 So Senate government operations it is Thursday May 13th. We have had a little difficult technical difficulty getting started here, but rest assured we have been doing nothing business like the only thing we've done is try to figure out how to get ourselves hooked up and going. So committee Michael Shirley will be joining us at two. He couldn't make it any earlier. We might even be done by two. You always look like you're on a golf course with all this green behind you laying down company rules. This is our official background. What what does it say. It's Vermont agency transportation. Oh yeah I see you have to kind of get up close to see it really I've seen Michelle boom hour without that background I've seen Joan Flynn without that background. How interesting it was it came from Michelle. Just saying. Hey I'm, you know I've been here 10 months I'm still a new get the new kid on the block here so you know I just do as I'm told me. Maybe it's a hazing thing you know it zoom hazing. There we go. So, um, I know. I don't know who all is going to be with us today. And Tony, I am happy to see you. What, what I did was I scheduled this because I had, I didn't want to leave this completely hanging. I think it's important in my mind anyway to assure people that my plan for the committee is that we go forward with this clearly it isn't going to happen this year. I apologize for that we got caught up with a bunch of other things I think that we got off to a kind of a rocky start without a bill and I should have been more attentive to that and make sure that we had a bill clearly at the beginning and I, I feel it's important to go forward with this issue and I just wanted to get a sense from people if, if they felt the same and from committee members and also from the people out there in the field. So, I suspect that the commissioner won't be with us as he said until two o'clock and I suspect that he would feel it important to go forward but I won't speak for him but so committee members are you I'm fine with the procedure just outline manager. I think we could spend the good part of the afternoon fine tuning what we have and look forward to getting it drafted in January. I've been I'm somewhat a skeptic I started as a skeptic of this whole process but I think we've actually made some good progress in this conversation over the last couple of weeks or months whatever it's been weeks months years seems like we've been sitting on this couch forever but I think we've made some good progress and so I'm willing to continue to move forward on it. Senator Clarkson. Thank you madam chair I would echo Anthony's comments I think that we have made good progress and it's beginning to take shape. I think actually it does a lot of administrative. I don't know what the quite the right word is but it I think it streamlines things I think it improves things actually, once we finish get through to the other end. I think it's going to be a big improvement. I think we can address some of the concerns that have been raised and I, I think this is a positive step forward for public safety, combining and bringing under one umbrella, a lot of these areas that address and are our professional public safety arms. Divisions. Senator Ron. Do you feel you. Okay, I'm just, I'm hands free and I echo senator pulling his comments as well. I would just hope that over the time away the commissioner could further document the feedback that they received in their public process around modernization and how they incorporated that into this proposal because I just still don't feel like I have a sense of how they really listen to the people who they engaged in the public participation process. Okay, yep. And I think that the comments that they received were addressed more than just the reorganization of the department into an agency but we can ask him to give us more information for us when we come back in January on that. Okay, so I'm going to ask Cindy and Tony where they, their feeling on this is whether we go forward it sounds like the committee wants to wants to move forward. Tony do you want to go first or you're muted though. My computer is going a little slow today. Sorry about that. Good afternoon everyone I think, you know we're definitely hearing the concerns here as you know chairs to Ralph has mentioned about, you know roles and I think that the coming year will really help our council kind of solidify mission and direction and that you know we'll be in a much better place for conversations about this type of work year from now than we are right now so I think it's good, you know from our perspective it helps us and the new council sort of get a more solid footing from for future conversation so good good for my end. Okay good thank you. Tony. Tony fakers executive director for for the division of enforcement and safety department motor vehicles. Yeah I mean is Madam chairs you know I've always, even from the municipal side been very supportive of regional efforts I think it is absolutely the future of public safety. That being said, and I'm basing off the last draft that Amron did I think the 2.4. I think that's the last one we have. Yeah. Yeah. So, I've, I've, I'm still cautiously optimistic at this point, but I wanted to be make be absolutely clear that you know I think there's a lot of opportunity and work to still be done. I need to have several conversations I think with Commissioner Sherling. Right now, one of the things though it's kind of glaring to me in this current draft anyway just to flag it for everybody. There's, there's some of the frustration and the concern that my team has that we've got about 30% of our sworn personnel came from the Vermont State police. So, I mean there's very various reasons that they're here and they're very concerned about not being. You know, if, if for example if VSP is short somewhere, could they their jobs totally change and can they be pulled from one division to the other. And that was in the original executive order that Commissioner Sherling and I were really careful to make sure that we appropriately had some, you know, I hate using terms silo in a negative sense but we, you know, but we were, you know, those, those, those boundaries were there so that we could maintain our special expertise within motor vehicle enforcement. You know, in time, you know, VSP has, you know, what, what they do, and the current draft is kind of contradictory. If you look at page six, it just makes reference that the how they would be you know, if you're under under, you know, the very first part under B, you know, should not be assigned transferred outside their division unless the member requests to transfer and the commissioner approves the transfer and then when you go to page seven under permissive duties, it makes clear that the commissioner may with the approval of the secretary transfer classified positions within and between divisions subject to the state personnel laws and rules so forth. So anyway that that certainly was of great concern to my team. And, you know, I just want to make sure that I, you know, I've, I also don't want to have a mutiny on my hands I want to make sure that they understand that you know they're not just going to be, you know, we're not being moved around, based on what one particular department needs. Because the other thing is, you know, we're clear eyed that in a crisis in any major challenge, we will always pitch in I mean, two of our investigators for example sworn personnel both from the detect one of our detectives and one of our, you know, uniform sergeants were assigned to the Department of Health for contact tracing and provide their expertise to the Department of Health I mean so we are committed as always to serving for monitors and supporting, you know, all of our, you know, fellow law enforcement agencies. So that's, so that kind of language those some of the details anyway that I want to make sure that, you know, we're absolutely are clear on. And I've also already testified and I've been very consistent with the, I think, with the other pinning of a Bureau of Professional Standards, one of the advantages that's that's, it's laid out in the very beginning of this is that it streamlines policy for example, when they're when a policy change needs to be implemented. You know, it's going to be real time for any law enforcement entity within this agency. The other thing I just for the sake of discussion. You know, the last testimony, you know, VSP has back they have that advisory support. And without doing anything to dilute the success of the state police and that you know from, including their clear accreditation. But I'd like to see opportunities of value added to the motor vehicle department as well in terms of training. You know, professional opportunity support as well as internal affairs and accountability. And so it just seems like, you know, where's where's that specific in this language anyway, how do we add that value to how we operate, because I think the bottom line is the public expects. Regardless of the uniform and the specialty, whether it's, you know, warden or motor vehicle inspector, you know, certain standards, if they are a sworn law enforcement officer, certain standards must be consistent throughout. And I think that's a great opportunity as we look at police reform and everything that we're doing. And it makes us more nimble as an overall agency in that construct. And in the meantime, you know, I just want to make sure, and I know our union representative is not not on the on this call right now or this hearing but that's really their their concern as well. So I want to make sure that, you know, we absolutely are cautious. I know this right because this is a big opportunity, I think for the state of Vermont to improve public safety, but it has to make sure that it adds value to every entity that comes on board. So, yes, Senator Palmer. Thank you madam chair. So Tony, I think you're right. When you read the two different pieces of language regarding, you know, getting switched back and forth between divisions. It does seem like there's some confusion there at least, maybe not confusion but lack of clarity perhaps. So I do think we probably need to take a look at that. Would you be okay with the ability of someone to move if the employee and let's just say a supervisory person both agreed that that's what they wanted to happen. Absolutely that was in the mechanics of even the original executive order. You know they would still be the employee would have to make that request to transition. And then of course it needs that would need to be approved based on those operational needs of each each division under that under that department. And I take your other point well to that training and the potential for advancement and that sort of thing. I think it should mirror what we have for the BSP. And that makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you. So it might be, if I can suggest that over the, the break before we come back in January, that you might work with the commissioner around the language particularly on page seven there that just seems to contradict what the other language says and see if we can come up with some language that that makes it clear that that there can in time of crisis or something that they there will be cross-pollinization but that it won't be willy-nilly just capricious transfers because that does sound like it could be here just the secretary and the commissioner making the switch. Absolutely. And I think a lot of that too is language we can probably, you know, revitalize from part of the original executive order that 68 page document where we did kind of spell that out initially, but your points well taken, Madam chair. And I also, in terms of what Senator Colmar was saying around the making sure that that there's value added to the DMV positions and how that making it kind of the equivalent of the BSP how if there's language that should be in here around how to how to achieve that. I mean we can't in statutes we don't get so detailed about everything but if it's if it's something that should could be in here that would make it clear and then established by rule or something. Yeah, I mean my point was not so much to like for example a lieutenant here motor vehicle has a very different mission from a lieutenant in the Vermont State police, especially when I think about a station, you know, a station commander. And I'm not looking for necessarily, you know, quality there. But what I am thinking about though, more broadly is, as you look at professional standards, you know the training component opportunities that you to get really them to maximize the, you know, the intent and expected outcome of an agency with that would have those opportunities, as well as the accountability piece. So as I've said in previous testimony, for example, the internal internal affairs process for accountability is very different for anybody outside the Vermont State police that still sworn whether you're a fish and wildlife or armored liquor control, or any of our folks. And I think again I'm trying I'd like to see you know is to get to that that consistency as well. And so that's what I meant by by that. In general, I mean I bounced off some ideas with a commissioner, Commissioner Shirley on on some of my vision, what that could look like, where there's, there's, you know, absolute buy in from both both divisions to support something as of again a, a bureau if you will, for example of professional standards. You know, that's not specific within either either division but above both divisions but under the under the would become the commissioner of the Department of law enforcement, as an example of what I mean by that. Any other questions or comments for Tony, or in general. I had a conversation with a sheriff. One day about because this this really only a lot this doesn't impact at all our municipal departments or our county sheriffs, or our constables, because this is just really an organization at the state level but. But we were wondering if there's, if somehow the under this. I think that Commissioner called a division of support services. The support services that are there that are intended for the other sworn law enforcement officers could also be extended to the sheriffs and some small municipal departments that just don't have the capability of, of doing all that grant writing and personnel work and all of those things I have no idea if that's even possible but I think it might be something that we can explore over the, the summer to find out if it's even possible at all Allison, Senator Clarkson. No Allison's fine. I, I think that's a, I think that's a really worthy thing to research because once this becomes an agency, it has the possibility of becoming really a resource for all of law enforcement and all of public safety. And, and we don't necessarily know how that might look 10 years from now but it, I think it would be an interesting avenue to explore particularly as we really have been wanting to regionalize a lot of these services for a whole host of reasons. And it no I think that would be a great, a great thing to explore. I'm not sure how you would do it, but I think that right now within the department, which would still be within the agency be emergency management does provide assistance and support to local emergency management people, and, and fire safety does the same. I haven't done that with law enforcement so I, I just don't know how that could work but it well I think it, it, I would agree because it also begins to get at reducing the sort of the patchwork problem the, and, and, and, and, and maybe creates a framework for coordination in a more consistent way. And if you, and if you think about it, you know, if you have a small department, a small department or a sheriff's office with few employees if, if they each have to duplicate all of those administrative services. That's a lot of inefficiencies, and a lot of. I don't know if it would work or not at all but it's, it's something that I've been thinking about. And have had some conversations with some sheriffs. And, yeah, center point. I think it's a good thought. Yeah. No, I do I think providing resources to the local communities that have little for a little police forces at all it's really going to be really helpful. I'm just around hiring somebody how do you go about hiring how do you look, how do you review resumes what do you look for how do you just, um, because I think being made being made aware of state and federal money that's available. Like you said writing grants I mean that can be really helpful we did a little bit of that different but similar in agriculture where we assigned these grant writers to work with farmers and local communities around the state. And one of the resources to write their own grants and it's generated like a huge amount of money for those communities that they wouldn't have gotten if it wasn't for the help they got in terms of facilitating the grant preparations. That's an interesting that's interesting yeah. So the other thing I have been mulling around in my head a lot is this report that was put out by the auditor. And I don't know exactly what to do with it because it in my mind it's. And I like our auditor a lot and I think he does wonderful things but in my mind, this is a fair is. Many people associate public safety with law enforcement and this report on the local and state spending on public safety. It lumps in everything it lumps in all of the judiciary, and all of the sheriffs and the defender general and the state's attorneys court diversion 911, the justice, the training, the criminal justice council, criminal justice council, Woodside victim services it's all in here under public safety, but it gives the impression that we are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars on public safety when in fact, if you break it down, what's being spent on actual law enforcement is very little compared to that whole. I just I don't know what to do with this but I know that it's out there, and that people have commented on so does anybody have any suggestions about where we might, or should we just ignore it. I don't think we want to ignore it. I think it would be helpful to clarify what we consider public safety and that we don't actually consider. I mean I don't consider all any of the court I think of the judicial branch is being very different. I mean, it would be interesting for us to actually define for state government. I mean I'm sure we have it in the statute somewhere where public safety is defined. I don't know. But I think that would be helpful, because otherwise you're going to have reports like this where he drew in unnecessarily, I think, whole areas that that I'm not sure are under that umbrella. And corrections is in there also. And so I think that that bears further discussion which is really clarifying as we look at the agency clarifying what we consider public safety. Senator Palmer I saw you had your hand up. I did. Senator Clarkson spoke pretty much to my point, what I would suggest is whether the auditor wants to do it or someone that has the report and can kind of divide up. How much is spent on judicial matters how much is spent with corrections and get a fair number for what is is public safety and law enforcement because I agree with the I think that the number is probably swollen to a point where it looks. It looks much bigger than it really is. I actually have done that. Oh, well. It is, it kind of isn't here broken down. And like there's $162 million by cities and towns. But again, it lumps in their, their law enforcement their emergency planning their EMS systems if they operate their own ambulances all of that. And the Department of Public Safety itself is $109 million. And that is more than just law enforcement. I mean, I think we need to. My concern is that there has been concern about the, the making the agency that it's creating a super police agency, which I, I think it's actually doing the opposite. But I think we need to be very clear about what is spent on law enforcement so that we can look at that it just law enforcement itself. So, anyway, that's just a. I don't know what to, how to approach this if we. I'll, I'll send out some figures to everybody before then so that we can actually look at it, but so yeah, I'll do that. I don't know what else to do with this report, except to just. Well, one. One thing. Yeah, go ahead. One thing. One thing we could do is actually ask the auditor to streamline the report and have him. Their office focus and maybe pull out the areas we consider public safety as we look to actually define public safety in the creation of this agency. Which I think it should be part and parcel of that work. And, and that if he was willing to actually pull out and do a. An edit or draft two of his report, which just pulled out the areas we consider part of public safety, which you've done it sounds like you've done that work. But if there is he feels that as we go into this work of establishing an agency, if there are areas he feels we need to pay particular attention to as we go through that process. I think that would be valuable, but I think we need to streamline it so that we're all on the same page with what we're talking about. Because he dies the way here is his definition of public safety, the efforts of any government agency department or subunit, whose mission relates directly to ensuring the safety and security of Vermont residents. Well, but that's entire state government I mean I think that's our primary purpose. Well, that's how he defines it. Let's get out some of these numbers here. So that we can just have a better sense of what we're talking about because I just don't want people to think that by when I'm linking linking this with the creation of the agency. I don't want people to look at the creation of what some people think of as a super police agency and then look at this auditor's report that says we spend $574 million on public safety. And use that as fodder for the discussion. Yeah. To be fair, I don't consider the public defender to have anything. Well, it might have something to do with public safety. We're right. Let me put it the other way. When I think of public safety, I'm not thinking of the public defender. Maybe a way of doing it is to look at the agency, if we were to create an agency, how much of this money it would be assigned to the different departments, the Vermont State Police Department of Motor Vehicles, home emergency management, fire safety, and do it that way so that we can actually see how it relates to the creation of an agency. That makes sense. That would be great. All right, I'll work on that. Any other specific comments on where we were with the bill? I don't know. What are we calling the bill at the moment? Is it Amaran? Is it under Amaran's name? Yes, and it's draft request 210890. And what I think makes sense is to have, if Tony can work on some language here and anybody else who has concerns about specific language, Cindy, if the council has specific language concerns or anything is try to get it together and we'll get it to Amaran and then we'll get it as a bill so that when we come back in January, there's an actual bill with a number, but we've worked out a lot of the issues before we actually get the bill. Can we make it a committee bill? We can, but if we make it a committee bill, we won't have a bill for people to respond to until we get back. I'm not sure if we're ready with this draft to make it a committee bill. I don't know. So what I, what I, what if we can all, or any of us can sponsor it, but I think it's, I think we need to have something in bill form for people to respond to in January. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Makes sense. That makes sense because then we have something for people to respond. Yes, we have a foundation for discussion. Because it's been so fluid that it's hard for people I think to comment on it and make comments and stuff and I've had a bunch of meetings in my community with people and most people have said they support the concept and support the idea of making it truly a public safety agency instead of a public safety agency. The Department of Public Safety is so kind of associated with the troopers that it's hard for people to get past that. So what I've heard in my community is that people support the reorganization. They just don't know the details yet. So, I think that would be helpful. I agree. Okay. I'm going to go spend more time going through the bill. Does anybody have other specific issues that they would like to have worked on over the summer fall and I will be happy to work with them. I just appreciated Mr. Fakus' articulation of a Department of Professional Standards or some kind of quality oversight entity that sits above all of the other divisions. And I think it could do a lot around justice oversight and inclusion. Isn't that what the council, the role of the council? To some extent, but I, you know, I haven't yet heard that the council has direct supervisory power. So they might hear something when it becomes an issue, or when someone's being trained to become a police officer, but there's a lot of other time and space in between before something rises to the level of investigation that I think requires ongoing supervisory work. I'm not sure how that, well, you have to think about that because I'm not sure I don't know, Tony, what you were referring to, were you referring to some kind of a board that had, that oversaw professional standards other than the council, or how, what were you? Yeah, I know Commissioner Shirley is now on the, on the. Good, as well. You know, my thought was simply an expansion of, you know, the Office of Professional Standards that they have within the Vermont State Police and the commissioner could speak more to that. And more in the, in the context of broadening that entity so it would have direct ability to, you know, for example, tracking the training and providing training priorities and goals that would be that would be where their universal needs, regardless of the specialty of the law enforcement function, but also the internal affairs process. So again, anybody that that is with under the Department of law enforcement would be held to a certain standard does not mean that we would all necessarily have the same. I mean, again, we would have some different policy for motor vehicle that are specific to commercial vehicle enforcement, for example. And the issues that were really faced with anybody that is sworn law enforcement officer. Those standards, there has to be a direct mechanism, I think, to not only provide the training and the support mechanisms but also the accountability piece. And it's in it, and it's just like the internal affairs process. You mentioned what municipalities are doing. I do know that the chiefs are working hard to come up with a way to develop capacity to handle internal affairs. They're trying to get a pool of investigators around the state that have gone to specialize training on how to conduct internal investigations, because there's a lot of pieces to that. And so everybody's trying to get to I think the same place. And I just, it's only my idea was a thought of how do we do that, that would support, for example, the motor vehicle division. You know, again, not to do anything that would dilute Vermont State Police, but how do we enhance it for any other division that falls within the under the commissioner of law enforcement. So maybe, maybe, let me just think this out. Maybe that one of the support services under the division of support services is some kind of an internal investigations. Or something, and that we just need to make sure that it cooperates or coordinates with the council so that we're up, but that would then maybe be able to provide the same kind of support to the municipal PDs who are looking for some kind of support and commonality and how to how to do it without each having to have their own. I don't know. So Commissioner Sherling, I'm glad you joined us and I apologize for not for it being May 13 and we're still here. But what I wanted to do today was to find out from the committee and from others. It was my feeling that we should go forward with this bill and have a bill in January that is as well thought out as possible and has all as many kinks worked out as possible, so that we can actually move, move it relatively quickly in January. And so what we're doing today is just kind of thinking of what might need to go into the bill to have it as ready as possible. And then Tony has suggested a couple areas where he and you are going to work on some language. And then we started talking about. I had mentioned that I've talked to a couple sheriffs that were, we were just playing with the idea of under the division of support services that you have in here is there can be sheriffs and maybe even municipal PDs contract with the agency under the division of support services to receive some of those support services that they themselves can't supply because it's very inefficient for everybody to have their own grant writer or human resources person or whatever it is so then then we got into the conversation of internal investigations and how that, how that might work. So that's where we are. Got it. Thanks for having me back for the record Mike Sherlin commissioner of public safety. I should check in and just make sure you can't hear the chainsaw. That's outside. The, we would be open to a discussion of providing additional support services to other organizations. I would suggest that it probably makes sense to do that in an iterative fashion and not try to put that into the first version of if an agency were to come to fruition next year to put it in immediately just because we wouldn't want to complicate transitions and make sure we could spend the requisite time, ensuring that the few components we've contemplated initially are are brought together effectively. I did listen in on just in the last few minutes on the discussion of both professional standards and internal affairs. So the committee is aware in statute you created many decades ago. There's a very distinct split where the office of internal affairs reports directly to me outside the chain of command of the state police, and then reports directly to the state police advisory commission. That's done very intentionally. I think that's one of the advantages to expanding the scope of that office and potentially even of SPAC. I don't want to speak on their behalf because they are an independent entity, but it would be an interesting exploration to expand the scope of SPACs work. I'm not short of saying that that would work outside of state government, but it would be an interesting exploration to look at SPAC being a piece of the puzzle for the other state law enforcement entities that are contemplated to come into the agency, either potentially in the future. And using that internal affairs investigatory model in the same fashion where it is very specifically independent of the command structure of those organizations and reports to the, in this case, the commissioner in the case of an agency, the secretary directly. I will flag on the conversation around internal affairs and municipal departments and sheriffs. That gets quite a bit more complicated in, in part because they have different. They have different governmental structures and are completely independent of the state and have different rules and regulations and many instances and on key topics we're moving toward having universal rules and policies but there are differences based on municipal regulations, municipal charters, etc. So that's probably not at this point in the evolution something that works. But the chief I will flag for you that the chiefs and sheriffs have put forth a framework in response to our 10 point plan that we put forward last year they came up with a framework that is ready to be explored on improving and making more independent governmental investigations to then report back through the government structures that they would be working for, whether it be a sheriff's office or municipal government or, or whatever the case may be just important to note that there are elected officials in the case of a sheriff they're the elected official in the case of municipalities there are. There are seven mayors there are select boards and in some cases, in many cases there are appointed town managers that have oversight and so it's really the investigative component that needs the consistency and, and then the oversight is done by whoever the elected officials are in those particular jurisdictions. I will flag one other thing for you which is the relationship between and I'll talk specifically about the state police, the relationship between internal affairs, the state police advisory commission and the criminal justice council, which you have over the years, given more and more and more responsibility I think, rightfully so and a well designed system to do. Sorry I'm a little distracted by the noise I'm glad you can't hear it but it's interrupting my thought process just to touch the professional standards and certifications so the importance of that is that not only do you have a track to hold officers and internal and general accountable through internal affairs process, relative to the rules but there's a parallel process relative to certification de certification and accountability. And the relationship there is that for the state police in particular, the Office of Internal Affairs regularly as necessary reports. I don't have any rules any findings that I make and back up holds to the criminal justice council for certification action and that's that's how those two things are connected and those parallel processes work. I'll stop there. So Cindy spoke earlier about how in a year, they will be in a much better position to kind of weigh in on the details of what we're talking about and how all this relationship works and we acknowledge that they only really got going in January with this new new structure so. And I just to go back when you were talking about the that there's different because of the different kind of municipalities and sheriffs and stuff, but what I was thinking of was just the investigative. Because Tony mentioned that the number of the chiefs were trying to figure out how to maybe hire a pool of investigators that they could draw on. And, and I was thinking maybe that pool of investigators is the same pool of investigators that is used by your by the agency but it was just a thought. I think that model has has efficacy that that shared model where you're one of the most important components is whether there's two that stand out one is having folks that are trained in internal affairs specifically so it's not just whoever you happen to have to come off the shelf because there are legal issues and there are nuances to those investigations that are different than criminal investigations, although the same skill sets apply and overlap and much of the, much of the case. It's not entirely overlapping the other is that ensuring that whoever is doing the investigations has no pre existing relationship with the person being investigated. And, you know, that's pretty easy that they're not friends or haven't worked together. It comes a little harder when you're trying to get complete detachment they've never done a case together they've never had to back each other up, and that pool statewide pool with regions to pull from is, I think a great model to be able to do that where people are completely disconnected, have may have heard a name, but I've never met this person before, and can go do an independent investigation without I should be really clear without the perception that there is a an issue, even in smaller areas that I have been a part of it, the fact that people know each other does not typically play into a an internal investigation. I've said this repeatedly and I've heard just about every chief in Vermont and elsewhere say this we are our own worst critics. When something goes badly. We actually go a little overboard in terms of what we think the repercussions should be. So tempering that is sometimes important. Nice, good question. Yeah, sure, sure. Commissioner, would you, would you also agree that it's not ideal for the person to have been part of the department or agency being investigated. It depends on the circumstances. You know in the case of the state police, there's 300 troopers spread across the state and 212 towns and 10 barracks that you achieve the same goal by having being able to assign a captain from southern Vermont who's never met a trooper from northern Vermont. And the same could apply even in a smaller organization like the Department of Motor Vehicles in Burlington, for example, we would assign folks that were in different divisions, and there are generational differences between folks so you can get detachment. In many instances, it does become more and more difficult when you're in a very small PD and everyone's working together so I think there's an advantage both to the, the perception of the independence the investigation but also, we shouldn't discount the importance of putting other employees in a difficult position to have to investigate when you, when you only have five people and, you know, 20% of the departments investigating another 20% of the department. That gets, like I said, much easier when you get to a larger organization where there are distinct differences and divisions and geography. So, my, the more simplistic answer is it depends, but in some instances you are, you are right Senator. Small state it's hard to get independence from around anything. I will just, I'm going to call on Senator Calmore but I, many, many years ago, my car broke down on 91 right near Randolph and I got it down to Randolph, and they were working on it. And I decided to go have lunch while I was waiting, and I was sitting there and I did not know a soul in Randolph. This was years ago and I just, and this guy walked in and said, Oh, I know you. He happened to be the town manager of Randolph and I was on the Community Development Board and I said, Oh my God, you've got to be careful wherever you go in this state. So anyway, Senator Calmore. Thank you Madam Chair. So I want to step outside the investigative investigative world for just a second. The commissioner mentioned, you know, many different governmental kind of structures with regard to our law enforcement community. And I think to the average for monitor. There's got to be a pretty common perception of what our professional standards are regardless of whether you're a sheriff, or a constable, or Vermont State Police Officer or a local PD. I'm just wondering how different that governmental structure is really in the end. You know, in the eyes of what we might consider a typical citizen. That's a, that's a great question center and thank you for allowing me to clarify it really what I'm speaking to is really more of the process than than anything. The code of conduct for law enforcement is is pretty well galvanized. It's actually called the code of conduct. The general rules are generally are pretty well galvanized individual operating policies do differ based on geography resources, etc. So for example the policies that state police have do differ. In a number of ways from the policies that I wrote when I was in Burlington because the urban say that with a little you and says urban as we get the urban operating environment is quite different than a rural operating environment that the state police operate in and as a result of policies and procedures that govern that those operations are different. And what I was really talking about was that there's a municipal human resource process that's been established. Those do differ in terms of flow based on a variety of different factors. And that's what we have to be differential to on that in that particular lane of travel relative to adherence to policy and procedure and the rules of that particular government entity that the agency operates under. The advantage to what's been developed in recent years and professional standards is in addition to that there are universal professional standards that the Criminal Justice Council has. And even if something doesn't pass muster for being a terminable offense in a municipality or in the state, it is conceivable that at a state level relative to certification, you have deemed that that is something that should be decertified and you have a parallel track to do that. I also want to just for the record mention that I think Senator White is correct. In many people's eyes, the Vermont State Police equal law enforcement in Vermont to a great degree I think that's what people think of when they think of that. At one time it might have been true that the Vermont State Police officers were the quote most professional of all of the law enforcement that we had. I'm not sure that's true anymore. You know, many municipal law enforcement officers, local PD sheriffs that get an equal amount of good training and that do very good work and an active sort of just another piece of law enforcement if you will so just for the record I, I appreciate the work that that all of law enforcement does in the state. Thank you for that Senator I think you're right that I've watched for the last 30 years as the level of professionalism has increased exponentially some of the people that I were I was hired with. Originally, had never been to a police academy it didn't exist when they came on board. That is no longer the case but it wasn't that long ago that there were still people in the profession who didn't have the benefit of training because it hadn't been developed yet. So, I think that's right and I think Vermont, we do lose sight of this among all the challenges we have that Vermont is very fortunate to have a very high level of professionalism high level of training. I would say that the people run police academy and knock on wood, you know, relative to, to many other places that are less fortunate than us are in in pretty good shape, lots, lots of work to do. But I would put up, I would put our folks against just about anybody in the country in terms of capacity, professionalism, etc. I agree with you. And did you know that this is just an aside but did you know that you don't have to be certified law enforcement officer to be a sheriff. Anybody, I could run for sheriff if I wanted to. Yes, I did know that it used to be you didn't have to be an attorney to be a state's attorney that you fix that we fix that. We fix that, but we haven't fixed the sheriff yet. Are we able to fix that or is that if that's not constitutional what its requirements are. No, and I don't know that it. There probably wouldn't be many instances where a non law enforcement person would run for sheriff anyway because they, it would. It would surface so well know what would happen is that they could only do the administrative parts of the job they'd have to hire somebody to do the law enforcement parts. They're not going to like that because that means they have two positions sharing one budget, everyone one salary. So, I don't think that's likely to happen. Well also they get stuck doing the paperwork and instead of the grunt work instead of actually having the fun of being law enforcement. Right, they don't get to ride in a car with a bubble on the top. Right. Tony, what were you doing there. You're muted Tony. My apologies that I just talking to commissioner real quick on something. The other commission. It's fine. I just thought it was pretty funny. Anybody else have. So my here's, here's what I'm going to suggest. We look at this bill. We. We're going to ask Tony and the commissioner to work on a couple parts here last the council to look at their parts in here. Do we need to add something take something away, change something. And if there are other issues that come up, and then I will work with Amron. Oh, and commissioner. I'm going to work with Amron also over the until Jen, you know, to get make sure that we have something by January and then, and when Amron gets it into some kind of shape that isn't final but is presentable. Then I'll see if anybody else on the committee wants to co-sponsor, and we'll have a bill by the first day when we come back in January. That sounds great. Unless there's an objection I think will the starting point would be the committee's last draft and will work from there. Yeah, and there were a couple things in here that Tony brought up that just to make some clarifications in the language and go through it and see what other changes. I don't know if we ever changed our the name of our what I had suggested unfortunately as a community relations office and the suggestion that I've heard from my constituents is community engagement. I don't know if that's in here or not but we'll make sure that that gets in here with some language. Right. Okay. Thank you all. Well, I'm going to apologize for my what turned out to be in this case my lack of planning skills and not getting this done earlier but I think that we're in a much better place than if we had tried to pass something earlier I think that we're end up with much more support. In the grand timeline of the agency of public safety discussion the last five months is a drop in the 51 year bucket. Exactly that. Okay. All right. Okay. And unless anybody else has anything they're dying to say, I think, can the committee stay on for just a little while. Sure. Thank you.