 Welcome folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions meeting and hopefully we will have a short meeting. First we're going to deal with one section, section 11 in S-232 that House Judiciary has to take a look at and then we're going to kick over to S-338 to look at the Senate Proposals of Amendment to hopefully concur with those Senate Proposals of Amendment. We took a strong vote on that the other day and we were okay with it and nothing has changed in the Senate from what we looked at last Friday. So let's go to S-332. There's a section in there that deals within the Juvenile Justice, the Youthful Offender section and then it deals in Title 28 which deals with corrections and currently the way that it reads is, I'm just pulling up here because I was looking at something else, is that when a juvenile is housed currently in a correctional facility, they're under DOC supervision and currently what the language says the DOC would provide appropriate separate facilities for the custody and treatment of offenders under the age of 25 and the proposal is to take the word out separate. So House Judiciary just wanted us to check on this to make sure that it's not opening up a can of worms to make sure what does separate mean by taking it out, what does it mean by having it in there and how does DOC feel about this language change. So we have Al Cormier with us to walk us through this. So Al, I'll turn it over to you if you could just identify yourself for the record. Good morning Al Cormier, Facilities Executive with the Vermont Department of Corrections. So S-232 does specify that anybody under the age of 25 must be housed in a separate facility. For us to be able to do that, it would require us to either send a large amount of inmates to an out-of-state facility to free up one facility or build another facility for 10 to 12 inmates. Right now the number of inmates in our custody that are under the age of 25 is very minimal and as it's written we just we don't have the ability to provide a separate facility. We have looked at other options of providing separate living units but again that frees up an entire unit of 30 to 40 beds for 10 to 12 inmates. So what we're asking is just to remove the words separate and let us be able to provide appropriate facilities and housing for those under the age of 25. So in order for us to remain in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the federal standards around PREA, we do house those under the age of 18 now in a separate unit. We are able to provide site and sound separation to that population through our facility in Marble Valley where we have a Foxtrot unit set up for that. Should we run into a juvenile that may come out of the Woodside facility and be housed with us, we are able to provide that. But in order for us to provide a separate facility for those under the age of 25 it's almost impossible at this point. So now just by taking out the words separate does not change what you're currently doing, correct? Well no it doesn't because we haven't been able to provide separate facilities. We've been able to write the under 25 is the newer language. You know we've been able to provide separate housing for under 18. So right now we're looking at just being able to provide an appropriate facility for those under the age of 25. All of our we feel that our facilities are appropriate to house that population. We provide education services, we provide risk reduction services, we can still provide the services to that population. But given the small amount, the small numbers that we have of that population under the age of 25, we just can't simply house them in a separate facility. And by taking out the words separate would you still keep in place for those juveniles 18 possibly under that you're housing that you would house at Marble Valley if needed? By taking out the words separate still allows you to do sight and sound separation. Yes and that would so that keeps us in compliance with the PREA standards and keeps us in compliance with the PREA audits that we have on a yearly basis. Okay questions so we have a question butch. Morning Al. Morning. So with just a question that the chair just raised about the PREA and the set sight and sound separation. Is there an age is there an age requirement in PREA? Is it eight is it the 18 year olds or is the 25 year olds is kind of a Vermont Vermont deal but what about through PREA? PREA is under the age of 18. Okay so are you required so you're required for separate sight and sound for those offenders? Right right now it's 16 and 17 year old juveniles. Okay and but you're not required to do that for 25 and under individuals but you're doing it? We're not doing it right now no. Okay okay and that population is housed in our general population with our general population inmates. Okay and you've been doing that right along? Yes okay. So really the age is 18 and up correct that you house within the general population? Yes when you're dealing with 16 and 17 year olds that you need to provide the sight and sound separation. Correct. Okay Carl. Madam Chair can I just ask for a little bit of context and history on this it came from Senate it's on S-332 okay 32 and it has more language that deals with Woodside? I see and this is one section of it that House Judiciary wanted us to take a look at because it deals with corrections the rest of it doesn't deal with corrections deals with Woodside and the language says that there needs to be legislative approval to discontinue the use of Woodside. Okay great thank you that's helpful. Any question? Kurt? Yeah Al does this related all to women or are they in separate sight and sound anyway regardless of age? Well so obviously the the female population makes it more difficult because we have just one facility for them so we would not house them in Rutland the under if we had a juvenile female that required housing outside of Woodside we wouldn't make adequate space in the Chinden facility for that to happen and one of their in their segregation unit there. Luckily we have not ran into that problem but again with with only one female facility it's very difficult to accommodate that that population should it arise. And you said the numbers are minimal what what does that mean for the number of 18 to 25 year old inmates that we have? The last the last we had it was around 12 inmates in our system under between the ages of 18 and 25. And so that they would basically be in general population the only difference would be they would be able to have educational services? They have so right so right now they're they're in our general population units and they have they have access to everything that that the rest of the population does. They're considered just a regular offender? Correct. And that goes for detainees as well? Yes. Okay Sarah? Good morning Al. So my question often revolved around programming so if we have such a small number typically I mean I know it the numbers change um how are we able to deliver programs specifically to that to that age group between 18 and 25 or is there is it really just that they have access to the same programs that adult? They just yeah they really have just access to the same program. The educational statute says that anybody under the age of 23 without a high school diploma must have a diploma so we really work with that population the 23 and under for the high school classes. That 24 and 25 doesn't really have those requirements but we still you know they're still able to access the programs within the facility as needed. And in those programs are they available across facilities or do you tend to offer them in a more concentrated way in a particular facility? So educational programs Community High School of Vermont is available in all of the facilities. The risk reduction programming dependent on what it is sex offender programming is going to be northwest. So the Newport has a specific risk reduction program. Springfield has specific risk reduction program so it all depends on on the facility and then we would move that individual that individual there. So the other you know the other challenge for us is if we did open up a specific unit you know for that small number of people we're losing half our beds in that unit and then we don't have all the same programs in one facility again so we're you know what do we have to consolidate all programs to one facility. One of the as we you know we talked about last week I think it was on the the tablets and the Wi-Fi and one of the things we're looking at is to be able to provide programming in any facility no matter what it is through that remote learning system. So as we move forward with that that could potentially be an option for us. Yeah well that's great because that's where my concern would be that we just that we are able to to provide some of that. So I understand the facilities issue is a big challenge. That 18 age cutoff that was went from 18 to 21 and then to 25. I guess this is a question for you Alice do you remember how that went from we went from 18 to did we go from 18 to 21 and then to 25 for defining youthful offender. Yeah incremental pros incremental and there's certain dates and this is all in the Senate and House Judiciary Committee. But is the what was the reasoning to that they would be taken care of they would be clients at Woodside. The reason would be they would go through family court not criminal court. It's the it's the feeder system it's where they're going to go. Yeah my my concern is that they it seemed to me the intention was that they would be treated at Woodside these 24 24 23 year olds. Well I don't think so I think it's what court system do they go through. I don't think people got as far as where they housed people who don't deal in facilities don't think about that. What they were thinking was the judicial system and where do they land in the judicial system. Do they land in a criminal court or do they land in family court. Yeah I'm trying to remember what when we had Ken Schatz in a couple of times when we were talking about the future of Woodside a year or so ago and whether he was speaking of those that age group or not but I can't remember well enough to know. I think for us we make that connection because we see the linkage because we know when someone goes through a court system and there is a decision a sentence or some resolution on where they then go we're more aware of that than some other folks who deal in the criminal justice system so we make that linkage. Other folks don't make necessarily that linkage immediately. So the goal of the Youthful Offender Statue is where are they adjudicated. Are they adjudicated in a criminal court or are they adjudicated in family court. His family court has totally different processes different requirements and different adjudications. Yeah I'm concerned that we're kind of making a change in policy if the policy was that people that inmates under 25 should be treated differently than inmates over 25 and now we're saying oh we're olymping them in with the rest aside from educational services. So I'm concerned that I mean I'd like to I'm not sure who we would get input from. Is human services said anything about that? It's too late the bill is up today. Maybe it's too late to make the change there. Without that change the Department of Corrections is in violation of statute. It's true because you can't provide the separate facilities. So this is to reflect what's current practice. The whole issue of the Youthful Offender is a much much bigger issue and we're in the last week of the session and we don't have time to do the deep dive and if we did the deep dive we'd have to work with Judiciary Committees because this is where the initiative has come from. Sarah? So I was looking you know just skimming through the rest of the the larger bill. I mean this bill is in a large part about Woodside correct. I mean and I have some of the new language. Yeah so some of the new language and I do share some of you know Kurt's concerns. You know I do think Woodside however was correct me if I'm wrong it was really for youth who are 18 and under. Is that right? So I think what we're talking about is this population between 18 and 25 and I remember from testimony that we heard that you know you wouldn't want a 13 year old in with somebody who's 24 like that's that's not and it's challenging. I appreciate it and I feel like where is the line where someone's treated as an adult and all that but I hope that with the statute that the Youthful Offender statute that a judge will be will be making that judgment about where a youth goes. I do have some concerns about more if we close Woodside that more kids are going to be going to jail. I just I have to say that again because I don't think this language that we're looking at is the problem. I think it's the larger context. So I appreciate what Kurt is saying because it's a slippery it feels like a little bit of a slippery slope and I don't think it's corrections you know issue but it's their problem once once you know if Woodside is closed that's what I fear is going to happen that we're going to say we don't want to send them out of state and we want to keep them in state so they're going to be in our facilities and that concerns me but this this language seems to be important to change so that we you know because if the decision about Woodside is going to come back to our committee correct madam chair like. Well it's going to be in the budget it's whether it's funded or not it's operating costs and it will be human services committee in the language the amendment that came over from the Senate on S3 30 S232 is very clear that certain milestones or initiatives have to be met in terms of what's available in the community what are the needs of the of the juveniles and the data and then it's very clear that the legislature will make the decision on whether or not to close Woodside and if the legislature is not in session it is justice oversight committee I would as giving recommendations to joint fiscal committee joint fiscal committee can act on behalf of the legislature when we're not in session so the administration cannot just close Woodside without legislative approval and usually that occurs through the budget process because if money is not appropriated for operations of the facility that means it's going to close so butch thanks so we're dealing really with three questions we have two different cohorts of young people we have cohort of up to 18 in in the YL statutes changes we made that works its way out but we never did get past the 18 year old piece at at at Woodside if I find memory serves me correctly so that's that's one cohort second cohort is above or 19 and above within our facilities and I think that's what we're dealing with in this particular this particular ask in section 11 and because of the limitation of our facilities we've just learned that DOC is doing the best they can but they we need this change to bring the DOC policy in line with statute so and I they don't want to go down the rabbit hole of figuring out why oh and and and where they all should be should be housed this is for me this is just simply we need to bring the two pieces together so that we stay within within the law other folks just I I think we're on butch you said 19 to 20 I think this is 18 18 18 yeah so we are yeah we are talking high school students possibly yeah yeah well but that's that's in the courts so we we were that one we just got to figure out a place to put you know the court and decides that they're for youthful offender status courts the prosecution defender general DCF they work together to decide if the person is treated as a juvenile or as an adult and whether they can go through family court or go through criminal court and we are on the tail end of that in terms of where we house them and it's not going to be an issue that's going to be resolved by this amendment this is a deeper issue that will keep unfolding as we raise the age of the youthful offenders to determine if they got some family court or if they go through criminal court because regardless there needs to be a placement somewhere and the goal is for youthful offenders that the placement is in the community that is the real goal and in order to do that the best thing family court but the other issue is when something occurs in that community setting that they can no longer be there and they get picked back to the state where do they go that's that's an issue but this is what we're dealing with here else is not going to solve that problem it's not going to solve that that's what we're going to be dealing with over the next few years in the legislature this amendment right here just clarifies current DOC practice so that it's in line with statute correct now that is correct and we prior to the COVID outbreak in December January February we were in talks with DC around the closure of Woodside and actually looking at the potential for a contract with the Sununu Center in New Hampshire for housing juveniles that the Department of Corrections couldn't house because of the age limits and the incremental increases but that that process has halted while we're in this current pandemic so I don't know if that was a joint venture with DCF and ourselves and I'm not sure where that's going to pick back up or when it will pick back up so we had before us an amendment to take out one word that goal is to bring in line statute with DOC policy we may not like the policy at this point but it's a little late to do a deep dive into the policy it's the last week of the session this bill is going to be acted on today I believe and House Judiciary just wanted us to take a look at this so while you're here I've got one question that doesn't pertain to this but it's kind of percolating along in the Senate on the Capitol Bill remember during the session when we were in Montpelier talking about moving the greenhouses from Windsor up to the work camp yes in the world right now of COVID and knowing that the St. John'sbury facility is used as a backup for quarantine if needed where is the department right now doing those greenhouses up at the work camp is that feasible for this summer and fall or is there so much on your plate that it's good to have the language in the Capitol Bill but you're just not sure if you're going to go through with it yeah I mean we had talked about utilizing an inmate work force as part of the labor for disassembly and reassembly and right now we have no inmates at the work camp um yeah they're trying to move them back um in small groups but but we're not at a at a point where we can do that um and and really it has not been on the top of our list for I had forgotten about it until you just till you just put it up so um you know without that without that crew there would be very difficult for for those to be moved in and reassembled um and then utilized okay that helps because we're not going to take the language out but there's some talk from folks around Windsor that they'd like to keep those greenhouses there at the Windsor facility to possibly open them up for curriculum for high school students so and I one of my statements to the folks was well I think DOC has a little more on their plate right now with COVID and I think this is probably on the back burner not that it's we're gonna let go of the greenhouses thinking for the work camp we also had language in the capital bill that if it looked too expensive to move the greenhouses from Windsor that we'd build new yes so yeah I don't think we even got to the point where we had come up with a an actual figure as to what that cost may be to transport right right um Marsha and they just now decided they want to keep those greenhouses down there how long have they been sitting empty now they want to use them I know end of comment I can tell you that the uh the staff have done an outstanding job with um gardening at the facility they've they've opened up uh because there have been so few inmates the staff the work crew staff have took it upon themselves to to utilize the equipment there and they've planted some enormous pumpkin patches with the intent of being able to provide free pumpkins to the community this fall so good that's great is that the DOC staff or the BGS staff DOC really I didn't think you had that many folks down there still yeah good oh this is in St. John'sbury not Windsor oh in St. John'sbury okay no that's great okay anything else so where are we on section 11 folks we okay with this so I can this is um you said that which judiciary is house or senate that's looking at this it came this came over from senate judiciary house judiciary looked at it on Friday and they're waiting for us today they being house judiciary yes it's a senate proposal of amendment and they're looking to concur so we're making a recommendation to house judiciary yes they just want us to take a look and see how this would impact DOC and do we know if they took any testimony from anybody about this they did Dale crook provided testimony on this with the senate I believe with the senate do we know what he said did he was he for it or yes I would hope so is DOC yeah I hope our messages are consistent I I would hope so well there's ways of being for it and there's ways of being for it but anyway that's that's not important okay so what I'd like to do is just have a show of hands for folks who support the language change in section 11 so for those in favor just raise your hands so I can see them and Mary and Felicia yes and Felicia yes I'm good and butch you have a blue hand up you're you got to unmute that's that's my hand okay okay so unanimous okay it's 10-0-1 no 9-0-2 okay okay we did that so Al you're off the hook we're going to shift gears to s-3-38 with the senate proposals of amendments thank you okay thank you okay okay yep no word from Bryn yet right no we left it last night that if we needed her I could reach out to her to see if she could break away for her other meetings okay okay let's um let's bring up whoops I went to the wrong one let's bring up s-3-38 let me also get to max scene what we just did too so let's take a little breather here for a minute so this is what I went through with everyone last week on Friday do people remember this some do some don't maybe I'm not going to be able to see the participant list very much so just raise your hand in your back so I can see you so the first change is the furlough interrupt they extended that from 30 days to 90 days so someone's furloughs interrupted for 90 days or longer than they go through the rule 74 appeal process with the de novo review on the record and this becomes effective January 1st not July 1st as we had in our bill and also it takes in the working group it takes the study the look that we had put in the look see on this they took that out so questions on this section from folks okay I don't see anything the next section is taking out I think that was this is where I needed Bryn because I don't have the bill in front of me section 12 I think was our community supervision this was our 30 days they reconfigured it a little bit the next one is the working group the third amendment is the working group it states that there isn't the federal funds the working group will exist if there is federal funds if there isn't and there will be the justice oversight committee that will carry out the duties and it would be in consultation with the members of the working group but the working group would not be meeting it would be the justice oversight in case there's no federal funds if there is federal funds that come the working group would be active and the working group or justice oversight depending will then number seven is new it deals with the compassionate release remember they had upon the age of 65 and if a person has served five years they would be eligible to be reviewed for parole we put that out the senate is proposing that we do us we evaluate that policy so that's what this language in the fourth amendment does the fifth amendment takes out that look see that we had about looking at the furlough interrupts that's where they deleted that piece the sixth amendment are the effective dates and I think that is because they had the furlough interrupt they brought that back to January 1st and we had it July 1st and those are the changes so nothing is different than what we spoke about last Friday questions yeah the working group portion becomes effective on passage correct yes do we know how whether whether how long it takes to find out whether there's any federal funding for it or not or how does that work do we know well they were looking to see if we would pass a piece of legislation that would continue our work so as soon as S-338 becomes law then the council state governments would be working with our partners in the Bureau of Justice to work and say we've taken the next step is the state I see okay good any questions I have a question Sarah and then Mark and then Mark so I just had one question about the funding for the council and state governments is it only and this is mostly just for my own information is it only the justice department that's funding it I thought it was also I thought I just want to make sure I understand what reference to what money is it money coming into the state of Vermont or is it support from that's required for the council and state governments to do this work with us it was always federal dollars working with council state governments to continue working with us to implement to implement our justice reinvestment it's not to go directly to those programs to implement it's to help the structure of council governments to help us implement I understand that I understand that I I don't understand um is the money coming to the state of Vermont or is it going to the council it's going to the council state governments correct okay I just want to make understand how the money is flowing for the program that's my understanding there's no money directly to Vermont for this that's what my understanding had been and I my understanding is also few charitable trusts fund this the council and state governments and the justice center's work um this is different this is different is it different that's why I wanted some clarity on the feds this is dollars from the feds to help give support to implementing for council governments to continue working with the state of Vermont to help implement the justice reinvestment too and part of that implementation is to have the working group active just like it was last fall to be a conduit between the different departments and entities of the state that works for the corrections population and council state governments to make sure that everyone's on the same track so the thinking is that there isn't going to be the federal money council state governments isn't going to be able to do with the full work that they can do so therefore your working group wouldn't be as a fact you just it's not going to be the working group I understand that I understand that I was just curious um because my understanding was is that we did this the first phase of this it did not have federal money right but I had state money right so they got Alice yeah and then we'll go to question okay so just just on the money piece uh CS we applied the state applied for a grant to go to CSG there was I'm not sure how it all worked to to help them with their first working group that was a grant funding from the federal government this section here is a continuation that CSG has to check off the box they have to pay the rent I mean CSG has to pay the rent they have to pay their their people they have to have money coming up from somewhere so without that funding they can't help us and this is this is important to check off the box so they can apply now for additional funding and keep working on this through through through the federal government through the feds does that help verify sure no it it doesn't it's I also know that Pew charitable trust funds this work as well so that's I'm it's it's a combination of private public dollars that where CSG gets their funding for to do this work so I was and it's and it's just I want to understand how the funding has been working just it's good information to understand how we're doing it so I'm totally supportive of it I just wanted to make sure I understood okay uh marcia um I I just had a question on uh for number seven um I know the reason behind it I know all that um but do they get good time too yes they would I mean anyone who's incarcerated would receive good time so if they're just serving um if they life with that and what's a portion pardon what's a portion that's what would be looked at evaluate the policy and they didn't put in the reason they used the word served a portion of their senate when it came over from the senate it said they would serve five years they didn't have to meet their minimum so this language is I want to say it's broader but it's not broader in terms of saying you're going to serve us a shorter time of your sentence it's broader in that look at the policy evaluate this policy is this good policy number one and if it is how much of their sentence should they serve because even if they serve five with good time they'd have 420 days off in uh five years just just a figure but thank you but that's what would be looked at in the evaluation okay that's what would be looked at and it would when I say broad I'm saying I'm thinking in terms of what the evaluation would look at so they would look at all the factors that come in to that person's sentence and is this the right policy or not to go forward well I don't think just because they're old and have committed something they get received special treatment but that's just my personal opinion as you know but I mean I'll still go along with it okay so butch so we knew we were going to see something coming back on that we discussed it in committee that we would see something this is a little different because we thought it would come back with a larger number of serving that sentence this is I think might even be an olive branch coming back from the senate of some sort so at least we'll get another another shot at it and understanding that committee was um not in favor of the language of the bill as it presented to us from the senate so the conversation continues with this language I guess and I don't like olives green ones black ones are calamars so any other questions before we entertain a motion here so the motion would be to concur with the senate proposal of amendment so I would be open to a motion and a second so move terry moves is there a second second carl second it says been moved and seconded that we concur with the senate proposal of amendment on s 338 it's been moved and seconded is there any further discussion if not please call the roll representative taylor yes representative solovan absent right representative morrisey yes i'm sorry i thought i had it off thank you representative martel yes representative ruffler i certify that this is representative felicia lepler of enosburg and i vote yes representative kruinsky absent representative demro yes representative coffee yes representative mckayg yes representative shaw yes representative emens yes yes okay so we have a vote of 902 902 so but you're ready to go this afternoon if this comes okay we got this done yippee one more thing capital bill hopefully that comes over tomorrow we meet tomorrow at noon i sent out to you a floor amendment that's going to be offered yesterday and the background of this amendment is there was work in the bill passed it passed senate institutions and it passed senate appropriations the bill pertained to the art and photos in the state house that was concerned that they were not diverse representation of folks and the initiative was that there needed to be more photos of women a lot of the photos were of men and that started a real conversation in the senate with david sheets the curator and the bill when it passed out did have the um involved in the decision making and the legislative advisory committee became involved so as it progressed and as the times have progressed it has now been expanded to um um looking at a more diverse um representation of vermont within our photos in the state house and that's what this amendment pertains to so this is a floor amendment that's going to be offered to the capital bill today i reached out to joe he feels it's going to pass so this is an addition to what we looked at last week for changes in the capital bill so terry you have a question oops do you have a question terry you gotta unmute nope okay okay there you go you've got your video on now you gotta unmute you can't hear you what's going on here is there a way you can unmute him phil um i can ask him to unmute but i can't unmute where on the ipad do folks unmute because i've got the computer hit the top on the right hand side just touching it'll show you unmute it'll show you you gotta hit the three dots is there a three dot no you don't hit the three dots it has a mute button has a microphone on the very top on the right hand side looks like he's trying i know maybe what you can do is type well that may make it worse type in a chat i'm calling else yeah maybe you should call in and ask the question of course we don't know if he can hear us i think you can hear us you can hear us right terry yes yeah um something's happening with uh i wonder if you signed off terry and signed back on if that would correct it whoops are you there no why don't you sign off terry okay sign off and then sign back on and see if that would help and then i'm going to go to carl and then try to get back to you or call in one of the other carl i was just going to suggest madame chair that when they paint your picture just make sure that you know you get a good photograph and it's not a zoom screenshot yeah right i don't want my picture in that thing else thank you very much i would imagine you're probably uh you know right at the top of the line for for for uh no thank you no thank you um marcia thank you anyway carl um marcia and then butch where would they put all these i don't know that's what needs to be worked through and i mean it's because a lot of beginning to look cluttered now that's why the curator is involved for this uh butch and then sarah and then kurt and i know terry you're still struggling why don't you just get out of zoom get out of zoom and then come back in and that may correct it so butch sarah and kurt uh or you can hang next to the fortress of consuelo up there right uh section 30 and 31 looks like pretty much current language is that true i didn't i didn't look up the statute to compare you know i'm not sure on this 32 is currently is definitely new language on or before march first there's a report yeah but this is the no this is the you know i think they just took the bill yeah they took it looks like they took section 30 is is the entire section pretty much alice i think in in the books and then they rewrote section 30 to 32 to include 30 31 and 32 yeah i think 31 and 32 or 32 and 33 is new language but the rest of it i think is current language looks like it anyway yeah it does well i think section 31 2 is new is um is really the crux of what was added yeah there's a lot of work from the state has to like to represent for most diverse people in history including diversity of gender race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability status then they skip over a bunch of language that we don't know what it says right and then it goes into the project yeah yeah but it all comes back to us and the senate before any action so it'd be the advisory committee on the state house in consultation with the curator would develop a plan for the acquisition and commission of artwork that would carry out the intent and policies of A and B of this section which would be expanding the artwork and portrait collection to represent the diverse stories of those who had significantly contributed to development history and to give consideration for diverse workforce so this will probably be added on to the capitol bill on the floor tomorrow so just want to give you folks a heads up here so sarah curt and and terry is still struggling huh i'm back i'm back why don't you go first terry before you lose me again right yes so i i got to thinking about the unmarked burial sites and the repo group looked at that as well for the reallocations and we had a letter the last two two years last two terms that said we could not reallocate those those funds would automatically be carried forward and it's a special fund set up under the treasurer's office so i sent this that information to becky and to catherine and they they agree that there's a problem between that statute that says you have to maintain it in the special fund and there's another part of a statute that says that monies will be put back into the capitol bill so i'm not sure how they're going to resolve it but they're working apparently with the senate honestly might see another amendment and terry you're right um we just shifted gears a little bit committee but that's okay because terry had so much issue to get on i want to shift gears to this particular issue right now they reallocated 29 that there was 29 000 in the bound of the unmarked burials fund um and it did bring up the issue what terry just brought up so they're working on an amendment becky is and catherine working on amendment for joe to clarify that those dollars it can be reallocated it it brings up the issue that kerr brought up the other day on arbitrage that we're having bonded money staying in an account that's earning interest it's only 29 000 so they're looking at language to clarify to correct that conflict in statute and to allow this reallocation to occur i also wrote back um to joe i don't think i included becky in it i'm thinking back and helped me committee members that were here for that which i think is just butch at this point maybe you terry were here seems like in that unmarked burial fund there was other dollars besides bonded dollars that was going in there and that's why it the dollars could stay there at least the dollars that were not bonded dollars seems as if there was other funds that were coming in through accd or something that were not bonded dollars i remember as that's going through my mind i don't know if that's true or not but there was something else there with that unmarked burial fund besides capital dollars do you remember anything with that butch no other than there's been several bills that have come through to add a dollar here or a dollar there to support some of these ancient cemeteries and unmarked burials and all that stuff now maybe some analysis i honestly i don't remember we may have passed something we may have set up a special fund in accd laura would be the expert on that laura's one that brought this to becky's attention yeah that there was a conflict in statute yeah it's i mean terry's seen a statute i haven't so i don't remember what we did exactly but so there's going to be an amendment possibly i haven't seen anything yet um that they may add to the capital bill on the floor from um uh institutions committee over there to clarify this um who allowed the reallocation because one section of statute says you can't reallocate you got to keep it there but that brings up the whole arbitrage issue and then you get the other section of statute that says if it's not used in two years you reallocate so becky was working with joe for that so we may see that come back it's actually part of the department of health uh statute which is interesting as well it is really yeah title 18 well i'm glad the senate's dealing with it i'm dealing with it so thank you terry for bringing that up i had forgotten about that thank you so they've got this is this technical correction as a floor amendment they have uh this issue here you froze alice huh what you all froze up you froze up it froze up am i still frozen no no no um so um well so we have the technical amendment that terry just spoke about then we have this um art and portrait project in the state house and then i don't want to forget to talk about the greenhouses because there's discussions on that one so let's get back to the portrait project uh curl curtain and carl so is this one of the christmas tree ornaments you've referred to in the past yes we got a lot of christmas trees we got christmas trees coming that's why we got to wrap up the capital bill pretty fast and and did they has anybody heard from david sheets on this what does he think they they have been working as i said this is a bill that passed the senate institutions committee it was in senate appropriations committee and past senate appropriates i think it was even on the floor the bill was on the floor of the senate if you look at their senate calendar a few days ago the bill that pertain to it was starting out for gender first um and then senator hardy wanted to offer her bill it was her bill wanted to offer that bill as an amendment floor amendment to the capital bill last week on friday and then what is developed it has become broader in terms of the diversity issues so this is now the amendment that's being offered by senators hardy clarkson ingram and McCormick to the capital bill so it's a big the basis is the senate bill that has passed senate institutions past senate appropriations and has been on the senate calendar for action okay so they've taken the testimony and it did not start out with the curator being involved when this was first being talked about in the senate i don't know if it was at the beginning of the session or the end of last session the curator raised his hands and said hey i got an issue here carl and then sarah you know i'm fine with the art project i'm fine with the curator piece i guess i just have my questions are more about the committee structure and adding a kind adding another committee in here and there are a number of studies on this existing and did i freeze up there somebody did yeah hear me yeah we can hear you so my my concern is more that committee it's not really fleshed out what that committee would be responsible for the um as they've got the legislative advisory committee on the state house it looks like their portfolio only is paintings and historical artifacts and furnishings i don't know i mean that's sort of what we do now when we get involved in carpets and drapes and whatever else i guess i'm just i'm i'm concerned that we're concerned about where that goes that committee is already in existence yeah could i yeah not a new committee it's not it's not on the list of standing committees on the legislative webpage it's because it's it may add i know a little bit of context i think it's you're raising really good questions carl um but it's the friends of the state house is a separate it's also a separate entity and i just you know i i'm supportive of this i've heard i've gotten wind of it i had a lot of questions so i was at i i reached out to the state curator along the way um and um you know for for any portrait to be done it does that money doesn't come out of the capital bill the friends of the state house raised the money to do that work and so um the it wouldn't have from my understanding where it is right now is that wouldn't have impact on our bill um and that work the the artwork and the what happens has within the walls of the state house and the furnishings fall within the state curators purview and this committee exists so this is one thing that um would be part of that work and i have to say like you know i think it's really important right now with the conversations that are going on in our state and wanting to see visibility of histories like the the exhibits that the state curator does are important but they're kind of diminished in some ways you know they're small and they're temporary so i think this is an important um an important thing to do and i think it's going to they're going to be a lot of voices and figuring out um you know who is included um and an issue with the with the artwork or any of that sort of stuff or the or the state curators position i'm totally good with that my question is about the committee that that's that's i think it exists i think it's an existing committee it's a current committee it's been in existence for a long long time the state house and the friends of the state house did a lot of work back in the late 70s early 80s to really bring back the historical nature of the state house and did a lot of purchasing of chandeliers and carpeting and um artifacts it did a lot of work in terms to bring back the historical integrity of the state house but it's not a legislative committee it's not a legislative i think there's probably a couple legislators on there that would be my hunch we'd have to look in to see if you go to title 20 i got it in front of me alas title 30 i mean no i mean time you want the makeup yeah two vs a go what's the makeup yeah it's uh three members of the house three members of the senate chair of the board of trustees of the friends director of the vermont historical historical society director of the vermont council and the arts commissioner buildings general services and the sergeant and arms and when you're talking about an addition to the state house it's this legislative advisory committee that really drives that discussion and that's that language we don't see them in this amendment because it's it's skipped over by the three stars and stars underneath 651 a yes that means that there's language but they didn't write it all in it's there right okay so this this this adds as you said alas this adds a curator into the mix although the curator works for bgs so i suppose i suppose he could automatically he's i can probably automatically on that but depends on who the commissioner is and then then they talk about meetings and then after all that uh is new language okay great i just i should have gone look at the law and uh look at the statute and see that thank you which one is all new language section section uh i have 65 653 i gotta look at that back up section 651 that's current yeah language current law right yeah yeah 653 is current law uh but i gotta i got yeah there's a whole lot more 653 no not much let me read the current law to you if i can't read both screens at once the committee uh she'll be consulted on all activities related to the acquisition of painting historic artifacts refreshing renovation of the building in its interior sergeant and arms and the commissioner of general services in discharging responsibilities under 62 print 8 print 6 of this title respectively shall consider recommended they don't have to do it but they have to consider the recommendations of the committee the committee's recommendation shall be advisory only and i don't know how that fits into this you know we're gonna have to have Becky walk us through this when yeah when it comes to i mean it's it's yeah it's it's gonna pass the senate it's gonna come to us it'll pass right uh just figure just how this all operates going forward right the good thing is is they did not change the make in my opinion did not change the makeup of the advisory committee just what they need to look at yep okay that's a big i'm looking at the time we're bumping up against 10 o'clock and i want to give you a heads up on the greenhouse thing so carl i've got no problem with this i got the statute in front of me now and i'm i'm totally good with it so okay so you know when we look at the amendments on the capital bill from the senate we'll have um becky and and it might also be good to see if we can get joe in as well to walk us through for this um the next thing that is in the works right now is the greenhouse thing um so i got a call yesterday morning from representative bartholomew concerned about letting go of those greenhouses he's hearing from his superintendent of schools as well as his town manager that's saying hey wait a minute we could use possibly these greenhouses for some of the curriculum with our students um and wanted to find out if we could do an amendment and i said well your best bet is to do something in the senate and to contact the winster county senators so then the winster county senators i got a call from one of them um senator clarkson yesterday and i had also said this to representative bartholomew i said you know it's really late to do this if you did anything it would have to be done on the senate floor um i said another avenue could be the committees could write a letter of intent to bgs and say before any work is done on the greenhouses uh i have a conversation with the with the superintendent and town manager to see if there's a way that these could be used i said you're also going to have to look at fish and wildlife and forests and parks because once they move up there they may want the public to come in and they may not so you're going to have to work through that so um represent senator clarkson reached out to joe and joe had the same concerns that i voiced so the thinking is now joe sent a letter out this morning which i just got which i will email you folks um that um went to who did it go to it it went to the senators myself chris cole and folks from fish and wildlife oh wait a minute i got the wrong one that was the one where is it from joe um nope that's not it it went to commissioner snider commissioner porter the senators and myself and who else here i think that's it uh talking about would bgs object to the new rebuild in st jay being the first preference that you rebuild um and if they keep the greenhouses in winter with forest and parks and fish and wildlife have any objection to the public using that and then the thinking is if bgs needs a more formal letter from both of our committees that we would be willing to do that so this is all being wow wow wow what do you mean wow wow wow well i'm just thinking of the whole facility up there alice all that's behind the fence i know um getting to them is problematic and i'm thinking about the liability on the state well that's why we're saying you've got to look at this yeah so and i don't know what's gonna happen in the senate right now okay so in listening to al this morning about the value of those greenhouses in winter we would be better off to give them to the winter school department to have them moving themselves to their own facility an option because of for me the value up there is concrete yeah so curt and then marcia uh the only way that those that anything was going to happen with those greenhouses over the next six months is if somehow bgs decides it's cheaper to move them to st johnsbury than to get new ones which i think we would want to do anyway regardless of what the schools say um if it's cheaper to have the greenhouses up there then we should put them there so nothing's gonna happen before the beginning of the next session i think we're wasting time on this well it's got like it's being worked on in the senate and i wanted to give you folks a heads up well i'd let them spin their wheels all they want but i don't think we need to well something will come back on the capitol bill pertaining to it i believe possibly marcia and who's going to pay for maintenance on this the school system or the state this is what they would have to work through marcia and that's why that's why it's not an easy decision and that's why joe sent out some of these letters to i can offer this to you he sent this out yesterday last evening he sent this out to commissioner of forest and parks commissioner of fish and wildlife commissioner of bgs and to representative clarkson myself and the superintendent of schools i mean they've been sitting there empty for how long well yeah and all of a sudden we want to make a move with them and somebody wants them i mean i don't care if st j gets brand new ones i mean i said to representative bartholomew i said you know what's going to happen it's going to be too expensive to move them and we'll end up building new as st j is probably what's going to happen and i said also i can't imagine anything happening this summer and fall because because doc is overwhelmed with coven and they need st johnsbury as quarantine they still want assurances one way or the other so i just want to give you folks a heads up when we get off i will forward you the email that joe sent out last night to these folks and then this morning i received an email from the town manager about keeping the greenhouses there so i'll forward that to you folks too i'm not going to be the only one that will have all these correspondence that's pretty funny we even got one from the superintendent i think i think i got one of those yesterday too thank yes we did that yesterday he said he sent the superintendent sent it out to ben center benning representative bartholomew and the three senators from windsor county and myself that out to you too i'll send all that back where you about headed to the floor we're headed to the floor ain't any other business folks before we sign off we're back here at noon tomorrow to go over the capital bill so phil what i would recommend doing is connect with becky and kathryn and also senator benning see if they'd be available i'll send a question yeah do we need to send our vote to the clerk on the senate to concur okay great i just sent it to phil that's all i don't think so no budget doesn't go in the calendar or anything right yeah okay what's just going to get up the s 338 is going to be taken off notice i believe for action today and butch will be the one that will report out the changes and that we move to concur of the senate proposal of amendment and i know that uh house judiciary was also okay with those changes on s 338 anything else before we sign off and take a quick break and then come back to the floor and we'll see you all tomorrow at noon at noon we'll see you shortly on the floor so thank you folks who are listening in and watching in on you too