 All right. Welcome back everybody. We're coming back from our break here and we're going to pick up our work on S 17. And we'll begin with testimony from the network. Karen, are you there? Great. I think you're still muted. I'm here and I'm muted, but now I might. Great. Thanks for joining us. And if you could introduce yourself for the record, and I think you had some testimony to offer about the standby services issue. Thanks so much, Chair McCartney of McCarthy. I'm so glad to be here. I'm Karen Tronscott Scott and I work at the Vermont network where my role is as executive director. Thank you committee for the opportunity to testify today on S 17. We want to address a small but critically important issue in section six of S 17. Sheriff's accompanying survivors to retrieve personal belongings, often referred to as this is standby. Many sheriffs often accompany survivors to their home so they can safely collect their possessions after a relief from abuse order has been issued. Many sheriffs charge for this charge fees for this service, but many do not charge. So that's worth noting, because the fees are most often not affordable for survivors. Our 15 member organizations are frequently put in a position of trying to find the funds to be able to pay the sheriffs for this service. Often they are asking members of the community to cover the cost or church local churches, or they they find the money within their own budgets. The fees range from $75 an hour to $150 an hour and often include a minimum number of hours as well as a charge for mileage. Some sheriff's department. As I said earlier, some sheriff's departments cover this cost and some, some do not. Combined the nonprofit organizations in our in our community and our community members as well as survivors themselves are paying thousands of dollars a year to access protection when removing belongings in the wake of violence. I note that across our state from DCF to VSP to town police departments, there's a unified commitment to enhance survivor safety at every turn. And I want to really thank the Vermont State Police as well as our local police departments for continuing to provide this service at no cost to survivors. It's really clear that they have a deep commitment to survivor safety and community safety. We have a couple concerns about about current practice that I, I'm very happy to share with you. First of all charging survivors access to safety. So for survivors who need to remove items pursuant to a relief from abuse order standby assistance from law enforcement agencies is should be provided free of charge to these citizens. It's noteworthy that the state of Vermont has made policy decision to cover the cost of domestic violence offender accountability programs at no cost to those offenders. And we fully support that policy but it is noteworthy that survivors are simultaneously charged in order to safely remove remove belongings from from their abuse of home. Also, we know we're noting that there's a geographic inequity around this policy there's wide variation and a lack of consistency in the fees charged in whether they charged. And again, some sheriff's departments, never charge fees, and some charge as much as $150 an hour and often with a three hour minimum plus mileage so you can see that these costs are incredibly prohibitive for survivors. So there's really significant geographic injustice across our state, based on this, this approach. So we're asking, we've had some conversations with the Sheriff's Association and the network is requesting the language in s 17 to ensure that the sheriff's provide this assistance without charging a fee to the survivor, or any of their representatives. And we agreed with the sheriff's that we can have a conversation over the course of the summer to collect more data and assess the needs, especially in relationship to collecting to for defendants to be able to collect their possessions. So, I've sent a copy of some some requested language to you. And what that does is establish that the sheriff's departments will will offer these services and they will offer them at no cost to survivors. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. I'll open it up to the committee but I'll go first here. I am wondering if you saw in the last couple of drafts so we now have a draft group one of one that just came out. It was just posted within the last 30 minutes or so and it maintains the spirit of of that section 60 that came over to us in it as 17 Senate as past but tries to clarify a little bit that it's not exclusively the duty of sheriffs if there are other law enforcement agencies that said the language that came over from the set could be interpreted we have heard in testimony as the sheriff's being the exclusive providers of services, which I don't think was the network's intent. But I just wanted to clear that out from your perspective that something like this that basically says survivors aren't going to be charged. If sheriffs are requested to provide the service they shall but they won't be the only law enforcement agency providing standby service. Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't seen that latest version but based on what you're describing chair McCarthy, it sounds like it meets the intent of, and we'll solve the, the issue that we're concerned about the, and as I said earlier, there's a long history of town police officers as well as the Vermont State Police of providing the service. Without charging survivors that's, and so that's part of the, the information that we need to collect is where are these services being provided how are they be provided by whom are they being provided and and you know how does that how does that all configure for survivors. I'm looking at the suggested language in the written testimony that you provided. And it sounds like the addition that you're suggesting here is a required report back or collaboration between the network and the sheriff's association. It seems like there's already a dialogue about that. Do you do you feel stronger that we need to add that to the bill or is that something that the sheriff's association and the network could probably do about the statutory language. Well, you know, we've had some really great conversations with the sheriff's and the, and the good news about this conversations is that I think that we have a unity of vision. So, you know our conversation with the sheriff's association we recognize that that we all agree that this is the most dangerous point in the in a abusive relationship the point at which really from abuse orders issued and the survivors is leaving the shared home. So we all know that and agree that this is it's important for us to get this right. It's actually the the suggestion of the sheriff's association that we get together over the summer and take a look at this so that we can come back next year and and have more information we need we need a lot more information we need data, and then be able to come back next year with an actual long term plan. So, whether or not it is in statutory language of course we would love to see it in statutory language but understand that you know you may want may not wish to do that but again this was. This was the idea of the sheriff's association so I would be interested to know if they also even know what they what their opinion would be about having the provision in statutory language. Before I ask Sheriff Anderson from the association to come up to does anybody on the committee have any questions for Karen representative. Thank you thank you. I guess maybe you said this. How many are these are there in a in a given year roughly. Well, in a given year across our state there are about about 2000 RFA is issued. On the on a temporary basis so RFA is go through a two step process there's a temporary RFA and then which lasts for about two weeks. And then there's a hearing that's held and a permanent RFA is issued and and there's about a 50% drop off between those the temperature the issuance of a temporary RFA and the issuance of a permanent RFA so 1000 RFAs are issued a year. So all of those RFAs are held by survivors who feel like they need standby so that's one of the questions that we need to collect data on is you know how many people are we talking about here. Just a follow up to I think you said, does it cost your network of thousands of dollars a year or how much does it. I don't have that information because what I referred to is it costs in in in those places where there's a fee charged and the network program has the ability to support the survivor than the network program will support the survivor, but they don't it's not there's no line item for this thing they might talk to a local church and ask them for money or or to a benefactor of the organization and ask, ask them for money. But survivors very often, you know, many survivors never contact the network program and so they're out there on their own and they're actually paying out of pocket for the service. And so we know that there's, you know, we do, we do know that there's enough people across our state that are paying, you know, upwards of $600 for for the service. So we know that there's thousands of dollars that are being spent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's my advice. Thank you. Well, Sheriff Anderson, if you're willing to speak to this particular speaker at this point, I would since you're in the room. It might be useful. Good morning for the record, Mark Anderson, President of the last chair of this association. So is compelling us to do something in a way, but also says let's study it. So to the question of do we need to study, we certainly are willing to work with the network to do that. I don't think we need statute to do that, but really I don't see need in the sense of gathering the data of what the collaboration is, but they'd be a natural partner to collaborate with. The reason I say this is because we'd be the one providing the service. So it would just all be internal to us. We will, the Sheriff's Association, instead of, so there's an interpretation that this doesn't, does not preclude the state police or municipal police departments and certainly do not want to suggest that they're not unwilling to do these, but often our experiences in communities that the state police and municipal police departments cover, we're receiving the calls. I've done these in Brattleboro where they have a full service police department. I've done these in communities where the state police are the sole provider of services. So to that end, the reason why the Sheriff's Association is concerned about the compulsion is because as written, it says the, if we provide law enforcement in the county, well, I have 23 towns of which 15 contract with me for law enforcement. So Brattleboro does not contract with me for law enforcement. How do I pay my staff? How do I pay for the car to go to Brattleboro to sit there for four to eight hours while the U-Haul trucks filled up? And that's where we start to run into issues. We received information from the judiciary yesterday that there's over 6,000 relief from abuse orders that were issued in fiscal year 22. If I dropped that even by half, because they were not able to track what's required law enforcement presence, but if we cut that in half, that's 3,000 hour phase. If we assume even just four hours to load the U-Haul truck, then I mean, we're talking 27,000 manpower hours or personnel hours. And so this is where we become concerned about how do we pay for this? How do I tell my deputy to volunteer? Obviously I can't. So then it comes into the internal operations of each individual department, the financial resources of each individual department. And I think our consistent message has been if we're gonna be required to do this, please provide us some resources to do it. So I agree with Ms. Tronsgard Scott that we have a shared vision. Victims shouldn't pay for this. Survivors shouldn't pay for this. There's a variety of circumstances where these are not ideal circumstances. We've never been provided the resources to do this in the first place, which is why victims were asked through the Victims Compensation Fund under the prior administration to pay for it, which is how we ended up in a circumstance where we were getting reimbursed because the victim's getting reimbursed through the Victims Compensation Fund. So that's not an ideal system. We've learned that through this bill. I'm just concerned that this does create language that will cause municipal departments to say, well, it says they can ask the sheriff. So ask the sheriff because there's complete silence on who's responsible for this, otherwise it stays touching. I guess, where does this money come from that's in the Victims Compensation Fund? I would not be a good person to answer that question, but I understand it is not generally considered not sufficient. And I fundamentally agree that what we did was a workaround, but not a good solution. Talking with the executive director of Victims Compensation very briefly and talking with John Campbell at DSAS, I think the policy is agreeable that it shouldn't come from Victims Compensation that's identified for other reasons, but then where does it come from? So I mean, Mr. Chair, if I may offer a simple tweak, the language in 3.1, if we say in the DeLeague County and remove, I'm sorry, replace it with the primary law enforcement agency, every municipality through its E910 coordinator has to identify their emergency services. That's true in all 250, I guess, two towns now and incorporated villages. So they designate that to the state of Vermont. There's a clear registry of who's responsible for this, for law enforcement and any jurisdiction in the state of Vermont. It seems to be a realistic thing because they're already a resource to provide this. And while it continues as an unfunded mandate to that point, these are departments that are resource with my agency provide services in the town of Putney, which we do, for law enforcement, then we would be the ones providing it through our contract with the town of Putney, but then I'm not required to do it in the town of Ratabarro where I have no resource. Representative? Just for clarification, where is that, where is that, so it's in section six, correct? So B, B, okay, and it would be, so I'm going to law enforcement agencies, correct, correct? What I'm proposing is to delete on line 19, providing law enforcement services for the county, delete county and replace that with law enforcement services for the town. And I guess introduce something to the effect of saying whoever provides the primary law enforcement coverage for a community, as opposed to just the Sheriff's Department. I think it still accomplishes the network's goal of having law enforcement present. And those are in communities that are already resourcing law enforcement. Well, does the committee have any other questions for Sheriff Anderson? Thank you, or Representative Waters-Evans, go ahead. Thank you. So who makes the call asking for these systems? So the general process is that when a relief from abuse order is issued, there's going to summarize it as two processes that might be a little high level, but process number one is an emergency process. There's a 24, 700, 800 number. Process number two is the judiciary judge giving opportunity for either the survivor themselves or the survivor and the, I'll call it the defendant, the plaintiff and the defendant to come before the court. And so those are the temporary and what will eventually become the final relief from abuse order. The judiciary is the one who would dictate that a defendant or in some cases it does happen, a plaintiff is required or is allowed to go to a property in the presence of law enforcement to obtain their property. The temporary relief from abuse orders, and this is a very common practice, temporary orders, usually it's 15 minutes, get the toothbrush, get the laptop, get change of clothes, someone staying in a hotel or a friend's house or whatever that may be. On final orders, let's get the bed, get the dresser, get the dog, the cat. There can be several U-Haul loads, it can be several hours we've had, some go multi-day. So we're not talking an insignificant amount. We're gonna, so back to your question. As written in this draft, it would be the victim, I'm sorry, the survivor who is requesting the service of the department. I believe I read that correctly, and they would be the triggering event. There's also, I don't think it's a significant issue, but we wanna make sure that there's not a third-party contact between the plaintiff and the defendant in order. So generally law enforcement transacts the arrangement of this, so there's also some logistical work that leads into it. Representative Fango. Thank you, I just wanna clarify with Ms. Tronsgaard's that the victim doesn't actually, I'm sorry, the survivor doesn't actually have to pick up the phone to call a law enforcement agency that your network would help with that and maybe make the call for them. You're muted, sorry. Sorry about that. If the victim is working with a member organization, then certainly we would help them make that call. Okay. But not all victims work with our member organizations. Understood, but if you are involved, you would be able to make the call for that person. We would help them make the call. We wouldn't necessarily, we would do whatever they needed us to do. Great, thank you. Thank you. Other questions from our witnesses on this? I wanna have a little bit of a committee discussion about exactly what to do with this section because I wanna try to give Mr. Devlin some direction. So, Chair Anderson, thank you for sticking with us. So, so just kind of zooming out. As Bill came over to us from the Senate, this was basically just a straight up share shelter by the service. They won't charge survivors. The language that's before you in through one was an attempt to say shares will provide this assistance upon a quest, but to not preclude the primary law enforcement agencies from providing same reserves. Representative, thank you. Thank you. I'm just gonna throw some language out there that maybe we say the individual who requires assistance would contact the primary law enforcement agency. And that could include the sheriff's department for that community. For that community. And community could mean town, county, village. State? State, yes, because some communities have no law enforcement contracts. So here's, what's on there to go ahead? No, I don't want to go ahead. I guess my question is about the service is being provided now. I understand that's not not happening if it's needed. So I'm just wondering if we need to require who does it in this bill or if the issue is really making sure that the survivor doesn't have to pay for it. Because it sounds like we don't want to require an agency to do it if they have no funds to do it. And also if we don't require the survivor to pay for it. So I'm wondering, you know, where is the exact thing that we need to put in the bill? That's a great question that is exactly the troubles here. There seems to be broad agreement from the network, the sheriffs, most of us I think, that we don't want survivors to have to pay for the service in a time where they're fleeing and they've been granted a relief from abuse or whether it's temporary or final. And there's also the acknowledgement that this can really rack up serious hours. So my, I think that what we're left with here is that we really need the data. So I'm sort of figuring this conversation declined to adopt something like the language that Ms. Tronscott put in there. But to also soften the language as I'm hearing from a couple of the comments here that there's a desire to sort of say, well, this isn't just the sheriffs providing the service now. We want to make sure there aren't any primary law enforcement agencies in any communities that are charging survivors. So what's good for sheriffs should be good for all of those. But really we need to come back to this next year and either say the state is going to pay for these hours or we really think that, you know, the state and county law enforcement agencies can absorb the cost right now. We don't have the data to know, you know, the sort of back of the envelope of math about relief from abuse orders. I've heard that it could be, you know, a couple of hundred incidents a year that really have the multiple hour, you know, it's the big move with the final relief from abuse order up to be thousands. I don't think it's thousands, but we have no way of knowing based on the testimony we've heard and there isn't one consistent repository of that data from what our witnesses have told us. So I think it's hard to, it's hard for us to in this bill totally solve a problem. I think my primary goal would be to say, we're not going to have survivors pay for this period. And then over the next year, I think we should make a commitment to get that data and then come back to this issue next year. That's where I'm starting to land, but I'll leave it from everybody else representing. Thank you. So that would mean the additional letter E from the network's proposed language, which is the study. But I was looking back at their proposed language D that they proposed that says, Sheriff's department's providing law enforcement services in the county in which an individual who has a relapse from abuse order resides, shall have a duty to assist in the retrieval of personal belongings, et cetera. And I think we could put something in there that refers to absent another primary law enforcement agency being responsible in that municipality or that community. It would default then somehow to the sheriff. And instead of saying a sheriff's department shall not seek a fee, I would say any law enforcement agency shall not seek a fee from the individual being assisted. So I think the first part of what you're suggesting is what I tried to get with Mr. Devlin's help. And after the feedback we'd heard from the Sheriff's Association on this issue before. So if you look at 3.1D, now it reads, if an individual who has a relief from abuse order requires assistance in the retrieval of personal belongings and the individual requests assistance from the Sheriff's department for providing law enforcement services and for the county with that individual resides, the Sheriff's department shall provide the assistance. That was meant to make it so that if they go to the sheriff and ask the sheriff, the sheriff will provide it, but not to exclude whoever the primary law enforcement agency is in their town. So if you're in Burlington, you're probably gonna call Burlington PD, not the Chinning County Sheriff's office. It would be my assumption, right? Or if you're in the city of St. Albans, you're gonna call the Samoans Police Department not the Chinning County Sheriff. Maybe, though, I don't know if the individual is making the call themselves if they would make that specific choice. So that's why I kind of wanted to make it sound like if there's another primary law enforcement then that's who they should get directed to. If it's a primary law enforcement agency for that community. So like St. Albans PD, but if you're living in Berkshire, it wouldn't be because there is no Berkshire PD. It would be likely the BSP or the Franklin County Sheriff's office, but because Berkshire doesn't contract with the Sheriff's office, it doesn't have to be. You know, the Sheriff's office is not Berkshire's primary law enforcement agency. So I think that's where the difference might come in in the wording, although I think it's close in letter D of 3.1. I don't think we're quite there yet. Representative Graham, I'm representing Morgan. If I heard you're entire correctly, your example, we're gonna call the PD first. PD is the primary. I think normally they would do it, but staffing being what it is, they're doing that. And I would imagine that we don't put something in that says we have to have a ballot reason. You're the primary, blah, blah, blah, something that maintains some kind of expectation that the primary will do something that everybody can just laugh it off to the chair. Well, I think that's true. It could happen. It could very well happen. And in the case of Berkshire, it may be that nobody wants to respond because nobody feels primarily responsible to the town of Berkshire, yeah. Yeah, I just learned that obviously in the same vein, I think that people might be on this, something of the absence of a primary law enforcement in that community, law enforcement agency in that community, then the sheriff is the default. And I think something to that effect would do the trick because it should, I mean, in my town of Milton, we have a PD, we've got almost 20 officers that we should be handling these, we shouldn't be calling the chin again, the sheriff and going, hey, go on down here and do our work because that would be, I would set up a function of our PD. So something to that effect, yeah, I like that in the absence of a primary law enforcement entity in that community, blah, blah, blah, something like that. I think I'd advise us on that, I guess. Yeah, so it sounds like there's a broad agreement that the finerals can represent Oregon and represent Tango that we should make sure that we're not having the sheriff be the kind of like automatic go-to, but that they should be the backstop and that no law enforcement agency should be chartering survivors that we should put up a prohibition that's broader than just the sheriff's department. And that we should add something like the new paragraph E that Ms. Tronk started, Scott gave us. Tim, do you need further clarity on what we're looking for if that's the consensus from the committee? Representative Hango. Thank you. I have one other question too that probably can't be addressed right here, but what happens to those unbillable hours? Like how is that going to be covered if we are going to rely on a specific law enforcement agency who was in the past charging fees? I mean, I'm concerned for their bottom line as well. Especially the law ones. Right. Yeah, so I think that it's going to be hard for us to solve that in the context of this bill without that report back. But this is really something that we should put on our agenda for when we get back in January when we have some data and say how much is it really costing the state to provide the services when survivors and figure out funding. I think it was before I knew what the number is. I'd march across the hall right now and say, hey, can you figure out how to find this? And do we need to specify that in section 10 with the report or not? Well, with this is a broader issue, I think, than just sheriffs. And I think the report back in section 10 is really talking about sheriffs. So I think that the clarity that we're asking for with the sheriff and the network to come back to us with a sense of how big is this issue? How many RFAs are there that require standby service? How many is it a quick, you know, it's just an hour, it's no big deal versus, you know, the multi-hour stops and all that stuff. One last suggestion then on the network's letter E where it's asking that the sheriff's association work with the Vermont network to gather data. I think that it should include more than just the Vermont sheriff's association. It should include other law enforcement agencies because we have no way of tracking, right? What other law enforcement agencies are which calls they're going on for this particular specific reason? I mean, if we need to know how much it's costing overall do we need to know for even the law enforcement agencies who don't charge for that service? I mean, I kind of think we do is what if they decide not to be in that business anymore and put it off on the sheriffs then we would have a big picture of what it's costing statewide. I mean, I think it would just involve maybe one other group meeting with them. They're in put. Wouldn't it be local police departments, sheriff's departments, state police? Yeah, so it's three groups total. And the sheriffs. Maybe or the bottom two could switch. I mean, not putting in that order but I'm saying if you're really gonna do a company has a study they need. Not all three. Yeah. And then you're just gonna have all of that information for the report which is time and money. But they clearly have an abundance of. So I appreciate it. It's new conviction that we're creating the executive director of it now. Director of sheriff's operations. Yes. Yeah, we got a new title here. Good job. Representative. Is there not somebody within public safety who could take the data from this report? I mean, right now it looks like it would just be the sheriffs sitting down with the network. So I think what we will find with the network and the sheriffs is that since the sheriffs are the ones that are filling the gaps that aren't covered is how many total RFAs are there and a sense of the proportionality we might not hear. I think it will be as I'm thinking this through it would be really cumbersome to ask the network and the sheriffs to consult with every single law enforcement agency in the state. But the sheriffs are the ones filling the gaps all across the state. So we're gonna get a really good snapshot of a good chunk of the standby services that need to be provided and how many hours does it take? What is really the cost of that? And since they're the ones filling the gap that's the one that really would need to be filled. I think we would need to take a lot more testimony and do a much more thorough examination of this in order to make this a universal every single law enforcement agency get a sense of every single RFA and standby services. And I don't know if that's a practical thing to ask for in the context of this bill but I'm happy to have other folks disagree. I understand that totally. So I think that's great. And I think maybe my suggestion would be because I'm really curious now and I've got the network is really curious. My suggestion would be for the network to maybe try to find out that information. How many folks actually statewide from all agencies ask for help in doing this? And that's where I was coming from like if I were working at the network I'd wanna know. I'd wanna know how many people out there who are encountering this. So for the purposes of this bill, no, stick with what suggested. I have a feeling if we ask for this in statute that we're, and given this conversation and the desire that the network has to make sure that survivors are A, on the book and B, that I have a feeling that Karen and her colleagues will make sure that we know what we need to know in order to do this better. Thank you. Thanks for entertaining me thinking aloud. I'm glad. I think this is really, it's a really important issue. We all share a value here, but it's like who pays for it and how do we even know what the real lead is? Right. So Mr. Devlin, and do you feel like you have clarity from us on what our ask is for this section? Yeah, so I think so. Yeah, would you like to take the chair? I think we have enough time here before we need to dive back in. I haven't seen anything back from Tucker or other bill that's in progress this morning. So maybe the best use of our time right now would be to take a look at 3.1 to others, the other changes that are in there. And then when we come back from the floor, we'll look at an update that includes this new section six language, if that makes sense. One of the things we'll be talking about in this topic, I just like to pay attention to the terminology regarding what is a primary law enforcement agency or a new law enforcement agency with primary coverage, law enforcement coverage, it's not defined yet, so we'll have to just insert and determine exactly what that means, probably some of the more lines of law enforcement agencies are responsible for providing law enforcement services in certain towns that you're a village by statute or contract or something along those lines. Proposed that I'm gonna figure that out. I just wanna point that out. Okay, great. We will defer to your expertise and take a look at that. The recommended way to define that. Yeah, when we come back to it, is that gonna be representative? Thank you. There's just one real glaring thing on your point, one that I wanna get into before we see Tucker for the next bill. Section five C, it starts at the very bottom of page 10, but then goes into 11. Letter B, the director of sheriff's operation shall be funded by a charge assessed on each sheriff's department. I thought we talked about that yesterday with witness Annie Newton that there is a position open in state government already that could be used rather than funding this new position through the sheriff's departments. I thought that that language was coming out and I'm not seeing it in the same place, so am I? The language being referred to is section five C. And it's the session law that's two parts, one establishing the position and one regarding the funding of it. Chairman McCarthy, if you'd like, I could kind of talk a little bit about that information we've received from JFO. Yeah, because I thought we were gonna take that section five C be out, so anyway, yeah. I can start by saying you can certainly remove it if that's what the committee would like. When it comes to retitling positions, there is an established sanction process called a classification review in which essentially it's a process of looking at the job duties and responsibilities ensuring that job is kept a comparable pay grade and that can certainly result in a retitling of the job especially if it's vacant currently. So that doesn't necessarily have to be addressed through session law here, so I think our office is comfortable removing if that's the direction being. So that means we take out five C altogether. I think so. And so the references to this new director position that are in the other sections just imply that that position exists in the sense that it's already in exact position there. We can just sort of close our eyes and say, we don't need to create this, it already exists, we're just, we've looked at it briefly. I can certainly verify that with our office's attorneys to make sure there's consensus on that. So here's what I would say, unless the committee has another opinion on this, is that for now, let's say we're definitely striking five C B, but that five C A, we wanna get a definitive answer from JFO about whether we need to refer to the existing exempt position in some way or whether it's sufficient for us to just be referring to this director of sheriff's operations and then these sort of has to by default fill that position with somebody who would have those. So I think that's the open question on that unless I'm seeing nods. Sounds good. Okay, all right. Okay. In progress. And for the record, my name is Tim Devlin, legislative counsel. Before you, you have draft 3.1 of the, this committee's strike all amendment to S17. The differences between the last iteration of the strike all amendment and the one you've done before you now have been highlighted for ease of reference. The first series of changes can be found on page two. This is under the section to bill pertaining to audits, in particular section two, which will modify title 24 for you to say section 290 shares County Sheriff's Department. And again, this is one of two changes pertaining to audits in this case. Here we have, let's see, the new language. The first few highlights provide clarity that there's actually two assistant judges in each County, not just reference to one. And then of substance, we'll see online 14 through 19, language that will create a procedure for when an assistant judge potentially refuses to co-sign a disbursement and transfer of departmental assets and will allow the Sheriff's Executive Committee to instead approve such disbursement and transfer if wanted, and then to notify both the Sheriff and that assistant judge of that decision. It's just, it's just confusing. Just wanted to check in with Representative Cooper, because I believe you had a particular interest in this question of yesterday of what happens if a assistant judge just refuses to sign off on any legitimate disbursement that a Sheriff that's in the transition period was trying to make at the recommendation of the association, they said, well, the Sheriff's Executive Committee could kind of act as an appeal authority. When we put that suggested language in front of Tim, the word appeal and that kind of like getting into that legalistic language was a little tough. So the suggestion I think Tim here is that you would just say if the Sheriff's Executive Committee signs off, they can kind of overrule the assistant judge and be the secondary approver of last resort. I'm seeing a nod from the Sheriff Anderson. Representative Cooper, I just want to make sure that this kind of- It's apologize, I'm happy. Yeah. I'm happy to read through that new language you could like. Yeah, you want to just hit that piece so we're all- And the last new sentence reads, if the assistant judges refuse to co-assign a disbursement or transfer of Sheriff's Department assets, the Sheriff's Executive Committee may instead approve the disbursements or transfer of Sheriff's Department assets and shall bear after one Sheriff's and the assistant judges of the County of the committee's decision. The next part of the strike all amendment that is updated in this draft can be found at page four. This is under the section of the bill pertaining to conflicts of interest. And in essence, the changes here really reflections of certain comments. Just talking to Steve, Reverend L. Cooper, is your question on the conflict of interest or does it- Okay, yeah, so let's go back first. If in putting that language in, we're not instilling in the assistant judges any authority to actually block and say, I'm just not gonna allow that to happen. Putting a judge hat on. No. Okay. As laid out here, essentially I can just I'll quote directly from the to be amended language of this statutory section. Online, let's see. Just sorry for three, there's certain events that will trigger this phenomenon which all financial disbursements or transfers of assets. This is once the sheriff signals that the law is going to stay in office. At that point, any transfer of assets needs to be, it says right here, cosigned by the sheriff and at least one assistant judge in that county. And then if that assistant judge in the language skipping down to life five refuses to cosign that transfer of assets, then the sheriff's executive committee instead approve of that transfer. It's with both side judges too. It's really a backstop, right? It's like a lack, it's a last resort. I can imagine like in my county if the side judge just said no and the sheriff was like, okay, you know, what am I gonna do now? Then the sheriff would wanna go to some other body and say, I need to sign, I need to do payroll. They won't let me spend this money legitimately. It could get pretty public. I mean, if there's a disagreement, so we would hope that this would be a last resort kind of a thing. I remember Chittenden County a couple of decades ago, the two side judges were fighting with each other. And the previous thing of just one side judge needs to sign off so that there's the sheriff plus some outside of the department oversight during the transition period. Any other questions on that piece? Go on to the Comprehensive Interest. So skipping down to page four, we have certain updates that really reflect comments from the State Ethics Commission that were given to the committee and discussed yesterday. Really, these changes bring this proposed language here pertaining to Sheriff's in particular, more in line with the State Code of Ethics. So we have a rephrasing in the first sentence with the same statutory reference, really. The sheriffs and deputy sheriffs are considered public servants for the purposes of the, what is the definition as laid out in the State Ethics Code. We also have some tweaking of relations as to what could be considered a conflict of interest between members of family or households, but also a additional part of the definition signaling what is not a conflict of interest, in particular anything that is not greater than that of any other individuals generally affected by the outcome of the matter. Well, the next part, and actually, if there's a question. Sure. This got into sort of a question yesterday. I don't know if it's in this particular point or not, but at one point you're talking about the financial disclosure form for deputies. That's not a common thing for employees to have to file. I can speak to what is going to be in this update is disclosure, annual financial disclosures, but only for sheriffs, not deputies in this bill. And we'll see that later on. That's the more lengthy that are highlighted material later on. Thank you. I would just like to make a comment on subsection C on page five here, which has to do with the reporting or procedures for forwarding ethics complaints that is to the State Ethics Commission. In yesterday's discussion of three PSA section 1223, which states that the Ethics Commission sell any source regarding governmental ethics in any of the three branches of the government or in the state's campaign finance law. There was, it was signaled that perhaps this wouldn't cover sheriffs departments, but our office's interpretation of this language is that sheriffs department are indeed part of the executive branch, one of the three branches of government series would probably cover. But if wanted, this language could be changed by clarity or, but that's certainly at the community's discretion. The next section of updated language we have is in subsection D. And this adds a definition for confidential information, which mirrors that in the State Ethics Code currently, which states as used in the subsection means information as exempt from public inspection and copying under public records act. And otherwise does in court, these are the ones that's made by laws confidential as well. Yeah, and that last piece just clarified the, what we meant by confidential information, right? Yes. So just to be really clear about the first question, so up until this point, we're saying all sheriffs and deputies fall under the definition of public servants which means the State Code of Ethics umbrella covers them. But then in 4A that we're about to go into we're only talking about the elected chair. Yes. Indeed, new section 4A will add a new statutory section which will be 24 VSA 315 titled sheriffs semi-colon annual disclosure. And this in essence will add a new annual disclosure requirements for just the sheriffs again. And this is modeled off of disclosure requirements for executive officers found currently in the State Code of Ethics under 3VSA section 1211. And I'm happy to read through this line by line if the chair would like. Yeah, I think we can go through this now. The only thing that's giving me hesitation was that I had great hope that we would be able to breeze through a draft of the Lindenville Charter and get it on its way to the Ways and Means Committee. But it's ours in the Senate I think. So we can keep going ahead here. This language before you get into it is largely taken from what executive officials have to do. It's essentially a carbon copy. Just replace the charts. Great. So that reads starting online 19 subsection A. Annually each sheriff shall file with the State Ethics Commission in disclosure form that contains the following information regarding to the previous 12 months. One, each source but not amount of personal income of the sheriff and of the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner and of the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner that totals more than $5,000, including any of the sources meeting that total described as follows. A, employment, including the employer or business name and address. And if self-employed, a description of the nature of the self-employment without needing to disclose any individual clients. B, investments described generally as investment income. Two, any board commission or other entity that is regulated by law or that receives funding from the state on which the sheriff served and the sheriff's position on that entity. Three, any company of which the sheriff or sheriff spouse or domestic partner or the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner owned more than 10%. Or, any lease or contract with the state held or entered into by A, the sheriff or the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner or B, a company of which the sheriff or the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner or the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner owned more than 10%. Subsection B, in addition, if a sheriff's spouse or domestic partner is a lobbyist, the sheriff shall disclose that fact and provide the name of that sheriff's spouse or domestic partner and, if applicable, the name of that individual's lobbying firm. Section C of Division I, disclosure forms that shall, sorry, disclosure form shall contain a statement. Hope I certify that the information provided all pages of this disclosure form is true to the best knowledge, information and belief. And quote, two, each sheriff shall sign the disclosure form in order to certify it in accordance with the subsection, subsection D, so Division I, sheriff shall file the disclosure on or before January 15th of each year or if the sheriff is appointed after January 15th within 10 days after the appointment. Two, sheriff who filed this disclosure form as a candidate in accordance with 17VSA, section 2414 in the preceding year and whose disclosure information has not changed since that filing, may update that filing to indicate that there has been no change. I'll pause there. I think that seems like a pretty familiar language to me having been through that disclosure language before. Anybody have any questions about this piece? So this is after hearing the executive's Director Silverett's testimony yesterday, just the idea that there'd be a standard financial disclosure for the elected sheriff, right? The, moving on to the next part of the bill, which is Sheriff's Department Compensation Benefits, see updated language for section 5A on page nine and this section is titled Sheriff's Department Compensation Benefits Model Policy and you'll see in the highlights and subsection A reworking of the language concerning the development of the conversation model policy. Figures just easiest to read this straight through. A, on or before January 1st, 2024, the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs after receiving input from the sheriffs, the auditor of accounts and the Department of Human Resources, shall develop a Sheriff's Department's Compensation and Benefits Model Policy and submit it for review and approval to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Vermont Criminal Justice Council May in consultation with the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, subsequently alter and update the model policy. And then a new subsection C in the next page is added regarding the adoption of the model policy by Sheriff's Department reads, on or before July 1st, 2024, each Sheriff's Department shall adopt the Model Policy Sheriff's Department's Compensation Benefits Model Policy. Sheriff's Department may include additional provisions to the model policy and its own policy provide that none of these provisions contradict any provisions of the model policy. So if I can go back up to a, it sounds like the Vermont Criminal Justice Council May they're going to be kind of the ultimate of doing something about the policy. Yeah, as they do with other model policies. I'm trying to balance two things. One is to have the structure where the Criminal Justice Council is kind of the main, you know, I think of the domestic violence policy they're kind of the main issue order of the model policies, but really the creation and the determination of what should be in that model policy is in large part going to happen between the Department and the Sheriff's. But, and the auditor has, you know, DHR all going to be a part of that. So it's this thing of making sure that the model policy gets created by the people who know about the hair workings of the Sheriff's Office and how different they all are. But then there's this approval that it makes sense and is conforms with best practices really with the Criminal Justice Council and then at the same time, the subsequent language in our testimony and the feedback that we received from Sheriff Anderson and others, each individual department adopts some policies. They have to be when there's a model policy that's been adopted, they have to align and not contradict, but they have specific references and can be more certain sometimes. And certainly, you know, when I was on city council, saying I'm the police department, they went through a multi-year process of every single policy, used to force all of that stuff of updating it and making sure that it, that our policies match the model policies and then getting approval from the city council on the specific ones that they were adopting. So we're trying not to get in the way of the normal structure while we're requiring there to be this benefits of compensation policy. I think maybe we've gotten there and I'll definitely ask Sheriff Anderson and others for confirmation that we finally have hit the mark here. It looks like I'm getting the thumbs up over there, but this has been a long process because I think in the initial drafts, we were in some weird place of sort of saying with the Criminal Justice Council is doing this over here and it was a little convoluted. So I appreciate everybody that all those stakeholders, the department, the chair of association and others kind of setting us straight here. The next updates can be found in section 5B. Again, this will embed title to the board of the USA section of 367, title department of the city in terms of shares. Adding new section E, really creating statutory references and building up the duties of the now called director of sheriff's operations. There's one that's called deputy director of sheriffs in the previous iteration of this. So E1 just changes that name, E2 does as well. Also we'll rephrase duties more robustly and explicitly in sections two and three I'll just read through those for you. Now to the director of sheriffs operations shall provide central and support services for the sheriffs with respect to budgetary planning and language policy development compliance, training and office management and perform such other duties as directed by the executive director. Three, the director of sheriffs operations shall develop, maintain and provide to each sheriff's department. Model policies on operational topics including service of civil process, relief from abuse orders, transportation or prisoners, ethics and sheriffs responsibilities. And here I'd just like to state that including is open, doesn't exclude anything that's not on this list. So really to be more, including but not exclude. And then in section five C we've already discussed that. That's the reference I've noted here to strike five C subsection B and confirm with JFO. But what the A needs to be for two and session long. Just jumped out at me page 11 line three needs to be capitalized. And I see this is unedited and right. So somebody would have caught that. We'll try to get the best capitalized on the new director of sheriffs operations. And let's see. The next updates can be found on page 13, section seven. The section seven that was in the previous iteration here was actually been removed and strapped. The prior section seven would have required sheriffs to provide deputies to courthouses. It's been removed seven A, it's been moved up to seven. And this, which is now titled sheriffs department provision of courthouse security, something called report. And this report language is essentially the same except for it adds some other entities into who the judiciary shall consult in developing this report. Specifically now, the judiciary shall consult with departments, these attorneys and sheriffs association, Vermont State Employees Association and then other relevant state courts. And that is the, and as you know, in section 11, effective dates, there was a reference to the old section seven being implemented a later date but because that's been removed, I've removed that reference. Yeah, so I think the section seven pieces is it's very important to highlight for the committee what's not there. So we had a seven and a seven A. The seven was gonna provide one deputy for every courthouse, but we're not gonna have that go into effect until a year from this July. So the July 1st of 2024. Now we're just asking for the report. And I think we will very much have to come back to this once we get the report back and say, how are we gonna actually help the judiciary and the various law enforcement and private security transition to some? That are new, hopefully more efficient model, which there's a strong implication here that we would have that report while the report is going to consider using something like the transport deputy model for the courthouse security. And so, yeah, there's the implication there that that would be a path for us to potentially get to where we want. Any questions about what's in the draft before we break? We lost Tucker to the Senate. So my hopes have been dashed. So my plan would be that this afternoon we're not gonna do our S9 walkthrough. We're gonna do, we're gonna come back with Tucker, hopefully probably do that first, go through the Lindenville Charter. And then I'll give Mr. Devlin enough time here to get us some of the changes we just asked for to update this draft. And so we'll do those two things this afternoon. So that pleases the committee. Great, well, let's adjourn.