 Thank you. We are back. Live in house registry committee, and we are continuing our work on age 546. And we have new language regarding your report back. And then we also have a visual that representative. Showed us earlier and has now now to the committee. So representative for the coach. Go ahead. So mad madam chair, maybe the resolution to the Pew recommendation. Is in our miscellaneous ed. I mean not ed. My mind shifted very strangely all of a sudden, but our miscellaneous judiciary bill that we put a recommendation to the data group within the judiciary to extract that data and see that way we know where who we're asking, and we know it has to be done, but we could do that through the miscellaneous judiciary bill. And then we would be directing someone to fulfill the recommendation of the Pew, because it's going to be valuable information. And if the division picks up that data, because it'll be being disaggregated within the new system that we've been funding for the last few years. You know in judiciary. You know it's a win win all the way and it kind of feeds back into what Ken was talking about is it's not duplication. You know if, if the person who has the hand on the button. Being the judiciary. pulls that data, you know like for us. Then it's just a matter of the data sharing piece. And the division to put it up on the dashboard. So anyways that that's just a thought. Thank you. I always thought that I'm supportive of that. And I think we would maybe just want to hear some testimony from the judiciary about accessible the data is or because maybe the recommendation. Like we'd ask them to come back with just some ordinary report that's that tells us what it would take to be able to, to share demographic data about, you know, tenant land look from the tenant landlord docket and that collection dockets, but I'm supportive of keeping this bill as focused. And clean and clear as possible and then, but not losing track of that issue and considering it. The miscellaneous judiciary bill, I think that's a great suggestion coach. Great. Thank you. And make a note of that one. It's a good it's it's great that he keeps track of that he's got one of those map things, you know, to the Senate is going to start it right I think that's what we decided. No it's actually starting in this committee. Oh my. We've got one for visit. Okay. Hopefully you have a list how does the bill look. Well, that's exactly what it is a list so far. I haven't got to the drafting yet so hopefully it's funny it is on my list of things to do in the next take a look at the next week or so. Well, yeah, let's remind me to put that on our schedule. It's just for you to talk about your list. Okay. Great. All right, so then why don't we look at the language. We do have it on our. I just an email to us I told Amber that if I'm right now, not to print anything out but people want to see a print and maybe, you know, I think just that page. But we are on page is going to be for which draft is it. The 3.1. Yeah, thank you. Is it is a page for. Yes. Okay. So it's page four. Thank you. Thank you for your five and Eric has highlighted it. Thank you very much, Eric. Sure. So I'll give folks. I'm going to sort of read it and then any feedback on this language. I have one question. I'm sorry, what page is page four. Eric. So the report may include an operational assessment of the division structure. And then the last part is necessary adjustments with those two things encompass any amendments to the, to the bill or at that, at that point to the act. But for example, what sort of thing are you thinking I've represented you mean. The policy on how the the board is going to work with that. With that language allow us to make changes to look at the possible changes to the way the board operates. Yeah, I would say so that comes under structure. Yeah. Okay, I thought so, but I just wanted to verify it. Thank you. Sure. Yeah. Other than I'd point out is that that sentence doesn't in any way limit the previous sentence. So under the previous sentence that the division can include any recommendations that things are appropriate the way I read that. Just putting in there something specific because this is something you really want to kind of have them think about. But it's, but it's not exclusive to anything else that the committee could include within that first, its report within that first sentence. Right. Right. So Barbara, what do you, what do you think I am looking at it looks, I'm good with that. Okay. Anybody not good. I think it's good because it also allows us to assess. Too much was it too little, you know, but all directions. There's breathing room there. All right. Well, great. Well, thank you, Barbara for bringing this up and thank you, Eric and everybody else who helped with this. So, okay, so I think we're good. I think in terms of what's told off on voting today. We have coaches chart. For folks to refer to. And we'll try to look at a schedule there tomorrow. And again, as we think about this bill. What I what I think are committee members to think about is that we're looking at. The policy in terms of creating this new, this new entity. This has been work that has been in progress. There's a real identified need and that need was confirmed by the council state governments as part of justice for your investment to. And, and so we have a policy committee. That is, is weighing in on the policy that is put into place by creating this, this entity in terms of how many positions is it all, you know, too much money, not enough money, anything like that. That's really up to the two appropriations committee to, you know, to sort that out. And I certainly understand that that's just going through my mind. I've probably heard the answer at some point over the last 12 years or maybe not. Maybe I should ask the question but so, and I understand that we do policy. So I guess my question would be why do we put money in there. Well that was based on what you want to ask. And I think that up as it just kind of muddies the water in a sense, as far as, you know, people stop process and I can totally understand it, I mean, part of my thought process to and can get up, brought it up. Because if we're just looking at policy and then we let the money committees take care, you know, all the money issues with it. It seems like it would be easier for us at our cleaner bill. dealing with what we deal with. Just wanted to throw it out there. Martin, do you want to. Well, I know it's not it's a really interesting good question. I think about like, where else, like other bills, they've had, do they come to us with with numbers, they come to us with positions or do we or are they silent and we just know. I mean, not that you know as you know the bill is being built, not that the numbers couldn't be somewhere. But you know, kind of in the background, I guess, instead of you know taking this bill and throwing it at them. So here you figure it all out I mean if it's easier for say that to have some of the preliminary work done for them. Right. But does it doesn't have to be in the bill. Yeah, that's that's interesting because sometimes we maybe take it and not have the numbers in there, but then had a fiscal note. And Selena, I didn't hear what you said. I think it's, I've seen it done both ways we're saying I was like, yeah, just have the fiscal now, sometimes the numbers really clear trends. I mean I guess the favor of it is just the transparency. But when, but when you, but when you have a bill like this, then number has to be part of the process. Right. It's not yet, but still you're looking for, we're always looking for to try to get something certainly like this to come out of committee that we're all agreeing upon. Right. I mean, that's, that's pretty important to, in my mind, there's some that just doesn't going to happen. This is one that would be nice if it did. And what I'm saying is, it's much too broad. It's, it's, there's too many unanswered questions to many entities that are not working together. And it's like, how do we shorten up that scope. Somehow or another. It has become so complicated and so calm. Plex, I can't wrap my head around it. It shouldn't be this difficult. And I know what I just said makes no sense that anybody in this room and that's fine, but it honestly should not be this complex. The end when we go out of committee is like every time we go on the floor, and you don't see it as much as what we do on the minority side, but we're always looking even on your bills on on on on the majority side, you're always looking what that vote is that comes out of committee. It's important. It's important. It weighs on my mind, big time when I'm voting on something because I'm going to vote how I think is right. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, I understand that. And I think it would try to be as transparent as possible in this bill by putting the best figure that we have right now recognizing that appropriations more likely the way the appropriations as decrease it but you don't know. I mean, but but being very transparent for just the reason that that can is talking about this that it is a policy decision. But there's money attached to it. And it's tough to make that. You know if you're really worried about the money. That's tough to I'm sure way the importance of the policy versus the money part. Without knowing precisely what the money part is I understand that part you know I understand but we're trying to get into the ballpark at least to be able to make that that call. So that that's kind of me I think it's important in this bill to have made it clear that you know this is an investment. The other part that's which is unfortunate is there's this other uncertainty that's out there. It's it is just the concept of this bill is that it's reinvestment of money that we're saving because of these other policies that we've undertaken to justice investment. And the idea is that we save money in some places we reinvest it elsewhere. And this specifically in the governor's budget address noted that he said that he mentioned the justice reinvestment to and how savings were being reinvested in among other things data. I don't think he said data initiative but he said data. So unfortunately I've asked the joint fiscal office if they have any kind of figures as far as the justice reinvestment savings and it's it's relatively hard to tie. We are looking in the budget to see where the savings are. And whether the budget from the administration notes these savings are fine in the DOC budget, but that data isn't available to us right now. And it may not be because it's really hard to connect the fact that we do have a lot fewer inmates out of state, saving a lot of money on that to directly what the justice reinvestment was versus so we're probably not going to get a clear answer. Anytime soon on what that savings is to help us but that is the concept is how we are reinvesting money that we are we know we're saying into an initiative such as this. And so can it is for you. Is it really different if there wasn't an appropriation. No, no, because we don't know this this we. So I'm looking in this business, you do not want this to fail this is too important. If you were to go and say we were operating this as a business and you were walking into a bank. You had a million dollars, which, right, and you're going to say, okay, this is what I plan to do. But if this doesn't work. I've thrown out and I've thrown away a million dollars, which we already have money that that the governor has already said he has. He has Susanna has her position she spilled one. I don't believe she filled the other position we have a huge problem with workforce. We have a huge problem with with collecting data. We have a huge problem with the data all the data working together. And we need to fix. We need to fix those problems first. So, so even if you took the money out of this, out of this, what's in this committee, I still win vote for this bill. The way it is right now there's too many unknowns. This, this bill, this, the way this is drafted right now and. And now it's not sound like a politician. I don't like that. But this bill is drawn up. And it's going to make us all not look good. And I don't want that to happen. I want this to. I want this to pass and make sense for everybody. And maybe I don't think I'm wrong here. I'm quite confident. I'm right. We want this needs to be set up more direct. A lot less unknowns than what's out there, and a lot more. A lot more guidance and what we have. Barbara. So, Ken, I don't know if your comments are based on something that I said, but my comment was not that. We're putting a lot of money at this and we don't know if this is going to be successful. My comment was, this is tricky. It's tricky. It's not like a straightforward like, I would not go into a bank with, I mean, this isn't a business that we're setting up. We're going to look at the government function and talk about failure. I mean, look at the data that we've looked at the other day of racial disparity. So I think you're right. We all want to get at the bottom of that. And in order to do that, we're going to need to get data collected from a bunch of different places. Crunched by people that know what the heck they're doing, so that we can make smart policy decisions based on but very targeted to where we can see the problems are. So I think it's not that we're presenting this is, well, we have this business plan and we're not sure it's going to work, but we'll come back to you. This is tricky. Our state has not been the best data collector, but we have this terrible problem that makes our state very unwelcoming and hospitable for people of color and others who are different. So, we are putting together a sound plan, and we're going to be dogging it to make sure that it's meeting its targets that it has what it needs that if there are barriers or lack of the appropriate resources or training that we're going to get to the bottom of it. So that we're not just throwing money in the air, but we're trying to address these inequities. So, so just to clarify, I did not direct anything towards you at all. I don't like the bill. I don't like how it, and no offense to anybody how they tried to draft it everybody's done their best work, work at all they want. I don't think I don't care if you're a person of color or who you are doesn't exactly draw anybody to this state. Our, we're not increasing would be increasing. Maybe some of that's because what it costs to live in this state. So we can go back and forth on that all day long. I don't. This is, this is not a good sound business. I don't know to send anywhere. So, and there's nothing personal on anybody. It's just, that's not how I do stuff and however it was done before I got here. Well, whatever, but that's, it needs to be worked on. We don't even have. We don't even have the workforce to deal with this properly right now. I'll stop there. Yes. Appreciate your, your thoughts can and swanna offer. I guess I just feel differently about the bill seems to me it's the result of several years worth of very thoughtful work from our gap and others stakeholders to get this to the point where it is that it seems to have broad sport seems to have the support of the administration. And to me seems to be well constructed as a as a next step. So I'm not feeling I'm not, I'm just not quite understanding the analysis that it's, it's not sort of set up to succeed to me it seems thoughtful and well constructed and wanted to offer an alternative. I just appreciate the thoughts. And it will go to government operations. My understanding. So they have that that lens of governmental entities and just to be clear, right. I didn't say it's not thoughtful. It's very thoughtful. I'm not trying to apologize. I felt like I was putting words in your mouth, not to do that at all. I guess. This is just, this is just the, you know, this bill we all know what it's all about and it's, and it's people are going to run in charge with it and accuse and whatever whatever, and all this I just want to tweak the world. And I would like to see it tweak a little bit more. Well, again, we'll go to government operations with appropriation so there will be opportunities to get just a couple of operations. Um, yes, if I might. There's a long discussion on this bill, and this may astonish some of you but my problem with the bill is that it doesn't seem to be inclusive. And I've had this discussion with singular members as to. And looking at the graph that was presented before us is bringing exactly to the forefront what I was questioning. So there's a bill in a rough draft for another division of, and my original thoughts were that this division should be all encompassing division. We've all had numerous discussions on the lack of data whether it's racial data, LGBTQ data plus all the data we needed an office of statistics and data gathering which covers everything in the state of Vermont. We don't need 12 different divisions from EPA to racial to else. I would rather see us look at this as okay we need an office of statistics and data gathering. And it's all encompassing for everything that we're concerned about that we've talked about several times throughout the state of Vermont. This seems to be singular in my mind as to one direction that we're going. We're going to use this that's that's what I'm rusting with right now so we don't come up with 12 different divisions here. That's a great point. And that will make everybody shop a lot easier. So, I definitely understand your viewpoint in that Bob, except that we've been talking about data for a while and to wait for there to be a statewide data gathering function will be waiting a lot longer. This, this is going to. This is probably, I have to say this is probably one of the hardest areas of more difficult areas for gathering data because we're talking a lot of different agencies, law enforcement states attorneys departments, the courts department of correction, various justice, restorative justice entities, all these entities so this was pretty complicated. And, and we're hopefully establishing a model of how to in fact get this done and gathering the kind of data that we need. We're not going to end up being just racial data there we're going to find differences in geographic equities is for one, you know maybe not LGBTQ plus because in the criminal justice system we may not want to be collecting that information in the criminal justice. And I think there's a few points about that but putting that aside, we have to say my view is that all right well we either do the whole thing. I don't see that any sign that that's going to get done, or we start somewhere and we build on it. And I think that this offers a really good opportunity, because of how much work. And as slain mentioned that our depth has been doing, and others, how much work they've been doing this is a good starting point on how to best collect and aggravate aggregate data, or maybe aggravate data in the criminal or in state government so I don't think we can do it all at once I think it's a great start. I mean, I'm a 317 or 316 which are in 317. Yeah, wasn't that model that her Connecticut. Yes, they have an office of that they have something more comprehensive that I don't recall but I know that in past testimony this very issues come up with a ton. I'm sorry, I'm terrible at this late days in the day of any of them. Dr. Tom that he addresses very issue and saying that you know this is something he's broadly interested in getting the data but let's get started let's move on this and this should establish a really good model on how to do this. There's going to be a lot of work on getting systems to talk there's going to be a lot of work on data definition so that systems can talk and track people. So, that's my. Thank you. Even prior to our gap, looking at this issue I think it was three years ago now, leaving Martin was my co sponsor we introduced a bell, a number of us in this committee working with the ACLU that was kind of that bigger, more inclusive like let's get all the data and all the feedback or we took some testimony on it as I recall, and the feedback really was kind of like let's narrow what's, let's narrow and start smaller and more incrementally and I think, then the bills that coach and Martin have introduced our the natural evolution of that feedback. So that's who is that how Susana got here was was the starting point was the building of this. That was a different bill, but it's but it's still on the on the on the on the racial building their racial statistics and all that stuff right. Who's hired as part of a broader bill on racial equity and establishing establishing director racial equity within government. I think that's a much broader charge than statistic and looking at statistics. And I think that I think part of the creation of that office, there is a mandate or, or, I don't know if it's a may or shall that the director supposed to be gathering data, but there was absolutely nothing provided for that work to get done. And this is to provide a structure and that's what we've been working on our that's been working on for three years. This provides the structure to get what that office is supposed to be doing. Yes it doesn't gather it everywhere, but but it's a structure for us to get started on gathering it probably the, you know, one of the more important areas where we're seeing these kind of disparities in Vermont so Barbara then we're going to turn. Oh, that was that was an old hand. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. No worries. All right, I think it's important to help with the session.