 Good afternoon and welcome to House Judiciary Committee. It is Wednesday, January 19th. And we are continuing our consideration of age 546 and actually relating to racial justice statistics. And we have with us Monica Lieber from the Department of Correction. So welcome and thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. So would you like me to just kind of move into, I have some, you know, brief statements and then we can move into question and answer if that pleases the committee. For the record, I'm Monica Lieber. I'm the Administrative Services Director with the Department of Corrections. And I'm here today in a couple of capacities. First, just to let you know that I am the Department of Correction's designee to the ARDAP panel. And I've been part of the panel since it was established. So I've seen the workings of that panel for a number of years. And certainly, as you all know, data has been really central to the work of that panel for a long time. I'm sure you've all read the multiple reports that ARDAP has submitted and data, the need for data, the governance of data has been a consistent theme throughout the reports. And of course, the last report that was submitted in November specifically, you know, at your request really focused on data and data integration. So I appreciate the fact that this bill has been introduced and that the committee is taking all of the time that it's taking to hear the testimony, to understand, you know, what it might mean to actually establish a division of racial justice statistics and create that structure and that supports data integration and data analysis. In my role at the Department of Corrections and primarily I think why I was designated to be on ARDAP, I spend a lot of time moving data around from the Department of Corrections to other internal departments within state government to external stakeholders, researchers. You know, a noted example you're all aware of is, you know, working with the Council of State Governments on Justice Reinvestment II that required a significant amount of data. There's a lot of different examples. But in that role, what I would say is I understand what it means on a very technical level to be able to move data around. Can you also hear me? Because I see that my video is frozen a little bit. Okay, there, it's just... But I just, you could hear me, okay, good. So that's an important part that I tried to sort of bring that perspective to the ARDAP panel in terms of bringing along people who may not have such like experience, deep experience working within the state system. So just I'm speaking from that perspective and reinforcing some of the testimony that other witnesses brought forward for you. So first, you know, I think that the bill itself, H546 is a very good representation of the report and what ARDAP was expecting. I think you've heard that from other people. I know that there are specific issues on different areas related to records retention. And I heard the testimony from the state archivist yesterday and I hope that you will be informed more from the agency of digital services about their perspective on it. And because I think that'll be really important. What I know about this type of work is it takes a fair amount of time. And that's one of the things that I just want to reinforce. I think a number of people mentioned this to the committee. And I see the first year of this work really being around doing that administrative work. The MOUs, the data sharing, the understanding what it's going to mean to transfer data back and forth, setting up the advisory panel, getting people informed. And then the division really needs to sort of understand its work and if it's going to do rulemaking, do the rulemaking. I don't necessarily see a lot of data analysis happening right away. I think there are a lot of data sets that could come into that division. For instance, the Department of Corrections has a public use file. I believe that was mentioned in previous testimony. It's there right now for any researcher to go and access. If there was data beyond the public use file, that was requested by the Department of Corrections. We'd have to go through all of the processes that are in place in the state to move that data, which we'd certainly engage in. But I think that's what one of the things I noted is that the bill is really addressing, sort of putting the division together. It's resourced the staff of the division. And I think that there will be more resources required around the infrastructure, than nothing both actually retaining the data. I don't mean retention from the records archivist perspective, the actual like taking the data from one place to another, keeping it on a server, making it secure and allowing other people to access it. Those are some of the things that I believe will be a little bit more in the weeds, not necessarily something that has to be in the legislation but something that I think is important for people to be aware of as it sort of creates a division with the scope of work. Just looking at my notes here to make sure that I didn't miss anything in particular. And also just to affirm that the Department of Corrections is certainly looking forward, I guess to engaging with the new division as it starts to do at work. We'll do our very best of course to contribute as needed to the data sets that are required in terms of setting up everything that's needed for the division, because I do see that the commissioner does have a place on the advisory panel. And I would see that would be a really important role for some of the department to engage in. So other than that, I feel like I'm gonna stop there and see, because I have a feeling there might be some more appointed questions people may have for me. Well, thank you. And we certainly do appreciate the department's support. So I'm looking first on the Zoom screen. I don't see any hands. How about in the room? Okay, there you go, Martin. Yep, Martin. I do, I have a couple questions. Actually, I was starting it in an area that we really haven't, I haven't really asked other folks, we haven't really talked that much about it, but I think would like to ask you a couple of questions. So as far as resourcing the division, I think you make a very good point that there will be costs presumably for data infrastructure, but it seems not likely that we're gonna see that cost in the budget that we're putting together for this next year. But I will ask just to confirm, I guess on your side, do you see any resource needs at DOC at this point in the game if we're putting this into place starting in the summer of this year? Well, yeah, I think one of the things that will, all the departments that would contribute to this division we'll have to figure out is how to, depending on what data is requested of the department, how accessible is that data from our end and how can we transfer it from our department to the division? I would say over the course of the past few years the Department of Corrections has been able to increase our capacity to be able to do that. When we first, we have a new data system, I guess it's technically new 2017, I don't know when it stops being new, but it's when we first started with that system, we had a really hard time actually accessing the data that we were putting into this system. Over the course of a few years, we've been able to increase our capacity to do that. It requires some pretty technical skills in terms of being able to, which I don't have by the way, I have people who work for me who do that, to be able to access the data and put it into a format to be able to transfer it. So every department is going to be really different. Right now I feel pretty comfortable about the Department of Corrections ability to do that, but it really just depends on how much data people are asking for. And that is one of the concerns that I sort of have in general, thinking about this. People who are interested in data like lots of data, but sometimes lots of data is really not what's needed. And so hopefully there's a balance and I would think that that may come through the advisory panel and some of the other work around, what do we really need? How can we get it and making sure that they're working very closely with the departments to be able to access it in a reasonable way? I hope that answers your question. I'm sorry, but as far as coming here, it seems like there's going to be the work of standing up the council hiring the individuals to staff this. And then we'll get into what the data requests are and presumably tell me if this is right or wrong. At that point, we may have a better idea of what the costs might be for infrastructure for different agencies. It's really hard for us to predict at this point on what those costs are. So the costs really are going to be the staff for the division. And that's the amount of money we have in there. I don't know if you have any opinion on staffing, what we base this on, our DAP did not say particular people that you need to hire four people, five people, whatever. They had some different ideas of what the different individuals should address. But for purposes of just getting a figure last year, and we have to update this figure still, we had the joint fiscal office give us the cost of having an executive director, two data analysts, IT people, and an administrative assistant. Does that sound along the lines of what you would think from your experience would be necessary or is that an unfair question for you? Well, I think what that resembles is what our DAP presented to the committee. And we had a lot of discussion over that and we really wanted to make sure that there was the appropriate skill set within the division. And those were the types of skills that we thought were needed. I think to start, that sounds like it's a good group of people, a good set of people. And then as we start to move forward and uncover sort of the breadth of work, maybe there would need to be a different makeup of the staff. I also think that as the division is working to set up its structure, and you mentioned this in the bill itself, it's going to be working with the agency of digital services. And there is, I don't wanna presume to explain ADS and I hope that they can come and discuss their services with you, but they're an internal service organization and that there's usually a cost associated with engaging with them. And it's a new division, it would be set up in the agency administration, presumably the agency of administration already has an arrangement with them. So those are the types of things that would need to be worked out. If there's another set of resources needed to make sure ADS can stay engaged. I appreciate it. I have one other question and that goes to a question I've been asking other folks and if you have a viewpoint on whether we should be defining the data. I think pretty much it's been uniform that people don't think we should be defining details in legislation as far as the data, but the question really is rulemaking versus policy. And with the policy, it would certainly still require consultation with the racial disparities, with the RDAP and with the advisory now. But do you have a strong viewpoint of either of those roots for defining the data? I have been thinking about this question because I've heard you ask everyone. And I think there's definitely pros and cons to it. From a perspective of like the Department of Corrections, of course, having something in a rule, it's helpful because it's there. It's sort of known rules aren't necessarily subject to the same kind of change that maybe a policy would However, I think that it could also be done through policymaking at the panel level within the division. And I think both of those processes seem to have the ability for a lot of engagement. The panel's got a lot of people on it. There are a lot of different community perspectives and provider perspectives that I think would be necessary. Rulemaking, of course, has the commons period and the ability for other people outside of the panel to potentially engage. So they both have their benefits. My real issue around the data elements it sort of goes back to this idea of, are we just asking for lots of data or are we gonna be able to on the panel come up with a set of questions or focused areas that we wanna investigate that would inform which data we want to maybe focus on collecting first. That's what I... Do you think that the bill allows that flexibility? I think it does. I think it does. I do, I do, yes. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody, anybody else? Anybody hands on missing? No, don't see anybody. Well, thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much. And as we move forward with this, if you have anything else you would like to add or let us know, please, please be in touch. I certainly will. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. So I think that is, yeah, that's all we had. We are hearing from agency of digital services. I think tomorrow, is that correct? Yes, tomorrow afternoon, Kristen LaFleur is scheduled. Amber, did she come in on that she is gonna be? Yeah. So yeah, she's gonna be here. Okay. A couple other people as well. I wonder if, can we take a moment or two to discuss kind of some of the stuff we've heard since we have a little extra time on chair? Sure, heard on this bill. Sure, absolutely. And then if we can save, you know, 20 minutes or so just to talk about some other things as well, that'd be great. So, okay. Go ahead. Yeah, I guess the main thing is that I wanted to work with Eric to propose an amendment unless everybody says it's a terrible idea to change from the concept of rulemaking to policy. We don't have to make a final decision on which route to go but since we've been talking about that a lot, I'd like to kind of have it scoped out and see what it looks like because I would see, for instance, needing to change. And I'm looking on page five, needing perhaps, and I haven't discussed this with legislative council, so I'll have to find out. But in the subsection A2, where it talks about the division shall be granted access to the data of any state agency or department it designates by rule. If we're taking the rulemaking out, I think in statute, we want to make it clear that the state agency or departments have to provide access to the data if it's not going to be in the rule itself. Also, I will try to work to address the issue with respect to public records with Tanya from the archivist. Those are the main items that I had that I wanted to work into this, but if there were other things I'm missing, if anybody else wants to weigh in and I'm anything else that we need to, that I might put into proposed amendment. I've got a couple of questions. Yeah. This is quite an extensive structure, shall we say. I guess I'd like to see some form of a flowchart as to I see it's going to be placed in the agency of administration on ethanol. Where are they going to be physically housed? Where is the top here as it funnels down? Who answers to who? There's five positions. And I'm concerned about oversight whether it be this division or any other divisions. I want to ask the question to follow up along what Martin was saying. I know we've got $540,000 targeted here and we've already discussed it as relooking at that because it's a different year, but aren't there going to be other costs associated with this and do we have any idea what that may be? So the IT stuff and so on and so forth. Yeah, I think those are excellent questions for the witness we have tomorrow. Kristen McClure from the agency of digital services because and that was in part some of the questions I was asking Monica Weber to see if she could identify any other costs, but I think agency of digital service definitely want to ask that question of Kristen. Cause yeah, I think perhaps after the testimony tomorrow there may be some further changes that we may want to put into a proposed amendment, but those two questions you just mentioned probably we haven't had the witness to address that yet. Maybe Susanna Davis, if we have to bring her back and are there other folks that you think, Chair Graf that could address that? How about, I think you did ask JFO to update their fiscal note, is that correct? Yeah, I was going to wait until we heard from Kristen to case we, I didn't want to have them redo it if we have some different information after talking to Kristen McClure. Well, one of the things if you recall when we were doing the assisting judiciary with the roll out of the new system there the agency of digital services is like that umbrella group that does all of the behind the scenes work. So, they actually physically do the purchases, assist with the technical aspects around contracts, with support services. If there's a certain system, similar to the justice, the judiciary one, where it had to be able to do very specific things, all of that was assisted by ADS. They're like the hub for all of the IT services. For state government, and when you look at their budget, when you're analyzing the total state budget, that thing is huge. But then you go, wait a minute, but that's all of state government too. It's not just this separate division. They're the hub for information. So, but I think the questions are, I would agree that the questions are good ones. We should be able to get a lot more detail from Kristen McClure, because she'd be able to more clearly say, this is how it works for each division. And this is what we do as far as providing services to those different divisions and how that piece works. I did have one follow-up question. I believe it was Dr. Tom Longo stated that Connecticut has something very similar to this, and they have a three-person division. I just wondering where we come up with a five and why, I mean, Connecticut, Vermont, population-wise, they've identified five here and the Connecticut has three. We have four, but it's still one more than Connecticut. Yeah, just to correct that. What we have listed is one executive director, two data analysts and an administrative assistant. And- In terms of deputy directors, we want to be appointed in here. No, no, no, I don't believe it unless I missed. I don't think so, as I recall. So that as much as anything, Bob, is a placeholder until we talk to some folks such as the witness tomorrow, such as perhaps follow-up with Director Davis to nail down really what do they need. So it's almost a placeholder as much as anything. So I may have been confused on page two, line three. Yeah, I think that I probably shouldn't have called an executive director. That's what I meant by executive director. Yeah, I know you gotcha. No, no, no, it's a good point. This is old information that I'm looking at from the JFO report from last year, when we call it. If you look at, I guess, the more recent discussions and the RDAAP report had referred to the previous information, Bob, but the construct that we're looking at is a division and usually divisions have directors, not executive directors. So from a structural perspective, it would be housed in the office of racial equity. As a division of that office. So structurally, Susanna Davis, who is the executive director of the office of racial equity, would be at the top of the organizational structure. If you're looking for a standard structure, even though there is still an advisory committee that would be supporting that division. But what we can do is we can put a map together so that you can see it visually, because the picture's worth a thousand words. So we'll have that ready for tomorrow. All right, thank you. So I'm just, I just want to make sure no other things at this point, as far as recommendations to work on language, as far as the proposed amendment, although there may be more after we hear the testimony. Which makes sense. Right, good, thank you. Any, anybody else? Some more testimony needed, anything else? And again, we can, I think tomorrow will be very helpful and we can regroup after that, but if anybody has any other thoughts that they want to share.