 Welcome back folks. This is the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. Again, it's January 12th. It's our 1030 meeting. We're going to spend the next couple of minutes with, well, for the next half hour or so. We're looking at bill introductions. We've had two bills that have been introduced to us for 88 and 487. We're starting with House Bill 487. We have the representative McFawn who introduced this piece of legislation. And it deals with the use of the Windsor Correctional Facility. So Representative McFawn is with us and I will turn it over to you, member, and if you could just identify yourself for the record. Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Francis McFawn, representing Barrie Town. Thanks for inviting me to talk about this bill and walk you through it. This is a bill that deals with where we're going to provide appropriate services to a more justice-involved youth. And very quickly, why is the bill necessary? The facility we previously served justice-involved youth in Vermont was called Woodside. It's been closed to determine that it was inadequate to house these and serve these youth. We also decided that it was appropriate for the Department of Children and Families to send these youth out of state to receive those services until a permanent solution could be found in Vermont. We've been sending justice-involved youth out of state to receive services for several years, as you well know. Families don't have in-person access with these youth unless they travel out of state. And sometimes in many cases it's a hardship for that family to do that. In order to provide better outcomes for these youth, the Department of Children and Families over the past couple of years has been working to find a permanent solution to serve these youth in the state. We finally decided that DCF would work with an organization by the name of Beckett that owned a building in Newbury, Vermont. Plans to retrofit that building were drawn up and presented to the town of Newbury for their approval. The concept and the plans to renovate that building were rejected by the appropriate boards in that town. And it's my understanding now that that decision is being appealed. So it's my opinion that we have spent enough money and time on this very specific solution to that ongoing problem of providing, finding a facility to provide the services to these youth. There's some other problems with that location of that building in Newbury in terms of supportive services to such a building, like healthcare, hospital of our similar healthcare facility, law enforcement response. I think we need to stop spending money on the lease of this building, its renovations and legal fees to appeal the decision of the town of Newbury. And get these youth into a secure facility in Vermont at least on a temporary basis where they can receive treatment that we all know they need. We already have a facility that was used by the corrections department to house inmates in Windsor, Vermont. We could stabilize the delivery service system for these youth, at least on a temporary basis there. The support services problem would be essentially solved because Windsor has its own police department. And the city of Montesquatney Hospital is close to that facility. Of course, we'd have to look at later on compensation for the, for the town of Windsor in both of those areas, and in that hospital. Since we already own this facility, my opinion, let's fit it up. Staff are with state employees and use it to serve these youth youth on a temporary basis. Instead of spending money to lease and fit up a building. We don't own in a town that doesn't want it. And has been not has been denied the permits associated with that project. That's some of the reasons why I work with the Vermont State Employees Association to develop and submit age 47. Quickly going through age 47. Section one simply gives the Department of Children and Families. 30 days to start fitting up a 10-bed facility in the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Windsor. And use that as an emergency facility for these justice-involved youth. And that facility after fit up would continue to be the facility where these youth have served until a permanent solution is found. Subsection B comes up with an amount of money for that fit up. It's my understanding that the money that is here is the amount of money that was already allocated to the Department to do the fit up on the Becket Building. I'm saying reallocate that money in this particular bill to fit up the Southeast State Correctional Facility to serve these youth. Section two of the bill allows the agency of human services about a year to develop a plan for a permanent 10-bed facility, secured facility to serve these youth in the state of Vermont that's owned and operated by the state of Vermont. And that's what I know. The Southeast State Correctional Facility could even end up being that permanent facility. The last section, section three says that this act will take effect on passage. And that essentially is the reasons why I put the bill in and what the bill is all about. Thank you, Tapper, Representative McFawn. I appreciate you introducing this piece of legislation. It does get the conversation going. As we well know, the Becket proposal is under appeal. There are a lot of conversations happening throughout the legislature on how do we work, how do we move forward in the interim? And how do we move forward on a permanent basis? So I appreciate the bill to get the conversation going. There is a tremendous amount of work happening in the other body with Senator Sears working on this, as well as Senator Benning working on this. So, Tapper, I've got two questions. Has your committee, House Human Services, been looking at this issue yet this session? Have you had any conversations? I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm just curious. I'm not representing the committee at all, Madam Chair. We have not taken it up this year. We have discussed this. We've been involved with Woodside and shutting down of it and all of that, but we have not brought it up and I'm not representing the committee at all on this. Later on, the committee probably will get involved. If I was a betting man, I would say that probably the Senate is going to take the lead on this. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't get involved and I think we will. It's an issue of all already all of us have been involved in, but I'm going to testify. I think it's tomorrow afternoon in the Senate. And is that Senate institutions? Yes. I mean, this has been percolating out there. Some folks have mentioned using the correctional facility as a temporary, it would need some fit up. The 3.1 million, if you remember folks, we worked with Appropriations Committee last year. The money comes out of the operating budget of DCF. It's not money that came out of the capital bill. It was DCF general fund dollars to go towards the fit up of the facility, the Beckett facility in Newbury. Our work last year at this time was working with House Appropriations Committee to make sure that BGS had a role in the development of that fit up for the Beckett proposal. Money did not go to BGS. Money went to DCF. So this bill here would redirect those monies to BGS. And I'm assuming BGS would be the one to really look at the fit up costs of the Windsor facility for that. And then your second part of your bill is to really start putting in place a study, feasibility study and how we move forward on a permanent secure facility for justice involved youth. So it's a two step process here. Committee questions? I don't have a question, but just think they might even learn how to plant gardens. The house is still there. Yeah. Scott. Thank you, and thank you, Topper for bringing this. I think it's an interesting idea that I have thought about as well. But I'm wondering what the town of Windsor thinks about it. Do you have any. I don't know. All I know is the towns of the town of Windsor at one point in time. My wife is from that town. So I spent a lot of time there. They, they had a prison there. They've had this facility for several years. And in terms of permitting and all that, I would think that all of those things. And the facility exists right now. We've, we're paying them off all that facility. And I think we should put it to use tonight. I think this is a good way to get this discussion going and get the services provided to these youth. It's, it's been too long that we've been going back and forth on this. We need to get something done. No, I completely agree. And I won't say I know a lot about this, but it certainly seems very good fit to me from what I know so far. Thank you. Thank you. Kurt and then Sarah. Yes, it's a, it's an interesting idea. Representative McFawn and when, when we visit, we visited the facility down there and maybe you have to and when people think of that facility. They think of the main building and the condition that it's in, but we didn't visit the, the, I don't know what they referred to it as the cottage or something up in the corner. And there, there were other buildings that we didn't see that that truly might be able to be renovated or reconstructed that would take that would handle this. I don't know about 10 beds that that's a kind of a small, small cottage up there that they were using, but something along those lines certainly would seem possible the only. It's an awful lot of acres to have for just one small building, but as an emergency solution. It's certainly something to look at and I agree totally that we need to do something because having those kids, youth in emergency rooms is not good for all the know all the reasons we already know. So I appreciate you bringing this forward thanks. Yeah. Sarah. Hi, I'm a representative McFawn. It's so nice to see you. And I just appreciate that you your care with this because this is an issue that this committee has been since I've been here is my fourth year we've been focused on this and I'm just curious you mentioned that you develop the bill with the SCA and I know that one of the piece comes up in our committee like we deal with the bricks and mortar but a piece of the thinking always has to be about workforce like who is available to work at facilities and proximity to workforce and I'm just curious without getting too much into the weeds and but just curious to hear we haven't had an operating facility there now for a number of years and so just curious if the SCA weighed in on or had any thinking about availability of workforce. To staff such a temporary facility or maybe permanent who knows. They did not. They did not lead me to believe that a workforce couldn't be put there. Let me let me put it I mean I didn't ask them specifically to have people waiting in the wings to do it. I know that there were people that were working at Woodside. I don't know what they're doing now. There are people that work in some of the designated agencies now that ending up in the emergency rooms with some of these people. You know I can't answer that question because I didn't ask that question. What I said, do you feel that staff could be made available and they said certainly. That's that's good information and seem to be a problem. My understanding is some people are sitting in emergency rooms emergency rooms now with justice involved youth until they can figure out what to do with them. It's not a situation. It's not a good situation at all and some of it is you know I think we have youth who are in emergency rooms who are not all who are justice involved but also who are who need other kinds of beds because Woodside was specifically only for kids who had been adjudicated. There's a lot about you know youth in crisis mental health crisis and I think it's important to make a distinction between the two the two different groups and you're in your you and your committee you do you are very well versed in this but it's more for the folks who might be listening in that I say that so I just bring this forward and and I know that we're we're going to be hearing there's a report due to our committee from a working group that was looking at Windsor to so thank you. I love that working group as well. If you notice the, the first section one that the deadline is really quick to get this thing going on. And that is the reaction to the, as the chair said, this is a this is a media problem that really needs to take be taking quickly. That's why that that that timeline is so so strict. And that might be too strict a timeline for bgs to do the work for fit up because of the bgs doing the work. Yeah they may not madam chair they may not get it done in 30 days. What I meant by it was get it started within 30 days so that it we can get it done as quick as possible. Okay, so I know that Linda had her hand up and then her hand went down so I don't know. So, a topper Sarah alluded to this tomorrow morning at nine o'clock we are going to hear that report of we had a task force or committee set up to look over the summer and fall for possible uses of the Windsor correctional facility going forward. It was made up of the regional Planning Commission the chair executive director or former executive director of the mountain Scotney regional Commission was chair of that we had agency of agriculture we had fishing wildlife on there we had the ACB we had members from the town of Windsor. And they have submitted their report. And they're going to be presenting that to us tomorrow so if you would like to get a zoom invite to our committee meeting for tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, you'll be more than welcome. And we can have Phil send you or Julie a zoom invite for that if you'd like to zoom into our committee to hear that report. I would like to, I would like to hear that. I'd like to have a copy of that report as well. Do you have the report now madam chair. Yes, we do I'm wondering Phil if you'd be willing to send that report to Julie Tucker, and then Julie can make that available to you. Does that work that way or is it better if Phil sends it directly to you tougher. If he sends it directly to me it's fine. Okay, because I'm not representing the committee. Walk down the road and hand it to you right. That's right. We're going knock on his door. Might be quicker. That was a revelation that that last night I got. Small world. But would you be able to come in at nine o'clock tomorrow. Well, I think I'm in yeah we're dealing with that proposition five tomorrow morning in the committee. Okay. Pretty. Well, you know, if you can make it if you can make it in you can always look on the YouTube. I mean one way or the other. Okay, send me the link with starting this at 915. Maybe. Maybe I can look at the, the YouTube of. We have a copy of what goes on and maybe I can look at that in the evening. Okay. This is pretty I'd like to, I'd like to see what that report says. Okay, so Phil will send send it to your email legislative email. And go from there. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you, Topper. It's good to see you. It's good to see you. I know.