer visitors to courthouses during the last several years because of the pandemic and this just gives you kind of a chart for fiscal year 2022 showing the number of security incidents by incidents by court location and then the last page just shows the security census a total of 13,423 visitors to courthouses in fiscal year 22 which is an increase from the previous year when we had such limitations on the courthouses and it's basically increasing as we're resuming in-person hearings and a combination of either hybrid in-person remote hearings or remote hearings so the numbers are going back up but not nearly the numbers before we instituted the remote hearing option during the pandemic so that's kind of a broad overview in terms of sheriff's deputy personnel at the courts we're extremely grateful for the sheriff's deputy security presence and really appreciate both John Campbell and Annie Noonan have been terrific Sheriff Marku Sheriff Anderson are working with us to try to be able to utilize as many sheriff deputies as we possibly can but that's the kind of the numbers today in the situation that is today because of a variety of factors most noticeably of late the workforce issues and sheriffs wanting to hire not having the the applicants I saw a hand I saw a rips arm you're looking at me so go ahead Mike thank you for coming in and sharing this a clarification question or definition here the private security when they're at courthouses they do not have the authority that a sheriff's deputy is that accurate that if someone needs to be arrested or taken into custody they are not so you'd have to call that is correct they don't have the they do not have the levels of certification that law enforcement do it's my understanding that they do are some of them have been certified to be able to be armed but not though I don't know if you've been able to achieve level three for example probably not I'm almost certain that representative alone has a question for you about this I in fact don't know it's the one thing that I thought I was trying to read your mind representative alone was to just understand do all of the counties have sheriff deputies at the courthouses or is it a grandile is the only county that right now does not have any sheriff personnel they're utilized in the state of the state employees I think for the court security I thought it was a security oh is it a security pass oh we were there in December by it was okay we're doing security okay no sheriff oh okay so it must have been a security officer I remember him saying he came from Chittman County but he must have been a security officer sorry okay I'm sorry I will go ahead and ask a question if I can go ahead Mr. you've given me a moment thank you Mike prompting me so I mean we have we have heard from numerous court officials including Justice Ryber who was in here introducing himself and talking a bit about the courts last week it was last week that there is still some serious issues of getting the security in the court rooms actually Justice Ryber encouraged us to enact legislation that said sheriff shall provide security to all the courthouses so could you talk a little bit about about that about the issues that you're facing and not having sufficient security and how that might affect the throughput and the courts or courts being able to be open and accessible sure the if I could when you come to our courthouses we have an obligation to keep everyone safe whether it's the judges the staff the public the litigants the victims anyone who walks into that building we have an obligation where does that obligation begin at the front door because if someone walks in with the weapon and intends to use it we need to take steps to make sure they can't get in with that weapon so we have screeners at the front door historically screeners have been law enforcement officers if they see contraband if they see something that is occurring that should be addressed they can address that when we don't have adequate sheriff coverage we don't have the ability to have that law enforcement officer at the front door well let's assume yes we can get an officer at the front door well then we need an officer in the courtroom when you're having criminal hearings or volatile family hearings relief from abuse proceedings or other matters it's important to have security in the courtroom also if we don't have law enforcement who is able to be in there we lose that ability for that additional level of protection you also have the situation of people in the halls so in many courts we try to have roamers someone else walking around to see what's going on that's another level of protection when we don't have adequate security in the courtrooms or at the front door we can't open literally if we have if we're told you only have one sheriff at your building and you want to do a jury trial we scramble we have to send people down from up here we are shifting people we are moving people and so not having adequate security has been an issue that we have been facing since we've been coming if you will back online after the pandemic and we've got things moving I would be remiss if I didn't point out that within the past year John Campbell Annie Noonan and actually Sheriff Marcu and Sheriff Anderson they have worked with us when we've had issues and we've had problems we need to move people they have all worked to try to effectively what we needed but we heard from two out of 14 today for sheriffs that they can't fill in the needs in every county and so the problem we run into and representable Lawn is that if we don't get adequate security we do have days where we say we have no sheriffs we can't do X kind of hearing or Y kind of hearing and that is problematic that directly affects our ability to open the courts right now we are able to keep this open but what is the level of security we're providing well if we don't have law enforcement there with arrest powers then what do we do we have to call some local police to come in so that's why it's critical to have at least one sheriff in the building at all times so if if the private security or securitized needs to identify someone for arrest or law enforcement needs to address it there's someone in the building who can do that but the problem is what if that someone happens to be the screener then he or she has to leave their post go into the courtroom and who's screening now so we don't have anyone there and so it's one it's like dominoes sometimes things just keep leading to additional problems and so we have had this issue that I think Chief Justice Reiber said it whether it's by statute or some other approach we do need that stability and knowledge that we're going to have security on an ongoing basis that can be relied upon sheriffs have provided I would say the gold standard for our security for years and we want to keep that as our slide showed it was more than 50% of what we're using now well that number used to be higher and I know sheriffs have had difficulty with hiring individuals and retaining individuals but when they when we are using them that puts us in the best position to do what we need to do in the courts and that is administer justice in a safe and appropriate manner oh sorry yeah so so do you have any statistics as far as how many court days have been lost or the actual impact from not having security if you don't have them available right now certainly could be helpful I do not have that specific information because oftentimes what occurs is okay we we have have no security for this day or that day we might not be able to do this type of hearing but the staff works and the and the court system works to try to pivot if you will okay let's try to do something else yeah for example we had a jury trial in Rutland civil in the Rutland county courthouse and then the court officer called in sick at the last minute we ended up then borrowing if you will a court officer from the Rutland criminal division because they had a hearing that canceled but it's that kind of constant scrambling which we've never had that in years past that now it's kind of every day are we going to have a security presence it's because of the the situation but so representable law and I can inquire of trial court operations I don't know for example that we would have a data geared to that but we can try to get at least an estimate for you anecdotally if nothing else but we do everything we can possible because hearing dates in hearing rooms in courtrooms are so precious we do everything possible to not have to cancel especially when we're trying to address a backlog I think that the anecdotally that the headlines the kind of issues that we've been hearing in places like Franklin County have exacerbated some of the staffing issues that have led to this you mean the security staffing issues yes oh I would imagine definitely so the sheriff's office would be the best people to respond to that but I would assume so so yeah this I don't think we need to address that right now I think you we're really focusing on some of the various issues with sheriff's but at some near future time would certainly like to understand the court's plans for addressing this issue unless that's something you want to hit on right now I think we can do that in the future well we'll schedule you in a couple weeks so you can come up with a game planned by then so thank you I like that idea thank you thank you the legislative council personally it was very interesting the background they provided so we will plan to explore that yeah I think many of us have gotten lists and lists of questions that we now will need to delve into a lot of work in reading to do and I am seeing the testimony that you and others have offered today are starting to give us a sense of the picture of how sheriff's conceived historically and how that's evolved the differences so we're just kind of laying the groundwork here today and I hope that we'll be able to have you back as we start to consider some of the remedies and to Chair LaLone's concern about helping you have the security that you need I think we both would want to be partners and help in making sure that folks are safe when they're coming to the courts and that seems like a basic value that I'm sure we all share so thank you for being here today and helping us have a better understanding of how important that law enforcement presence the courts is we so appreciate the opportunity and please don't hesitate call and we'll gather whatever data we don't have didn't have today okay great last question representative Hooper and then we'll well just Mr. Chair might be interesting here from the sheriff's themselves whether their positions are full or whether they're having the same personnel problem when everybody gets having where can't fill or I think sheriff rolls out everywhere I think Sheriff Anderson touched on this but I think there's an overarching challenge with law enforcement staffing across the state in both sheriffs and the Vermont State Police we heard that from Commissioner Morrison so I think he touched on that briefly but when we have the sheriff's back I think we should talk about their ways that we can help with the training and the staffing and I think we'll also be taking that up with some of the recommendations that we've received from the Vermont Criminal Justice Council and should let everybody know we we will be getting a bill with with some requests from the Vermont Criminal Justice Council in the next couple of weeks great well thank you both for joining us I'd like to welcome the state's Attorney John Levoix to testify next and also wanted to just let the committees know since we were running behind the state auditor Doug Hopper agreed to reschedule so we'll be having him back in and if Judiciary Committee wants to try to schedule that together we can figure that out offline but it's going to try to get the state auditor in later so that we can all attend the DAA caucus of the whole of noon so thank you very much state's Attorney Levoix for being here thanks Mike so I am the newly elected freshly sworn in state's Attorney in Franklin County but I have been a prosecutor for 35 years and I have worked in Windham and Bennington County I was with the Southern Vermont Drug Task Force before I joined the Franklin County State's Attorney's Office as a deputy and when my boss left in September I took over the duties as state's Attorney and did survive an election and was sworn in this morning sheriffs in our state were the basis of law enforcement when law enforcement was centered at a county level and when the state police were created in the 1940s the sheriffs still existed obviously and their role in law enforcement did not diminish the idea was that state and municipal law enforcement would supplement the sheriff and county law enforcement now over the years when the criminal justice training council was created in the 1960s municipal law enforcement and state police worked hand in hand with the criminal justice training council and certifying and retaining law enforcement became a mutual operation between the criminal justice training council and these various state agencies if there was a problem with the law enforcement officer if there was a complaint against him or her the criminal justice training council could step in review the case and potentially suspend or revoke their certification that doesn't apply to our elected sheriffs there is no requirement that our elected sheriffs be a certified law enforcement officer I guess just like there's no requirement that the state's attorney be a lawyer however if a state's attorney is not a lawyer he can't go in he or she can't go into court in practice because that's against the law there's nothing to stop a sheriff from being sheriff if he or she is not a certified law enforcement officer now technically I suppose they would not be able to make an arrest to our sign an affidavit but they could certainly run an office there's nothing to stop them doing that and I am in the unique position of having a newly elected sheriff who might be headed down that road his certification is under review right now because of a very public incident where he kicked a shackled prisoner in the groin area that is the subject of a criminal prosecution but even if he is convicted of that offense he'd still be the sheriff there's nothing to prevent him continuing his sheriff with that conviction even if he went to jail I guess somebody else would have to step in for a while but from his jail cell he would still be the sheriff the process for removing a non-elected official is fairly simple I mean compared to what it would take to remove an elected sheriff the chief of a municipal department can suspend can fire someone who is accused of misconduct the kind of misconduct that our current elected sheriff is accused of which certainly well did result in his removal when he had someone supervising him but it's not prevented his taking office this morning our county depends heavily on sheriffs for a law enforcement the town of St. Albans recently decided not to renew their contract with the sheriffs but last year when they were still policing the town they generated 6,000 cases now the city is going to assume that contract but Enesburg generated nearly 700 cases by sheriffs the little town of Richford 700 cases the town of Fairfax over 900 cases who's going to take care of that if the Franklin County sheriffs do not now the problem with the deputies is statewide in terms of staffing but who's going to be leading the Franklin County deputy state's attorney deputy sheriffs who's going to be leading them someone who has kicked a shackled prisoner in the groin and is currently under investigation for financial malfeasance impeachments possible I know but impeachment is a process a legislative process that's certainly not lightly undertaken but even if it is undertaken will not be a speedy process and in the meantime the sheriff's department Franklin County will have that person for a leader and I think of a case where a deputy sheriff might be accused a Franklin County deputy sheriff might be accused of abusing a prisoner what will it mean to have that situation reviewed by a superior who's currently similarly charged what standard of behavior would there be in that department now I could prosecute a deputy sheriff although we elected after consultation with our executive director to at least move the prosecution out of Franklin County to Grand Isle and the state's attorney in Grand Isle Doug DeSabeto agreed to assume that responsibility we are still though the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs so that's not an ideal situation there's at least an as John Campbell put it an appearance of impropriety when we're essentially prosecuting one of our own although he's not a state's attorney he's certainly the sheriff in the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs the attorney general has stepped in in prosecution of other law enforcement officers where there's been a prosecution or a conflict for prosecution on a local level but maybe things just move a little more slowly in the larger office prosecutions of certain police officers accused of misconduct have taken years and it wasn't just pandemic years to get to trial so we're worried about that and if y'all are familiar with the obligation that state's attorneys prosecutors in general have to disclose issues that affect an officer's credibility under our supreme court us supreme court obligations so we put out these Brady letters that talk about problems with an officer's credibility well we put out a Brady letter referencing the new sheriff based on statements he's made about the incident that he's charged with but the Brady letter doesn't prevent him again from being sheriff and would not prevent him signing an affidavit presenting the case even with that issue now I could use my discretion to go further with my Brady letter and say well I'm just not going to prosecute any cases that come out of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department and that would indeed be cutting my nose off despite my face and the only people that would suffer as a result of that would be victims in cases that wouldn't get prosecuted or couldn't get prosecuted and the state police are already stretched so dreadfully thin that the idea of them assuming responsibility for some of these little towns that have generated you know thousands of cases that's just not practical the response time if the sheriffs aren't on duty the response time in richford for an emergency can be 45 minutes and that's just not an acceptable situation so the median ground was to issue a Brady letter just hiding the credibility issues but I may have this situation go on for four years now if the part of legislation suggesting constitutional amendment to require at least that the sheriff be certified by the criminal justice training council that would make removal a much more streamlined process because certification could be removed by the criminal justice training council just as it's removed from a lower level officer without having to go through an impeachment process thank you John for taking some of that up I know there are going to be some questions I see him here from representative uber you say the impeachment process will be rather lengthy do you have an idea how well I could do it in an afternoon I could I mean I could name that tune in one note this this one seems like a gimme to me seems like low hanging fruit it doesn't seem as complex as even a financial malfeasance issue where there might be you know a technical defense this one either either buy it or you don't and I think that we've come to a point fortunately in our oversight of law enforcement so that the behavior that we've seen in this particular instance just isn't acceptable representative Hango and then I'll see if there are folks in judiciary that have any questions yeah thank you you mentioned certification could be removed by the criminal justice training council but where does that leave us that leaves us with an officer who's in charge administratively but can't investigate crime no no what I'm saying is if you pass the constitutional amendment requiring that the sheriff be certified then removal if the certification is tat amount to removal from office right now we're going to have the situation that you've just described right yeah that's why I was confused I'm sorry I'm sure and did I understand you John that the you have discretion about you know even though there's the Brady letter if the if the sheriff's office is investigating a case they make an arrest and then that's referred to your office the Brady letter basically says that that particular law enforcement officer that has issues with their credibility is that the yeah so a Brady letter will apply to a particular officer's credibility so the Brady letter that's issued has issued in reference to the sheriff elect not and to any other deputy sheriff though I I still intend to prosecute cases that are referred by the Franklin County Sheriff's Department unless the sheriff elect happens to be the affiant in which case I would have to take a much closer look and what I mean by that is I'm not going to reject it out of hand if there's a victim involved because again I don't want the victim to suffer but if it's a non-victim case and it comes to me with the sheriff's signature then that case will be declined so not to want to ask you a loaded hypothetical but it would seem to me and maybe you could agree or disagree that if I was a town like Bridgeford or Enesburg where I had a contract with the sheriff's office and there was a much greater probability that cases brought by the sheriff's office for trans committed in my municipality yeah were going to be referred you know I actually brought to prosecution by the state's attorney that would be me really seriously question my confidence in the sheriff's office I mean isn't that a fundamental issue that we have here yeah absolutely and I think if these other towns go the way that St. Albans town did in terms of not renewing their contract with the sheriff's department I'm not going to be dancing and singing because again it represents a much greater burden for the state police that are already stretched way too thin so I want you to get rid of the sheriff just what I want you to do but you know that's another discussion yeah it seems we earlier before you arrived and appreciate you coming down on the day that you were sworn in we did hear that that would be a pretty complicated process representative Higley thank you Mr. Chair thank you a question on your comment regarding a constitutional amendment where the criminal justice council can decertify which would then mean that they they could not carry out their job isn't there or is there a provision for appeal and could that appeal then go to the courts not through the council yes okay so again it still could take some time yeah it's not instantaneous for sure I mean even the current review of the sheriff elect that's in process has been in process for a number of months and as far as I know as of today there's been no decision okay thank you I have a couple hands up in the room representable alone did you want to jump in does anybody have questions in judiciary so far we're good thank you okay represent Chase and represent Hango if a sheriff is still in office with a proven history of violence against civilians and so forth could towns or individuals get restraining orders or protective orders against him that would you know he could still do his job just over there away from I I don't think so I think that restraining orders protective orders are usually person specific and geographically specific or you know you would have to show that there was a particular threat if you were looking for a group there'd have to be a particular threat to that group and I suppose hypothetically if we want to stretch things real thinly we could say well look he's abused a prisoner and all of us are potential prisoners might have a little too much to drink at a party one night meet this guy by the side of the rope but I don't I can't imagine that that's going to fly appreciate the creative thinking though and how difficult the situation may present itself a representative thank you just a point of clarification thank you for people who might be listening that are unfamiliar with the process the constitutional amendment process is a four-year process correct Mr. Chair yeah so folks you know may and recall that this last November there were two propositions two and five that were on the ballot before the voters that were both adopted it is a four-year process it has to be passed by two separate general assemblies and two separate by any and the exact same language and then voted in on by the public it's one of the few things where we actually put language before voters it's it's quite a process and so until we do that so I think I think we may have muddled the conversation a bit here and just for clarity I wanted to focus today on the structural issues and get this committee and our colleagues and House judiciary to have some understanding of the limits of legislative power because of this exact thing but we're mostly talking about history structure law roles and responsibilities I think that it may there may come a time when we're having a more intense conversation about impeachment that's not our conversation here today but some of the concerns that state's attorney the voice brought up definitely are making the gears in my head turn and I imagine many folks in the public are going to be having some serious concerns and questions for us as well representative loans do you have a question in judiciary yes go ahead coach good morning everyone to get back to that question about the protective order I do understand it can't be against the geographic situation but if I request get on an individual no matter who that individual is can I request that protective order you know and you know to be clear let's say a particular individual's share not a deputy but an individual's share has demonstrated his or her inability to work with people of color for example and I might have had a bad experience with that individual could I request a no contact order or what had been from that person or on that person sure I just wanted to figure that out thank you this is your fault I think we're good otherwise so like thank you um so I think you've given us an awful lot to think about are there any final questions do you're in in the room for State's Attorney LaVoy or Representative Nugent kind of on that same theme concerned about the potential danger to future youth I'm sure everyone is I'm wondering if there's anything that can be done I don't know in a practical sense and then EDC or like what are the pressures around the sheriff that will potentially protect future detainees or are we just kind of well um my hope is that like most of his predecessors he will assume an administrative role I still have concerns of course because he's going to be the ultimate supervisor for deputies but if an incident arose regarding improper conduct by a particular deputy my office could still get involved directly with that and those deputies if they're out making arrests they need to be certified so the criminal justice training council would have a direct role to play there thank you thank you very much john for coming all the way down here today and appreciate you sharing your thoughts and giving us a lot to think about we have one more witness before we break and go upstairs for the caucus of the whole the I'm going to invite Dave Silverman who is one of the few people I don't I don't know the whole history but one of the few high bailiffs that has ever been asked to actually perform the duties of high bailiff so I asked Dave here today to talk a little bit about what that experience is like thank you Mr. Chair good morning and thank you for inviting me here today my name is Dave Silverman I'm the high bailiff of Addison County for a short while this past summer I was also the county's acting sheriff the high bailiff is the one person elected in each county with authority to arrest the sheriff the office it's a vestige of British common law it's a symbol of the importance of maintaining civilian control over law enforcement and it's a constitutional error reminder that no one is above the law not even the sheriff over the past few years a lot of people have asked me just what the heck a high bailiff is and and and look it it is kind of funny but to me the really funny thing is that while my office is actually quite easy to explain and understand it turns out Vermonters have no idea what the sheriff does most people imagine the sheriff as the county's police force there to rush to emergencies solve crimes and maybe teach OP how to cast a rod they certainly don't imagine a publicly funded for-profit business enterprise where the sheriff can do any darn thing he wants with the money at his disposal can seemingly violate the law with impunity and has no real law enforcement responsibilities unless and until someone ponies up the cash that's certainly not what we need but sadly it is what we have so back to June when I found out the sheriff newton was in jail which also meant that I was acting sheriff I called the office to speak with the ranking deputy Mike Elmore who's about to be sworn in a sheriff in a couple of minutes back in middlebury and talked with Mike about what his game plan was for the day and Mike told me that he had already sent all the deputies home because he didn't want them interacting with the public and having to answer for newton's criminal conduct every time they interacted with someone and so I asked him what was the game plan before newton was arrested and he said they were just going to be on traffic patrol that day nothing that couldn't be put off what if there's an emergency I asked him he said well we don't respond to emergencies that's the state police or in our big towns middlebury, bristol, virgins it would be the locals we only come as backup if they call us do they ever call you no they never call to me this really beg the question why do we have a sheriff for courthouse security you've already heard half the time that's done by private contractors for prison or transport the department of corrections could do that you give them 150 million dollars a year it's a core part of the corrections for traffic patrol that is the majority of what sheriff's departments do but let's be honest in reality that's just fancy talk for setting speed traps and if we're really being honest it's this part of the job that fundamentally drives the disparities we see in policing where black and brown vermonters are pulled over at four times the rate of white vermonters they're searched at three times the rate the white vermonters who are pulled over are searched and that leads to black vermonters being incarcerated at a rate 11 times that of white vermonters that is one of the worst racial disparities in prisons in the country it's a shame on all of us we can do better than this we have to do better than this traffic safety the majority of what they do can be a function of the agency of transportation you can have you can accomplish that through a combination of unarmed civilian patrols speed cameras and safer road designs and if you think it's too dangerous for unarmed civilian traffic agents out there because of all the guns well you can do something about that too so I certainly don't want to discourage you for making incremental reforms like disqualifying sheriffs who've lost lost their certification due to misconduct on the job or clarifying that in fact a sheriff who embezzles half a million dollars but does it through payroll has in fact embezzled and broken the law or ensuring that a sheriff who violently kicks a handcuffed civilian in his custody can no longer perform that job those are all good things to do but I'm really here to encourage you to do something more fundamental bolder if you really want to make a difference a ball of sheriffs we don't need them anyhow I'm glad they take any questions Representative Hooper Mr. Sheldon, how do you just simply abolish it? It would require technically speaking legally speaking would require a constitutional amendment without a constitutional amendment you can you do have wide authority to define the roles and powers of the sheriff for example the high bailiff has no constitutional definition of what the role is it just says a constitution just says you have to elect the high bailiff every two years you've decided the legislature has decided that the high bailiff's duties and powers are to arrest the sheriff and be acting sheriff you could do the same right here right now without a constitutional amendment for the sheriff you could say the sheriff's only power and authority is to arrest the high bailiff we could go around arresting each other all day long you could you can set district boundaries you could decide that there is one sheriff for the entire state and you could give that sheriff whatever authority it is that you felt was actually necessary for a sheriff but you see the creep you have not the creep of scope you you haven't set limits on what sheriffs do and so you know while I appreciate sheriff marco he is definitely a good apple there is no need for us to be creating homeless shelters associated with sheriff's departments we can do that out of human services we should that's where it belongs representative morgan let's try to say I guess I'll just say it how convenient we disagree with you for instance the majority of the district I represent would not have would have very little to no police and we're not the sheriffs so I don't think we're in a position where in Vermont we want to severely dismiss sheriffs as an entity that's this representative's opinion but um concerning to me greatly I appreciate that and I will say that in my county we have 23 towns three of them have their own police forces that leaves 20 without many of them 14 contract with the sheriff but what is it that the sheriff provides them it's speed traps that's it when even in those 14 towns a contract with the sheriff when there was an actual law enforcement emergency the state police is the one dispatched and so what I what I put to you is that what we think sheriffs do and what sheriffs actually do there is a wide gulf I don't want to get a protracted debate with you but again disagree understand what you're saying but presidents also has some bearing they're understand what you're saying they do to some level speed trap sure but there's obviously a difference of opinion and that's fine but I'm welcoming your input there you have some valid points in my opinion but I think they do have and the old and you said it yourself it's you know the old 1090 rule of 10% can ruin the whole mix for the other 90% that do it right like the two gentlemen we had on earlier I think do their department's justice and do it right but my two cents thank you this won't be our last conversation about the structure of sheriffs and the amount of service and level of service and the different kinds of services they provide and the virtue of all of those things so we'll have opportunities to to dig into that I believe over the next few months represent Hango thank you I just want to speak for my rural communities that the nearest law enforcement without a sheriff is at a minimum 45 minutes away um and it could be much longer than that because not only do the Vermont State Police patrol for and serve Franklin County they also serve Grand Isle County so they could be at the other end of the islands and someone in Richford in one of my towns needs them desperately currently Richford does contract with the Sheriff's Office the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and depends on that contract to actually go on calls emergency calls and they do respond when they are on contract when it's contracted time without them we have nothing although we are very fortunate to have the Border Patrol who graciously come to graciously come to back them up when when they are available and we are very fortunate to have them I will say that you're very fortunate in your area to have municipal police departments that can help out in those types of situations but I recently heard from an EMT in my town of Richford and they are seriously concerned because they're being called to go to homes where violence is happening guns are being used and they have no police backup so without the Sheriff being there it's pretty tough for them to go in and actually help somebody who's having a medical emergency when there's also domestic violence happening so I while I appreciate your perspective I will say it's not a one size fits all for the state of Vermont so I appreciate the comments I want to make sure that while we have witnesses that we're that we'll have time for committee discussion I promise that we're asking them questions specific to their experience and why they're here today so Representative Chase and then I want to go over to our folks in Judiciary and we have just a couple more minutes before we all have to go to the caucus a whole on the budget adjustment are you envisioning allocating those resources among perhaps state police to address this concerns of distance in the rural area or I think that the conversation around policing and resources has frequently sort of stopped at the sort of defund stage and people kind of like scream about that and stop the conversation but you have to reallocate the resources we do have serious public safety issues that are that the current system is failing to address and so yes I absolutely would like to see the resources that are currently being misallocated and used in a way that is not working be used in more effective ways thank you Representative Lalonde anybody in the House Judiciary room have any questions for Mr. Silverman it does not look like it thank you very much well I think that rats it up for today we will be continuing for this testimony I'm hoping for tomorrow afternoon with State Auditor Doug Hoffer to learn a little bit about some of the information that he sent us there are a number of documents about some of the financial concerns he brought up and that we've touched on today but thank you very much Dave I really appreciate everyone who stayed this was a morning where we probably have more questions than answers and I really appreciate this committee and House Judiciary the respectful tone and the questions it's clear that there's an awful lot of work on these issues ahead of us for today we're going to break so thank you very much House Judiciary we're going to sign on thank you thank you so committee we will be back here if we can say that too I wanted to let you all know that I will be along with Chair Marca and Chair Durfee over an approach at 130 to talk about the rural infrastructure assistance grants I think I got the right name there amendment that the chairs will be offering for the budget adjustment and I'm gonna go upstairs and talk about that right now so we'll go off live thank you all