 Okay. It's five after. Now I'm impatient. We can start recording and welcome to the, what is today, August 30th meeting of the Act 65 working group of the RDAP. Let's do introductions. I'll go around my screen. Monica, why don't you start us off? Sure. Good evening, everyone. I'm Monica Weber. I am the department of corrections designated to the RDAP panel. Evan. Evan Meenan with the Vermont Department of States Attorneys and Sheriffs. Good evening. Karen. Hi, everyone. I'm Karen Ginnett, crime research group here for technical assistance. Thank you. Rebecca. Rebecca Turner from the Defendant General's Office. Elizabeth and hello. Hello. I'm Elizabeth Morris. I'm from the Department for Children and Families, our Family Services Division, and I am here on behalf of Tyler who is unable to make all of them. So you'll be seeing a combination of our faces on Mondays for the foreseeable future. Thank you. Susanna. Hello. Susanna Davis, Racial Equity Director for the state. Ian. Hi, Ian. Laura Aiton, summer assistant here to compile notes and minutes. Thank you. And I'm Aiton, chair of the panel. Hello. Moving right along, I had, oh, no, I wanted to let everyone know Sheila sends regrets. She couldn't make it tonight. Judge Grierson also wrote, I didn't read it really in depth, but he will not be here. And Jess Brown isn't going to be able to make it either. Those are the three regrets that I got. So I don't know if, I know David's share is somewhere attempting, attempting to join, but I'm not sure where. So he'll pop up, no doubt, at some point. What I was hoping to do was to, in a certain sense, split the meeting in half. And what I would like to do is begin with the continuing discussion that we had about the mission. And Karen Gannett did a lot of work on sort of putting together things that were set at the last meeting. And I put in the phrase, actually turned into a sentence with several phrases that Rebecca Turner had pointed out about the data. I've sent that to you. And there are some holes in that there regarding the governing body, how that should be constituted. That is there. And then there are, there's a section that Karen has sort of talked about as nuts and bolts for, what would you say, Karen, for data handling, data management? Okay. And so I thought we would start with that, talk about that, and then we'd shift to looking again at that first question about housing, the entity. And I would start with Susanna, and then move to Evan who sent through me a couple of documents, which you may not have had time to read because I sent them very late. And I apologize for that. It's been a one of those. And so maybe we'll take a few minutes so people can look at them and then come back and discuss. And that was my plan for this evening. That should take up pretty much our time together. So Karen, why don't you start us off with a discussion of the work that you submitted. Okey-doke. So I will say that the lovely picture that Monica put together when we transferred it to other documents kind of took on a life of its own as sometimes those drawings do. And my apologies, I don't even know why I didn't think about doing it in track changes like Evan did, but I didn't. I basically took what was already in the mission document and just took out the extraneous language and put in there. Let me pull mine up for myself. Basically put in there the language that you all had already added to the mission statement. Etan added the language that's in blue. And I just gave everything a heading. So I gave the mission a heading. I gave the governing body a heading. I'm not sure we actually need that in there after having looked at Evan's documents, but it's something that we I think we need to discuss about who the governing body should be or the advisory committee as Evan put it in his documents. For the responsibilities of the bureau, I basically took all the active language that was in the original document and came up with eight things that were the responsibilities as you all had put in that original document. So for example, reviewing the original report, the December report, building the relationships, which has also been a discussion not only in the document but in the study committee. Working with the governing body or the advisory committee to establish the infrastructure to answer the questions in the report of December 2020. And I thought it was really important to keep in there to create a scalable foundation so that we could build on whatever happened here. Develop a data integration governance structure with the help of NCJRP and search. Follow best practices on data sharing integration analysis and reporting, including the general principles as to how public data should be protected while maintaining public transparency and trust. Provide assistance to entities to improve data collection practices, which is another thing that Evan had included in his information. Identify the data that can be easily collected or that are already collected and analyze the data and provide information on disparities. In the original document, and I think this is something that witchy had added to it, was the staff that are needed to do this. And then I simply took what Monica had put together, and I do call it the nuts and bolts, which is really the technical aspects of doing data integration. So what do we have? How does it work? In very practical, very practically, how does it work? Who has control over the data now? How do we get the data from those in control? And then I added Monica's picture to the end of it because I thought she did a really, really great job of putting together kind of who's in control of the data? Where does it live? Where does it have to go? And that's to the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics. We're missing some language here. So on the left-hand side, in those containers, there should be the judiciary, local law enforcement, and you can see public defender and state's attorney. The community research, and I can redo this picture so that it shows what it should be showing. Community researchers and legislators should go under the question mark at the bottom. And the researchers kind of decided to do their own thing, and they're floating out on the right-hand side. But there was initially four sets of researchers over there just to detail a little bit more who should have access to the data for analysis. And I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone has any questions about how I came up with all that. But it was really from the initial document except for the one line that Etan put in. I don't think I added any language. And that was based on, I mean, a lot of people were involved in that discussion, but I remember it, I remember, Rebecca, I remember you starting us off with that. And so I came up with something. Evan has his hand up. Oh, yeah, which I, you know, maybe if I looked at the screen. Hi, Evan. I know the feeling. Hello. Well, I don't know if this is a question. It's more of a, maybe it's more of a comment, and one that I'll probably reiterate a couple of times, maybe out of forgetfulness. But I see that the Department of State's attorneys is listed as one of the entities that would feed information into the Bureau of Racial Justice, which is completely fine. But one of the things that I'm trying to keep track of is the specific data points that the Department might be responsible for sharing so that once those are identified, I can attempt to reach out to RIT folks. Well, I should say folk because there's just one of them, unfortunately, early in the process to make sure that we're capable of reporting it in a way that is easy and not unnecessarily time consuming. And I don't have a firm grasp of what those data points might be. So maybe this is even a request, just once those become known, please let me know so that I can work on that sooner rather than later. And we don't end up being an unanticipated roadblock to this process. Thanks. Monica. I just wanted to make a point that when I was putting this together, I was just sort of thinking about the possibility that all of these entities may at some point need to in the future provide data to the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics, given the conversations that we'd had last year and all of the data that was in the last report that we submitted and all the different places where those data were coming from. So if we want to include this picture, which we can or we can't or I can modify it, I can certainly talk about it as like possibly data sources coming from all these places. But that's what I was just thinking. For me, it was just sort of like conceptual. Got it. Yeah. Okay. That's important. Elizabeth. I'm wondering, and as I read these responsibilities and then look at this, I have to say absolutely fantastic graphic. I feel like I explained it very well to whoever put it together. Monica, did you do it? Thank you. It's great. I'm wondering the responsibility of the Bureau to report data to the various state boards that are charged with working on this type of work. I'm thinking of, you know, Suzana's board. My board has its own piece, as Judge Dapp and Ford has mentioned frequently about ethnic and racial disparities, R Dapp and then many others as well. You know, the state likes to like to create working groups and councils. So I'm wondering if that would or should be added to kind of the responsibilities of the Bureau, perhaps even the project manager would be to respond to requests for data and also help those in those specific councils work through questions as they are trying to come up with policy change or legislative requests, et cetera. But that also might be going a little bit too much into depth with it. Which is that something that project manager could be, well, I don't know, amended to include that somehow that person? I mean, is that appropriate, I guess, A, and B, can it happen? I'm sorry, but I messed what Elizabeth was saying because I got really distracted. I'm so sorry. Elizabeth, you can speak for yourself. I don't need to. No, that's still probably, I can kind of reiterate probably in better wording. I'm wondering if the project manager, some of the responsibilities of the Bureau and more specifically the project manager should be to provide support to state advisory groups or councils that are trying to take this data and interpret it so that it's done properly. I don't know if that would necessarily mean them being at every council meeting or et cetera of all of these different councils, but perhaps when they're reviewing the data that they're present for that, for those conversations and answering questions that might lead to misunderstandings on how it's presented? Yeah, I think from my perspective, I think, yes, it's sort of like a little bit of a caveat here. Like in my experience, the project manager is generally just trying to make sure that everybody's needs are met, you know, including the folks that are asking. I, project managers don't always have the knowledge of data governance, for example, so then it becomes a little bit trickier of how it is that they're... Yeah, so I, sorry. So all of that to say really just like, yes, it can be included and it should be, it's sort of like when we talk about the subscription should definitely be included, like how far the responsibility should go as far as making decisions about what data is going to be available. Thank you, Karen. Yeah, one of the things that Robin and I discussed this afternoon, she couldn't make the meeting tonight, but was really pretty much in line with what Elizabeth is talking about, and that is where Eitan, you added the the blue font, the line that's in blue font, is to really include other bodies besides the legislature. So it really should be state departments, the legislature and other, whether it's advisory councils or community groups. And the other thing that we talked about was when the, and I don't know where this goes, but maybe it's under responsibilities is when the bureau's data analysts actually do some kind of report to do a review of the data with you know, a public review of the data, because a lot of times the data doesn't get discussed. And so people don't always review it. And I think that's, I think, which he made a good point is a lot of people misinterpret what's being, what's being revealed. And it's really important for the people doing the data analysis to actually be part of the unveiling of the data and what they're finding. We think that's a really important piece. Okay. Evan, give me a second. I didn't put anything in, by the way, about who gets the data. I didn't do that deliberately. There's nothing in here about that that I wrote. And that was a deliberate choice on my part. Like, I didn't want to get into that. There are too many, well, well, that just let the cat out of the bag, didn't it? There are too many task forces in state government doing too many overlapping projects all around this stuff. And I ain't naming all of them. Somebody wants to do that, have a very good time. But I really didn't want to get into it because they come, they go, five people serve on one, they're all living in the same household. I mean, it's just, it's too much. And I didn't want to get into it. But if I should get into it, let me know and I'll get into it. Evan. Yeah, the number of policy and work groups definitely gives me a chuckle sometimes too. But I thought maybe in response to Karen's comment, maybe, well, I guess I had two thoughts. The first of which was, where do we envision this mission statement residing? Because I think there's a couple of different options. It could certainly reside in the enabling legislation of our DAP. That's one potential residency. Another would be what we would recommend the mission statement to be in our whatever report that we issue in response to our charge. And then the third potential place would be for the Bureau or whatever it ends up being called to promulgate its own mission statement consistent with its enabling legislation. That would be a third option. One thing that could be possible, regardless of where it resides, would be for us not to recommend specific entities where this data would be disclosed. So for example, that sentence in blue font could just read the data are to be used along with the biennial reports from our DAP to inform policy decisions and just eliminate the word legislative. And then that way, for example, the legislature could rely on the data. But so too could the judiciary or the Department of State's attorneys or corrections or Defender General's Office or whoever has relevant data that might need or desire to reform their practices based on identified disparities from the Bureau. Okay, great. You know, you raise an interesting point, Evan. I did think we were doing the enabling, we're doing draft legislation at the towards the end of all of this. But in terms of the Bureau's mission statement, I have we even been I don't think we've been asked we've been asked to put it in a report or to address it in a report, but nothing more weighty than I see so far. Have I missed something? I think I was just pulling it up now Act 65. My recollection and excuse me if I'm incorrect was that Act 65 directed our report to contain enabling legislation or not necessarily enabling legislation, but some type of some type of recommended. Yeah, on page 21, it says the report required by subsection a of this section shall include proposed draft legislation. That's not necessarily synonymous with enabling legislation unless we decide that the Bureau has to be some sort of standalone entity that needs its own enabling legislation as opposed to just vesting an existing entity in its current configuration with more authority. Okay, so I guess conceivably there's a couple different directions we could go with. Okay. Alright, thank you. Rebecca. So I'm desperately trying to connect my track changes to this group here and then walk through it. So just give me a second if you don't mind. And I'm just dropping some of the just trying to get that out and then it'll be easier for me to show my comments. Oh, is this a talk amongst yourselves moment? This is a talk amongst yourselves, although I can I can chat while although I'll be distracted. So let me I'd rather just wait. So if others want to talk and join in, I'd be good. Okay. You know, I'll have to admit, Evan, I had a fantasy. I guess I'm saying this to everyone and my fantasy was we'd write the report. I would email Martin LaLonde and say, you should get Eric here to here, go write legislation now. Because there's a part of me. I know what it says in there. And maybe I should stop being so rebellious about this, but lawmakers write legislation. That's why they're elected is to write legislation. So how about they do their job and we do our job? And, you know, it'll all work out. Just a thought. I mean, because I was really thinking, I really was look at a report done, they really are very clear. The report shall address one, two, three, four, five. Let's do that. And then, you know, okay. Here, here's our draft of our report. I you guys should you see, I mean, representative LaLonde even said we should he wouldn't be able to come to all of these meetings, but we should let him know when it got was getting down to the wire and he needed to do, you know, his part because legislative council can't be here without a legislator. So, and I had sort of said when they were drafting this, oh, so let's counsel just be at the meetings. Oh, no, that can't happen. And I had a little bit of a fit. But then everyone explained that it would be okay. And so I stopped having a fit. Rebecca, are you ready? I hopefully sent something to you guys, which should be what Karen worked on with a ton in a moment to just try to give you guys my, my feedback. I think overall, thanks Karen for your work on that with a ton and others who worked with you guys on that this week. I think overall, a, I want to just keep reminding everyone that let's just watch our language like I've already expressed, I just don't want to use up time again, repeating the same things about the why I don't like the word bureau. And my understanding from I understand it's in the legislation. I understand also why it was picked and it was pretty it was a placeholder. I just I think it that as the FBI. Right. So it just it's just as I just hope can we just keep calling the data and today the other thing that's more just like a technical thing. The other thing I just want to make a point is I feel like I when this started in the beginning of August, I shared a draft and I feel like that got lost. And so I reinjected it. And I think it's appropriate to sort of return to what I was the main points there, particularly as I see Monica's drawing and as as it's sort of being built upon described here what I see are the key differences because there's a lot of things that are similar. So we can just jump there. That's really sort of the heart of it. And I think it captures a lot of what we're talking about not really getting to the questions as to what we should do next and draft legislation or not. But if you guys go to page three, this is a familiar chart of what I shared at the beginning when I shared also the AISPs toolkit for how to design and think about a data aggregation entity in state government and how to make sure when we're trying to address racial equities to not lose the critical voices. And we started off August talking about that. I feel like the document that's starting to emerge has completely dropped off. I know there's sort of language in the governing body to that effect but the image itself that's developing here as to who's involved in this makes no mention of community members. People with lived experiences right. The other thing it doesn't make any mention of is the role of the governing board. So just take a look at number three. This is this was this isn't there's a slight edit but a critical edit from the last version you saw. And that is that the last time you saw these there was no big blue circle there. What you saw were three separate circles. Governing board dedicated to juvenile justice issues. Governing board dedicated to criminal justice issues because while there's a lot of overlapping similar players that are being involved we're always I guess for the newer members it's something that we realize we're giving short shrift to the juvenile justice side of things we quickly focus on the criminal. This was a way to just keep us honest about making sure that when we approach any data project that we don't give short shrift to this. It also provides a sample of how we could I want to call it level up but it's not level up expand this beyond racial equities issues right. Imagine a governing board related to education or health or all the places where we're seeing the legislature want to take what RDAB's thinking about and make it bigger than racial equities in the criminal juvenile justice system. So imagine this data entity wherever we decide to suggest putting it within executive the executive branch that that there is this this executive director or however we want to title it with the wreck was its staff and again whatever we think is appropriate but that that body takes not just advisory governing advice from an advisory board but is governed by these individual governing boards right. And so then the question is and again keeping the center on making sure we don't exacerbate continue embed new implicit biases that we don't actually realize we're doing when we're doing with this data project that we have a governing board where we don't just because this is where I'm worried about what Monica's conceived here. There is no mention of community members and people who lived experiences. And just a reminder remember when we lived through last session there was this moment where the legislators wanted to make RDAB the members of RDAB the panel the effective governing board right. And I think that's an important recognition we're dropping off here right. And I just want to make sure speaking for the community members who can't make it tonight I know that's just a critical piece and it's a non-starter to present any image that just drops off the people who are actually impacted. So I just want to start that. The other is that it's critical to understand for me again not just a concern of independence but accountability throughout this process whatever stage at the micro and macro level of this as it gets going that there are these constant checks. Again how AISP toolkit returning us to that sort of that thinking of how to make sure there's accountability and checks throughout all of these. And I think I keep returning well it's critical to the governing body right. And the governing body and the executive director follows what the governing body tells them that these outside government agencies again covered in that outside circle are obviously feeding in the necessary data right. We have the analytical side that may have to be contracted out supporting the executive director and staff to get the job done. That's where CRG UVM others could come in right. I don't see these as being within the state government entity itself that we're talking about but outside. Again I just don't know if others feel like this is a non-starter but to me fundamentally what Monica's drawn up isn't at odds with how I've been thinking of all of our core ideas of what the data entity is. I remember there being I remember writing I don't know where it went something where I the governing body was first and that that was something that the bureau listened to. And I don't know where that went. I remember doing that but Karen. Let me unmute myself. I think that's a really important point that you bring up Rebecca. I so let me see if I can say this and be clear about how I see this. So I think when you look at what was written both in the mission statement and in Evan's draft of the legislation I think the advisory committee and maybe it needs to be advisory committees are exactly what you drew up. So they are so those are the governing bodies that are going to be guiding the data entity and I don't like the word bureau either but just didn't know what else to put in there so I just kind of did what everybody you know just kind of followed that through. I'm glad you changed the language. What Monica drew up and what what we've been talking about around this other subcommittee is really the and that's why I call it the nuts and bolts of doing the technical work. So those aren't governing bodies. Those aren't anybody that's going to be driving or guiding what the advisory committee or the data entity are going to be doing. It's really the nuts and bolts of how we get the data from one place to the next place and who feeds that data in there. So maybe we need something that's more I don't want to say more of an overlay because then it gets really complicated but a line from Monica's drawing and maybe Monica just raised her hand so maybe she has a better idea than I do but almost like a funnel from Monica's drawing to your drawing because that's how we get the data and then we need to put the data somewhere and that's the governing bodies the advisory committee the data entity but there's a whole lot of really technical stuff that has to happen before that and that is things like ADS has to be made aware of this and there needs to be data sharing agreements and the you know I know in our contracts we have what's called attachment D like how you can use the data what you do with the data who gets the data who doesn't get the data and so they're actually written documents that have to be done and I consider those kind of the nuts and bolts of the sharing of the data so that's how I see Monica's drawing of it is and that's why I call it the nuts and bolts because it really is kind of the technical pieces of getting the data out of the systems the actual systems and then handing it over to the governance committees and the data the data entity that you're talking about I think what you drew is really the conceptual framework for the advisory committee of the data entity so there's the nuts and bolts and there's the actual guiding advisory committee I'll shut up now because I think I Evan and then Monica yeah I just wanted to take a minute and follow up on on what Rebecca said because I don't necessarily disagree with any of it but you know my thoughts about my thoughts in general about a governing entity or panel or whatever it's going to end up being called are influenced fairly heavily by my experience working for the natural resources board which is a board consisting of several members drawn from the community with varying levels of experience with act 250 the subject matter of the board and who only receive the per diem allotted by statute and I know that compensation is something that this group has rightfully talked about before and so I would I would just say that I you know it can be difficult to build institutional knowledge and encourage engagement amongst a group of volunteer community members who are a part of any sort of governmental entity and so it's not impossible but it can be difficult and I think that that difficulty could possibly be overcome by either suggesting that the legislature revisit the topic of compensation or by assigning very specific and concrete tasks to the entity so that there's a clear mission statement rather than it just being some sort of advisory panel or group and so you know I I definitely agree that people with lived experience and community members should be a part of whatever panel is is constituted but I think that we need to make sure that we structure it in a way where they have sufficient familiarity with what this data entity is is is is supposed is expected to accomplish and that they are justly compensated for their work and I think sometimes that can be overlooked in statute at least based on my experience so I'm I'm I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing I'm just laying out some additional things for for consideration to make it a meaningful exercise. Monica? Thanks Aitan yeah just to pick up a little bit on what Karen said so the purpose of my drawing really was to help my thinking evolve around where would be the most efficient way or how would how would data move back and forth right and sort of helping me answer the question about where a data entity could live and so that's all I put on this drawing for my own thinking when we get to a place where we have a collective better understanding around governing body advisory body I do think Karen suggestion makes perfect sense right but we would have this overlay of whatever this larger entity is and a connection to whatever a final version of this particular graph which is easily changed you know there's lots of editing that that can be done so that we could show like the two different layers the nuts and bolts layers and then sort of maybe what I would call like the larger sort of policy layer or governing layer but this wasn't intended to really show that governing piece it was to show how data gets moved around. So in other words in a way your drawing Monica is around towards questions four and five whereas what Rebecca and the rest of us are looking at are really around three to some extent two and certainly I guess one as well the first three questions so it's in effect I mean at least that's what I'm looking at is that it's it's different different intense yes I think Karen was getting at that I would say then what we would need is it's unfortunate that we didn't we really probably ought to look at filling in the governing body and really critiquing that language and seeing if that's I'm looking at Rebecca's thing right now um yeah I mean looking at looking at what Rebecca's drew looking at what Evan wrote and if there's some other things I don't I know yeah yeah so you know like and then whatever it is we want I can make it into a drawing I like to draw things but yeah I just wanted to put that out there so it wasn't like I was trying to leave out those things it was not for that purpose that's helpful you guys thanks Karen and Monica for clarifying can you can you tell me who are these like great researchers who have got these like super high tech you know the point I think the point there was that we decided that they were going to be researchers who you know may want access to the data but they're not part of the data entity but there are some researchers within the entity so it's just showing that there's there's people out there who are going to potentially want to access this data and they're different um and tell me what the circle around E ADS is this ADS is circle around DPS DOC and DCS so if you're in an executive branch organization all of the data that is in those different agencies is controlled by the agency of digital services there's no way to get around working with the agency of digital services it has to be part of the process and that was the other thing that I was trying to show here is that there are some data that comes from the agency of digital services or that they sort of control and then I may be wrong this is just my understanding from other conversations the judiciary has its own kind of entity and all their law enforcement's the defender general right not within the agency of digital services even though we're executive even though state attorneys is the executive so it's not so simplest okay I got it I got it so these are and Department of Ed I know we're not including them but I Sheila as we have it in our data collection point to collect some data from Department of Ed that would be a whole another thing to put on here that would yeah I don't know how their data is controlled yeah you don't know if it's a ADS probably is does anyone know the answer that I would guess it is yeah Evan says is that no Evan or you don't know I it probably is but who knows I have I have no clue how how ADS manages data and for whom it manages data I can certainly find that out and put that in there but my one of the main points of for me doing this was to show the heavy influence that ADS will have over this project does that mean to in terms of agreements with individual government organizations that will be providing the data that it's ADS who will be the critical or is there a sub-requirement to have separate agreements with DOC and this data entity DCL DO you need separate agreements but the agreements will be sort of within the template that ADS provides from organizing data exchanges but each entity would have to you you'd have each questionnaire has to sign off ultimately or whoever I mean that's my understanding about how it could work now I it's who knows what's possible sorry I and I appreciate the nuts and bolts detail I don't want to get into the detail but to the extent that it starts impacting how I'm thinking about the bigger entity and governing body and where it should sit and all of these things like who has the muscle we talked about this previously to make sure that this isn't just like a please give us your data and people organizations can just not necessarily cooperate right like who has who has the ability to make sure these agreements happen and what happens if they don't right I don't know if you guys have some ideas on that in terms of how that affects structurally how we're talking about things being set up here or not good question anybody oh haven well honestly before just now in monica's comments that was something that I was struggling with because I'm pretty sure that was something we were supposed to address and I didn't know how we were going to do it right I mean one state entity trying to enforce something against another state entity on its face seems to create an awkward situation but but I wonder if if monica is correct that ADS would have a meaningful level of involvement in this process as a result of its control over entities other and other state entities data and maybe that's something that we need to confirm maybe it's not as big of a problem as we were thinking right because perhaps and I don't know this so I don't want to state it definitively but if ADS has the ability to independently report data or coerce an entity to to report data maybe there's a solution there and I don't know but but maybe I just I guess I have you know maybe I just don't understand the politics here but why would a state agency deny another state agency the right to be able to analyze our data if it was if it's by law that this is supposed to happen Karen do you want to feel that because my feeling is you've had some experience with this maybe I'm wrong if I'm wrong just tell me I'm wrong first of all I you're well I have had some experience with getting data from state departments but I'm not a state department so we're not coercing anybody you know we're not a state department coercing somebody else to hand over data but there is a process that we have to go through there are there is a data sharing agreement and there is what's called an ISA interagency I'm going to say it wrong Monica what is it an ISA security agreements there you go interagency security agreement so there and so what happens with each department and and Monica's right we have to go through every department have a different agreement because there are different data sets from every department so we have to actually talk with them have several conversations with them about what are the actual data fields and it gets that's why I said it's nuts and bolts it gets very technical what are the actual data fields and what's the name of what's the code for that field that we want to get so we know we're getting the right data we're kind of getting into the weeds on this but it's it's a very technical issue around getting data from a state department and that's why you need one from every department because they're the ones in control of their data so law enforcement controls their data DOC controls their data um all the state departments control their own data and you have to know what you want in order to get the correct data fields to do your analysis so it's a conversation there's a whole process it's a conversation the data fields actually go in the document so when I do an agreement with um and Monica and I have have done this before when we do a data sharing agreement I have conversations with the data people in her um department and we talk about what data are actually in their system and what's so we'll say well we want I don't know some field of data and they'll say well oh okay well that data is coded as this and the the code the name of the data field actually goes in the document so there's a lot of back and forth and a lot of conversation and if you don't do that piece of it you may not get the data you need to do the analysis yeah that'll that all makes sense to me but they wouldn't deny like for example if you were a state agency they wouldn't necessarily deny data right because I feel like that was what I was hearing yeah yeah actually that's a that's a really good question witchy I I've not had any I'm trying to think about who I've had that might have denied data it might not be available what we might might what we want might not be in their data system and that's where we have the conversation with them um I can't think of I mean I haven't worked with all state departments but the ones we've talked to have not um have haven't said no we've had you know there's some that have been a little reluctant and want to know more about what we're going to do with the data but I haven't had had people say no and I do want to say that there are some data systems where it's um and I think Evan makes this point really well and has made it time and again so he doesn't forget it neither do we that some systems you just can't get data out of them so you know as people are building their systems that's one reason that's one of the reasons we actually need and I we've called it a governance entity because that's what search calls it but a governance committee that has policy people and technical people on it so we can have the conversations about what changes they're making in their system so the users of those systems don't get surprised by not being able to access data because they've made changes and oh geez they changed a code and you know for example at one point the I'll pick on the judiciary they're not here back in November of 2018 they coded probation differently and they never told the end users of the system so DOC didn't know VCIC didn't know for criminal histories and we didn't know for data requests so a year later robin's like something's off here I'm not getting probation sentences for the data requests and we called the judiciary and they're like oh we changed that field name so now we have to fix it so you know if we have this governance entity we want to be able to converse with each other quarterly about the changes that are happening in the systems so we're all aware of the effect it has on the data analysts and the researchers that are using that data so let me I Monica and then Rebecca but let me just put in a moment here so I've been writing while you were speaking Karen and sort of working on the document that Rebecca and you and I and so everybody's been working on the governing body um the governing body shall consist of and I'm not writing this in like you know what we would call I suppose legislative English but real people and data folks who understand systems and their negotiations so I'm just putting those two in as like big categories to start with because Karen your point about that this governing body would need to have people who can do both that you would have to have people who can speak data along with people who can speak policy does that make sense so I see this as two separate groups so the governing body on the top is the governing body that Rebecca is talking about I would put the other and we got to talk about different names for these things um but the other governing body I would put under the nuts and bolts what you just said a ton I'd put under nuts and bolts okay that's what that governing body should be doing is is meeting quarterly and making sure that they're talking to each other about changes they're making in their system okay but the governing body for the data entity should be what Rebecca is referring to got it all right awesome thank you Monica uh okay a couple points just around I think it started with witchy's question and I think we sort of answered it that if the legislation or whatever it is it creates this entity requires department to share data then departments can share data right that would be the enforcement piece of it in my mind the other thing is to say that I think Karen made this point but I want to reiterate it ADS doesn't own the department data so the department of corrections owns our data ADS has requirements systems procedures that must be met in order when we store when we share you know all of the things around keeping data protected particularly data like the department of corrections in DCF where you know a lot of our data is is not considered public data right so we have we have to make sure so ADS has all of those systems in place they can't come into our offender management system pull our data and give it to someone else we're the ones that do that with their assistance and with the guidance that they set so that's a that's a very distinct difference that I I wanted to make for people um and then lastly I agree Karen with your idea they're really I was thinking about those as two different entities as well right some sort of infrastructure group and then the governing group that has that really is the high level picture thank you I needed that clarified yeah can I ask that we move on to the second part of the discussion this evening that I asked about um which has to do with um different questions about location I think that there's gonna be some interesting overlap here um in this discussion um and I would like to give the floor to Susanna to describe there's no written document here it was it was it was something it grew out of a conversation that she and I had and so Susanna floor is yours all right this is gonna take very little time because as Aton says there's no formal right up about it um and it I mean you all can figure it out so the short story is that this is being uh offered not necessarily to say we shouldn't do any any of what else has been proposed but just as a hey have we also thought about this which is um to consider placing this entity in or in the orbit of the new criminal justice council I'm just pausing so that your cogs can turn so what that would mean so what that would mean is um that this so so let me just back up actually and talk a little bit about the reformed I don't want to say reform because that has like punitive connotations but the redesigned criminal justice council which now has been expanded to include a lot more members including more community members um it is far less law enforcement heavy than it used to be and is also the the the statutory language now is broader so that it can encompass more than the more narrow aspect of training that it used to be more focused on so um so the criminal justice council currently enjoys administrative support it is already sort of connected and yet has some degree of independence because it does serve watchdog functions so it does live in that murky area that permits it to be supported by an agency somewhere or department somewhere but also be independent enough that it can do that critical thinking and analysis that it would need to do um so I think that in terms of setting up a new entity um again I I don't necessarily discourage that but it is worth exploring the possibility of housing this in a place that already does have administrative support particularly if we would be building a staff with this the four positions that we had been talking about then this would not necessarily add to the existing burden of the council but rat well it would but with the additional resources that we already outlined um the council does have an executive director it has a chair two co-vice chairs and for disclosure I am one of those co-vice chairs um it also has a number of representatives from law enforcement and a number of community reps as well I'm gonna I'm gonna leave it there that's that's the thought if I I would just add on to that that part of what our discussion also included was and I think I feel this strong more strongly than I had imagined at the time that Susanna and I had this discussion um there's a task force that is that what we call it Susanna I can't remember anymore of the racial equity work groups there's like the group that you came up with of all of us yeah yeah the the recalling at the symposium which is just a convening of all of the work groups that exist that touch racial equity in some way I have a slide I can show if anyone's interested but no pressure I don't have to but there are a lot of entities and there and this this body came together thank you Susanna because there are as we there are so many entities and there are just so many people meaning a limited group of people who serve on these things and we didn't actually know that each other was involved in whatever we were involved in and then we had this task force and we're all sitting around a table staring at each other and going oh wow look at that um you do that too okay and that there was a certain sense here when in our discussion about um not to what extent is this entire data entity duplicative and is there some way in which you could stop this because I certainly know in communities of color there is a tremendous fatigue at this point with yet another group that the legislature's come up with um and cynicism not just fatigue but cynicism so I'll stop there witchy your hand was up first then Rebecca yeah definitely wanting to echo sort of Aton's thoughts on people of color and and things that the legislature comes up with just like eventually I just feel like people are generally exhausted uh but I do so I do like the idea of housing at some where it already exists um I guess my follow-up question to you um Susanna about the about the criminal justice council but I can't remember the name um but uh something that I that I want to notice like the the what's gonna happen with that data entity and what they're gonna research and stuff is will always be the agenda of whoever is governing it so what are the functions then of the criminal justice council and how do you feel that the data entity if it was housed under this council how how do you foresee their gears being guided yeah so um this doesn't look good that I don't have it tattooed on me yet but the functions loosely speaking are to oversee the training and the police academy for all anyone who's going to be a law enforcement officer in the state of course has to go to the same academy and so I I think one of its primary functions is um that training which includes things like curriculum development and the physical space of the academy etc um another of its functions is to hold hearings when there's a disciplinary matter that's being contested with you know if an officer's exclusive misconduct or something like that if it is being contested it goes to a hearing and the council hears those matters um so that's another of its functions another one is um they have a subcommittee on fair and impartial policing so right now the fair and impartial policing policy is under revision and it's currently being looked at by that subcommittee so it really does run the gamut in terms of a lot of aspects of law enforcement particularly those that have to do with training new hires and sort of introductory policy um that is kind of where it is now obviously in order to do that it does rely on a lot of data and um and they do have the representation of the council gives it access it gives it eyes in a lot of spaces I'll say that I'm also just going to pause really quickly and find the bill um that redesigned it this past session and put it in the chat great thing Rebecca you disappeared for a moment I got very nervous but you're bad no my my internet was spotty and failed for a moment and I hear you about the cynicism um and the over overextension of representatives of the BIPOC community speaking personally about this and I can understand I also am very sensitive to not wanting to be part of an effort to build something so complicated huge and important that fundamentally is not going to be accepted as valid or independent and and unfortunately the um council from the defender general's perspective is all law enforcement it is not when when I mean from the very beginning of of us on our dap when we conceived this it was critical that it be independent right no one suggested the AGO no one suggested um the state's attorney's office you and and Susanna I appreciate you looking for the specific section because everyone should look at where the council lives in our code it's title 20 it is the purposes overarching purposes is law enforcement public safety um Susanna shared a little bit of it in terms of training it's law enforcement everything goes back to law enforcement this isn't the purpose of this data it isn't about accountability of police officers generally right for terms of training this is bigger and we also need to be able to trust it I think if we want to avoid furthering cynicism the last thing we should do is turn to a place that is historically and just even if I recognize it was just amended on the statute but um for me it's critical who are on who's on this governing board what's the independence and what are the numbers we don't just want one or two and I don't I'm not saying the council has one or two count community members but let's think about whose voices and how those voices are heard are they um are they a minority group are they just there to just you know is it where are where are the interests I think it's critical I so I appreciate what you're looking to and I recognize and agree we like agreement points a place that is established so that the legislature just can't yank funding it's so critically important right a place that has infrastructure a place that will exude enough gravitas not just so that the legislature keeps funding it but the other estate organizations give the data which you asked you know politically how is it that there can be a law passed requiring data sharing and it not happen I mean Karen shared a little bit of sort of some of the technical details that can happen just in terms of how long it can take for an agreement to not necessarily bad motive for ill intent the reality the net result though is that there's foot tracking and and months and months and months where people are trying to get something which seems simple never happens so um I don't mean to but I did want to just plug in enforcement has to be more than just we require data it has to have a stick and similar to other legislation we're funding you know consequence of not providing this in a timely manner means you lose funding period and and we have we have model legislation to follow another avenue so I would that's one way but the other is who is it and Karen and Monica when you were talking about sort of that funnel detail of the nuts and bolts and suggesting sort of a board that could navigate all of those different agreements that be necessary I wondered if it could again maybe we don't maybe we need another board within that nuts and bolts details maybe it's the executive director or the position itself that has that power to just be okay you were you know the legislation says you gotta you gotta provide this data by whatever dates not here let's get it over and and I mean and there's nothing more to do but to pull funding right or however else the consequences should go anyways my two cents uh and also I know that I promised I just didn't get there because they landed on Thursday back in Vermont to still be uncone undug is to try to connect with folks in the secretary of state's office not necessarily because they said yes they haven't given any indication that they're even wanting this to land there but I'm curious how such what what input and and advice they can share in terms of how how this data entity could be set up and um possible things to think about models um anyways so I I I hope to bring that to our next meeting just didn't get there okay thank you uh Elizabeth the conversation regarding the criminal justice council I'm I'm curious what the focus on the juvenile side of things are for the council and looking at the membership piece that was in that Susanna you just put in the chat and thanks for that I don't see any um focus on on youth and obviously I'm gonna be the person to ring that bell um so just considering that as well if it were to be under this entity yeah I think that's an excellent point um I think they're all excellent points that were just made and you know the current um the current iteration of the council is a reformation of what it used to be and um you know if we did consider putting this there then what we I'm getting a bad network so I'm gonna turn my video off um and if we were to amend this to put it in with the council then we would be creating a new reformation of what that could be right so um I definitely agree that the current composition doesn't reflect the the important focus on youth and that that's likely something that we could also change if we needed to um you know and and I think the question really comes down to do we want to create multiple disconnected entities to do the various to touch the elephant in different spots um or do we want to start plugging them in and and what's the word when you consolidate a little bit um and if we do consolidate what harm does that create are we putting um are we are we putting people in charge of policing themselves basically or are we giving more opportunity for community involvement in things where they've historically not been present I think these are all open questions um so yeah again I don't I don't I'm not wedded to this or any of the other ideas but I didn't recall having heard it before so I just want to make sure that this group um being aware of how bureaucracy can grow rapidly you know is at least aware of this is a possibility okay that actually leads to a really interesting segue because Suzanna was talking about the reformation of the council and that if we were to think of this that there would be yet another reformation that would have to happen around the issue of youth at least um so that actually brings us to what Evan was proposing because that's a reformation two in a very different way not very different way a different way um and I thought that maybe we should also hear that at the moment rather than try to tie anything off which we're never very good at anyway so let's not so Evan would you like to to present your work absolutely yeah I'm happy to do so so if I'm not sure if everyone who's on tonight's call was on last week's call because sometimes the attendance list is inconsistent not necessarily in a bad way and so what I wanted to so so I'll just recap first so at the last meeting there was some discussion about two different concepts the first of which was um would Suzanna's office be an appropriate landing place for this data collection entity won't call it a bureau anymore given the fact that Suzanna's office already has some data collection responsibilities in its enabling legislation and the scope of her office doesn't just relate to juvenile and criminal justice but to state government as a whole therefore providing this entity with a little bit of elbow room to grow and then the second thing that we discussed was whether the whatever advisory panel or advisory group whatever it ends up governing entity whatever it ends up being called should resemble at least to some degree the makeup of the criminal justice council which we've been discussing so what I attempted to do for discussion purposes was illustrate how those two changes might look on paper the best way that I could do that myself was was just to draft some legislation um and then at ATON's suggestion which was a good one with a little bit of a memo to instruct the reader of the legislation and so what I attempted to do was and so and I should also say there's already a connection to to some degree although a little bit limited between Suzanna's office and and then also the agency of administration so given that connection I thought maybe the agency of administration would be a good place to house this data collection entity although there could be other suitable homes and so the legislation that I drafted did three things it amended the enabling legislation for the agency of administration to include what would be a actual department of racial equity as opposed to just uh you know a racial equity director so Suzanna's position would be elevated to a commissioner position and then amended the enabling legislation for well the existing enabling legislation for Suzanna's office to expand the scope of its duties so that it could accomplish some of the things that um the legislature envisioned this data collection entity could accomplish in Act 65 and then the last thing that it did was it attempted to mesh the composition of the existing racial equity panel with the composition of the criminal justice council um I you know one thing that I did notice which Rebecca kind of flagged already for us was that um the composition the existing composition of the council is is arguably very law enforcement heavy so for example one entity that is notably absent is the defender general's office which plays a pretty significant role in our criminal justice system and so I did add that in but aside from that I I didn't attempt to take too many liberties with the composition of the group I I wanted to try and mesh them and then add the defender general's office thinking that that might be a good starting place for a discussion um so really hopefully this this draft is illustrative um and is really a jumping off point for a conversation but I you know I do think that there's probably a couple of homes for this entity that could exist within existing parts of state government and and this is just designed to illustrate how one of them might function thank you you all may not and I I want to apologize again you all may not have had enough time I had a horrible day and I got Evan and I were in contact I think he emailed me at about 11 o'clock this morning and I did not get it until about four o'clock this afternoon and so I did what I cursed everyone else for doing which is send out a huge document just before a meeting I hate it when people do that I call them names and I did it so that will teach me some humility perhaps um would people there are a couple options as I see it right now it's 726 we could take this and have literally two weeks to digest everything that's gone on tonight um I would love to take another crack at that mission statement again keeping in mind the stuff that Karen and Monica put in and I want to go back to the version that Rebecca oh I want to go back and look at all her red basically um I think it would also give us time to really digest Evan's done which is this sort of Herculean task of synthesis um and then you know I mean it's not what Susanna and I both were sort of proposing has some holes in it they're not completely separate from the holes that Evan is noting in his own work so there are a lot of questions here the other issue being that Rebecca wants some time to speak with the Secretary of State um I'm bringing it up right now because we really do have two weeks for this because next week is Labor Day oddly named since the idea is no one's supposed to labor um but we that means we're not meeting which gives us a fair amount of time in which to get all of this done so I'm putting that out there as I mean because people haven't been able to read what Evan's done um I'm you know I'm perfectly willing to take 10 minutes to let people do that but that's kind of a rush job um and so I'd like to have a little discussion on what I'm proposing sounds like a good proposal to me Aiton you're you're up for that yeah I you know I I I don't have I think people should have sufficient time to marinate on on some of the written materials so I have no issues at all with your proposal and that makes sense to me I really want this is really a critical important piece which is thinking about who should be on the governing board and I think that it's great to absolutely great to pull what's been already established in our state laws and that's a really great useful piece what I'm struck every time we try to pull and find an easy way to do a map is that a match is that this is different and and we have to do it right and I'm particularly just making sure we're not embedding in this entity just more biases right um and so I to me it's the seats are so critical so I do appreciate the idea of two weeks it gives us some time to think about I certainly plan to propose um who I think should be included um and why and hopefully I just came back from a Colorado conference with judiciary and it was related to child welfare but a lot of exciting connections related to data and how how folks are coming together to to talk about this on an organizational level so I'm just I'm hoping to pull and and see how it's done elsewhere I know there are great models so two weeks good okay then that's what we're gonna do um the one thing I do want to note though before we all break up is that this is in terms of his formal position on the our DAP this is David shares last meeting he has taken a job with the cannabis control board as general counsel so he will no longer be the representative from the AGO that will be Julio Thompson I believe and I just wanted to publicly thank him for all I mean Jesus I where to start um I mean personally you know phone calls at 10 o'clock at night where I'm like David and having a moment so um that's my really and David you can't see people are waving their hands at you I was gonna say I was gonna unmute and thank David because like he can't see yes he's on the phone thank you David yes thank you David yeah David this is Rebecca congratulations I'm I'm so happy for you but you have done some heavy lifting on this panel and it's been really great to work with you and um I hope you come back and pop in and check in and give us some some clear eyed assessments but if we straight or not right great good luck we'll miss you well thank you all so much I really appreciate it this panel has certainly been one of the most rewarding things I've worked on and um and I have really enjoyed working with all of you and the banks especially to Aton who as you all know I think has uh is really the reason this panel has been successful in the last couple of years so thank you so much for everything you've all done and I will certainly not be a stranger I will definitely be at the main or that meetings as often as I can which I I hope will be just about all of them and we'll we'll keep seeing each other but thank you all so much it's really been a wonderful experience thanks David and thanks to everybody else um have a good two weeks and I'll see you I don't know what if it's the six so that'll be what the 13th will be the next time that we meet so I will see you all then um don't hesitate to get in touch please if you need to or want to or anything thank you all so much for all the work this is really it's so gratifying to just see a group of people come together and do something and really to do this kind of work it's just been it's just been lovely to feel the push hands and the back and forth and I think we're really getting somewhere so thank you all very much and aside from everything else have a good Labor Day