 Okay. Good afternoon and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee. And it is Tuesday, February 16th, and we are considering continuing our discussions on age 87, which is an act relating to establishing a classification system for criminal offenses. During our discussions, the issue of restitution and when restitution is paid and how that works has come up a number of times in terms of considering the sentencing commission's recommendations and age 87. So I've asked Chris Fenno from the Center for Crime Victim Services to come and testify and explain to us how the program works. And thank you, Chris, so much for your patience. I think we had to cancel you one day and you've been waiting a long time already. So anyway, thank you. And I know that Robin Joy is also here to chime in. So good afternoon and welcome. And for the record, this Chris Fenno, I'm the executive director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. And I just want to preface my remarks by saying I think that issue that the impact that this kind of a bill and reorganizing fees and fines has on victim services in the state will make an impact. But this is what we're talking about in lots of different places. We saw and we have seen continuing declines in that revenue. And Vermont really funds victim services a lot through special funds and through these funds. So that said, when I came to the center four years ago, I had never really worked around and didn't really understand restitution. And I think people often get restitution and compensation confused. So I'm going to start with the easy one, which is compensation. And the compensation program here gives financial assistance up to $10,000 and there is a cap on that. For crime victims in Vermont who have uninsured crime related expenses arising from a violent crime. And this program is running in conjunction with the federal government who reimburses the state 60 cents for every dollar that we spent. So we get revenue from it. And then we give that out. But the important thing about victims compensation is that it's not to fix anything that might have gone wrong in the commission of the crime, unless it is physical, unless it's somehow affects the victim. So if they need mental health counseling, they need a broken leg fixed. Victims compensation is also the payer of last resort. So if they have insurance, the insurance is going to pay. If they have a copay attached to that or deductible, then victims compensation can pay that. All of our payments are to providers. They're not, it's about things that have happened to an individual or to a family. But what we do is we pay providers who on their behalf. There's something that has greatly increased in my time here with compensation. And I, and, and maybe Robin knows the answer to this I don't know but we have, we pay out a lot for homicide victims families. And it has became it has become quite pricey because a lot of times they they're out of state. We had to bring somebody in from Alaska. And so, I mean, they, they're still the $10,000 cap. But when there's a homicide, any of a group of qualified family members can get $10,000 each. So we may have five men family members that need to come in, and they each could do up to $10,000. There are limits placed on travel there are limits placed on funeral costs, crime scene cleanup and those kinds of things. But, but it's victim compensation is really about having this benefit. Folks of violent crimes who have things that they need to have physically done. So if they get robbed. If they get their tired slashed. If they get their door broken down. These funds can't be used for any of that at the center we have four and a half staff positions that work in this program for full time people the halftime person runs our sexual assault program. And the other thing that's important about this is that there has to be probable cause established. So we actually, if it's not reported to law enforcement that and this is a federal regulation that we can't assist because there really does need to be probable cause that it's a crime related injury or loss. That's the easy one. And maybe restitution is easy to I don't know, but restitution is really about the courts who order restitution on sentencing. And they order it based on loss. So I, I got my door broken in down and it's going to cost $300 to fix it. But the judge can order $300 and restitution to be paid. There are, you know, I got robbed and I lost my paycheck that I just cashed and there was $500. They could order $500 restitution at at sentencing. Judgment has to be issued by the court. And there are only certain. Well, let me go back one second. There's two kinds of victims that get served through restitution individuals and businesses or companies. We help both of those groups. We are restitution unit manages all of the restitution for crimes in the state. And it's collected for all crime types. So with businesses, it could be a state agency, commercial business stores, banks, that kind. And then there's the individuals who are crime victims. If you're an individual and a crime victim, oftentimes the restitution ordered is under $5,000. And if there are qualifying items that need to be replaced. We don't we don't replace money, but we do replace things like. I don't know my phone. And you know you need a new cell phone. So as long as we can get a cost associated with that. We, through the center will upfront the restitution to individual crime victims up to $5,000. And at that point then the victim is done. And it goes to our collectors, who then work to get that restitution paid back into our fund. We don't do it for businesses. But we do do it for individuals. We have the ability like collectors of child support. For instance, we have the ability and the power to attach wages to take lottery winnings to take cash that they've forgotten that they have that is held by the state. We actually do all of that. We also have the ability to place leans on property. And we work should the perpetrator die. And there's an estate we will work with that estate to recoup the restitution or to get the restitution for business. We have six staff that work pursuing unpaid balances. And each one has about 700 cases that they're working on at any given time. They reach people by phone they make payment arrangements. We have people who on, you know the same day every month we run a credit card for them because they can pay $20 a month on that credit card. We have a victim liaison and supervisor, and that's to work with victims so that they understand what we can reimburse them up front. They get all their restitution ultimately but if it's over $5,000 they don't get it, or if it's money or jewelry. They don't get that part back until the offender pays us. Right now, we have 9,924 active accounts for 4,922 offenders. Under law, we can seek any monies owed to the state by the offender. And so that is exactly what we take as our mission for the restitution unit. We certainly give prior notice around tax returns and all of that we have to follow. There's lots of rules and regulations that we have to follow so that people know that we're taking their money. But it is a way that people can get reimbursed at sentencing. At sentencing, they do take, my understanding is that they do take into account ability to pay back the funds. We have people, especially if they leave the state, we're unable to find them. They do a lot of skip tracing the collectors do. But if somebody moves out of state, it's really pretty impossible to do collections. Sometimes we get repaid when somebody applies for a job, we had somebody who applied for a federal job, and they were going to do a background check. So, he sent us a check for $12,000 to pay off his restitution, so that that wasn't on his record anymore. So, oftentimes it's done like that. If we have a lien against a property and they want to refinance, they'll pay us back, well, they'll pay us then. But many, I mean, many people who are paying restitution don't have a lot of money. And so, we really try to work out what is going to work for them. It's, you know, we're not like those credit card agencies who hound people. We really, we don't hound people, we make up plans. If they don't stick to the plans, we'll try to reach out. But it is kind of the Wild West is how I feel when they're all over there working, because they all have headsets, they have automatic dialers, they, you know, the whole thing. The interesting part, which I want to bring back to the center, is that this ultimately is a victim's service, because for anybody who has been, who has gotten an award under $5,000, they can be done with what has happened to them. And it is an important thing, because if they had to negotiate themselves, go back to court because, you know, they're not getting paid for whatever. And this happens a lot in domestic violence cases. The truth is they don't ever have to deal with that person again, we get to. So, so it really is a victim service that we offer. And it, it does pay for itself through the victims, restitution, special fund. So that's the easiest way I know how to explain those two things but certainly questions. Thank you very much and I'm actually going to ask representative Norris because Bob I know you had, you had questions. So I want to make sure that you, that you have a better understanding now. I do have questions yes thank you. Great. I have a lot of questions and I'm not going to try to take up all of your time here because other folks may have questions also so it's my understanding that you are funded through the state of Vermont. We're a small state agency, a small state agency funded. Pardon, are you funded again. Well, we, we, these are just two of the things that we do. We also have grants program that we administer a lot of federal money for victim services. It's probably about $6 million or $7 million a year that we, we grant out to nonprofit and minds of organizations to do victim services. And then we support the victim advocate program which is having an advocate in each of the state's attorney's office. All of it's through all of that on the federal funds on the federal funds we are, we're allowed to take about anywhere between 5 and 10% of the pack of the money and pass through the rest. So that covers part of our administration. And then we also pay the out of the restitution fund, the cost of the restitution unit under the compensation fund, the cost of the workers under that, and then part of our administration. We don't get any state general fund to support the center. Okay, so, so you have your compensation fund and you have your restitution fund. We do and we, we, we also administer one other fund, which is the domestic violence sexual assault fund, and 100% of his pass through to the network programs. Okay, but it appears as though that when restitution is ordered that you simply front the money for victims. Yes, and then attempt to sell on a six month basis on a yearly basis or whatever. What is your accounts receivable look like as far as recouping these monies that are ordered through the courts. Okay, I have I do have an amount. Last year in 20 FY 20, a total of not quite a million dollars 987,648 dollars was ordered in restitution. We advanced about a $257,000 to victims. And by actually yesterday. We had collected $52,000 of that. So that's not good. Well, it's not but our, our restitution fund is pretty robust because it, it is fines and, and people who get sentenced through the remote process. Right, but, but part of the restitution is, is for the lack of a better term, a sentence handed down from the court to an individualist says, you must pay this and then as it turns out, probably two out of 10 do it would appear. You're looking at $50,000 on receivable. They actually do pay it. It may take a while. I'm sorry. So why are your accounts receivable so high, Chris. We're dealing with a population that doesn't have a lot of disposable income. So the judge has taken that into account when they ordered it. And then we take that into account as we're trying to collect it. So it truly might be $10 a month, and they may owe, you know, $7,000. It takes a long time. Okay, I'll, I'll ask one more question in case someone else has a bunch of questions here. Over the course of a year or two years, whatever else, what do you actually write off, as far as we're not going to get this. We don't we don't write it off until they die. So it could be just forever until until they pass 20 years. Yeah. Every, every month we actually have a report given to the board. I would say it states how many offenders have died in and if we're writing anything off then. Now sometimes, especially if it's a large amount that has been ordered. And somebody dies. We will make an arrangement for to take less. So, you know, we are, we do have some flexibility to. All right, so I know I said I was from my last question, but this will be my last question. So, in the terms of, does everybody pay. Most people pay people who leave the state, we have a hard time collecting from until they move back to the state. Okay, so so those are the monies that I'm concerned about those monies are left in a limbo, shall we say. That's what I was trying to get a figure on that. But that is because we just we always try to get payment, even if they leave the state will try tracking them out of state. But it's very different. Okay, I think it's great for the victim. So I think it's a great program for the victim to social. I just want to make sure that the other end is living up to their responsibility sort of speak. Yes, and the, the thing with it is that at one point, we also were fronting up to $5,000. Actually, I think it was 10,000 then up to $10,000 for businesses to, but it became too costly for us, because a lot of the businesses were big businesses and what we really wanted was the mom and pop stores that that kind of restitution that got ordered but we couldn't do that we had to say okay we're only going to do individuals, because if we said we were going to do some kind some types of businesses then the banks and the grocery stores and everybody else could come in and demand that we give them that money to upfront. My experience is it's the small businesses, whenever we do public events where we're looking for feedback. Those are the people who come and tell stories that you know how much it hurt their small business and I believe it. Okay, thank you all that somebody else chiming here thank you Chris. Yeah, thank you because we just have very few minutes left I do want to adjourn on time so Barbara and then Martin. Hi Chris sorry I'm just beginning. So, I want to, and you're presenting I know Thursday right in. Yes, I will be there so that's good, but you said a few minutes ago that your state agency, and I would say, you're not state employees. We're not. So you're not a typical state agency that gets funded like a state agency and I think it's just important we kind of set that stage you're not like the defender general's office or the. So, when you're doing your budget. You need new software are your, your bills called how are you funding your general operating expenses. A lot of it is from this 5% on the federal funds, and our special funds, and you're right, we, we are not state employees. When the center was tasked with victims compensation, and the legislation shows this is that it's in statute that we couldn't be state employees. So we are not state employees however, because we're a state agency. We work with we just recently because of coven needed people, all of our staff when coven hit, we had to lay off a lot of people we had to furlough them because they couldn't work from home. So we just got a virtual private network through the state and upgraded our speed and so all of that goes through the state. But we, you are correctly are not state agent, we are not state employees. And your subcontracted victim advocates are state employees now right. They are, well, they are, I think, doors their state there, they receive those right okay. Yeah, they do. So, it's interesting, because again, I think you're the best deal in town I don't know anyone that charges 5% admin. I mean, so, in a way, you have an unsustainable I think Bob is on stuff like on all fronts you have a very unsustainable business model. And I don't know if that's government ops that looks at your structure, but I was just thinking about the forfeiture bill that we were talking about the other day and how, in certain cases, we, and people in this room know that we really have this thing about towers being able to get people's cars. So in some cases, we are allowing people to take people's money. Same thing with like child support. So, I'm, I'm not saying we should open the floodgates and do that here but it's just again like quite a tale of two different ways that you're really helping victims and that's not your fault I feel like you're doing everything you can, but I'm really concerned about the structural setup of your, of your office like it feels like as hard as it is for any of the state offices like you've got like a mountain to climb to get, you know, something so I love to figure out who is that government ops Maxine, because it is yeah I think I think it is and, and we can, we can just you know continue with discussion. I don't know about another time offline but I think it really is, is government operations and right now we're focusing on age 87 and have restitution comes does or doesn't come into play but but no and at some point we'll have the discussion about use of fees and so fun, you know, right, because it would seem that they would need at least some grant that sort of buffers your, your, you know, your bad payments and I'd love it if there's another state that is, you know, set up in a different way that we should be looking at because this is really like, you know, not a good model. Right. Yep. Yeah, and we're going to talk about that on Thursday too. All right, well, thank you and Martin you get the, you get the last word. I have a couple questions and kind of focus on on some of the property crimes that we're looking at in age 87. So you talked a little bit about businesses and small businesses. The courts, the courts still order restitution you don't have anything to do with the actual ordering of whether there's an order for restitution or not right. No, I guess the question is, since your organization has the ability to collect through wage garnishment and one of the things you mentioned through lottery winnings through probably I assume tax returns as well. I mean, are those things available to businesses and how would they be if they don't have an entity like is like yours to be able to provide that collection component or so. We still collect for them. Okay, all right. We collect for businesses. Okay, it's just that we don't advance them money. Gotcha. All right, that's great. Thank you. And how often do you use wage garnishment to. We're the last one on the list so we don't that's not usually a place we go because child support is the number one piece that they're taking off. And, and so it really, it's mostly surprisingly enough lottery winnings unclaimed property and tax returns. And you only can take so much from a wage garnishment. There's a like a cap or, or a floor I should say on that is that correct. That is correct. All right. I think that was all the questions I thought I had one more but that I think that's my main questions. Thanks. Great, and I have written testimony that I'll send to you all that talks about all of this. Thank you. Thank you. And we certainly can, can get back to this at, at another time I do like I said just want to keep to schedule because other folks have have meetings. Coming up very soon has been a long day so thank you and Robin I'm sorry we didn't get to you but we will definitely see you again when we take this bill. Again. Okay, so. So Barbara is your hands still up or is that from before. Okay. All right. So, so committee we did obviously did not get to our budget discussion but we'll do that with Barbara tomorrow afternoon. And any questions before we go off YouTube and adjourn. Just procedural questions or anything like that. Nope. Okay, well thank you very much.