 Good morning. This is the morning meeting of the House Appropriations Committee on April 7th. And we're going to hear a presentation from our colleagues at the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments. But before we go there, thank you all very much for joining us. I just wanted to finish one piece of business here in the room before we turn this over to you. Which is, folks, the Senate is, so when the budget bill left this body, we had that outstanding piece of the question around deemers and the settlement of that. Maybe I've already said this that the Senate is looking at putting that in the budget, as well as the pay act. I have said those two things already. Okay, so I will cross them off my list. We just need to be following and I don't want you to be surprised when it comes back with those. So, with that, let us turn, as I said to our colleagues at the Council on State Governments, they have been working for a number of years now with us on justice reinvestment related issues. And we are joined by David D'Amora, Madeline Dardow. I'm sorry, you will correct us when I turn the helm over to you. And Angela Gunter. We have about 45 minutes or an hour. We said 45. 45 minutes for this presentation. I personally am really looking forward to it, having totally enjoyed and been interested in this work for some period of time. Representative Squirrel. I just wanted to introduce Monica Weaver to DOC. Great. Hi Monica, thank you for joining us. I don't have my glasses on, so I can't or I do now and I see you. So thank you also for joining us. We are some of our colleagues are here virtually and some are in person. And so, without any further ado, let me turn this over to you. We'll try to listen to your presentation if they're kind of natural stopping points, maybe pause and if you can see if there are any questions. And the last thing I wanted to mention is that we're also joined by Representative Per Taylor from the House Institutions and Corrections Committee. Taylor, thank you very much for joining us and you're certainly welcome to ask questions and participate fully. And I understand that we also have, I don't know what next day Augustino's title is, I think he's still Deputy Commissioner. Yeah, from DOC is also listening in. So with that, let me turn this over to you, Mr. Dayamora. Thank you, Chair. I'll actually jump in here. My name is Madalyn Dardo, you were very, very close. I'm a senior policy analyst here at the Council of State Governments, and we're really we appreciate the invitation to join you all today. I'm going to share my screen. Oh, I'm not able to share my screen. We are an anti-screen sharing committee. Okay. We have a printout of your slide deck, and if you could just guide us through it, then we would appreciate that. It's hard if we're screen sharing that I can't see everybody on the screen and I'd like to be able to call on that. So sorry for that inconvenience. That's not a problem at all. Having done lots of these virtual meetings at this point, I totally understand wanting to be able to see folks and not just kind of have it taken out by a presentation. So our plan for today is to give you all kind of somewhat quick overview of justice reinvestment to and then really focus specifically in on the working groups recommendations related to reinvestment and upfront investment funding to support the ongoing implementation of justice reinvestment. So I'm going to be hitting some high notes on what was really just a massive undertaking by folks in Vermont over the past two and a half years. So if you are interested in some additional detail, please don't hesitate to stop me as I'm going and to kind of expand on something further. We've also provided you all with the working groups final report, which also includes a lot of details and that was what they submitted to the legislature earlier this year in January. So as I mentioned before, we are and I'll go ahead and if you want to go to that second slide. So we are the Council State Government Justice Center for those of you that are not as familiar with us we're a national nonprofit nonpartisan organization. We work with all three branches of government and we are really focused on using policy and research to increase public safety and strengthen communities. You can go to that next slide. And as as the chair mentioned we've been here in Vermont from 2019 through the end of 2021 as part of Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which is funded through the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Pugh Charitable Trusts. And so over the past 15 years the Justice Center has helped actually 33 states including Vermont and using a Justice Reinvestment approach to ever prison growth improved data collection analysis and adopt evidence based practices that reduce recidivism. Next slide. And so Justice Reinvestment to just as a quick reminder began in Vermont in 2019 after representatives from all three branches of government requested support from and were approved to use a Justice Reinvestment approach by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. And so after that approval, Governor Scott convened the Justice Reinvestment to Working Group, which identified several key areas of focus for the initiative. We included analyzing crime trends to understanding how supervision revocations were impacting overall incarceration numbers, assessing behavioral health related challenges for the justice involved population, and then identifying ways that the state can improve data tracking and analytics to inform ongoing decision making and policymaking. You can go to the next slide. You should see a graph here. And so during the Working Group's policy development process, our Justice Center team was able to do extensive data analysis across crime, court and corrections data sets. And one of the primary findings of this analysis was that from 2017 to 2019, almost 80% of Senate's DOC admissions where people returned or revoked from community supervision. And so and of that 80% over 50% were returns from furlough. And so looking at the chart that you have, you see returns from parole probation and furlough in different shades of blue with furlough returns being that largest area at the bottom in dark blue. And then next slide. Our team also, I'm sorry, could we just pause there for a moment. I should be able to do this, but will you remind us of, of what furlough is in Vermont. I just because I think it's significant this issue of furlough violations and if people understand what it means to be on furlough if you appreciate this number even more I think. Sure. That's a really, that's a really good point. So furlough is kind of a, at least for us, furlough is a unique status when we came to Vermont where a person is released into the community under supervision but is still under the purview of the Department of Corrections. So they're still considered underneath the Department of Corrections. I think it is an inmate basically. Monica, please. Monica looks like Monica wants to jump in there. Hi, hi, everyone. I'm Monica Weber I'm the administrative services director for the Department of Corrections. One thing I wanted to add to Madeline's description of furlough, which is, you know, defined in statute as a legal status is that furlough is really considered an extension of the incarcerated facility walls right so it is considered an administrative status, and therefore it's solely under the purview of the Department of Corrections. The distinction between these parole probation and furlough it's, I can summarize it like this. Parole violations would be under the purview of the parole board probation violations would be under the purview of the judiciary and furlough violations under the purview of the Department of Corrections. I think those are important distinctions to remember and understanding solutions here. It is and it's also very difficult for people to understand because as Madeline mentioned it's Vermont is complex in that way. Yeah, although we're getting cleaner here. Okay, let's keep going. Great. Thank you, Monica. So if you go to the next slide that have a line chart on it. So during. So our team also found that should Vermont's incarcerated population continue to increase at the status quo rate that it would result in a projected cost of $43 million and out of state bed contracts by fiscal year 2025. Obviously, I'm sure what's in all of y'all's minds right now is that it's important to note that this analysis took place in 2019 prior to the onset of COVID-19. So the incarcerated population in Vermont and nearly every other state that looks very different right now after the past couple of years and we're going to talk about a little more in a minute about, you know what that looks like and what that means. However, I didn't want to show you this slide primarily to illustrate that one of the main goals of Justice Reinvestment to was to decrease the overall incarcerated population in order to reduce that spending on out of state contract beds. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry we're doing first names Jim. Hi. Thank you. So I'm looking at the slide that has the out of state contract beds on the bottom, and it shows it increasing, but in fiscal year 24 goes down by almost 100. Is that a typo or is that am I reading something. Oh, you caught us on a typo apology so you can see the funding increasing and so that actually should have been a, so that number the 235 is a typo apologies for that and I can get y'all the correct number there. Of course. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good to know we read these slides. I appreciate it we work hard on them. It's good to know people are paying attention. So if you go to the next slide you'll see here that, you know, following, you know, several months of this intensive data analysis, lots of discussion and stakeholder engagement. The working group developed a package of policy reforms focused on these four goals. And so those are reducing recidivism and revocations to prison, achieving a more equitable system across gender race and geography, improving data and reporting and informed decision making, and then reinvesting in policy implementation and sustained progress. And the next slide shows that these recommendations became what is now Act 148 remarks justice reinvestment to legislation which was enacted in July of 2020. And that's the establishment of presumptive parole and to reduce the reliance on the fur on the furlough legal status that Monica talked about earlier to streamline that furlough system to make it less complex to increase community supervision and then to increase earn good time from five to seven days per month to incentivize good behavior for people that are on prison and on furlough. And then there were three areas where the bill required different groups of stakeholders to do some additional work and then report back to the legislature which is what you see in four through six. And so that includes some additional data collection and reporting from the Department of Corrections around the use of graduated sanctions. The Agency of Human Services was also directed to look at gaps and how people with behavioral health needs, mental health and substance use needs and the criminal justice system are identified and served, particularly across shared clients within the departments within the Agency of Human Services. And then there was additional analysis required related to demographics and sentencing and to better understand racial disparities but also to just generally assess gaps in areas of study that the legislature tasks the justice ring investment to working group, which that, excuse me sorry so there were to assess item, something pop up and stand my attention I apologize folks to really look at race and ethnicity gaps and data collection analysis which I know you all are particularly interested in right now around the Office of Racial Justice Statistics and building Vermont's data analysis capacity in that area. In addition to this list that you see here there was actually a whole other list of areas of study that the legislature tasks the justice ring investment to working group. But we're going to talk about those in a little bit later on. Do folks have any questions I just want to pause real quick before we start going into some other some other data for you. Will you just take a moment to talk about why we are thinking that we need to dig deeper into the racial disparities issue and understanding that data, in terms of the consequence and do see as well obviously as people getting incarcerated what that means. Absolutely so back in 2019 when our phase one team was doing the initial data analysis in Vermont, what they found was when they just looked at proportions, particularly for black people across community supervision and incarceration types, what they found was disproportionality so that black people were more likely to be represented in incarcerated settings and our community supervision just kind of across the board. And what they didn't have time to do and what they did it weren't able to dig as deeply as into that kind of why what's driving this and so that's kind of where you saw this particular piece of Act 140 is to say hey let's go a little bit deeper and there's two parts to that right. So the part is, can we go a little bit deeper with the data that we have right, but then there's also a lot of recognition that there's data that there's not access to. And so, or that the data just doesn't exist. And so that's where I think you know both there's kind of two prongs that happened post Act 148. Our team was actually able to obtain some court data to understand how people, you know what's what's happening before people end up on supervision or particularly what happens before they end up incarcerated. And we were able to complete our racial equity and sentencing analysis which I can share the report that was shared with the state with you all to be able to better understand some of those. What's happening kind of prior to incarceration, obviously recognizing there's a lot that is happening more upstream right and then kind of parallel to that but very much connected. The racial disparities advisory panel has been doing some really extensive work and I was actually going to talk about this in just a minute to be able to understand data gaps. And we highlight some of those in our in our equity analysis, but they really took a very, very deep dive and understanding you know what's the additional information at each kind of point in the criminal justice system that you all need to have a more complete picture of what's a really complex nuanced, but very, very important issue. And so what you see here at the number six was really just kind of the start of what became a much broader process. Does that does that help with your questions here. Yes, thank you very much. Madeline, do you mind if I, do you mind if I add one other point quickly. Please go ahead. Thank you Chairman. David DeMauro senior advisor with the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Good morning everybody just want to make one other point regarding the racial equity study, despite the fact that there are some data gaps. We were able to show that the argument that's often been made when we've spoken to folks in Vermont, which is that it's the out of towners the out of status that are causing this to happen who are coming from other places. So the data does not support that quite bluntly. It is not the folks who are coming from other states that are bringing drugs into Vermont that are accounting for the disparity in the arrests and incarceration in Vermont. And I think that's very important, because many of the folks that we've spoken to have used that as sort of the rationale why the problem exists and really the data simply does not support that. I want to highlight that Madeline. Thank you. That's a very important that that is a perception I think across the board. And so it's very important point. Thank you. Definitely. Thank you. And so before we move into the data, I do want to take a minute and hopefully not brush over too quickly. What was actually months of hard work by people in the state to implement these policy changes and do these additional tasks. So following the passage of Act 148, we a CSU Justice Center were able to continue to provide technical assistance to Vermont. This time focused on implementing rather than developing policy changes. And so we were really able to see firsthand the efforts of the stakeholders staff and leadership to make all of this happen. So really just quickly focusing on policy changes one through three, the DOC and the Pro Board did make extensive policy procedure and then ultimately practice changes that they're still on the main now. They also developed an intended months of trainings to expand and refine their use of evidence based practices. And then they took significant steps to improve data collection and reporting capacity really all to support the goals of Act 148. And again, reducing recidivism, reducing those returns to our incarceration and reducing that reliance on the furlough system. And then we talked just briefly but you know obviously wanting to really call out the efforts of the racial disparities advisory panel and the reports that they produced for you all as a result of Act 148 to continue to really dive a little bit deeper into racial disparity data. And so, while I'm so I'm going to, you know, transition to a couple data slides as I mentioned, but just want to reiterate again that it was a huge lift for folks to make these system changes happen. So let's go to the next slide. As part of our technical assistance we worked with the Department of Corrections and the Pro Board to develop what we call data monitoring measures that help track the implementation of key policy reforms. So the next couple slides are really just kind of walking through some highlights from that data. First what you see here is an updated version of the Senate's incarcerated population projection chart that I showed earlier. So that light blue dotted line is the projected Senate's incarcerated population from our team's analysis back in 2019. And then the orange shaded area that you see below that is the projected population taking into account the potential impact of Vermont's justice reinvestment reforms, also done in 2019. So again, neither of these projections reflect the impacts of COVID-19 obviously. And so then that dark blue line is the actual Senate's incarcerated population as of January 2022, which is actually 34 people less than a year ago in January 2021. So, as you can see here Vermont's current Senate's incarcerated population is really well below projections, which is unsurprising right. So what we really do what you're seeing here is the impacts of COVID-19 and significantly what were significantly reduced prison admissions over the past two years. So since the start of the pandemic, the Senate's incarcerated population has declined about 30% in Vermont. So then the question is giving COVID what what can this tell us right what can this tell us about justice reinvestment to. It's really important to know to be very clear that it will be continued to be really difficult to monitor the impact of justice reinvestment to policies or population trends for the reason that you see here. However, do you see has started to report admissions data and will have additional data available through data system upgrades that are in progress that will allow Vermont to focus in and monitor the implementation of specific reforms in order to see whether or achieving intended goals kind of regardless of disruptions that you see in these trend lines. So if you go to the next slide. One way that you can do this is to revisit what we talked about earlier which are the proportion of prison emissions that are returns and particularly furlough returns to incarceration. So as you recall prior to justice reinvestment to over 50% of admissions were returns from furlough. Although the data that you see here is limited and obviously could have been impacted. It is promising that from July 2021 to January 2022, only about 7% of admissions to prison where returns from furlough. The vast majority of returns that you see here are returns from supervision, which could partly be a shift in proportion, giving two things so not necessarily a red flag but thinking about, you know, one, there's been a reduction in other admission categories, including furlough and then two, there's been an overall kind of reduction in admissions. And there is also likely when we've had conversations with folks in the state about this that that this could be reflect disruptions in court processes as things slow down and then come back online again really do, you know, due to COVID. So, you know, overall, it is still early to really come to any conclusions or identifying meaningful trends, but the reduction in furlough returns is promising. And it will definitely be something for you all to continue to watch over time as well as monitoring those probation returns. But it is exciting and a good step forward that you have this information available to you for decision making purposes. In the next slide, the line graph shows is similar to what we talked about with the sentence incarcerated population. This is for the community supervision population. Oh, I think I see a hand representative. Yeah, thank you. Hey, Dave. Yes. Would you like me to hold my question. Okay, please go ahead Dave. Thank you. I'll try to be brief. The, the majority of the people returning to readmission are on furlough. And the decision to readmit someone is entirely up to the Department of Corrections one on furlough is that correct. Prior to justice reinvestment, the majority, the 50% of folks returning were on furlough that number has gone actually gone down and the data that we have here from July 2021 to January 2022. That number is now 7%. Again, there's been some kind of proportion and amount that make this like not necessarily an apples to apples comparison. But it is a, you know, and again, a lot of that is just due to COVID. Yeah, just to clarify, I'm maybe having trouble with my colors. I thought the 61% or furlough, not so. Those are probation. Those are the, and those require the courts. Now, is it the same, is it the same staff that oversee people people on furlough that are overseeing people on probation, or is it a different supervisory structure. I'm not going to turn that over to Monica. I see her turning her camera on. I am paying attention. Correct. So in all of these statuses, because as you know, Vermont is a unified system. If someone's on furlough, they're on probation, they're on parole, they are in the community, and they're supervised by staff in our probation and parole offices around the state. Okay. I remember when for the former commissioner, Baker was testifying I asked him if there was a cultural buy in, or the staff that might be influencing the readmissions either, I'm going to violate you on a technical violation because I'm worried you're going to do something really bad, and I don't, I want to bring you back in, or, or there just were a lot of different attitudes on restorative justice. To your knowledge, does any of that enter into this or is it a pretty much a structured decision making process when someone comes back in. It's kind of a complex answer to be honest with you and I will tell you that as part of justice reinvestment as Madeline mentioned, the department made really extensive changes to the way in which we look at violations of supervision, not just violations for furlough and really thinking about them as similar legal statuses and supervising people across those legal statuses by their risk level. And one of the things that we did was really reinforce the ability to work with people on graduated types of sanctions that do not result in a return to incarceration. And there is another small part of Act 148 that carved out a technical violation and why the department could in fact return someone to incarceration for a technical violation. So we took all of that we really restructured that whole process, and that's very much also contributed to the reduction in the returns. So right now we're seeing returns for really significant violations, new crimes, new crimes and people who are not responding. And as part of that we, as Madeline mentioned, also through implementation funds that we received through a sub award we're able to hold a lot of like trainings and sessions with our staff to reinforce a lot of the concepts of justice I feel like we're definitely moving in the right direction there there's always room for improvement. But I hope I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Yes. Appreciate that. Yeah, thank you Madam Chair. Yeah. Thank you. And we have a couple more questions here in the room. Kimberly. I think this is probably a DOC question. There was discussion about electronic monitoring in the state of Vermont, and all the pros and cons given cell phone coverage, etc, etc. I'm just curious where that stands. I do use electronic monitoring. And there's a whole, there's a whole, none of that changed related to justice reinvestment I would say the only thing that changed is part of the Act 148 changes were to eliminate a particular legal status called home confinement, which also would have required electronic monitoring, but electronic monitoring is a supervision tool. And it's for people who go through an assessment process and the department determines their risk and determines if electronic monitoring is appropriate for them. Thank you. And Ada. Thank you. Mine's quite superficial question. It could be the light in the room. For the life of me and having trouble with the colors. The furlough returns. Is that the 7%? That's correct. 7%. And then the new sentences, that's the 9%. Correct. I got it. And then 10%. 10%. Work crew returns. Thank you very much. What you can't see is that it's a very gray day here. And while we love our new committee room, the light is terrible. So we do struggle to see sometimes. I think we're ready to continue. Sure. No problem. I did see that you had your, you were unmuted for a minute. Did you want to add anything before I keep going? I was just going to actually reinforce what Monica was saying in terms of the culture change and the thinking and do see that they've been doing historically representative. If I pronounced your name, right? Morris. Morris. Historically, there are probation and parole agents and community corrections agents and there were cultural differences between those two groups. But both under the previous commissioner and with all of the folks in DOC now, they've been really working very hard to do those things that Monica's talking about and to really make that culture shift so that there's a greater coherence and cohesion across the department. And they've been doing that really consistently and working very hard at it for the last couple of years. So I just wanted to kind of reinforce those changes because I recall a previous conversation where I think you were asking about that and concern over the differences between those two areas. And I just want to reinforce that. I think those things are really clearly being worked on and being moved in the right direction in a very big way. Well, if I may, Madam Chair, to that first, you did a great job at Jack Avoni very close. And this DOC have the capacity if I were if we all worked for them. Are they able to say Dave, you know, over the course of a 12 month period, you return 42% of your caseload and the department average is 19%. But the acuity of a caseload was much higher than the rest. So adjusted, you're okay. Would that kind of metric monitoring be counterproductive to what you want to do? Or do you just want to really instill the values? Is there that kind of monitoring that goes on? I'm not advocating it. I'm just asking. Who ever might know. Well, let me let me just start by saying the department does not do that type of monitoring. You know, so we are improving and this is part of the justice reinvestment data improvement that Madeline mentioned earlier. You know, we will admit that we were really had a hard time looking at returns and understanding the reasons for returns. And so we have and are still in the process of making improvements to our database in order to be really clear and to be able to produce more reports in a much more timely manner. We've come a long way with the support of CSG and thinking through the data monitoring so we can answer questions more readily now. That type of report quite honestly we haven't considered. And, you know, I would want to think about that for a variety of reasons, understanding that the complexity of the caseloads is not always the same, right? But I do think that there is, you know, benefit in those types of reviews, right? So looking at those things and then understanding, okay, what what's happening from a from a learning perspective. But we're not doing that right now and I think it could take us a little bit longer to be able to get there. I would just add to that representative that in some other states that we're working in Pennsylvania, Missouri, etc. We've been working on a process called lantern which does allow for us to be able to look at and for the state to be able to look at by officer by risk level by caseload composition by frequency all of those things. And it does allow one to zone in on where there may be need for additional supports and education, etc. But I would also want to be very clear that if Vermont were to do that, DOC would need significant additional resources. They can simply make that happen with what they have now that would be an unfair ask of them. And I want to make that point in these other states that we've been working with their very significant amount of resources that were put toward the development of that. Isn't that more an IT tracking though a data management. I don't know if it's going to be, but the development of that and the ability to not only put in the data in a good in the right way, but and to get it out is quite significant and so to simply say to DOC or to any organization, hey, we want this info without that infrastructure being built is would be unreasonable and I just want to talk to them about that. I appreciate that and that makes sense. As you said that what it triggered for me is that the capacity to know whether, you know, we're, we have far more re re offenses, I'm at living to make a point in the northeast kingdom because there's no services we're so rural, etc. We can't get people jobs and and and then it just spirals out of control versus a host of different factors and aside from the capacity to hold people accountable and to measure their success as is done in many other industries. It would seem it would seem like a discussion. I guess you say other states are doing that. I don't know the return on investment. No, does it does it with the investments necessary yield the value that you want. Thanks. Thanks. I'm mulling it. Monica. I would like to actually also follow up with what David mentioned around the resources and to give you an example so with the sub award that we did receive for implementation of justice reinvestment the department put about $120,000 into database updates so so that we could do better reporting and tracking on a lot of different things. I can tell you that the amount of time and energy that it's taking we have a tiny tiny unit within our department that's responsible for managing our database. It's all consuming and we still have to manage all the other, you know, it's the database that runs the department and we still have to keep it going. In addition to doing all of these enhancements and implementation. Just to put that point on it, it's it it'll probably be the entire. Well, how long will it be Madeline when we finish year plus for us to make the changes that we need to do with that amount so it's when people say it changes I just want to reinforce that it's not it takes so much more than what people may believe to do those types of things. So we have another question here but I can't help but jump in. A number of years ago it would have been kind to say that we had an antiquated data management system. There were were times when you were literally doing hand counts of prisoners because you could not your data system could not do that. So we may have made incremental improvements to it but honestly, in my opinion as someone who's on the committee responsible for providing you with the resources we've done it on the cheek. And really haven't acknowledged what the significant data needs are within your organization. And I think that is something that is worth having an ongoing conversation about. Yeah, well we'd be happy to do that and again it's it's about the system and it's about the people that support the system. Yeah. It's not a matter of just buying some spiffy new system. You've got to one you need to know what you're asking and what you want, but to you also have to have the ability to get to put the data in and then manage it. I think we get the complexity here. Yeah, actually that that aligns with what I'm muddling right now, which is, I know we hear a lot about do see in the correctional facilities themselves about very high vacancy rates. And I'm wondering if it if there's a snapshot in time sort of average of what the average caseload is for folks who are trying to manage people on the various status classifications and what the vacancy rate might be and that was probably behind my electronic monitoring question because in the day, it was sort of seen as a way to extend the reach of DOC without having to do new hires etc etc and no doubt it had many more implications as well and I realize that and not trying to revisit that but but to your point about the human beings who try to make everything work. Can you comment on that. Are you asking around the current staffing patterns and what the shortages might be there. Yeah, for example, when we talk about I don't know I have a statistic in my mind and the DOC has an average 40% vacancy in terms of correctional officers of you know an entry level or I don't know and I'm just sort of wondering in terms of the DOC personnel who monitor folks around parole or furlough. What is their caseload and what is the vacancy for sure. I'll tell you that I don't think I'm the right person to answer that question I don't have that information right now and so maybe that's something that that we could follow up with you about the one thing that I'll just point you to of course. Is that our supervised population in the community has has declined significantly. And I don't know since the deputy commissioners on if he wants to add here around the vacancies the vacancies that we're experiencing are primarily within correctional facilities. I don't know Matt if you have anything you want to add on this topic. Apologies all Matt I guess you know interim deputy commissioner was having trouble unmuting getting on video quickly. Yeah, I think it is information we need to get back to on in terms of in terms of the vacancies that don't have the information right in front of me but kind of ballpark the vacancy rate overall is somewhere in the 1718% area in terms of total vacancies across the department that's inclusive of field facility central office all of our positions that are vacant right now. And as Monica mentioned, the majority of the positions that are vacant are within correctional facilities. There are certainly some probation parole vacancies, but it's much lower in terms of the percentage. Thank you. Certainly. Davis that a legacy hand on your screen. I think it must be. So let's let's return to the presentation. Thank you. Thank you and chair I do just want to check with you I know we have 45 minutes today and we're getting very close to that 45 minutes. I can keep going I'm happy to jump to the re investment recommendations the funding recommendations and the working group whatever is most useful for y'all today. We do have flexibility and our time if you do in yours. We do thank you. So we can pick back up on slide 11 and actually Monica was just talking about the reduction in the community supervision population. And so that's what you see here. COVID-19 there's been a drastic drop in the community supervision population that dotted line that dotted blue line again is the projected status quo that doesn't reflect impacts from Justice Reinvestment to or COVID-19. And then that dark solid line is the actual population, which in January 2022 was 4388 people and that is 935 people actually less than even March 2021. So if we go to the next slide, we're going to dive a little bit deeper and what you see here is that there's actually been a drop in population across all community supervision case low types. But what I want to draw your attention to is furlough in orange where you see that red arrow on the right side of your slide. What you see there is that there's been a specifically a 35% decrease in people on furlough. So again, while this is very limited early data. It does show it could be signs of a reduction of reliance on furlough generally which is again one of those goals of Justice Reinvestment to. So both you see in the pro board are continuing to provide this and other data to us, which we're actually in the process now of working on generating into a regular report that goes back to the state back to you all and the working group. And then obviously do see in the pro board, so that you all can continue to monitor these implementation outcomes. So we look forward to being able to provide that hopefully soon to you all. So slide 13, we, you know, we just spent some time talking primarily about the Act changes in Act 148. But as I mentioned earlier Act 148 also reconvene the Justice Reinvestment to working group, not just to oversee implementation but also to make policy recommendations in several other areas. So as a result, Vermont is actually what was unique but it's kind of coming becoming more standard in some of the states that we're working in. But you will actually end up engaging in three rounds of policy development, which is pretty significant. So in the very first column here in blue that's obviously Act 148 that we talked about. The second green column, that's the second round of recommendations in 2021, which resulted in legislation revising Vermont's existing probation midpoint review process to make it more presumptive. And then also establishing a pilot to provide judges with reports pre sentencing to help inform their condition setting based on people's risks and needs and specifically their mental health and substance use treatment needs to set them up for success on probation. The working groups 2021 recommendations also included the establishment of a internal cross department a just working group to continue to explore service connection coordination issues. Recommendations around piloting the placement of licensed clinicians and local supervision offices, and then recommendations around using a validated mental health screen tool for people that are sentenced directly to misdemeanor probation. And then in 2022 and the orange here at the end is the working groups third round of recommendations that focused on their study of a parole for older adults policy. So, and then also the results of the racial equity and sentencing analysis that I mentioned earlier, as well as reinvestment funding. So, I'm going to dive into the reinvestment funding piece a little bit deeper, but I did want to say again if you're interested in any of these other recommendations, please don't hesitate to ask questions but also there's a lot more detail in the working groups 2022 report that talks about where these were in implementation as of at least the end of last year. So if you go on to slide 14. In the first year or two of justice reinvestment to Vermont identified both reinvestments reinvestment funding from out of state bed savings, as well as what we call upfront investments, which is new funding to support justice reinvestment efforts. In 2021, Vermont made $900,000 investment in, you know that upfront funding in community supports and programming and that included domestic violence intervention programming transitional housing and then also mental health and substance use services. And then on top of that, for fiscal year 2021 and 2022 Vermont identified a total of 770,000 from out of state contract bed savings available for reinvestment again in community based services. And so the working group was tasked with making recommendations regarding potential reinvestments and decided to focus on the four broad categories that you see on slide 14. And this is where either you know for reinvestment funding or upfront investment funding basically where investment could support the goals of justice reinvestment to. So I'm going to go through these categories and actually turn it over to David to add some additional context. So the first bullet point is the working group recommended an ongoing investment in domestic violence intervention programming through the Vermont Council on domestic violence so again this is that continuation of funding received through the fiscal year 2021 upfront investment I mentioned earlier. And this goes back to our earlier conversation but that ongoing investment in data collection and analysis including any additional changes to do sees a vendor management system I would also add personnel here, while they were able to use several grant dollars to do some of this work I think you all articulated really well that data investment is not one and done. And so it's really going to be important to pay ongoing attention to be able to get the information that you need and want to understand both at the department level and at the lawmaker, you know, policy level. The working group also recommended ongoing investment no surprise to anyone probably in mental health and substance use disorder services and criminogenic interventions for people with complex needs and David's going to talk a little bit more about that so I'm going to do the last one, which is that we heard kind of over and over again from a lot of our working group members that housing remains a tremendous barrier to helping people succeed in the community so this isn't just you all have done a wonderful job and investing in transitional housing, but really also you're taking a step back and thinking holistically about ways to address housing challenges for this particular population. And I'll turn it over to you David if you want to jump in here. I'm going to make some comments about mental health and SUD and and collaboration and also the domestic violence piece as well. As those of you that know me I am often the nudge in the room. And so I'm going to be talking about some of the good things that have happened but also some of the challenges, and I'm going to start with the issue of community based mental health and substance use services and in fact, there are additional dollars that are being put into that there has been some training of community mental health services do see has been working on that. But to be honest, I have been disappointed in the progress around coordination between the agencies and AHS. You know when I've talked to the legislature over the last seven years that I've been involved in Vermont. I've often hear heard complaints about you know do see going it alone. Do see has to go it alone because they often are put in the position of going it alone. There is there remains a lack of coordination. There remains a lack of understanding that the clients that do see has are the same clients that need services and all of the other agencies. And I would hope that as things move forward that the legislature will continue to put a focus on improving the coordination and collaboration among the multiple agencies within AHS, and providing those supports as needed for DC. It's never good for any agency to have to go it alone. It's never good for any agency at all. It forces people to look inward it forces people to create alternatives to what is the best thing to do because it's all they can do. And so it's unfair, quite frankly to argue that do see is going it alone and then not have not have do see be able to have the kinds of supports that it needs. While there has been progress and I don't want to suggest that there hasn't been, there needs to be more. And it is, I think, in the state's best interest to recognize that do see clients are not people that are over there by themselves, but are part of the larger agency and need those services and supports that other agencies provide in conjunction with do see. So that's my one big news. My second one has to do with domestic violence. The good news is that the state has put some money into domestic violence, domestic violence programs, they put $300,000 into that which means that the community programs one don't have to rely on fees for survival, and can actually are actually going to need responsibility model, which means, in other words, improvement of their services, because they were a one size fits all service. It's imperative that that funding continue. It's imperative that that they continue to get that and that those services become the specialized services they need to be as opposed to folks just getting general criminogenic services. The nice thing about that is that they really forgive my dog in the background if you can hear that barking. The nice thing about that is that they really have taken it on as a challenge to improve those services and those services need to be improved And one of the things that's happened for Vermont is that you've received an additional award to look at domestic violence services, and then look at the responses to domestic violence. And that's with the Department of Public Safety. We at CSG myself are working with that group as well in terms of that. But one of the flip concerning things that I've learned is that there's a major budget fall for victim services. I don't know why, but the dollars have not been appropriated for victim services. That's very concerning to me, because while it is important that we have the dollars for those people who are committing the behavior to change their behavior. Given Vermont's genuine concern about those people who have been victimized in public safety, people really need to take a look at what's happening here and make sure that victim services are receiving the necessary supports. It's sort of counterintuitive to Vermont's concerns about public safety. It's certainly counterintuitive to the work that we're doing with the domestic violence committee and public safety. And for those of you that don't know what we're looking at in that project is every intercept. We're looking at community services, we're looking at law enforcement, we're looking at the courts, we're looking at corrections, we're looking at community supervision. And I can tell you that as no doubt no surprise to any of you, we're finding that there can be improvements made in every one of those intercepts, and ultimately probably suggest some tweaks even to your laws regarding domestic violence. So, one, I want to applaud folks in terms of the work that's been done in terms of the additional funding for domestic violence perpetrator services. I want to really support that the Department of Correction has been doing a tremendous number of things to improve what they're doing in terms of their supervision of folks in terms of working with folks with mental illness in terms of community wrap around services. We have two cautionary statements. One, you need to that there needs to be further improvement of collaboration and coordination, among all the other agencies that people in DOC needs support from, and to the strongly urge the legislature to figure out what is going on with funding for victim services and to make sure that victim services get what they need so that we don't make the mistake of improving one half of the one side of the piece which is those people who are committing the behavior and leave those people that have been hurt in the dust. I'm sure there was no intent about that, but it appears that at least inadvertently that's what's occurring. So would encourage folks to look at that. And with that my my new drill ends and I will stop talking. I want to jump in and I really appreciate you being the knowledge we need to hear that sort of information. Let me note that with regard to victim services. We have kind of the structural problem. Victim services is a private nonprofit organization that is grant based. And as you know the, the, the federal money is declining. And so there is an interesting issue that I think we need to have a serious conversation in this committee about of, you know, do we backfill declining revenue sources to a nonprofit, but the more fundamental question that I think you're asking, or my interpretation is, should they be a nonprofit should they be part of the state structure to which we then have an obligation to appropriately and maybe way too far in the weeds, but that's the conversation we can have in this room, because I hear you saying very clearly that we need to have sufficient services to address the needs if we're serious about resolving the larger problem. And so we need to be thinking about the structural issues and not maybe not getting caught up on the nonprofit status but I do have to say in our defense. I'm not sure that we see it as our obligation to backfill revenue deficits in nonprofits, but that's separate from the need to provide services. Got it. Absolutely. The structure is way outside my purview. My concern is simply making sure that victims needs are met. Yeah, yeah, I hear that. And thank you for noting the duality of that need that it's not about just providing programs, prevention services, but we also need to be looking at the victims needs also. I recall from maybe golly sometime I lose track. Time has no meeting in the COVID world, but sometime in the past I recall you being terribly concerned about the level of funding for substance use and mental health. I was noted that we did a little bit 300,000 I think my recollection is that that is your purview was that that was just a drop in the bucket of the needs. Can you kind of actually are getting to the right need. That certainly is we certainly don't have a number to give you what we know is that the 300,000 was a was a really great upfront investment to to make improvements to begin to think about how to have additional funding for services to begin to think about how to make improvements. Are there different funding patterns that can be thought about in terms of making sure that services are prioritizing those clients who are in the criminal justice system and I don't mean prioritizing in the sense of ignoring others, but having a component of their programming that is designed to work with those folks with that does that $300,000 meet your need. It certainly does not when we when we look at the shortfalls, but there's a second component that to be fair. There's the issue of the money. There's the issue this three components issue of the money and do you need more money put into substance use and mental health and the answer to that would be yes, and no I don't know what that upper number should be that that's a whole another study frankly. The second issue is, even if you have the money. Do you have the people to be able to provide the services in terms of workforce shortages. And the third issue is the one that we, we did try to get to and the DOC's tried to get to with doing a training of community providers, there needs to be much more of that. There were not as many community providers involved as I would have hoped that that's, you know, that was an invite only that's nobody's fault it's just who came who was willing to come to those sorts of things. There's three things. One is, there needs to be an increase in the funding and no I don't have an answer and yes we probably could with some discussion come up with a ballpark number that would be helpful. And two, there's the issue of thinking about resources and so the things that need to be thought about there is one, can there be an improvement in telehealth because as the representative was talking about when you have great distances in terms of transportation, you're going to have some limits in terms of how people can get to services etc. And so, is there some ability to increase telehealth and then the third one is, are there things in your statutes. Are there certifications that make it difficult for people in the adjoining states to come over and to provide services in other words are you inadvertently making things difficult in terms of licensing and certifications. That's from, you know, wherever right around you, if you will, could cannot provide services in some of the states in the Midwest that we've been working with in the West where they have gigantic, gigantic hundreds of miles distances. Their improvement in telehealth has been dramatic I'm thinking particularly in Minnesota is one place. And one of the things that they've done is they've looked at their statutes, so that folks that are providing telehealth clinicians psychiatrist etc, from the adjoining states, not even within the state, but from the adjoining states can provide that. And so they looked at their licensing and certification to make sure. Excuse me, they weren't keeping basically resources that were available from being able to help them, particularly in some of the frontier parts of the state that they're dealing with. So, I don't know if that helps but those are my thoughts in terms of your question. Thank you very much. We have a couple more questions in the room but I have to note that one of the good things that's come out of the pandemic for us is that we have it, we are have changed our telehealth statutes and so I'm inclined to believe that that the access to telehealth services via telehealth will improve as those, we just changed that so hopefully we'll see some change there. Rep Jess up and then Rep Taylor. I think I'm about to assume the mantle of the nudge in the room but I'm making an assumption fairly or unfairly that because we've seen these numbers drop that the acuity of the remaining case load is higher. That's one assumption and anyone is free to comment on it or not. And then where I'm going from that is I'm looking at slide 14 and looking at housing related needs. And we had testimony earlier this week from DCF that many people who are currently lost in the hotel program through federal funds may find themselves unhoused sooner than we had anticipated because of changing federal guidance. And I, I know that there was a rental risk that well there was a risk pool in the budget adjustment that DCF had done. I know Deputy Commissioner Davestino that you and I had some exchange about the possibility of DCF and doc coordinating potentially around populations that may be crossing into the realm of both departments. And I just throw out those thoughts and welcome any feedback that others care to share. I'm not I'm not seeing anyone jump here. I can speak to the acuity issue only you Vermont already had the most complex group of folks that that I have seen in years. And so it is a very logical statement to say that those people that are left are among the have the most acute problematic issues whether those are criminogenic factors or mental health and substance use factors in some combination with criminogenic factors. In other words, the fact that there's less people doesn't mean their job got easier. What they probably what they probably have, based on what we saw that they had to begin with, what they probably have are the folks who have who were the highest of the already really high group of people that they were dealing with in corrections. Thank you. We have a number of questions and I now feeling like we're trespassing on your time so let's do the questions and we'll let you take us to the end reptailer. Yes, when, when we started this portion of our justice reinvestment to several years ago, the idea of the whole idea of justice reinvestment is that money saved by using the community services is recycled back in. And at the time there was a projection that I believe it was 20 million would be saved over 10 years. So we should be investing at least 2 million a year to justice additional justice reinvestment services. The problem is, I think what we found is that the only clear measures that we've come up with for measuring the effects of our justice reinvestment to initiative is in production and bed savings. There we have an out of state bed savings. So there we have a clear number that we say we've saved 400,000 this year so that 400,000 that were saved gets readvested. And the trouble is that there are a number of other places that I'm sure we're saving money, or we should be saving money that we aren't tracking or unable to track them trying to like that. So it's doing things that make it easier to track the actual savings from justice reinvestment that we can point to as a justification for increased investment in the community. If you see what I mean. Absolutely representative this is this is something that we, we see states struggle with and actually there's things or not has done that we think are kind of models and had approached reinvestment funding in particular the fact that you all have, you know, designated to be coming from, you know, how you're measuring it and then wallowing off that funding and statute. I, you know that you're you're absolutely right kind of the there can be, it can be kind of amorphous to try to figure out you know where you're seeing all of the benefits of the work that you're doing across the system. I think, you know, out of state contract bed savings is one area that's pretty concrete for you all. Other states have looked at have also experienced similar challenges, especially because if they're aiming to avert prison growth. Then they're not necessarily closing a facility or closing a wing or doing something that's going to be a big kind of big chunk there and so there's been kind of different ways folks have have tackle with this question. I think the fact that you all have started out with something that's, that's, that's fairly concrete and gotten you to at least be able to identify very early, even though there's there's obviously COVID conversations in there and COVID impacts, but early reinvestment savings is a good sign for you all, and that you continue to kind of wall off that funding to invest in community based services and then it doesn't just kind of get wrapped back up in everything else. So, yes, absolutely a challenging question that other states have have wrestled with as well. Thank you representative shy. Thank you and thank you all for coming in giving us this presentation. I actually took a look at the full report that was sent to us as well and I sort of following up on the housing and the funding and all those things. One place where the group was not able to come to recommendation was about a parole policy for old adults in Vermont and I'm sort of wondering because that seems to me there's a there's housing issues related to that there's also could be funding and if we're saving money somewhere can we put more money into funding in the communities for housing and things that we're where is that going to go what's what's what's going to be happening with that area. So that you're right the, the working group did kind of an extensive study of a parole for an older adults policy and one of the main issues that they found is that, you know, even if Vermont were to put that policy in place where do people go right you have to make sure that there's a level of service available in the community and there are a couple models of other states that use that I know Vermont has looked at. So the working group decided, you know, not to kind of move forward with a yes or a no but to also but to kind of more stake up take a step, recognize some of the challenges with just implementing a parole for older adults policy and then getting the outcomes that you would actually want from that, and look at them, look at it a little bit more recommend the legislature look at a little more holistically which includes really having a conversation about, you know, not just the words of the statute and having the policy on the books but really thinking about, you know, how would we get how would we be able to create these places in the community for these for these folks that have really high needs for them to have those needs met right. And so, and given the kind of the struggle with nursing homes generally not wanting to, you know, obviously accept this population and some of the risks that goes with it. And that's kind of where the conversation needs to focus before you're thinking about, or in addition to depending on, you know, I think working group members kind of had different. I don't want to speak for all of them but had different thoughts on that. You know, putting that statute on the books and I definitely welcome and Monica was there for all those conversations if you, if you want to add or edit that characterization of the working groups discussion. Well, yeah. Thank you, sums it up nicely, Madeline. The other thing I just want to remind people is that Vermont already does have a statute around medical parole. And that was one of the other issues as well as that there are there is a mechanism right now to be able to be released on parole for medical reason I think you know, there was conversation around expanding that changing that. And there are a lot of these complex issues around releasing someone who has a serious medical illness with no place for them to be cared for. So, I think we just sort of left it in the, in the legislature's hands to the conversation in a circular fashion for a number of years. And I think I'm right that the population of our incarcerated folks is also increasing and they are getting more complex so we were going to just that trajectory is not going in the right direction so we're going to have to deal with it. Thanks. And I think it is an hour lap. Representative. Thank you, Madam chair. I'll try to be quick. I appreciate the time. I worked many years ago with then commissioner John Gorky on these issues back in the early to mid 90s. And it's, it's fascinating. There's so many different aspects to it. But what I wanted to key on was David's comment that the cooperation we need with other community based players and providers seems essential. We could have a coalition of the willing, or a lot of forced marriages, and obviously the coalition of the willing makes more sense. But in Vermont, we have as you may know, something called a designated agency system with our mental health agencies. I long wondered why we didn't embed and infuse those staff from our designated agencies in our, in our facilities with the thought that there might be a better chance of continuity of care. I'm not a clinician, but I've learned the continuity of care and those of us would know is a good thing. And with the hope that when a person is discharged, maybe they've built up a nice enough trust with the staff that when they begin working with the entire family, hopefully before they're even discharged, there's a greater chance of success to deal with the shame to deal with the anxiety to deal with all the tensions around possibly severed relationships, etc. So do you think, I think I probably know the answer to this but should Vermont say by statute, our designated agencies shall be the preferred provider for our prison system. So what I would say is that that statement would be outside of our purview in terms of what we've been asked to look at what I will say is that generally across the country reentry services are not very good to be very blunt. And one of the reasons that they're not very good is the disconnect between the inside and the outside. And there should be less of a disconnect between inside and outside and whether it is through what you're saying, or it is through other processes that make sure that they begin working with folks prior to them returning to the community that there's a number of ways to go about that. So, so I think what I can say that falls within our purview is that people shouldn't start seeing people after they get out, there should be an in reach process of some sort, what that looks like how you do that. That's for Vermont to determine or to ask others to work on to figure out the best way to go about it. We had a presentation last week on performance management throughout state government, pretty much buried within the report was some to me powerful corrections data. It made me think that we were operating hospitals. Over half the people had chronic conditions, half were being treated for mental health. Over half were receiving a MAT therapy for drug issues, and it just seems so profound to me that that's I thought it was a separate healthcare system. And, and we've got to do something to connect that on the outside so it's it's as you say it's nothing as easy as it is all heavy lift. It seems that we have come for full circle in this conversation. So, early on we began with the acknowledgement or the note that do see should not exist as a silo the other services within the agency of human services and now we can extend it also to the community and the nonprofit sector, all need to be much better integrated. HHS is responsible for supervision and provision of health care services, both through the designated agency as well as you know it's funding of health access. So, that's that's our big challenges to figure out how to better marry or what these, these programs to serve for monitors. So we've, we've been talking you and I think we have one more slide that will take us to the end. So let's return to that. That's it just one more and these are actually our recommendations the CSC Justice Center's recommendations to the working group around the sustainability of justice reinvestment to. And we've talked actually already about a lot of these different areas of data reinvestment oversight, obviously continuing to find ways to increase data collection analysis we, we particularly point to the app, under better understanding the use of incentives and sanctions through data which I know Department of Corrections is working on, as well as the collection of recent ethnicity data which you all as a body have been talking a lot about this session. We've already invested in the investment already in the fact that you know we really encourage you all to continue to direct out of state bed savings to community based services. We did talk briefly with the with the working group it's our understanding that reinvestment funds have to be spent within a year and that sometimes this can make it challenging to effectively and sustainably invest those dollars. And so it can result in that funding being swept back into the general fund as I believe happened with that first fiscal year reinvestment funding. And so we did recommend that this time period the extended extended to two years so that that money again can be can be sustainably and really meaningfully invested and not and not swept back. And then, lastly, you know, we always recommend that states continue their justice reinvestment working groups we know for, you know, lots of reasons including staffing this is a challenge in Vermont. But they really are places where stakeholders from across systems can come together to address these complex problems that really impact everyone and we talked a lot today I think about kind of how it can't just be one system we can't just have these conversations in one area that it's got to be folks coming together, and if you're going to make headway and so we do we have seen other states continue to convene these bodies and continue to have that really meaningful cross system engagement and change happen and so we do recommend that that that be a good reason for not. And so, with that, that that's the end of our presentation. Thank you and I'm looking at my colleagues I'm not seeing any additional questions. We really appreciate you taking the time with us with one, the work that you've been doing with us over these years, and thank you for taking the time with us today to understand in more detail what what this work has been and and also our friends as do say it's great to see you and thank you for joining us here. We appreciate it very much. Thank you madam chair we appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. All right, we'll see you in committee. We are back here at one o'clock to continue the waiting study conversation.