 Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. This is the Vermont State Senate Committee on Institutions and the Vermont House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. We are holding a joint meeting this afternoon for the purpose of discussing what is known as the Hawk Report HOK. I am going to skip introduction since we have so many people on screen, but I will first say that today is April 13, 2021. I'm Joe Benning. I am the chair of the Senate Institutions Committee. We are expecting Representative Alice Emmons, the chair of the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions shortly. We are on YouTube. And as I tried to, with every discussion we have in committee, let folks who are on the screen know, especially witnesses, that we have an unknown audience out there on YouTube. There is a fair possibility that there are people out there who have never been involved in a committee process, much less had a conversation as deep into the proverbial weeds as this one might go. So as people are introducing themselves as witnesses, I would ask that you back up the train a little bit, give us a 50,000 foot overview of who you are personally, and how you fit into the conversation we're about to have this afternoon. I am anticipating that Representative Emmons will be joining us and will probably take the lead on this conversation. But between now and then, should I hear people using strange vernacular or little designated names that we are commonly familiar with, I may ask you to back up and explain what that is just so that we have the benefit of giving the audience who may be listening a chance to be up to speed with where we all are. Having said that, Alice gave me marching orders specifically to make a choice between Representative, I'm sorry, Commissioner Fitch or Commissioner Baker, and in trying to wrap my head around that discussion and not getting into trouble with anybody if I understand the hierarchy correctly, I'm going to give that baton to Commissioner Fitch to lead off the conversation, but she's shaking her head no. And in the track world I know that means the baton is going to get passed to somebody else, which brings me back to Commissioner Baker. Jim welcome back, and I'm going to ask you to first as I said give a brief overview of who you are and how you fit into the picture. And then we can start we start to talk about whatever part of the hoc conversation you would like to talk about, and then we'll pause for some questions when you're done. So, welcome to the joint committee session. Thank you, so for the record, I'm Jim banker the interim commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections. And my role in this is that the H okay study was done to take a look at our physical facilities around the state and make recommendations and study what the future could look like for facilities, housing individuals around the state. And I'm going to, I'm going to say a few words senator and then move right I know Jeff is here now from H okay, and they I know they have a PowerPoint, and I think there's going to be a lot of information there. I'm going to suggest to you that we move to that presentation in a minute, and let him go through that, because there is a substantial amount of information there. I'm going to say that the work done by H okay under just leadership, and the work done under Commissioner pitches leadership on this project was a collaborative effort between us at the Department of Corrections, buildings and general services, and the contractor that was selected to do this work H okay. And you will see when the presentation is made us a very substantial amount of time went into this. A lot of thought has gone into it. There's been a lot of give and take. There'll be a lot of room for conversation afterwards. And, you know with that I want to turn it over to Jeff and let him get started so we can get the information out to members of both committees. One thing I do have to remind everybody the position of myself, Commissioner Fitch, the governor is that we're talking about right now $1.5 million in the capital budget for fiscal year 2021 23 for the next steps in deciding based on the presentation today, where we're going to go with moderate bringing our systems up to modern standards around the state with the understanding that for the Department of Corrections, and I'm not speaking for Commissioner Fitch but I know we're on the same page here from BGS and from the governor standpoint. We're really focused on doing something with the women's facility in South Berlin. That is the priority. That fits into a bigger conversation which I think you will see when Jeff makes the second presentation to all of you about the work that they've done in the study. If that's good enough, Senator, I'm going to, I'm going to yield the floor to Jeff Goodell and let him start making the presentation from each okay. Commissioner Baker appreciate that lead in conversation. Jeff, just to bring you into the picture for the audience that may be listening. This is actually the second presentation that's being given we had introductory remarks both committees a couple weeks ago for some of us. The report that you're about to hear is the second portion of that which is more detailed on what the options may be and trying to move forward with corrections. I see by my screen that my committee assistants have violated my specific instructions and let Chair Emmons into the room. With that, Alice, I'm going to hand the baton over to you. Jeff has already been introduced but if you'd like to make some opening remarks by all means. I think we ought to take a vote on that letter we should commit or not. I would be tempted to Senator Mazza, except that our committee is outnumbered here. Okay, thank you. Well, Senator Mazza you and I color coordinated our colors today. Well, I'm glad I finally had time to zoom in I was tied up with House Judiciary Committee but welcome and, and we on the house side did look at the 1.5 million. We have been quite a working for the past couple of years really aware of the situation of our women's correctional facility, and really needing to take steps to replace that facility but we know we can't do it all in isolation without looking at the facilities. And one piece that's really important in replacing the women's facility there's also policy issues that need to be made in terms to just do an incarcerated setting for women, or do you also incorporate a reentry system in a separate facility for reentry for women. And if you do that then you also have to look at the male population and offer the same services of reentry services to the male population. So I'm looking forward to the Hawk report because I know that they have quite a few options there for us on how to move forward. And I really hope that going through those options will really help us as the administration and also the legislative body to maybe coalesce around one or two of those options. And that's my hope. That's my goal. And with that, I can turn it over to Jeff Goodell, if we're ready. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you for having me back. I really enjoyed the part one that I did with each of your of the Senate in the house. And I'm sure everybody though has been waiting very patiently now for the next part of what what might the path look forward. You know look like the first thing I do want to say though is, you know, working with working with BGS Commissioner Fitch's group, and then Commissioner Baker's group at the DOC. They've been great partners have been very open they've been very collaborative. They've taken our charge very seriously that we are, you know that we're taking a, you know, an objective look at your system, early from the outside, but they've also been very helpful and cooperative at the same time of giving us a lot of needed information. And sometimes, especially with these existing facilities, you know some real key information about how they really do things there are things that are that might not be a big, you know, really obvious on the surface. So I think that's actually imbued our report with a lot of great details, especially on the existing condition part but even looking out ahead. In order to look at, you know, how does the, how does the system work now, and how do they want to work in the future so with that I'm going to, I'm going to bring up, bring up the presentation. Jeff, as we go along, would it be helpful for questions at certain points. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry to interrupt. Yes, if you have questions as I go, as I go that that's fine now. The one thing I will say, we're going to get into, you know, let's give you a little preview we're going to get into five different scenarios and you can see those in the in the report. You know, the first one option a looks at replacing the entire system in its entirety, which was what we were charged with doing, you know, by bgs. The last scenario looks at if you were to expand each of the other facilities, with one exception we we came to the conclusion that a new women's facility. And this scenario is really a necessity. But then the other three scenarios in between are kind of in between a mix of new and existing. So, if you have questions on those that's fine, it might be helpful as I go through to get through the five, and then I could stop at that point and answer questions but I'm happy to answer questions at any time for anybody wants to put their hand up and answer questions. I have no issue with that. But I might I might urge and when I get to that part about the options, if I could maybe get through those and then we get some questions because I think some questions might become more obvious as you see the next scenario. That would be the only that would be the only kind of caveat I might have representative. And we do get to the question piece because we're sharing a screen it's hard to see the participant list. So if you can just physically raise your hand in your window and maybe between Senator Benning and myself, we can see who has questions. Okay. Okay. And then feel free to verbally interrupt me at any time, if somebody does have to have a question like that. Well, great. You know, I'll just as a reminder, H okay is the lead on this but we have some great partners, especially local partners, Freeman French Freeman our associate architect in in Burlington McFarland Johnson has done certainly a lot of work in the state. And then some of the key folks like Bill Garnas on bed needs project projections Marcus Hardy, who is transitioning under the Illinois Department of Corrections he's a longtime client of ours. Great knowledge and operations, and then white and companies done the cost estimating and I will say, I'm going to give them a special tip because they've been through all of these different scenarios and given us great data on all all of the scenarios. And I would also come back to Marcus and he's done a great job of kind of dissecting, you know staffing and other needs as we look at these different scenarios so you know what I would say is the scenarios need that that next level of detail. But I think for where we're at as kind of a say a 50,000 foot level, you know, looking. I feel I have a great deal of confidence and pride of what I'm going to show is that we've done you know a lot of a lot of analysis and put a lot of care into really understanding the data, as we're about to present it to you. Just as a reminder, the six current facilities, starting on the upper left and Northwest State, Chittenden which is right now currently your women's facility, marble, marble Valley. Southern State which is your newest facility, and then going up to the right northeast regional and northern state. You know, a reminder here just of the of the different capacities the women's facility at Chittenden right now capacity of 177. Marble Valley being your smallest facility at 118 in Rutland northeast at 219 northern state at 433 Northwest 255 and Southern currently at 377 that 377 is permitted. It could go immediately to 500. And so you know that that's already actually in place. And then the out of state capacity is 350 down in Mississippi and that number, as I recall is around 230 240 that are actually there. So the current capacity is 1929 beds for the system including the out of state. The projections and bill really let Bill Garnes really led this part. You know, he did a he did a projection that came out between 2055 and 2184 total beds. We settled as a group collectively and said 2050 was going to be our target number that we're looking at for that includes all inmates being back in the state and growth and delivery of services 2050 is the number. And that's 1900 correctional beds and 150 reentry beds 50 of those being female 100 of those beds being male reentry. Just brief, just a review of the existing condition reports. You know all of the facilities you know the most recent one was built in 2004 the oldest one back in I believe 1969. There's some common issues with just wear and tear on those facilities over that amount of time, you know site issues of water ponding various kind of sidewalks parking areas heaving with concrete that type of thing. Shell issues as far as window repair roofing facade maintenance. And on the inside, a lack of a lack of conditioned air, and also an ongoing project with repairing detention doors that's been going on but needs to continue to go on. And then other various things as far as carpet shower ceiling replacement throughout all the facilities that's just a common overview. I think importantly, and I don't know I touched on it enough that that the facilities are all lacking in meeting current codes and standards. Including, you know, at significantly American with Disabilities Act standards, especially for correctional facilities. So accommodation of inmates in that manner, meeting American correctional association standards and then very important pre prison rape elimination act. All of the facilities are are are in need of upgrade just for those areas to get back to get back to standards. I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on any of these things but very briefly just space and daylight from American. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm ADA. So accommodation of people that are ambulatory in wheelchairs but also people that are that have site issues hearing issues, and other other things that are defined by American with Disabilities Act and facilities new facilities today, have to meet those accommodations with a certain percentage. Some of the facilities meet that better than others, but they all need some some work in that fashion. One of the things that's really an issue is some of the grading at some of the facilities where inmates have to actually go up, up and down long grades in order to get from place to place. American correctional association that's daily that's daylight and space and air quality. So those are all those three things are areas that the facilities are in need of some help with a prison rape elimination act addresses site and sound, being able to have privacy as appropriate privacy. The reason I bring all these up again is that even in the expansions, we're taking this into account not just to add beds not to just to make them more efficient, but also to solve some of these issues as well. And when you do that though it does become more expensive project becomes more intrusive into the internal facility but again we were charged with looking at the future system for Vermont not just a continuation with with the current. You know project goals as they were stated, you know, again, housing all Vermont inmates within Vermont. You know restructure the system to bring Vermont's criminal justice system in line with national standards and I think that's especially true with the be the ability to offer programs and then the staff the inmate ratio. Restructure the system to promote further reduction of prison population and reduction of recidivism recidivism. You know, we're dedicated like you are to actually shrinking the prison system as appropriate. Not not needlessly but as appropriate and so newer facilities that are more effective actually can play a role in doing exactly that. You know introduction of the reentry facility to approve offender outcomes. And as we've said I think collectively, there's an agreement that a new women's facility is really a requirement. We're going to touch, I touched on some images last time I'm going to touch on them again because they are again important for what we're looking forward towards and what new projections were based on this is a new mental health facility in the state of Illinois 200 beds that is focused on mental health treatment. State of the state of the art treatment where in the case of mental health treatment where correctional staff plus medical professionals are together with patients treating them really together in a in a holistic fashion. This new mental health facility for the state of Ohio and again I think you can see the scale of the building. It's not a tall double tier but it's again more, I would say more human scale in the way it's put together. And again with program space very important. It's important for women it's important for all inmates, but it's been shown to be very effective. Again and reducing recidivism and helping people with the reentry process. You know we base a lot of this on our, you know, we looked at the state of Utah, we, they are they chose to make to do a one facility replacement. And that includes in this particular case 17 different classifications within one large fence including women's. I'm not necessarily suggesting that's the solution here but we are again drawing from experience recent experience this facility is under construction right now, and being able to draw from lessons learned on that as we, as we applied it towards the study that we that we are doing for you. And this is a computer version of that housing for Utah, which is again more open, more beds for staff but the more beds for staff is really in a safer setting where staff really has great 360 degree view around the entire facility can see all of the inmates in there at a given time. And a little bit just again more about the, you know, about the sleeping spaces the ability to control light the ability to have more individual space, and the ability to have again more personalized space and normalize space because, you know, if I can direct you to the middle one at the bottom. You know, we've made the effort in the design to make that more normalized but I can assure you all those pieces and parts of maximum security, they're anti ligature so inmates can't harm themselves. But it's also safe for staff safer inmates but but with the effort towards more normalization and more daylight through, you know, larger windows. I've been thinking a lot about for, you know, for DLC and the bgs folks in in maintaining these facilities over time and you can see more of a typical kind of mechanical chase an area where staff can go that's not in a secure perimeter or that's not in the secure part of the building, but they can work they can bring tools, and they have an ample area to work on the facilities and a lot of the current facilities don't have that right now. And they're, you know, they're their additional work for bgs to to maintain them. I talked about the emphasis on women's facilities and I think the important thing again the scale the normalization, the ability to bring in daylight all important factors, and, and however you move forward. But but again that's something that we're factoring in as we think about what those facilities would include and need moving forward, program space, educational space counseling space, space to deal with addiction, and also space very for education for education vocational purposes, those have been shown to be very successful so that would that's also in the equation, as we look as we look forward. Extremely important medical space. Not only on the healthcare side just to treat inmates but again the growing need for mental health or the growing recognition of mental health needs. And these things really go together a lot of the inmates are actually co diagnosed with both mental health and medical issues very often. And so space and so spaces for staff, both clinical staff and correctional staff to be able to effectively manage and treat the inmates is extremely important. And you know reentry is different than the correctional space and you can see in the bottom right. You know that's really a residential setting for reentry, and this idea that people are now learning skills, there be as they're about to go back out of the system, and to gain the skills gain that confidence, being able to go back, and to help make them more effective members of their family their community again, and, and not to just come out of what is a traditional prison space right back out into society but again to really transition that, and, and to have space that's appropriate for that all to happen. The next item here is just again as I mentioned last time trauma informed design that, in fact, you know, the, you know, the people that are in the system and this is not just inmates but this can also apply to staff as well. I mentioned before the studies to show the PTSD issues that can come along with you know staff in these facilities is that space that allows people to have some power over their own personal space to be able to control light to be able to be safe, very important and it, and it really has great outcomes for your system as data shows there's less assaults, less, less, less vandalism, all the other things that have been issues and all correctional facilities over time are reduced through these, you know, these design approaches, and these are some of the benefits from improving or having newer facilities. And we'll talk just a little bit about what again on our basis of design so we apply some of those same factors and what would I would the typical housing unit be, and we spent a little bit of time with the doc and the bgs folks to think about what you know what what housing might look like in the future, not not to design it but again to have a building block to look at as we do the projections, and we talked about some of the appropriate staff to bed needs, you know for different classifications so this would be perhaps a female study, which could be maximum security might be mental health. It's probably a one to 16 ratio so that that might be more like some of your typical facilities but for the special needs that one to 16 is appropriate. And it includes the day space the outdoor rec that's associated and all of those, all of those elements. We've talked about before being able to bring daylight in and being able to work with the windows and so forth for appropriate levels of privacy without throughout the facility so we're not in the detail here, but we are suggesting that again the projections would be based on facilities like this and again facilities like we've done in other area and other places. As we look at medium security these might be multiple bed units, not just one in a in a in a room, but they might be up to four. So that that number might increase to 24 in this particular one on again on the female. And we think it's appropriate that the female staff to inmate ratio is typically smaller than it is on on male males typically going to be a higher number. Female minimum security again similar but the rooms increase in size. And again we're just using the same module and a lot of different ways to have the different classifications also gives you flexibility that if for some reason down the road. You were to decide what we need more minimum or we need more something else that these units can actually have the flexibility to actually change and be run differently. And you're not just hamstrung because we're extremely prescriptive with a particular way to design or build the facilities. And the next one. There we go. Male close security might be larger again 24 beds but that's a larger unit because again we're separating the males more. This area might now be 7600 square feet but again based on the same module. And go to 48 beds from for medium security and this might be two tier so this might be as we showed on the Utah. On that Utah computer anime or the computer rendering plus what you're you know what you have right now in the system. You know now you get to 48 beds and you go to two tiers so there's room for the two tier there's room for single tier. But again they're based on the same the same module and this was the module that we use as a basis of design. Minimum again more dormitory style now again we've heard from the DOC don't appear dormitory hasn't worked out very well, but we're looking at something that's a dormitory style that might be eight people in a room. So it's not as many cells. There is, and one of the advantages for eight people in a room or multiple in a room is there's actually more socialization in that particular case so that can actually be an important element for your department but whether that's four people six people eight people that would be a determination down the road but we, we went with eight for right now to have something that's really I guess I'd call it a hybrid type of dormitory that doesn't have all the same issues of just pure open dormitory that haven't worked very well for DOC in the past. So that's the chart. We're about to get to the options. So as I mentioned option a is really retiring all six of the current facilities and having a new male, a new female, and then one new male and one new female reentry. Option B maintains southern state. And then it has the other new ones that I that I mentioned as far as the new female new male. Now the new male would be a little bit smaller. So we'll talk about some of the detail of that. Because we look at option C, that maintains really the two facilities in the in the north, the northeast, being northern state northeast, being able to be remain open and remain active. It includes an expansion at Southern, and then it includes the three new facilities a new male again smaller one than might be an option a, and I'll get to that detail. The new female and all the new female one in each case is a static number. I believe it's, it's 200 in each case, and the new male the new female reentry are part of that as well. Option D, then contemplates an expansion at Northwest while keeping northern state northeast open. And again the expansion that Southern, and then the other three facilities that I've mentioned before. Option E. The only facility that closes under option E is Chittenden. So that's the women's that becomes the new female. The rest of the other five all remain open with northern state northwest and southern all expanding. And the other two. Also, having some renovation to them. The new male part the new male prison is not part of the equation, but a new female, and a new, and then the new rent re re entry in each case. If I look at the far right, the numbers vary just a little bit again we use 202050 sort of our baseline, rather than get into some kind of artificial unit numbers we just kind of took new units, made them come out close. And, you know, the next step would really to be get in more detail more fine tuning of these numbers. But you can see, you know, ranging from 2032 in the, you know, in the option E which is most existing to 2070 and option D 2067 and C 2063 and B and then 2046 would be the new one. Those are all within, you know, you know, within 38 beds of each other. So again, how that's done in the future. That's I think up to up to further study. But this in essence lays out how the five different scenarios were derived. So we'll talk here about option a option is the replacement of all six facilities. You can see the circle that we placed is in and I want to point out, you know, it's a vague area somewhere. It's a shouty distance of Burlington, but we don't have a site. We haven't identified a site we don't know exactly how many acres so I don't want anybody to come out with that that Wow you found a place to go that's not the case at all. However, what we are saying is that if you were to place new facilities, it would be important to be able to draw from population centers not only for correctional officers and people working at the OC but also other medical professionals psychs and other people that are important to these facilities and could we the work in the prison part or the reentry part. So, as we look at what, you know, how the bed breakdown would work in the new mail facility the new mail prison. It's a it's a fairly large facility 1,752 beds. To say from a national perspective, that is, that's a that is, that's kind of a common number for a new prison throughout the country, no matter what do you see you're talking about that's a, you know, 1752 that's right around the 1800 bed mark that is a that's a fairly common one that's kind of viewed as a new prison that can be run with one warden and a correctional staff that's based around that. In the case of the women's in this particular case 144 new beds, prison beds, 100 reentry and 50 female reentry and I guess I misspoke a little bit before I said 200 women's. I was really saying around 200 total, but the breakdown is 144 for the for the prison section 50 for the for the reentry for women, and that total is up to 2046 total beds in a in a new in a brand new system. Now let's just take a little, we'll take a little look at what is entailed in that I guess you know the important part is again we really try to consider all things that needed to be in a in a prison as we did the projections as we did the square foot projections and as we did the cost projections, which will which will be getting into a little in a little bit later. But in a typical facility we have the housing and then we have the and then we have the support and support includes administration security programs, certainly food service laundry and a central plant of some kind. And then, and then the other infrastructure parts that are required. You know, as far as dealing with water wastewater electric parking fencing, all those elements those have gone all gone into the cost estimates have all gone into the end of the required acreage that we've talked about in each case. This might be one way the female facility might look could look a lot of different ways, but these are the building blocks that we think would be common, no matter, you know, no matter how that would work including also recreational facilities as well. This is a typical diagram of the reentry. And certainly you know the rentries and the kind of size of one building would certainly suffice that might have other recreation aspects outside of it. But it also, you know, as we include in cost estimating, you know the building envelope, the elements within that, of course this is now going to be, you know, minimum type of security housing. And then parking and other other elements that go along with that. As we look at the male facility and again this is a larger facility and it can be arranged in a number of different ways but this is one way that it can be where the housing is really kind of wrapped around an area that's that's for rec services. But it also enhances the ability for staff to be able to get to the, you know, the buildings. I mean as one example. You know inmates have access from the inner parts of this campus but but but maintenance staff might have access around the outer parts so that's a way to separate. Another area for inmates versus the not the less secure part for for staff which enhances the ability of bgs to actually run these facilities. You know so that that that's what that encapsulates one strategy that you might use in arranging a campus. But again as I mentioned before and the women's. These are the numbers and the elements that would go along with this facility with the with again typical square footages typical kind of parking requirements. Again in the report, we're in a really good amount of detail on these and I can certainly answer some questions if we do have, you know, detailed questions but you know this again as a representative element I think it's important. As we do this and I and we've seen from other programs sometimes that they'll take into account. Okay you have this many beds and we'll put this much square footage towards it. It's a solid way to do it but our methodology that we use in a typical kind of H okay method is to get beyond just putting square feet for bed but actually really thinking about all the elements actually have to go into the facility and identifying something like a central utility plan because for a cost estimating team. A cost a century utility plan cost something different than a housing unit, and it costs something different than the, than than the public lobby. And, and then this gives them an idea of how much fence there might need to be so that again they've taken all of these things into account, as they've tried to take, you know this top down look but what we found is by taking this approach and identifying these elements and we've you know we know what these elements are from our experience doing similar facilities. We really end up with a more accurate view of what the costs are, especially as you start to move these programs further, and that what we're talking about today is something resembling what you'll end up with an end and I think that predictability is important that you know, all in what you're getting. What we don't do we don't know exactly where your land is we don't know exactly what those land acquisition things are so we can stay away from that right now. That'll be looked at in the future I know but, but as far as what these facilities are identifying these parts and applying costs to them. We have found, you know helps bodies such as yourself have a more predictable and accurate way of actually dealing with these issues as you move forward whether then want to analyze it further. Okay, Jeff, can I ask a question. This is Joe Benning. Yeah, the previous slide, can we take a look back at that please. Yes, if I understand this correctly, technical training and programs and services down at the bottom. Is that an area where there would be attorney client telephones or video cameras to connect with the courthouse. And if so, does that mean anybody who's up in the minimum security unit is going to have to be brought all the way down from where they are to those two rooms or do you have separate areas in each one of those security sections. So today, you know, so it's the second as you are asking so today what we really focus on is having video teleconferencing options at the at the at the housing itself, and, and, and especially for attorney meetings, having rooms that can be that can be shut and secure. So nobody can hear what's going on nobody can even actually see I mean correctional staff can monitor the call in terms of, you know, in terms of appropriate behavior, but as far as hearing the actual conversation type of thing no. And so every inmate will have the opportunity at their housing unit to have that access. Jeff, could I ask a question as well and says representative Campbell, they, I realize these are schematics, the light green areas with all of the living. Yeah, areas, what does that represent. Those are representative of probably the mechanical areas. I see, and that non that non secure element where the where the bgs folks would have most of their access. I see. So the other color representing more of their actual housing and the secure part. Okay, thank you. Jeff, this is representative elements. I'm trying to get a concept here in terms of the schematic. Is this all within one building, or is your administrative part in a building and then you have the individual housing units in separate buildings where the offender where the MA has to walk outside to get to the cafeteria or get towards their programming. Yeah, no, and that's a good question. So these are, these are campuses, and this is a campus in this case. So each of these color blocks would represent approximately a building. And so these would be the housing buildings they're arranged around outdoor campus areas in this case we're depicting baseball softball, we have some basketball we have soccer just an area again whatever those areas would be. So the outdoor rec centralized and then as you just said, at food service, we have the dining halls. And, you know, and for minimum or medium security inmates, they probably go to dining halls from it for maximum, they may and special needs food carts might be brought there. So typically we will we will have more the special needs closer to where the food service and the medical service and everything are so they're in close proximity, because they may have more of those services delivered to the unit. I think also importantly we've included like special needs here close to the vehicle Sally port because they often they're more often have ambulance visits. So we would have that arranged so medical emergency medical services would be able to access these buildings very easily through that as well. So, and then, you know, further around this perimeter. So this is my area but around that perimeter the straight lines represent that the the security fencing, the two, two rows of security fence. So all those buildings inside that fence are part of the secure perimeter. And then on the outside of the fence we would have a processing part on the far right for the public lobby. That would then be able to process into some kind of visitation center. So, you know, we would have, you know, we would suggest or we program video visit. We also know that in a prison live visit is also important. So, there was a trend a few years ago where everybody's moving all the video visit. But we found that really it's not just one or the other it really needs to be all of those things including family family reunification visitation all that type of thing. And that allows, you know, that has public penetrating your facility as little as possible. And then the other buildings that are outside the fence are the ones that you don't, you know, that we don't need to process people in central utility plant facility and maintenance storage warehouse perhaps vehicle maintenance. Those elements would be outside the fence. And then the other utility things such as water tower. So, so the elements within the straight line area represent those secure buildings. These are individual buildings with the housing and then that bar along the bottom is really those those inmate services and staff areas within the fence. So this is really the foundation of all your other options in terms of how a building would be how the campus would be laid out. So, this question is for all of the other options as well, not just for this, what we find right now within our current facilities, the way that they're designed, the way the beds are designed the cells are designed. It's really unlimited in terms of who can be housed there. So when we say the general population of our incarcerated population may not need a specialized bed they may not need close custody, or they may not need a special unit but they need that general population. And that's where we're having problems right now within our current facilities we don't have that flexibility. Right, the general population. So how flexible are these cells in these beds for that. You know, I would say that we, you know the way that again if I go back to the percentages that we used, we had around 10, I think 10, maybe 15% that we considered maximum security the medium security were about 50% about half your population minimum was I want to say around another 2030, and then the special needs was around 20. The difference between those is not so much in the architecture, it's, it's in the numbers, but the way that we would typically design a male, say a maximum security versus a medium security, in terms of the fixtures, hardware, hollow metal glass that type of thing, actually not very different. So if you needed to use, you know, you had a big growth and meet, you know, medium security, and you're running out of room, and you were able to use more maximum security, you'd be able to operate that way without having a hardship. The numbers might be a little bit different but the way that the building is built would still lend itself to that and even in the minimum security, where you know we said well we're not using a dormitory, but reason something like a dormitory, it allows you to have the numbers in there in a still pretty secure area so the level of security between minimum up to up to maximum is is not that different it's more in the numbers, and it's more in the staff to But typically, you know, like this, these kinds of if I go back just a little bit, you know, if I look at these rectangular kind of approaches, we can, we can plug in a lot of different types of cell types within that the day spaces are relatively the same the outdoor spaces are relatively the same the program spaces are relatively the same. So, you know, there is flexibility built into that where you wouldn't be able to you wouldn't say gosh. I've got all these math I got all these minimum security inmates I have no place appropriate to put them. The units would, you know, have some flexibility and I think again in further study you might even fine tune that more of, you know, where do you blur the line between maximum and medium, where do you blur the line between minimum and medium, and how do you have these strategies where you could put your type of inmate in a given scenario without being detrimental to operations, because I know one of the issues and you might be talking about and I've dealt with this with some other clients is that they actually lack maximum security beds, and they don't have a place that should be a maximum security, but they don't have an appropriate place for them so the wear and tear and issues with vandalism issues with assault, really are, are bad in those types of situations, whereas if they had more maximum security beds and more appropriate security, more anti ligature types of environments, they could put kind of any inmate in those areas, especially at least for temporary conditions, because sometimes that is what you have. Sometimes you might have a spike. You know, we might have a situation here where, again, there's something like a covert again. But in the scenario that I have on the screen here, you could easily say you know rather than eight people in a room maybe we'll have for in a room, and the day, day space might be less so again that flexibility can help in a, in a pandemic situation as well so why we can't come up with architecture is perfect for every situation. We really do try to make the effort to have kind of a universal type of footprint that you could then plug different elements into. I just want to clear clarify for committee members because we have some new members to the world of corrections here that a person's security level, the meaning minimum, medium, or maximum, which we really don't have much maximum in the state of my most most of that is close custody. It's not based on what your charges and convictions are. It's based on your behavior in the incarcerated setting so you could have the most heinous crime that you've been convicted of, but you may be so well behaved that you would be in a minimum security. So, people sometimes conflict, those minimum maximum mediums with what folks are convicted with, and it's not connected to your conviction. You know that's very good point and I'd add further because your system is a combined system where you have sentenced, and then you also have pre trial. The pre trial as they're new into the system are less known what their behavior is going to be and so being able to put them in a situation where at least through a classification system you get a better knowledge of who they are how they're going to behave. I mean, we've seen people that have come in on relatively minor charges but inside, they may have a psychic break there may be issues with addiction that they've had they, they're a less than ideal type of residents, where others as you've said, they've been in for a crime that is definitely considered more serious, but in this setting. There, they don't seem to pose as much of a threat to others and so they can live among other people and I think it's, you know, the Department of Corrections has a, has basically a tool that they use to, you know, identify the histories of all these folks, you know, interview them understand any type of gang affiliations drug use, you know, history that's a mental health history, and be able to use that really, you know, detailed reports to help determine where people should live within within the facility so as an excellent point you make. And I think, you know, again at the next level however you go, you know to break down those beds even further based on what those particular classification needs and what's trending for your state will really be important. So let's move on because time is going. Sure. Well, and after, you know, that's great and after we've gotten through one the other ones will actually go relatively quickly because I'm not going to, I'm not going to cover every detail of each one so we'll get back to the where we were left off before again was the reentry for the mail this was the fourth facility and option a. And, and again I think rightfully we're spending a lot of time on a because that's the all new one. There's a lot of advantages to option a the biggest one be being that you would have, you know, from an operational standpoint, it would have less staff requirement. Because you'd have essentially, you know, one male warden one one female facility warden, you know, rather than multiple. Plus, you know, the ability or the need to move them around your system would not be as costly. It would solve all of your ADA pre and ACA standard needs so it would do that. And now on a couple of the drawbacks is that because you're the combined system with all your counties in your sheriff's one central facility would have to be very carefully chosen to be able to work for everybody and we know that could be a hardship. And as we get to the total cost obviously this scenario will cost the most, and we'll and we'll get more into the detail of that but that's that's kind of the outlay of what what option is option be looks at a new facilities for men women and then a combined new facility in the northeast. It combines the two facilities. Northern state northeast into one new facility. And it and again it looks at doing the ex as an expansion that southern so that would be the difference so you're looking at a couple of more new facilities plus than the expansion that Southern what what the difference here is you have more new facilities and it has more geographic diversity to it. And overall, over time it would have a, you know, a positive impact on your staffing needs. It still does close down the facilities that are on the on the west part of the state as well so this keeps one facility open southern state adds new facilities. And then again here's the breakdown of that I won't go into every number again they're in the report has a grand total of 2063. And again as I mentioned before the women's facilities were contemplating here the women's correctional women's reentry that those numbers stay static. The men's numbers start to change a little bit in that new Northwest one we're looking at 600 beds. And in the new Northeast we're looking at 648 total beds, and then we're expanding the beds at Southern from 377 to 521. So I said I wouldn't go through the numbers but I did just go through the numbers again. This shows what a smaller, but still significant size 600 bed male facility might look like again it has all the same components that the one larger facility had, but we just fewer beds. And what we were looking at in our in the in the study was that this facility for men would also entail more of the special needs again more of the medical mental health acute acute need treatment here. And it's close to Burlington, but it would again be able to concentrate more of those services for one population here. So the other two facilities would be more medium security, whereas then the special needs and treatment would be at this facility in the Northwest, and otherwise the other components again a campus style, the other components are similar as to the larger male that I showed just again scale differently for the, for the smaller population. The female again the same as we showed before so I won't go into that detail the reentry again the same as before. That was a male here's the female reentry the same the same footprint. There we go. But then we're also contemplate over on the on the Northeast. Again, and really, I guess you know, splitting up the special needs but also having more male secure medium security and being a slightly larger facility as it really combines those two populations in the Northeast, but again very to two similar facilities one in the Northwest one in the Northeast similar missions, the ability to have special needs treatment but this one also has a fair amount of medium and minimum security to it. And then the expansion of southern. So this contemplates taking southern and then the parts in color would be where those expense expansions are one of them being beds and other being a new technical training building which is again has been permitted for. And so to be able to realize going ahead and expanding that at Southern State. So some of the same advantages this this this would solve many of the ACA AD and Priya not necessarily all of them because you are using some existing beds but it would solve most of those. It does have more geographic diversity to it. Probably the drawback though this is. This is an expensive solution and that you're building more new facilities and just given capacity of how to go about building this will take time this one with this one. Just in our analysis probably takes the longest to build option B is probably the lengthiest program option a is less because you're just kind of building all new at once option be would take longer as you're having to build new facilities then to retire old ones. B and C maintains the facilities in the northeast part of the state while building a new one in the northwest and then does the expansion at Southern. So that's that's the key difference between B and C. The beds remain somewhat the same now on the two blue ones that we're showing the existing we have 433 beds at Northern. We have 219 beds at the east. We have a total population to 2067. So again it's it's essentially the same program as be except it builds one less facility and maintains two existing ones that you have. And in our view, Northern State Northeast regional are decent facilities that they that you can maintain and that the emphasis on expansion would still happen at Southern State. We'll just touch. Well, again, this is the 600 bed one in Northwest same as the other scenario. Same female. Same male or entry. Same female or entry. Same expansion at Southern. And then this just doesn't show new expansion but you do see the note on ADA. So it's our belief that no matter what you do, if you maintain existing facilities, even if you don't expand beds, there is ADA work that needs to happen at those. You can see this kind of odd jog at the top of the diagram. That's because that's there's a big grade there. And so that is prohibitive for inmates and really in some cases staff to be able to, you know, traverse that area so we would recommend still looking at some of the ADA issues. And then at the end the other one in the Northeast part of the state again, no no new additions here. See, as far as advantages are concerned. Again, it's less capital outlay for you. It can take less time to build a maintains geographic diversity for you, but it also does give you significant benefits. It gives you significant again women's facilities it has a still a significant male facility to replace some older facilities that really need replacement. Probably the one thing that this one starts to move in the opposite direction is that it solves fewer the ADA pre and ACA standards so those are the really the tradeoffs that you look at you can. If you look at the standards with new, you meet less of them with existing, but you do maintain more geographic diversity. And I think this one also build you know builds less overall so the overall capital causes will see is reduced from what And I'll hit D&E fairly quickly because again they really focus again on on your existing facilities. This contemplates keeping even the North Northwest facility operating, but still closes down Chittenden and marble Valley. Here's the grand total of 2070 beds all together. Northwest state does have some expansion to it, as well southern and we still are keeping northern state and northeast roughly the same as they already are. Yeah, sure. I have a quick question on the option C pros back about two slides. Yep. Yes, that last statement the option B is designed that it that D is correct. So this one does not meet those current standards correct. This one does so less. Yes, correct, right less but not. It's still B does them all see does most of them. Most of them, right, right. Okay, good. Thank you. So, Jeff, can you clarify the difference between C&D? Does C close marble Valley? It does. And does D close marble Valley? It does. Both of them close marble Valley. And both of them keep open Newport and St. John's Berry. Yeah, I think the biggest difference with D is the idea of keeping Northwest open. But C also has Northwest open where Northwest would include your Chittin facility and your marble Valley facility. Correct. C closes Northwest and builds a new facility somewhere in the vicinity. Okay, we're showing Northwest close but okay somewhere in the general vicinity vicinity opening a new one in that area. Where does D keeps Northwest open as it is. So that's the only difference between C&D. Yes, it really is because they all they all they all close Chittin and they all close marble Valley but Northwest being open versus a brand new mail is the big difference between C&D. Okay. And then that can really get into your cost. Because if you keep Northwest, you're going to have to do renovations. You do have to do renovations, right? Correct. Yep. Yeah, you do have renovations on Northwest versus versus the cost of doing new. Yeah, I will say this and I told the BGS and DOC folks if we were doing this live if we were doing a remote I'd have probably five boards up in the room with you. We could be it'd be easier to compare these because it realizes I'm going slide by slide I'm glad you're stopping me and asking because it's not. You know, it's a lot to keep track of I've been living with it for a couple of months now this is kind of this is new information for the rest of you. So does that answer that though between the difference in C&D. It does. So the question is, the basic difference between C&D. One, you get rid of the current St. Albans facility, and you build new for that incorporating Chittin and the marble Valley. D, you're using that facility with maybe some renovations that you're bringing in Chittin and you're bringing in marble Valley. Correct. And all of the scenarios increase the Springfield facility by about 150 beds. Right, right. Okay. So as we go through D again, you've seen this one. This is a smaller, I'm not sure this diagram is exactly right as I'm looking at it but 348 beds for a for a male. Female facility reentry again, the expansion at Southern again the same. No expansion here that that northern northeast and a little bit of expansion at Northwest as you said so this, this doesn't really increase beds but it does do bring some if if you were to keep Northwest open. There are some much needed. Modernizations need to happen at that facility. So the cost estimate does take that into account. And then. And so D, you know, operates more of your facilities that really kind of eliminates though, as much for new mail, as you might as you might have had in another scenario, it does keep your geographic diversity. And then as far as being able to meet standards, it does that the least. This this addresses standards, you know, the least obviously option E will be even less so. So again you're starting to, you know, you're keeping other facilities going and kind of living, living with that and living with the lack of standards but again, these are all scenarios that are offered, you know, depending on how you want to deal with, you know, the required revenue for them. So that's an important thing E really just contemplates again, new female facilities. And then does more expansion at your existing. So it does more expansion Southern more expansion at Northwest more expansion and northern state. So you can see, we're actually looking at Southern going up to 617 beds which we believe it has the capacity for doesn't currently have the permitting for, but it has the capacity for, and this expands northern state to 529 beds, and it expanded again just the expansions I showed you before with Northwest. Now what that will do at Southern and northern is it does require not just the beds but some additional other infrastructure things because you have more, you have more inmates you have more staff. You know, you may need to expand the kitchen, some other things like that but again these are possible. And as we said you know Southern state, your newest one has the most has the most capability of expansion over time. And I guess I should also just say, we've laid these out in five options. As you go down the road, there may be pieces and parts from a, you know, from a variety of these you might say well, E was the only one that expanded Southern state to 617 but that's what we'd like to do so we can do that in combination with another so there's different ways to break them down. We tried to keep them in these five groups because we thought this was the most comprehensive way to do it, or comprehensible way to do it. But again, you know everything was the goal was to get to that number of beds build a new female get all your inmates back in the state and solve as many of the AC and ADA issues as possible, given whatever they get you know whatever that budget might look like. I think you've seen you've seen these different layouts. Now this now it's Southern that shows a little bit more housing so that's again that the further expansion Southern then some expansion at Northern. No expansion really at North Northeast and the expansion we showed before Northwest. And, and this does also look at if you did keep Marble Valley open as well again it's your smallest, but you know one thought about Marble Valley. Because, you know, it could be repurposed in the, in the venue of a male reentry possibly, you know, given its size, you know so again, there would be renovations that we haven't really studied what that might require. But, but you know there might be a way to utilize that facility and repurpose it in some way so we kind of just kept it in the mix here, as far as these options go. This one has lower overall construction costs as you might imagine because we're not building as much new. This solves the fewest amount of standards. It does keep your geographic diversity as far as partnerships with the sheriff's departments, but it, you know it, but it also doesn't create as many effective new modern beds as any of them again this is the one that's, that's at least total distribution costs but it also solves, you know the fewest amount of, of overall issues within the within the system. So, this just a recap again we saw this chart right at the beginning. This just lays out which facilities are new which ones are expanded and which ones are still in operation. And then the circles with the dashes around them are the ones that would be closed in every given scenario again they're in the report. This is just our scorecard to try to you know keep all these different scenarios straight. So this is an important chart. As we kind of compare advantages and disadvantages of all these different approaches, and you can see at the top option a solves the most issues it's a brand new, it's a brand new facility the two things that doesn't do as much love. And so with the geographic diversity and it also has an issue when we should just be frank that, you know, some of these facilities clearly have become part of the community they're in, and just saying hey we're just going to move this one. It's not that simple. They're part of that community. And so that's that has to be taken into consideration as you think about any of these is what's the offset and cost but also what's what's the cultural and economic impact it might have on a given community. And as I said that, you know your, your per diem costs as we showed before where as high as around 192. But now if you average the per diem costs for inmate in any of these scenarios you can see even the most expensive win which is option D is at $124 per That's, that's substantially less than your most expensive now in the all new scenario, that number goes as low as is $99 per diem for inmate. Again, I should emphasize that's in today's dollars we have not. We have not really built in escalation over, you know, over 1020 year scenario here. Now that again that's I think for bgs is, you know, financial orders to take a look at, but the capital cost per square foot also is less than an all new facility and that number goes up, just because again building in the existing facilities just goes up and less than what footage you built that you build that dollar amount goes up. Now if you look at the next to last one, that's an important one option a is a $330 million all in option if you do everything all at once and I should emphasize these are the numbers if you do everything at one time. Option B actually goes up because you're building yet another facility even though they're smaller. We have that is 379 million. Option C, which eliminates the all new facility in the Northwest comes down to 252 million. Pardon me one second. Option D 247 million actually similar to option C, and option E is $234 million. So that does the least amount of expansion so relatively speaking CD and E are are similar. A takes another step up and B takes the highest step up in terms of dollars. So in terms of recommendations. Working with the DLC working with bgs we've been back and forth over these main times. The preferred scenario out of all of these right now appears to be option C. That's the cost on the cost that we saw before. I think importantly, you know it contemplates new facilities that would be the replacement of the facilities in the West. Could be done over a timeframe and I think it's important to look at a master plan is something that doesn't that isn't necessarily a you know do it all at one time but really again gives you a plan. A game plan and roadmap how to move ahead over time. So talking about these pros of option C before it does solve quite a bit of the ADA pre ACA standards not all of them but quite a few of them. It does, it does take into account that you do have some existing facilities that are assets we don't consider them total liabilities. So it does have that ability it does maintain some geographic diversity for your partners with the sheriff's departments and and courts to I should I should mention. And you know and again it is a scalable option. We know one of the things that we did was not to say if we did, and we only took a option C here because it was kind of the most preferred out of all these and said if you were to, you know if you were to embark on this. You know how might you do it in steps and the first thing obviously is the thing that has to happen this next year is really this more is deeper dive on programming. And then you get past year two and then you start to really, I think again look at a women's facility first. And, you know, but you can see here in this in this scenario as you build these in stages by year 12, you have all your inmates back in the state so again, this is a long term proposition not a, not something that we would envision you necessarily fix, you know and your two or three here. The last thing after we get past the schedule. I think this is important is, what do we look at what does it look like on your yearly expenditure to start down this path and we said well what if we do start with the male at the female facility in your current model. You know, you're spending, you know, you're spending 80 around $84 million all together and that number is actually a little bit more because we actually added maintenance that we hadn't identified before. And actually, I don't think this is quite right. This number the showing 76 I believe actually goes in the opposite direction, you're adding a more capital cost so I apologize I think they have a wrong number here but in essence we're saying to start with the women's facility you'd be adding around $6 to $7 million a year to your annual outlay from where your operations are right now your operations are 84 million right now. And that, and that when I when we had the total operating costs. It's it's an addition of around $6 million now that number. It would be in play then as you retire the bond we know you have 20 year bond retirement. And then you may add another project as it as it comes as the women's facility comes online improve staffing. So that operation costs can come down so we could look at those different scenarios. But this is one way to look at it in that you're already spending $84 million a year to embark on a new facility. But in terms of your annual outlay. What we find is it's not necessarily as burdensome as other times now we've had scenarios where we've had a cost neutral one where we've had so many bad facilities and in a particular system that one new facility actually can replace that cost we're not we're not suggesting that's not necessarily the case here. And if you had all the money to start with in day one, you could move in that direction, but what we would encourage moving forward to look at this on that annual basis, and, and to look at what that, you know what what your, what your yearly expenditure would be to get down the road of solving it so I'm done with my presentation I'd be happy to take more questions or have more more dialogue here. Questions. That'll be questions. I have a code. Okay, let's go with Senator Benning first and then we'll go to representative coffee and go from there. Jeff, this is a finer detail but you had transportation costs listed. Are those transportation costs. Do they include the sheriff's expenses for bringing people to and from court. No, those are so those are do see so the other transportation costs that would be for your sheriff's departments would be outside of these transportation costs. So that's not factored in anywhere in your presentation. It's not no we only and by agreement with the groups we just factored in the expenses that you had direct control over but there would be an impact on sheriff and sheriff spending. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We could take the power point down if sure for this if that might help and then that might help with our conversation helps can then raise their blue hands or yellow hands on the participant list. This is great to have this this. These all these visualizations and the options on the table I kind of wanted to go back to some basic information because I know our colleagues outside of this joint committee are going to be asking this, you know, that is striking the increase number of beds that we're looking at in this model. And then I understand you know if we're adding, which we do want to add reentry facilities that obviously is a factor and we want to have the way a hotel needs to have space to be able to move people around. But considering that we're doing working so hard on justice reinvestment and our numbers are going down even before the pandemic. And before our courts are closed, you know, this this higher number makes me feel a little uncomfortable without understanding more deeply, why we need to, when we currently have had a pretty steady number of 115 women. In total why we would need a facility for 144 plus 50. That's just one example but maybe you could kind of back us up I know when you came in spoke before us. Earlier we talked about this but I feel like I need to be regrounded in why we're looking at finding 2050 beds for our system. Sure. I would say off the top the 150 that represent reentry are beds you just don't have it all right now. And so that they would be additional and I think they have a different mission than what the corrections beds are so I think the way that we've been looking at it as we've been developing the report is that the 1900 represents. That's that's more in line with your turn it with with your with solving the correctional bed issue as far as having more capacity because some of the facilities are at capacity they're not as effective as they can be. But also again bringing home the inmates that are in Mississippi. And then the 1800 and then the 150 represents the reentry the 50 beds for women the hundred the hundred for men. The hundred and 44 for women that that again does come from some from some historic data because prior to the pandemic what we saw with the four years prior. Your state was incredibly steady with what those numbers were. Of course there had been a reduction from previous years prior to that. But for those four years plus as we came to the pandemic. Those numbers were pretty steady so that's what we went off of and we added some capacity to again have more effective bed as you put it, you know be able to move people around. And that's how the number has come out to that but I, I would stress again I think the 1900 represents, if I'm apples to apples with your current system those are correctional beds 150 represents new services which you just don't have that have been, you know, been requested for us to look at of establishing a true reentry system. But those, those reentry beds, those folks that would qualify to be in those reentry beds are currently taking up a hard bed in our current facilities. So they're not new people. They're currently in our facilities without a reentry program so those folks would just be moved to a reentry bed. Okay, actually, yeah it doesn't. It might be fewer corrections beds right scenario. That's something to consider. I think I don't know if the DOC folks might want to comment on that as well I mean they've been, you know they helped, you know advise us on some of these numbers. I don't know what opinions you guys might share on that. On that question. I'm trying to also remember you made me do and Commissioner Baker or Joey. Help me I can help you how many, how many beds do we currently have in our current system. This is 1600 or 1700. This is about 17 from the. Okay, I can look it up while we're talking I but I believe that numbers about is in the 1700 range for current. Here can help you out with that manager. Okay, and I think of that amount there's about 400 of those beds that are limited in use they're restricted. Is that enough base there now. No, you're correct we're right around I think it's 1777 is where we're at for for beds and stay right now. But they are limited and even more so now with COVID with our intake quarantine isolation units we've had to revamp every facility in order to accommodate those those beds. Back to our, you know, your earlier conversation asking about general population beds, which is what this, this new design would, would provide an OS says minimum security medium security special needs but it really is. Those are really the general population beds that we're in need of. So, Jeff, when you're talking about the 2000 beds, or 2050. Does that include booking beds. Yes, and infirmary beds. Those are a little bit different no those are actually those so no the 2050 the rated bed so those are the beds would be assigned. So there are additional medical beds that are infirmary beds that we don't usually, we don't have that in the total so those would be an addition as far because they're temp beds, and the book and there would be booking capacity. We've built in booking capacity but that's not reflected in those in those beds, and I don't believe those are reflected in the current bed counts either. Those are in our current bed counts they are they are the infirmary to now. Yes. So what we're looking at in my brain, simple brain here is we have about 1300 beds that are flexible in our system for general population that's excluding your infirmary your booking close custody that type of situation. So we're talking about 2500 of which 150 would be reentry so we're at 1900. It almost looks like we're adding general population beds to our current numbers. That makes then we are and that that would that's that that 15% vacancy rate that is the national average that puts us in line with ACA standards, which is something we don't have right now. And as you know through recent construction projects through through our facilities we've had to ship people out of state because we don't have the beds to keep them. So in construction, new construction in the future that would be eliminated as we have the beds based to accommodate those numbers. So are you looking at that 1700 plus as the basis for that 15% vacancy rate, not the 1300 plus correct. Okay. Right. And I guess it is additional beds without anticipating additional people. Okay, we are we are planning for empty beds. And however you want to address that but that is something that is typical for, you know, operational. You know, to meet ACA standards of better operations is to build in more empty beds so it gives them the flexibility. Can I ask the follow up question just real quick. So if that if there is a 15% vacancy rate. How is that reflected in the numbers of the per diem per bed is that calculated based on all those beds being full, or are you cat building in the 15% on occupancy. We're suggesting that they're that know that that percentage is empty that we're not suggesting that we are filling every single bed. Okay, even as we calculate the per diem it's an excellent question. And it actually makes me want to look at my calculations one more time but I believe we are we are factory and those that's that certain percentage not being filled right now. Okay, that'd be great to really, I'm curious to just, we want to, there's a lot of math here. No, and I wouldn't want to see no I think to your point it's a great question because I wouldn't want we wouldn't want to artificially rate lower the per diem by assuming that there's beds that should be empty would be full, and that would then automatically reduce your per diem. I don't think we did that but I do want to double check on that. Now that you've asked. Thank you. So we have some more questions representative Dolan representative Taylor and representative Martel representative Dolan. Thank you. Thank you for this overview so much information to the process. I definitely appreciate the reentry facility focus in all the different models. And this ties into the previous question about numbers because we are doing tons of work on justice reinvestment and trying to really reduce the number of folks that are being incarcerated when we can. And so I'm curious in these models where it was considered, you know, can some of the units spaces be shifted to be to increase reentry beds like say all of a sudden we're doing really great work and folks are moving more towards reentry is that a possibility in any of the infrastructure that you're designing or these going to be fixed. I'm guessing that there needs to be different considerations for reentry type that beds versus fully incarcerated beds. Right. I think so. No, it's a great question and often the minimum security design that we do lends itself well to a well we would call it step down. It could not be full reentry where you're necessarily outside the facility, but it can essentially have a lot of the same program and have the basically the look and feel of what reentry would be still inside the facility so we refer to that as step down. And so often the minimum security can serve that purpose. The minimum security minimum security serves a lot of different needs, you know, it may be trustees at work at the facility. It could be reentry, it could be people that are again in that transition then to go to reentry, but the minimum security are meant to be more of that kind of scenario that you would see in the in the reentry if it's not exactly. But again, as a more detailed study emerges you might decide that some of the minimum would be just like the reentry but they just may still be in the secure part of the fence or, or some other kind of scenario like that so I think there is a flexibility to, to increase the reentry program and the step down program by being able to utilize those beds. Representative Taylor and then representative Martell. Those 50 beds in the, in the reentry facility for the women could also be, I'm not sure how the, how the number was derived, but it could also be coming from the community where we've been told the community services are currently inadequate and so the 50 could come, could be those that are in the, in the community that would be better served in a reentry facility. So that was thinking it but the problem is that we do need to be able to have a, a good explanation for that number, if we're going to build a facility for 50 beds we need to be able to say those 50 beds are 50 that were in CRCF and are now in a reentry and those 50 beds were in the community and are now in a reentry. It's going to be an issue that that's going to come up. How did we get that number and I think we, it would be good to have a nice explanation of how that was derived. Okay, and we can get more detail on where we got that and I think there's also one more scenario to that. As you said, there are probably some women and men too but it was some women that are in your, in your custody beds that would be in a reentry right now if it existed and would, and would have then either create more room or may create different sentencing from judges just that if that with the increased capacity that may say look we have more in reentry, we may have more in custody that, that because I didn't have enough beds. My other option was just to return people out that may not that might not have been first choice that you know that might that might have been a scenario that a judge wasn't able to utilize, because we, you know I've had it with other projects where you know the scenarios either to put them in an inappropriate detention facility, or put them back on the street neither of those are the right ones for this third option of either you know in the case of you know it might be diversion might be reentry, you know gives you one more option, where that might be the most appropriate solution for somebody that right now doesn't have an appropriate solution. The flip side of that of course is the judge knowing that there's empty beds and incarcerated facility puts people there who needn't really be there. And that's what other people would argue that happens if you build a facility that's more than you need so there's potential for that as well. Yeah. That's my question represent my town. Why is it really a question but it's a statement. Isn't it better to have an empty bed than to wish you had a bed available. It is but the question is, if you have a bed, they'll fill it. That's always been the balancing act. One thing that may be helpful in really determining the final bed size and for some populations. The way you've laid out the process in terms of the capital needs so that you don't get slammed with the $250 million all of a sudden in one or two years you you're phasing this in. So through that phase in process you would have a better feel for what your actual bed needs are going to be. Once we have put in our initiatives further initiatives with the council state governments with justice for investment. And the testimony we've also been receiving from corrections for the past couple of years. What really looks like our population pre COVID and then probably going forward after COVID is going to be around 1900 folks and that includes the women. That seems to be the baseline. That may go down by 100 or may go up by 100 but that seems to be the baseline that we've heard in house corrections and institutions for the last couple of years. And I don't know if on the doc world if that has changed or not. I know I know COVID has changed it. But once the courts are going to start opening up here in the next few weeks. And I think our numbers are going to start going up our feeder system has not been open. So Madam, Madam chair I think this is the, this is the question right, and I think what Jeff and the staffs, the staff at doc did was the best they could to take a look at the numbers. But I don't want to cut off questions but I just want to make a couple statements to get people to be thinking about what you just talked about right. And what we've heard here year and a half, two years is really a big discussion about how we're going to bring flexibility into the system. And you heard Jeff talking about I mean, we have 400 beds right now that we can't even really use. It's driving our costs are operational cost costs. We were one of the leaders in the country and operational cost. The other problem is our systems don't allow us to have the flexibility that Jeff is describing to be more creative in the programming that you and I think representative tower touched on this. You could in fact have more people inside beds, but you're creating better programming for transition. And what happens now as you all know, and we've talked about this, you know, quite a bit since I've been around the last year and a half is that someone transitions out. And it's from from jail to transitional housing. No, no stop in between. What, as I've been listening to the work being done here by by Jeff and his staff and, and Commissioner Fitch and her staff and my staff is my mind is just running with the ability to bring programming into the system. That creates better outcomes, and will be in the spirit of what justice reinvestment to is, if this is making sense. Now our jails are built that it's a, it's a, it's a real challenge to do the kind of programming that is going to have in fact, effective impact on individuals on their ability to transition back to society. And so, as I heard representative Taylor talking. I think you're right. It's how you how you say it right are the 50 beds that transitional is coming from what we already pay for transitional housing in the community. You know, and I'm pretty familiar with that because we're in the middle of the bid process right now for proposals coming back for for a new form of housing, you know the numbers around $6 million a year. I think this is the conversation that we have to have you have what you have in front of you it's going to take you a while to digest that information. But then the real conversation now starts about how are we going to move forward with a nox flexibility that we're not rushing into something. So we can see how programming is working as we make each step. I mean I think that's the real challenge and it's, it's not going to be easy. I, I think the light in the moment for a minute, I'm not going to be with you all the way through this. So that's for my friend, Senator, my good friend, Senator, you're staying with us Jim. He's committed you to a lifetime commitment. If you signed that paper, you'd read this all print. Right, I can start acting like I've lost my mind and they'll force me out, but no, seriously, I think for me, I just want everybody to be thinking about that because I realized that there's gonna be a lot of pushback about building new jails, I get it. But let me tell you, our system is not built for the programming or the environment we need to rehabilitate people. It's not, Jeff, I was struck by it, it's just ringing in my head from your last presentation when you talked about the nature of the way our facilities are built. The construction makes life stressful for everybody. It's loud, it's not a lot of light. Jeff, several times I heard you talk today about normalization, right? The way the facilities are built to normalize people's lives inside, more light, the ability to program. Somebody asked a question about, well, I think it was you, Senator Benning, do we have to move people all the way from one place to another to have contact with their attorneys? That worked for us right now aside the facilities, it doesn't sound like a lot, it's a major step to get someone to their attorney. And to normalize the system to have better outcomes, the way we treat people with humility with a little bit of human dignity is a big piece of what we're talking about here. So I just kind of wanna put that out there. I know it's gonna be a hard sell, but let's not lose the target of the next two years of capital money really digging into what do we want our correctional system will look like 20 years from now? That's the real question to me. And so I just wanna put that out there. Yeah, I'd like to follow up and dovetail off of that. I'm pretty sure I'm the only criminal defense attorney on the screen right now. There's a couple of things that appear to be universal. One is that the women's facility as it currently exists needs to go. At the other end of the spectrum, I get a sense that option A is not something that we're gonna be seriously considering because it is too much at one time to try to contemplate and would result in paralysis trying to accomplish the eventual goal. In between there, there's a whole lot of other things to talk about. Alice, I heard you say there's an expectation when the court system opens up again, we're gonna have a rise in the inmate population. I'm gonna throw a counter punch there and say, in fact, there's a lot of people currently incarcerated who wouldn't be incarcerated had the court system been moving. So in fact, in my head, I'm going to feel like there's a population that's going to be on the downturn as cases move forward because they will be getting out and they will be getting into the programming that they can't get right now because of this state of COVID paralysis that we are currently in. But I'm really feeling the urge here to concentrate our conversation in such a way that we can make a step as a result of being constantly running around in circles, trying to figure out how to do everything at once. And that seems to center on the women's facility. Getting that replaced first, getting programming and step down beds or release beds, however you wanna fashion the terminology gives us a starting point to figure out from a lowest cost perspective, how we begin to make moves and we'll have an impact later on down the road as we transition the men into the same process. But I would hate to leave these conversations going too much longer, walking around in circles, trying to figure out what's our next step going to be because I know on the Senate side, I've got people very loud and very, oops, concerned that we not get so bogged down in the overall details of the entire system that we get losing the trees for the forest. Let's take a first step would be my recommendation. Let's concentrate on building a women's facility and deciding what kind of bed space for step down purposes is gonna be wrapped around that. That seems to be the least expensive thing to have to accomplish. And we can figure out all of those little details like how far do you have to walk your inmate to a telephone for attorney client privileges. And while that may sound relatively minor in comparison to the big picture, all of that not only takes time and personnel on the inside, but it has a direct impact on the court system's ability to move forward as we can't do things. Let me give one example. In St. Johnsbury, there is a video room. It happens to be the same room that the attorney telephone line is in. So if there's a court hearing going on where there's an inmate on the video screen and then I'm another attorney trying to call my client inside the facility, I can't reach them. So the entire system takes a back seat and we can't move forward in some fashion. I'm desperate for this conversation to come up with some kind of a concrete plan in the initial phases of deciding, okay, we're gonna take this step for now and we're gonna see how things work and then we can incorporate what happens, best case scenario for the women into what we do on a bigger picture for the men because there's so many more of them. And I couldn't agree with you more Senator. I think that's that, this is a big conversation. It's a very big conversation and it's not an easy conversation. You know, when some folks will say, we don't need jails, you know, that's one spectrum. But at the other end of you're going to have a jail system where you incarcerate human beings and take away their freedom. The environment that we have them in now is very challenging when it comes to given that level of humanity that everyone deserves. I'm glad you just brought that comment up about some people believe you shouldn't have prisons. I'm a criminal defense attorney. It's my job to keep people out of prisons. But if someone were to suggest that we don't need to have a prison for either women or men, that would be an absolute mistake. And I know there are people that disagree with that but some of the people that I work with including women are not people we can have in society. And that is a critical statement to make if you decide to go without a prison for women, even if it's a small one, I'm going to say as a criminal defense attorney, you are making a terrible mistake. And I just, Madam Chair, I'll end here because I know we're getting it on time here. But the other thing I just want to make clear for everybody that's listening. And again, I work with the legislature to set policy and with the administration and how we deliver congressional services in the state. All these recommendations are just recommendations. I can see now where people will think that we're moving towards closing jails. And this is just the primer for a bigger conversation over the next two years about where are we gonna be in our congressional system? I'll leave it at that, Madam Chair. So I wanna continue on what Senator Benning was saying about replacing the women's facility. And that is the first step that we need to take. The issue is you need land to build a facility. So the question then becomes, do you do a standalone facility for the women and buy land somewhere? Or do you start having to look in terms of your long-term plan of where you're gonna head with the other facilities in our system? And you do the women's facility as your first step into that long-term plan. That's the crux of the issue of replacing the women's facility. Where are you gonna build it? Where's the land? You can't have a facility without land. So then that leads into, do you look at the other proposals for the male facilities and have a phased-in process where you start with the women's facility knowing you're gonna do the male facilities down the road? That's what's before us. I just get nervous that as you get into the second part of head conversation, we end up right back in the, we can't make any decision phase. So I guess if I had my personal druthers and I'm certainly not as experienced as you are, but deciding that the women are going to have a new facility is step one. Getting a place where the land is is gonna be step two. And then wrapping our heads around how many women need to be in a secure facility versus how many don't would be step three, but at least giving our colleagues the impression that we are moving and not coming up with a 20-year plan that's focused on everybody when the immediate problem is the women. We could talk about this all day and go around. Well, I think that there's general, I think there's agreement between both committees we have to replace the women's facility. The question is, where do you put it? That's the issue, where are you gonna put it? So I know Representative Taylor had his hand up and now I see it went down. So. Well, I was just, it was a quick question for Senator Benning, he may have just answered it. When he was saying the emphasis is on replacing the women's facility, I noticed the singular there, we are replacing the facility, but was he thinking replacing it with two facilities or with one as a re-entry and a more secure one or are you more concerned with just replacing the facility with something at that security level? Kurt, the easy way of answering that is we know that there is a core number of women that are going to have to be in a secured environment. There's just no way around that. How large that is is really gonna be a discussion for corrections to have to figure out. But the step down area, there isn't any reason that can't be a separate building on the same campus. If you are going to have a facility. He froze, he froze Joe, he froze. It worked, we froze him out. Does this happen a lot? He froze up Joe. Yeah, I'm just looking at my screen seeing everybody else has frozen up. So Kurt, I'm gonna make it quick cause I don't know how stable my connection is, but there isn't any reason why you can't have separate buildings for the step down facilities on the same campus because for programming purposes, you may have people who are receiving the same services no matter what building they happen to be housed in. So from an operational standpoint, you would preserve costs if you had the folks in the same location. Yep, I understand it makes perfect sense. Thank you. So I think the half million that's in FY 22 is to really have BGS and DOC take those first steps in trying to figure out how did we go forward in replacing the women's correctional facility and come back to us in January with different options on how we move forward. That's my understanding. And I think that's the house institutions committee understanding as well. Thank correct me if I'm wrong committee members, but we've- I don't know if I agree with that. Well, I know that what you're looking at Kurt is a 50 bed reentry program. And that's inclusive of what we're looking at in the half million. I wanna do more than just have more options put before us in January. I want to consider the options now and make a step forward. What would that step be forward? It would be similar to what Senator Benning says to start putting together some schematics for what a women's facility would look like, but facilities would look like, getting an accurate bed count for each one of them, which is something I've been trying to get for a year or so now. Talk to the people, the case workers within corrections that are work with the CRCF women and say, how many of these women could be in a reentry facility rather than locked up with a razor wire and start putting together a population estimate for the reentry facility. And then draw it, get down to schematics and exactly what it would look like, the kind of programming it would require. Figure out how many therefore would be left in the higher security women's facility and worry about the programming and schematics for that without worrying about where it's gonna be put. Just get started on the design and the basic structure of the buildings and have something that then we can say, okay, where are we gonna put these and worry about that in January, although we could start some site location analysis at this point as well. That's where I would like to go. Anyone wanna weigh in on that? Well, yeah, I will, I'm the, on the Senate side. So I don't put up one of those cute little yellow hands. We just, the senators sort of jump in and dominate the conversation, sorry about that. No, there's less of you, that's why. Yeah, Alice, we were party to the conversation about bringing the women back from St. Albans down to Chittenden. And the rationale behind that was the services were gonna be available. Their children were likely to be close by or there were daycare facilities that were gonna be available. So having it somewhere in the Montpelier-Burlington corridor is probably a good idea. And I agree with Kurt that getting some perspective site locations is not a difficult process. Doesn't require a whole lot of money, but at least getting the conversation up to where we have a prospective location we can talk about, even if there's two or three options. Karen? Yeah, so I agree with Rep Taylor on the urgency for the women. And I also think it's our responsibility to look at that longterm vision of the whole population or whole correctional facilities because the land that we might want to look at, you know, if it's going to incorporate other facilities, like we need to keep that in mind as we're purchasing it. So I see that there is a priority for a women's correctional facility, the re-entry. And then I'm guessing it's a parody thing or if we're having re-entry for women then we need to have it with men at the same time. So I would see that, but I think it would be irresponsible for us if we didn't take that pause to think about how are we gonna look at any of the other facilities in our state because we might wanna get the land that can encompass all of that. Other folks, Scott? Well, it gets all the way into, I think Kurt's point for what I heard is we ought to begin schematic design for a women's facility now because we know we need that. And on a parallel track, we should be looking for a place to put it. And I think Senator Benning was right, it ought to be in the Burlington Montpelier area since that's what most folks are. And it does make sense to me that we would be looking for land that could accommodate a larger facility like option C that Jeff just presented to us. So that seems like a path forward. Not easy path, but that's a path forward. Jeff, how many acres would it take for option C for doing that new facility that also includes the women and the male re-entry? Do you know how many acres that would take? From C? Let me, I think- It basically replaces the Northwest facility. Right, for the women's and the, let me look, if you would, please, I'll- You'll look at that while we have another statement. Okay, so Sarah and then Kurt. I think the acreage would help us figure out something. Yeah. Well, we have plenty of acreage at the Northwestern facility to expand. You need acreage no matter what facility you're building and you need water and sewer. So the re-entry facilities themselves are around two and a half acres each. If you had a re-entry facility and you had the incarcerated facility on the same property, two separate buildings. So then if you had the women's prison and a women's re-entry, somewhere in the range of 25 to 30 acres, is probably what you're looking for for that. And then the male one that was the smaller one that was 600 beds in C, that was about 40 acres roughly for that. So the women would be 25 to 30 men somewhere in the range of 40 acres is what you're looking for. So for option C, if you did option C, which is build new to replace the St. Albans facility along with your 100 bed male re-entry, along with your women incarcerated piece and your women re-entry piece, what's the acreage for all of that? All of those together are in about 70 acres. Just to put it in perspective for folks when you're thinking of buying land and where. So, Sarah and then Kurt. I really appreciate being able to have this conversation together with our colleagues from the Senate. I just want to make sure that when we're talking about something that Representative Taylor said, that we're not only thinking about a re-entry facility that I want to make sure that we are replacing the prison as well, because we know that that is such a huge issue. And I'm hoping, this question is for Jeff. Have you in our committee in the house, we've heard a little bit about the facility in Maine that had a facility for women and a re-entry facility on the same piece of land. Is that one of the, you mentioned a number of models in your presentation, but that was not one of them. But have you looked at that? Has that come into your thinking? Cause I don't think that was a 30 acre parcel, but I could be wrong. It might not be. We've done it with co-location. And we've done it where you've had, and you can share some things like food service and laundry, some things like that. So, we didn't do that particular one, but we've done it in other jurisdictions where we've had the co-location. And I mean, we've had them in the same building in some cases where we've had re-entry and incarceration. So, it's doable. The number of acres that we're showing in the report right now are probably in the more conservative higher side. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to have more efficient facility derived. It could be a little bit smaller, but we felt like at this stage for the report, it was better to give you the more outside larger number to deal with rather than too small. And as you look at acres, we'd not have enough. But we've done, yes, we're familiar with other ones where those things have happened at the same place. I think the important thing too for re-entry is just that wherever it's located, whether it's co-located with custody or not, is that there are the opportunities for jobs. There's the opportunity for other community service, public transportation, all those things are, I think are real keys. And so, how close they are to the custody situation, it's equally important to understand where they are versus with the services that are required. So, we have some more questions. There's Kurt, Michael, and Michelle. So, Kurt. The other thing that we could move on, almost all of these scenarios or options do talk about an expansion of Southern State. And we're spending about five and a half million each year on the out-of-state contract and a $24 million expansion of Southern State. We could bring perhaps some of those out-of-state people back and save money there and put it into the renovation of, or the expansion of Southern State. We could almost all these scenarios talk about that and we could start putting together the details of that. Michael and then Michelle. Yes, I was just thinking is, how much anchorage is that the, if it's going to be totally vacated at the middle sex, police barracks, probably not that kind of anchorage, so I'm guessing, does anybody know? It's too chopped up. Too chopped up, okay. We have the archives. They got a lot of that corridor, okay. We have the archives there and then we have the state police barracks there. Yeah, not enough then. It's a wetland. Where the trailers are, it's more like a swamp. All right. That's why they're sinking. All right, thanks. Michelle. Yeah, my question is about the model for the reentry facilities. As far as I can tell from what was introduced today, there's a lot of different permutations for how different prisons might be built and might be run in the coming years, but all of them, it sounds like the model was the same, 50 for women and 100 for men and one central location. And I guess I'm just wondering why is that? Because in terms of effective reentry, if you can have people going back into more of a community setting, a more intimate setting, it seems like you actually would have a higher likelihood of having people reintegrate and build relationships and sign up for COSAs in their host community with supportive members and things along those lines. It also feels like it would be a lot less expensive if you might buy existing an apartment or a house in a variety of different communities around the state instead of building one centrally located one. It feels like that might be a model that would be really effective both in terms of cost and also in terms of meeting people's needs. So I don't know, it's not what's on the table, but I guess I'm just asking the question before we go too far down the road, do we have to have one central women's reentry and one central men's or could we divide them up into communities and have smaller groups of people from the areas that they came from? I think I'm gonna ask maybe D.O.C. to comment on that, but I think you guys already do have like a reintegration program that does involve residential living. But not enough, and some regions have it and some don't. So the reentry is really looking at really a different thing than that and that it's the next step down to then perhaps being in that next system you're talking about. And so I think for the purposes of this report, as we worked with the D.O.C. and looked at where the programs have already worked for reducing recidivism, what their capacity is for operations because in any of these situations when you do, you still have to manage the folks in the program one way or another and whether that's, if they're spread out more that could have a staffing impact. But what we settled on for this iteration of the report was looking at this one singular reentry in addition to the custody, which isn't to say that's at the exclusion of the other housing that you just described. And I think that is, if I look at the overall system because the overall system is really other things like also probation, parole that we didn't get into. This was really the focus of the people that are housed in our essentially wards of the state currently right now in the system. And that was the per, you know, that was really what we did focus on for the report, but which isn't to say that perhaps expanding that look wouldn't be appropriate as you move forward. Sometimes you get to step to get to the community. Commissioner. I don't know if you wanted me to comment, but Representative, I think what we're really proposing in a transitional housing structure is an in-between what you're describing and what we have now. And we know from our work now. And I'll use a woman leave in Chittenden as an example. And I don't mean to make it just focused on the women because I think we run into the same thing with men. I think one of the areas that were challenged that I've said just before in front of the committee is the transition from facility to community. And, you know, just picture being in a structured environment where you're told to do something, you know, it's time to eat breakfast, it's time to take a shower, it's time for lunch. Okay, you can go to recreation, time for programming, time for dinner, time to go to bed. And then you drop them in a community and we wonder why even if it's supportive, but sometimes a lot of their support systems prior to going into a facility are not positive. And I know the COSES are out there in the CJCs, but we're proposing a step down where a woman could be reunited with her family, where DCF is working with them in an environment that's supportive, well-structured, well-programmed. That's what Maine looks like. And then they transition into transitional housing in the community, that makes sense. So we're proposing a step in between in order to help for that step down to the community to be better prepared. And we think the outcomes can be better. And if I'm missing a step there, please step in correctly. You've covered it. So we have another question here, Karen. Yes, so I know we're doing our job and asking lots of questions and picking things out of this. And I just want us to pause and like, this is a huge deal, I remember, because I've worked with the women's correctional population when they were up at Northwest and made that move to CRCF. And that was what, 10 plus years ago. And so the fact that now we're having the conversation about making this happen is huge. And so that brings me to my question of where do we go from here? Like, what is the next step? Because I feel like we have this, but now we're already branching off in all these different areas. How do we move forward from here? Because for me, at least, I'm like really excited that this is happening. I realize that it might not be ideal, but this is huge from where we were 10 years ago. So I don't know who gets that question, but I'm curious how we move forward from here. So that may be something that DOC and BGS can weigh in on in terms of what their process would be between now and January with a half million, because that's the next step. I would, because I don't run BGS, Mr. Fitch does. So I'm going to let Mr. Fitch weigh in because a big piece of this, of what we're talking about next, no matter what shape it takes, is going to be a lot of focus in BGS, I think, but I'll let the commissioner weigh in. Commissioner? You're on. Okay, sorry. For the record, my name is Jennifer Fitch and I am the BGS commissioner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Commissioner Baker, for letting me speak. You're in your office in Montpelier. I am. I'm in my two-aken office. It's exciting. So I do want to jump in and say that Madam Chair Alice Emens is completely correct. We have one large system and you can't plan independently for one piece without consideration to all the other components in the system because then what that does is it gets us into trouble because as we focus on one group, what does that mean and what does the impact on all the other groups? So it all has to be carefully coordinated and thoroughly thought of in terms of the overall system, right? So our recommendation in terms of next steps would be to finalize the number of beds and then do a programming study for all facilities. And from there, we could then start to parcel off once we have a larger plan, if you will, the various components of the plan. And so that's what we would recommend between now and January would to take that money and to continue the programming study for all facilities and we will report back on that when we meet again in January. That would be our recommendation. So I'm gonna make a observation, Commissioner, if I can. I have a lot of senators who are very angry about the fact that the women's facility has been in such dire straits for so long that we keep pushing it back for study after study after study. It is a pretty simple thing, I think, for corrections to come up with a core number of beds that they feel have to be secured for women and to then translate how many beds they would estimate would be necessary for step down facilities. If we as a group can at least agree to discard option A, that begins to focus us in a way that we can take individual steps to get to where we wanna be in the long term. But a lot of what we are talking about with the women are going to be steps that we will then re-examine for the men. I don't think we can swallow in a report. First, I don't think we have the political ability to try to adopt a universal report for everyone without many of us being chastised by our colleagues for once again delaying the conversation. This is an opportunity for us with the current report we have to use it as a guideline, but it still needs those necessary components, i.e. your core group. How many people are necessary in a secure facility? I realize my internet connection is slipping once again, but I'm seeing some of you come and go so I'm hoping you're still hearing me. We can hear you. Okay. My concern- Shut off your video might help. All right, so I'm still here. You're still here. My concern is that we not walk away from this conversation without at least some marching orders that we get DOC on board with coming up with a core number of those secure beds and a core number for what they feel they're going to need to have for step-down beds. And at the same time, frankly, start the investigation of a plot of land. I don't think if we discard option A that we are going to be looking at a universal campus. And in fact, I would steer us away from that conversation because of the much higher population of men in this equation. Men who are living all over the state, I realize the women do too, but there's a much smaller population to deal with. When it comes to the men, I'm going to at least some point argue that there should be separate facilities across the state because you have to talk about operational costs such as transportation of those men to and from their local courthouses, as well as trying to integrate them back into communities that are spread far and wide. And I don't think it makes any sense at all to have a universal campus for everybody because that could be problematic in and of itself. But I would like to be able to leave this conversation with at least focusing on DOC's ability to say, we need X core secure beds, X number of step-down beds, and somebody in BGS is beginning to investigate where the plot of land ought to be that this might be going on. I'll clarify my prior statement. One of the things I want you all to know is, right, I came in, I'm an engineer. I've never worked in the political or legislative world before. I've been watching us spin for four years and not make any decisions about where we're headed with the correctional landscape, if you will. So I'm in the same boat as you. I'm an engineer. I want to move forward. I want to make some decisions and I want to start addressing gaps in the system. So I am very much in the same boat, if you will, as everybody else here is today. We're all in alignment that we need to do something and take some kind of action. However, I also want to be very clear. And I told this to the house corrections and institutions group when I first met them this year, which is the planning part is the most essential part to anything. And we have been shooting ourselves in the foot of BGS because we moved too quickly and we don't do the planning that we need to do. So my recommendation today, the best thing that I can give you and offer you to move forward is we need to pick an option, right? We need to pick an option which sets a chart forward and we need to start planning. And if we don't do the planning that we need to do, we are going to get ourselves tripped up. So my recommendation through this committee is let's pick an option, whatever option that we pick, and then let's continue to move forward with planning and programming. You're talking about a huge system, right? So while I agree, we've been stuck in this nebulous zone for a long time and this report gives us a variety of options which hopefully will get us unstuck so that we can move forward. We also don't want to move forward so quickly that we shoot ourselves in the foot and we make some bad decisions. So my recommendation to this committee is to pick an option or work with us to pick an option and let's continue to move forward with programming and planning and make some additional progress. I want that just as much as Commissioner Baker want that just as much as you want that but we need to do it in the right way. And I think we all agree that the women's facility is the one that we start with. Period. Well, Marcia and then Scott. We still always got Windsor. We own the land. Yes, we do. 100 acres. Thank you, Marcia. Scott. So I guess my question for Commissioner Fitch is, yes, we have good planning. I'm big on planning also. If we picked, let's say, if we picked option C and we recognize that the first thing that needs to get built is a women's facility, could we not move ahead with schematic design and design of that facility while we're doing other things in parallel? So looking for the land. Kurt also mentioned beginning to plan for renovations at Southern State. Can we do these things in parallel rather than serenity? We can always do, that's the engineer brain there. So we can always do things in parallel, right? That's always an option. It's gonna require more money. It's gonna require more resources and we have to make sure we don't get tripped up on each other, right? And that all these things are being done, right? And correlated together as they move forward. Absolutely. I would say schematic. So I would call what HOK did and I'm gonna look to Jeff and hopefully he'll confirm me here is they did planning light, right? I mean, they were really looking at the entire system. So if you think about it, they're way up here, right? At the 1,000 foot view and really what we're talking about is picking an option. Let's bring that view down, right? And let's take a closer look at what we're doing. So schematic design in my opinion is too forward. Really what we need to do is we need to take a stronger look at programming and planning and take that further with the option that is selected, right? So we bring it from here and we bring it down here. Now that being said, we're gonna have to do that planning and programming for a female facility anyway. So we're not losing any ground. We're still making a lot of ground. But what you're talking about is a pretty significant facility and it needs its due diligence in the planning and programming phase. And of course from there, we lead off into the land search, right? Cause once we know what the requirements are for the facility, now we know what we need for the land. And so the two go hand in hand, but I tell you, do not look for land before you know what the requirements are for your facility cause then we're gonna get ourselves tripped up, right? It all has to go in a certain order. Well, but we might wanna look for land that accommodates more than just the one in the facility also. We might wanna look for land that accommodates option C for men's facility in the future. Not something we're building next year or it's the two years from now, but my idea would be to find a land that accommodates that, but we build the women's facility, you know, content that would be right. And that's what programming and planning gets to in terms of those requirements. What are you gonna need for power? What are you gonna need for data? How far away from a town center do you wanna be? You know, there's so many different facets that you need to consider and that will then really been down. Where do you, you know, what type of land are you looking for and where is it located in the state? And then you gotta deal with the town. We haven't talked about the town. Some towns don't want you. There may be a great piece of land somewhere that we're thinking the town doesn't want it. Senator Mazza has his hand up. Oh, sorry. All right, sorry, Alice, you can ignore me. No. Having been through a few of these purchases on land for correctional facilities in the past, I can tell you that you've gotta be specific of what you're gonna put on that land because you can't buy it with the idea you're gonna put a women's facility then five years later, they're gonna wanna know what your maximum capacity is gonna be for permitting you. Cause some people will accept a women's facility, but they probably won't accept 2,000 people on that piece of land. They wanna know what fits the community. So I've been through a few of these and that's the first question they're gonna get. So you gotta give them an answer up front. Yes, this is gonna be specifically for women or men or whatever, then they'll work with you. Thank you. Water, wastewater, there are so many different things to your point, Senator Mazza, that you have to consider. Yeah. It's not easy. And I second what Senator Mazza said because I've been through it a few times myself. And we have to be very, very clear what we're doing. And coming from the capital world, you also look, do you expend money to purchase land or do you look at land that you already own? Because if you're gonna purchase land, there's investments that are gonna need to be made in that land in terms of building roads, building driveways, extending your water and sewer to the property and possibly even helping the community in one form or another. Senator McCormick has his hand up. Yes, I see. Thank you. My understanding is that constitutionally, the state has a right to put a prison in a town whether the town wants it or not, but I think it's disastrous politics. I think it's disastrous. No, that's the disclaimer. The point is, I think it would be disastrous politics. Don't go there. I think we want to have the town, well, we did it with the Springfield prison. The state originally was looking up at that in Windsor and Windsor voted against it. Springfield voted for it. We didn't have to do it. We kind of did it as an out of respect. And the fact that Springfield voted for it, I think has made it less controversial in the years that it's been there. And I think it's a good idea to ask the town. I'm reluctant to put, even though we can, I'd be reluctant to put a prison where it's not wanted. So I think one thing that's real clear from this conversation, there needs to be a plan. There needs to be an agreement, particularly for the women's facility, for the number of beds, for the incarcerated piece and the number of beds for the re-entry. And that's been the long jam because up to this point, no one's been able to agree on the number of beds. Some folks feel the, I think people agree, 50 beds for the re-entry. The incarcerated piece, is it 100 beds? Is 150 beds? You build in the other juggernaut here, that's gonna be really hard. Do you build for a 15% vacancy? Because the public interprets that, that you're building in for the capacity. You build the beds, they're gonna be full. So that's the other juggernaut. Do you do, when you're doing construction for a women's facility, incorporate that 15% vacancy? You can't move forward until you figure out how many beds and what they're gonna be used for. And I think we've coalesced around 50 beds for the re-entry. I think we've coalesced around, that you also need the incarcerated setting as well. You need two separate, two buildings. Kurt? I think we have, there seems to be a consensus of the 50 beds, but I have no idea why I think it should be 50, it's just my gut. I've always said 50 and I think I need to have a very good explanation for why I think it's 50. And because there's gonna be a lot of people asking, why is it 50? And that's why I think that we should progress the way that Senator Benning was talking, where we get the numbers and have DOC look at the numbers and come up with them so we can say, this is why we say 50. Can DOC agree on the number of beds we need as we go forward for the women? And Representative Teller, I think I'm not speaking for Commissioner Fitcher, but we're talking the same thing. When she talks about programming, we're talking about drilling into that number that HOK just gave you to give some justification as to why that number is 50, or if it turns out to be 35 or 45. Because I think this is the point we're making is that the next step is to figure out the programming and what you need for buildings in order before you go looking for land. And so I think we're saying the same thing. And Commissioner, if I'm gonna speak, and please, please let me know. You're right on, right? That's what we're talking about. It's about the requirements. The requirements are gonna be based off the population and the number on that population, right? And that is how we're gonna progress that planning and programming study and determine what all the requirements that are wrapped around that population and that number of people. Just for the record, we are not in dispute. We are all agreed that the very first step is to have DOC come up with that number so we can get to the second step. Time to take a break, time to take a walk. Yeah, Alice, I have to leave actually in three minutes, so. We do. Well, it's almost four o'clock. So this is a good breaking point. Jeff, I wanna thank you for presenting this. I know you and BGS and DOCs have worked many hours over the weekend and many hours yesterday getting the report to us last evening as well as preparing for today. And I'm sure that both committees will be reaching out to you for further conversations. And I know both committees will be doing a deeper dive on this in the next few weeks because we're moving towards adjournment. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it, appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Thanks for much. You may also be hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee which does the policy question on our end. So we'll have my contact information. So any time. Okay, anything else from members before we sign off of YouTube? Okay, thank you folks for streaming in.