 Good morning. This is Senate Judiciary Committee. We have our first agenda item is the Department of Corrections with Jim Baker and Matt Diastino, the financial director. And I know I've watched his name again, which is not unusual. I've been doing that for 20 years or so. But Matt is the financial head for the Department of Corrections. And we're going to be going over a few of the items in the corrections budget, mainly the ups and downs. But I'm also going to be asking the commissioner and Matt for ways to cut out-of-state beds to accomplish a $100,000 savings to reestablish battery intervention programs in the community that we had before some budget cuts while back. And those battery intervention programs are very important with all the talk about other criminal activity. To me, domestic violence remains the number one problem in Vermont. Secondly, then we've talked a little bit about this before Jim, would be a two-year plan to upgrade correctional officers to a more professional. I know when I was first hired in corrections back I won't even say the year. I was hired as a correctional counselor, not a correctional officer. And there was a different attitude about that position. We still had duties that involved incarceration and walk up and so forth. But we were seen as correctional counselors. And finally, perhaps establishing with the Justice Oversight Committee and this committee next year a two-year plan to eliminate out-of-state beds. Along with the Justice Reinvestment II effort. So those are my basic things. I know committee members may have other issues, but maybe we could start with the ups and downs in your budget and go from there. Thank you, Senator. And just for the record, I'm commissioner Jim Baker, the interim commissioner of corrections. And I'm going to turn it over to Matt to go do the ups and downs. And then I'll follow up with the policy discussions that you brought up, Senator. Good morning, everyone. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I have the ability to share. Why don't we just kind of walk through them? Certainly. I do remember seeing them. It's just a matter of time. So of the seven appropriations for DOC, there's only three that have changes in the FY21 restated budget. The first would be parole board. There's a about a $22,000 base reduction to travel expenses. A lot of reasons for this. There's been over the last couple of fiscal years reductions in travel in general. So this reduction effectively puts the operating budget in line with what actual expenditures have been through the pandemic. Of course, there's been a much more reduced travel as well. And our thought is that not just parole board, but correctional services as well, which we'll see in a couple of minutes, that we are going to be able to effectively have Zoom meetings and the like and take advantage of these technologies rather than having folks driving all over the state, which isn't to say we won't still have in-person meetings and still have travel expenses. But we do anticipate that over the next couple of fiscal years we'll probably see reductions that we perhaps wouldn't have otherwise seen had we not been living through the current environment of doing most of our meetings remotely. The next item in terms of appropriations is the correctional services appropriation. We had a technical adjustment, which is for the addition of the 30 new correctional officer positions that were added in the FY20 budget. This adjustment is a net neutral. It's general fund. It's about a $1.9 million increase to add those positions to our budget and an offsetting $1.9 million approximately decrease, which is related to the vacancy savings, overtime reductions, temporary staff savings, and the like that we'll see from those 30 new positions. Additionally, we have a $1.75 million reduction. This is savings from the health services contract. This is not a reduction to those services. What this is, when the governor's FY21 budget was proposed back in January, we were not DOC and the governor's office were not aware of what the costs of the new contract for health services would be. We were in the process of an RFP at that point. Didn't have the financial information. The previous contract had a much higher per inmate per month cost associated with it. There's been a substantial reduction in that per inmate per month cost. Again, it doesn't relate to the services themselves. They're still being delivered. There's been no reductions there. It's efficiency within those services where there's been a cost decrease. So that $1,750,000 reduction is just the savings that we see from the contract we had that ended in June 30 versus the contract of Vital Core that began July 1 of this year. The next item we have on the ups and downs is $4,950,000 requests. This is for CARES Act, the Coronavirus Relief Fund monies. This is for largely staff that are substantially dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigation and response efforts to that. DOC had, through the joint fiscal committee, had approximately the same amount approved in FY20. We do anticipate through December 30th having expenses near $5 million again related to these efforts. There are also funds and not related to this request, but for personal protective equipment for other operating costs related to COVID response. As I mentioned with Parole Board, there's also a travel reduction correctional services of $75,000. This is potentially kind of the step one in terms of travel reduction. Again, during the pandemic, the department is hosting a ton of meetings, but we're doing it remotely. There isn't as much in-state travel happening. There are some substantial savings we've seen for that. There's a $75,000 travel reduction in the FY21 restated budget. Not hearing questions, I'll keep going, but please just stop me if there are. We had also internal service funds, which we usually don't dive into too much in terms of the individual allocations, but we had nearly $600,000 of reductions related to the internal service funds. This was just base reductions to the costs that we'll see this year from the individual departments that built for things such as fee for space and digital service costs. Finally, in correctional services under our grants. In the proposed FY21 budget in January, we had looked at an adjustment for Medicaid earnings related to a community habilitative care program that's long been funded with both general fund and global commitment funding. The hope was that we'd be able to leverage some additional Medicaid dollars to that, and there was a nearly $525,000 reduction to general fund and an offsetting increase. It was net neutral to the Medicaid global commitment fund. Unfortunately, our efforts continue in this, but the pandemic has derailed those efforts slightly. It's very unlikely that we'll be able to put the pieces together for Medicaid billing before the end of FY21. So this initial proposal of a $525,000 GF reduction has been effectively reversed in the restated budget. So there's an increase to general fund of the 525 and the same decrease to the Medicaid global commitment. Again, this is something that we'll look at in FY21 as we continue to move forward with it. The hope is that FY22 we'd be able to launch this, and whether it's this amount or something less than that, we'd be able to take advantage of some of those Medicaid funds for this program. And the last appropriation in terms of the restated budget that had adjustments is the out of state vets appropriation. This one was unique in terms of the budget restatement. Everything that was in the initial FY21 budget effectively was reversed. So we, in a sense, reverted back to the FY20 as-past budget. So what we had was FY20, a budget that allowed for 225 beds out of state. And we had several seeing the note from Peggy that I might be able to share my screen. So I'm going to attempt to pull this up for everyone. Okay, great. But now I've got to put my glasses on. I can see all of you, but not the screen. So hopefully you're looking at the out of state appropriation. No, we're fine. Okay, perfect. So these first five items are again just a reversal of those initial FY21 budget proposals. At this particular time we're not able to increase U.S. Marshall beds in state which would increase the out of state beds by the same. Similarly, we had a proposal to increase the per diem cost for the Marshalls during the pandemic. These aren't conversations we've been able to have. So it's unlikely that there'd be any changes in FY21 as well as filling the Caledonia work camps. These have all been reversed. And there was, from the proposed budget you saw in January, this equated to about a $225,000 increase from that budget. The proposal for us now is a reduction from the base appropriation of 225 beds down to 206 beds. That's this final line the $586,000 reduction. We're currently at 219 beds today. And that reduction is accomplished over the course of the rest of this fiscal year. So it's an annualized budget that 206 represents for the full year. The hope here is that when we have 219 right now so we've been slightly above that in the first quarter. Out of state caseload is always a challenge because we of course can't control the population. Right now, while there are some beds in state we're holding in terms of isolation, quarantine all the COVID related needs. So we're not able to bring back necessarily as if we weren't going through a pandemic and had the population that we do now maybe a little different view in terms of how many were out of state. But the 206 does represent the budget for the entire fiscal year. Okay. Matt, one area that was some brief discussion and senate appropriations about the community college, community high school of government, and a shift from general fund to education fund. I don't see that on here. No. So this the restated budget only includes the items that were done after the initial budget. I've gone up to the education budget and again unfortunately as you said Senator Sears there's not, you can't see the movement yet. The funds were, the funds have at least for the last couple of years the funding for the school has largely been in general funds. There are some brands so this nearly 150,000 in intramarmal transfer, which is AOE grants but the proposal in the FY21 original budget was to move the 3.3 million dollars out of the general funds and then into the special funds, the education funds. We had discussions and senate appropriations. I know it's been more controversial in the House, but it seems like at least for those under 21, and I don't know what population that is who are in the community high school of Vermont, it would appear that they would have, if they were in the community would be, the community would be required to provide them with an education. So I've always felt that at least for that group the education fund is appropriate, but I know there's been a battle between the House and Senate and DLC for years predates commissioner, interim commissioner Baker who by the way has lasted longer as an interim commissioner than many commissioners in the 50 states. I appreciate that observation center. Senator on the issue of the high school and the education fund it is, you know, we did we did hear in the House both appropriations and House corrections and institutions about their concerns. And what I will tell you is that we have a conversation going on now taking a healthy look at the way we deliver that educational piece inside the facility because the reality of it is that as the population has changed we don't have a whole, we don't have many numbers under 21 that are participating in that. And what we're talking about right now is, and hopefully by the time we come back to start talking about 22, we'll have at least the framework of an idea of how we're going to look at that educational piece moving forward because the original idea quite honestly, because of the age of the folks and their abilities around basic English and math and so on is challenged. We're trying to find what we hope would be a more successful model than what we have right now. So there's going to be more conversations about that. I wonder if committee members have any questions from matter commissioner Baker about the budget. Peggy, you could take that down now, I think, or whoever's got it on the screen so that we can see everybody. I have a question. So I'm just wondering, you know, there's always been that concern about the people up to 21 and I think previously they were not sent out of state if they didn't have a high school diploma because they were then required to be in schools. And I don't know if that's still going on, wondering if it is. Not sending them out of state? Correct. And again, I don't have the number right here in front of me, I should have brought it with me, but we have very few people, 21 and under in our system that are serving census. Just because of the nature of the criminal justice reform effort. That population shrunk significantly, so I believe the value of the way we're structured now has to be, isn't hitting the mark. So we have to look at it and still afford. When we have that conversation, it's going to be 21 won't matter. 25 trying to get people set up for basic educational stuff that will prepare them for work transition to the community is what we're talking about being the focus. We've got about 20 minutes left. I wonder if we could go to the things that I mentioned and maybe other committee members have issues that they'd also like to discuss. So do you want to start with the out of state beds? Yeah. So how we can get 400,000 additional out of state beds to fund the community based domestic violence. It's hard to make that commitment right here, but I'll say to you is we'll come back with a plan for you on that, on how to find that 400,000. I appreciate that. We're in conversations with Karen about this. Because of our proposed work with David Kennedy out of John Jay creating that focus deterrence on high risk intimate partner violators. But I will say to you we have nine more people coming back on September 15. That'll put our population at 210. We're moving towards that 200 number just to make sure we balance out for the fiscal year to hit our numbers. But I think what I would like to do, I've heard you Matt and I will come back sometime towards the end of next week with how we could potentially find that money. I will just say we can go directly to the to the Senate appropriations and the and joint fiscal office. Matt and I will talk about that and we'll get back to you. Great. Any comments from the committee on this? Senator White. This isn't a comment on this necessarily, but I'm getting a lot of emails. Can I take the topic over here, Senator Sears? I'm getting a lot of emails as I'm sure we all are that are asking us to follow the ACLU's guidance and cut our prison population by 50%. And I know we've already cut it been working on that for years. I wonder if you could forward that again to us. I will, Senator. We'll get that. We'll get it to you next week after the holiday. I'll get it forward to the whole committee. And also probably a good thing for joining us. I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. I think we're going to have a little bit of a break. And also probably a good thing for joint justice to have as well. Yeah, thank you. If I might just comment very briefly on that. One of the things we found through using our system of justice oversight, excuse me, justice reinvestment. We have seen a decrease of about 750 beds incarcerated and no uptick and actually a reduction in crime rates. And I am fearful any plan that says we're going to reduce by a certain percentage without taking into account making sure that we both protect the public and don't have an uptick in crime rates. And that that is done in a logical thoughtful manner. So I'm fine with having a goal of reducing another 200 by in the next two years to eliminate the out of state beds, but to suggest that we can cut another 50% out could endanger public safety. And I think that we have to keep that in mind. And so your request is a good one, Senator. Because I think we need to let the public know who is incarcerated in Vermont. You know, I got a lot of letters to take all the people who are incarcerated for possession of marijuana are under two ounces out of jail. Now would be a very easy thing to accomplish because there's nobody there for just that offense. So, you know, when you I mean, the public perceives certain things that we've locked people up who are not dangerous and we may have and we may have a few that that should be continued to be released. I think you have to do it in a thoughtful fashion. And that's what really what Justice Reinvestment 2 is all about. So sorry for my soapbox, but thank you for bringing that up. Senator would be helpful to all of us. I think all 180 legislators to have that information so that they can respond to constituents who are. Yeah, I don't mean to cut into the committee conversation center, but you know this and I know everybody knows this. When that conversation comes up, I just have to say this. Sometimes we don't take into consideration the victims of the crimes. The other. Yeah, I just said everybody just finished. One of the things that we've seen as we've tried to thin out the population during COVID is we've had we've had a little bit of a I don't want to even call an uptick, but we've had some serious domestic assault cases. A prior intimate partner abusers when we've released them on furlough and you know again, I'm very dialed into the needs of victims. That's part of our responsibility at correction. So sorry. Thank you. I didn't mean to I thought I didn't mean to interrupt your thought there, but the other thing that would be helpful. With that is that kind of the how we changed the trajectory of what was anticipated that we would have incarcerated if we kept on. And just because I think that people don't know that we have actually reduced. Reduced the number both from what was projected and from the real number. So just a little graph with that or something just so we actually have that at the Justice Center did that. And there is the projection. It looks at the projection and then where we were, I think in 2018, in terms of population and I believe the actual numbers were about 700, but the projected numbers were almost a thousand reduction from what was projected to grow if we hadn't done justice for investment. Thank you. And the savings, the savings and you know in costs have been humongous. When you think about the cost of incarcerating a thousand people. Thanks. So Senator also to add to that, you know, our population sneaking up again 1424 today, 379 detainees minus about 6065 federal detainees there. And it's really starting to put pressure on us around managing our code. Because right now in Vermont, I'm about as of the beginning of the week, I was minus seven beds. I had seven beds that have cut into our quarantine medical isolation beds to manage COVID. So again, I just, I have to say that because that pressure, that pressure on us is real. And so that, that puts a lot of pressure on us to manage COVID. Senator White. So that brings up another question that I wasn't sure if I was going to ask enough, but when we in government operations talked to commissioner shirling. And to the VSEA, one of the things that came up was that in corrections, there was a lack of people. And that, and I don't know how long ago, the personal protection. Oh, okay. Thank you. And the, and the commissioner said that they were working on that with you, that they had a plan because you purchased from two different places. And I just wondered if we, we actually now have enough PPEs for all the, the guards and the prisoners. Yeah. So, so that conversation, I wasn't part of that, but I did follow up on that afterwards, senator. And we're, look, I don't, I don't care what anybody tells you, we've been dealing with this since March. You know, the state operation, emergency operation center is, is one source of PPE. And they're serving the bigger population include medical nursing homes. Early on, we made the decision to go on our own. And we created our own logistic supply line as I believe committees before. There is still certain things that are hard to get our hands on. And some of the bureaucracy slows us down. I'll give you an example. We located 20,000 and 95 mass that we wanted to purchase. And the bureaucracy before we could get through the bureaucracy of the purchasing process. 18,000 of those masks were gone. So we've been on our own. It's not a reflection on what's happening in public safety. But for example, I think where the union was concerned is that we had to make homemade gallons. I get it. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm going. I'm going to work. I'm not going to work with people when they say where garbage bags are. But if that's the only place that I can protect them. And that's how I have to protect them. That's where I'm going. You still have a hard time finding medical gallons right now. And so, you know, I think that's where that conversation came up and the union has been concerned for a while. And I've heard it in labor management several times. So as I sit here right now, have three months worth of supplies. And yes, we still have plastic gowns that we're using to protect our staff. We did get about 600 gallons, I think is the number from the state emergency operations center. But it's still challenging. I think there are around 50 days of supplies. Now that sounds like a lot. If another round of COVID hits us in September and October, that will disappear. It's challenging finding PPE. We work at it every single day in sacrifices. So when you talked about the bureaucracy being an impediment to getting it, were you talking about our bureaucracy at the state level here through either BGS or some other? I am. And how can we solve that? Well, I think, again, in fairness, I know Matt's working with them right now. Look, we have to realize that following a normal course of business during this pandemic has got to change. And that's just one small example of it. We've got to make drastic changes in corrections. So we are working on that with them. But I'm using that as an example, because it's easy to say that we don't have the PPE. But I have three staff members that work full-time. All they do is supply the supply line to include cleaning supplies, masks, gloves. Finding rubber gloves was a challenge for a while. We actually got, for the inmates cleaning crews, we actually got some donations for that stuff. So it's a challenge every day. We work at it every day. And we're paying more money, we probably ought to be paying for some of this stuff. But we're paying it because we need it. But that makes sense. If I could find 5,000 medical gowns, I could buy them tomorrow. Thank you. Well, BGS is under our jurisdiction. So maybe, or under Joe's and our purchasing is under, it's within government operations. So maybe we'll talk to them. Yeah. And again, you know, it's no one's fault. It's just the process. No. No. Right? That's the point. No, I, yeah, yeah. Don't I, you know, I, I belabor that a little bit. Sorry, Senator Sears. No, I wanted to get on to the, to the other two issues with about five minutes we've been left, because I really have to get Mike Shirling and Matt Birmingham in here to. Well, you can always give me some of their money, Senator, for corrections on my friends' mistakes. Well, we could. I think Shirling has a wealth of money that he's sitting on. I've heard that anyway. We talked a little bit about the corrections officers and how to upgrade their professionalism. And I know that you support that effort, but I'd really like to see it on paper as a goal for this, for the state of Vermont to work towards that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree, Senator. And I, we have some ideas for potentially a legislative package in January to come forward. It'd be premature. I know I talked quite a bit with House Corrections and Institutions Representative Edmunds. She's starting to take some testimony now about equity and fairness in the system and data gathering and where we are in that process. And I think she's looking also to do something on the House side as well. So I'm hoping once we get past the 21 budget here, we can get something on paper for consideration around working collectively on how do we get there? Well, the current system is right for burnout amongst good correctional officers. Absolutely. And absolutely. We need to be able to keep those who are interested in the field and keep them in a very difficult job. It's a very challenging job. And so I think we need to do a better job of professionalizing it and upgrading the salaries, upgrading the training and professionalism. I've met some people that are amazing who are correctional officers, who are dedicated, who are working double shifts, or one and a quarter shifts, or one and a half shifts a day, 12 hours a day in a very difficult situation. And in the middle of a pandemic, you really see those that are dedicated. But in many ways, they're getting more and more pressure on them, both families and others to say, wait a minute, you're in a vulnerable position and then you come back home and you've got family and so forth. So I think we really need to recognize those folks and begin a process of upgrading. So, Senator, on Tuesday of this week, we did a presentation to the entire Human Resources Department, including the Commissioner, on a proposed hiring process that I've been talking about since I've gotten here. We're close to implementing that. It's a data driven look. And here's to your point, we're losing about 15 employees a month. Most of them are corrections officers. In most of them are self-selecting out. It's not like they've reached their retirement, they're leaving, they're self-selecting out. We have a retention problem that we have to address. So if you do the math on that, and I cannot possibly keep hiring to keep up with the attrition. So we've got to find a way, just like you said, to, we're like on a treadmill, we're well-passed pushing the button to 10, and we're running as fast as we can. We're going nowhere on this. It's adding all kinds of chaos inside the organization. And we have to figure this out because that burnout rate, because again, even though you've heard me talk about challenges around personnel actions, the vast majority of the correctional staff are most caring, hard-working folks you want to be. And they're working under very difficult situations to be in PPE all day long with masks during hot summertime. It's been brutal. And then you get mandatory overtime on top of it. You know, we're trying to support them the best we can. We brought a full-time clinician on. I shared this with HR the other day. Since we brought the clinician on, our clinician has brought two to three employees back from the brink. And I mean this is a real challenge for us. And I think with working with the legislature, we have an opportunity once and for all, not only culturally to change internally, inside corrections, but culturally, the way folks look at corrections from the outside. Right? I mean, we're at the other end of the criminal justice system. And sometimes people just don't understand what we do and how hard people work. And I think that recognition of changing that culture the way folks are looked at, I don't mean to correct anybody here, but referring to them as guards is part of the old cultural mentality. They're not guards. There's a reason why they're called correctional officers. Because our goal should be and our focus should be is correcting and modifying behavior so folks can become successful in life. I'm gonna suggest that you look back to the original concept of the St. Albans prison as kind of a guide. People had it back then. It was another reform era. And I think we quickly moved away from it. And unfortunately, you know, times change, administrations change. But you can look back to some of that. And there was a real effort then for professionalism. I will say that the salary that we received was not commensurate with even back then. But I think there was at least a recognition of the need to have a more professional recognition of these folks who are doing some tremendous work inside. And again, the stated mission of what the department is, the mission statement we're operating with is 20 plus years old. So I think I'm sorry to have to cut this off. It's been a good conversation, Commissioner. I do want to hear from Mike Shirling and since you mentioned that he's got a lot of money. I know that the Senate Government Operations Committee heard from Mike, but they didn't make any recommendations for major reductions to be sent over to correction. So they must have missed all that money that he's got. I don't know what that's all about, Senator. We missed it. Sorry about that. We'll have him come back in and look at his budget again. Actually, it's Colonel Birmingham. Check his wallet. Well, we noticed that whenever he's on, he doesn't show his face. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your support. We're going to follow up with you, Senator and the committee to get that information back. And I think in a couple weeks, having a conversation about what can it look like in January as we move towards raising that bar and changing the budget. I just remind you that that's about all we have left as a company. I know, but I think the package we'll put together will be for January. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can have work it out with Brynn and Stephanie to have it updated to the Justice Oversight Committee. Correct. Great. Thank you very much to both of you and have a great Labor Day weekend. Same to all of you. Take care. I know. I see Mike Scherling is on deck. Well, in more ways than one, he's on deck. I didn't mean to put it that way. I think Matt Birmingham's on the phone. That is correct, Senator. I'm here. I really wanted, since I knew government operation had gone over your budget, I really wanted to focus on your modernization effort for 21st Century policing and to get some of your ideas. I know you've only got about a half an hour to spend with us, but we'd like to get an update on that. And despite Colonel Baker's, excuse me, not Colonel Baker, Commissioner Baker's thinking about all your money that you've got, I know government operations will take a little look at that. I've got at least seven dollars and 18 cents for you, Senator. Maybe as many as eight dollars. All right. Thanks for having us in for the record, Michael Scherling, Commissioner of Public Safety. And there's a wide array of things we could go over in the next half hour. So maybe just I'll spend five minutes talking about the evolution of the modernization strategy. And then your discretion, Senator, we can go into detail on whichever components you'd like. That sounds good. In January, we put forth actually what the document that you've got here, we're hoping to update this in the next few weeks, but the pace has been a little brisk and we've been developing other documents. So we've got to kind of combine those to create a cogent roadmap of all the things that are going on right now. But on that document, you'll see five areas of priority. I'll note for the record that the fifth one in the modernization of corrections facilities was something we discussed at length with Commissioner Touchette. And since Commissioner Baker's been here, COVID has been the primary topic. So we haven't had a lot of time to revisit that under his leadership. So I just wanted to flag that for you. Essentially, we're working to try to simplify the delivery models to the greatest extent possible, especially as it relates to unifying information technology and more in the last few months, policy initiatives around operational standards statewide. We have the framework of ideas around modernizing training for law enforcement, in particular, the methodologies that could be used by the Criminal Justice Training Council to deliver both basic training, but also in-service training statewide. And not only for law enforcement, but for public safety in general, how do we combine some of the efforts that are going on in emergency medical services, in emergency operations, which is in our purview in public safety and the fire academy and the fire service. We think there's some opportunities there to cross-pollinate some of those training opportunities and platform and delivery platforms. Of note there, we are on the precipice of hiring a new executive director for the Criminal Justice Training Council that is in its very final stages of background investigation and negotiation with the candidate. So that's coming in the near term. That process was a very inclusive one that involved 20 stakeholders from inside and outside state government. The third component is a modern foundation for criminal justice data collection and analysis. And you've heard us talk about this in the past, a unified computerated dispatch and records management system that allows for real-time collection of information and as close to real-time reporting of information as possible, both using interactive dashboards that are easy to navigate for the public, for legislators, for policymakers, and others, but also making raw data available as quickly as possible on a 60 to 90 day window rather than a 12 to 15 month window so that folks outside of government can inquire of that data, ask questions that we haven't thought to ask, and come up with ideas and solutions that we might not even have in our field of view at any given time. And then the fourth component is to standardize and deliver alternative justice off-ramps that includes embedded social workers and mental health clinicians, which is a very timely topic right now. As you probably know, we've budgeted for seven additional mental health clinicians or mental health workers more accurately in our budget for fiscal 21 to increase the number of barracks and more accurately, service areas around barracks, not just the service areas that state police respond to, but that entire service area that have access to field mental health first response and proactive response. And those services are available currently in two barracks and then sporadically in a variety of areas around Vermont through different parallel programs. And finally, modernizing corrections facilities is a whole other topic that again, I think it would be premature for us to go into greater detail there without involving Commissioner Baker, which we've just frankly haven't had a chance to get into the weeds on that recently. Among the components in our strategy are some budget stabilization, which we've talked at length with our committees of our budget committees and committees of jurisdiction about in particular the government operations committees early in the session. So that is almost ancient history at this point. Additionally, we've looked back at a couple of dozen reports that have been authored over the last 50 years and we've taken what we think are the best thinking that matches the 21st century environment from them. And we've put forth also in response to legislation that has been introduced around an agency of public safety and that's been introduced multiple times over the last decade or so in response to that and in keeping with many of the recommendations that have been made over the last five decades, we put forth an outline of what an agency of public safety could look like. And there's some detail, a preliminary detail around that that's available. There's a draft organizational structure in here, an outline of benefits. And then probably the other area that I want to highlight is how we in state government and in the Department of Public Safety in particular support statewide public safety efforts. And those go to the training realm that I just mentioned how we do a how we enhance the already good work that's going on there. How we do our communications infrastructure and our information technology. And those are two topics that are top of mind right now in part because we're in the final stages of selecting a computer-aided dispatch and records management system. And we're also modernizing the connectivity model that allows public safety organizations to connect to us all in hopes of dramatically reducing the cost of operation to both the state, but also to municipal and county government that connects to us. Essentially where we're going is to try to eliminate the costs associated with their connectivity by eliminating hardware, hundreds of hardware devices that we have to pay to maintain, going to a software security model, and delivering a statewide computer-aided dispatch and records management system at no charge to municipalities and other entities in large part because it makes sense for the state to be able to aggregate data and report that data out to all Vermonters without having to do that on a case-by-case basis across dozens if not hundreds of public safety organizations. So that's the technology vision. And then you may have begun what this started in back in December, but I'm sure folks have heard a piece at a time about the transition to billing for dispatch services in a nutshell that is not designed to be a moneymaker so that we can shift more dollars back over to Commissioner Baker or into our budget. It's just a balancing of the scale so that Vermonters are all paying on an equal footing for the emergency communication services. As you're aware, there are three ways that dispatch services are delivered in Vermont. You either have your own dispatch facility, you contract with someone, or then there are a hundred or so agencies that get free services from the two state-operated public safety answering points. And that creates disparity in cost for all taxpayers. Essentially, all taxpayers are subsidizing the hundred agencies that get services from us. Meanwhile, some of those taxpayers are paying again to get dispatch services in their municipality or county if they have a different dispatch model. So all we're suggesting is that we level that playing field so that everyone's paying a little bit. It's not a moneymaker if the agencies that are with us now decide to go to another PSAP because it's more cost-effective or it meets their needs better, that's fine. We're not looking to try to generate dollars as a result of that initiative. And I could talk at length about any one of these things. I'll just add that there are some more nuanced strategies in another document that I know you've seen and that we forwarded the newest version of, which is the 10-point sort of equity and law enforcement, fair and impartial policing strategy, everything from training to hiring, to community oversight models, investigatory models, etc. The probably the most important nugget at the center of all of that is trying at last to bring uniformity and consistency to the way all of those things are done statewide from one tip to the other so that we're not doing it 70 or 80 different ways on the key topics. Not that every municipality should be operating exactly the same way or every county should be operating the same way or that even every state law enforcement agency should be operating exactly the same way. But on key topics, how we hire, how we train, how we promote, how we select chief executives, how we have the fact that we should have a transparent community oversight system, all of those things should by and large be in the same general lane of travel. And that's what that document represents is an outline of effort to go in that direction. So with that, I talked more than five minutes and you did, but that's okay. And I wanted to focus on one area and then I'm sure committee members have other questions or comments. Interestingly, I'm just looking at an email from Paul to set the chief of police in Bennington asking what they could do to get if there are any grants available to provide a crisis worker to support the Bennington community by responding to crisis calls alongside members of the department. And perhaps Colonel Birmingham or yourself could get in touch with the chief to let him know what this plan is and how it might work. Obviously, I don't know of any grant money right now, but it's certainly something that might be desirable for those communities that want to try to establish a crisis unit. And then looking at what happened in Rochester, New York, when certainly the vacant man in the middle of the street that their family called for help ended up dying, certainly calls for the need for that type of crisis worker. And fortunately in Vermont, we haven't had, fortunately in Vermont, we have had efforts, but they've been minimal to deal with the mental health crisis that many people are going through and then end up being dealt with by the criminal justice system. Starting with police, either the local police, state police or whatever, then eventually into the correction system as a detainee. And because there's no place to go, appropriate place, they end up staying longer than other detainees. So it just adds to that problem. And I think we need an overall, I know that the Justice Center, Council of State Governments Justice Center has a plan, but it's based on counties for, it's called a stepping up initiative to find alternatives for those mental health crisis. I don't know if you've seen that initiative. But again, it's based on counties and we don't have a county government here for that. But I wonder if you could comment a little more on this alternative, this idea of the seven embedded social workers, how they would help local police and others, or maybe more to enter into that too. That's a great question, Senator. As a segue into that, I'll also mention that at the tail end of our modernization strategy, we put forth a criminal justice and community health system modernization model that's designed to address exactly what you're describing that a resource invested earlier on in a crisis, whether that's criminogenic, it's mental health, that substance abuse, or often co-occurring disorders, all of those things crashing together in someone's life. That education prevention are the most, that's the most impactful dollar. And then outreach and intervention, the types of things that we're talking about with these embedded workers. I should stop calling them embedded. We had some feedback yesterday from another committee that said that was a difficult word, but partnering with mental health providers to provide field service, that outreach and intervention at the earliest possible moment so that things don't continue to devolve into a more substantial crisis is the next best dollar spent. And then after that, alternative sanctions, which I know, Senator, you've been deeply involved in, whether that's restorative justice or shift to municipal and civil ticketing, traditional court diversion, reparative boards, those kinds of things are all critical tools in the toolbox. And then we reserve the resources of courts and corrections only for those who were not able to put on to some other off-ramp earlier in the system. So the mental health expansion is envisioned to be for all organizations within a service area, not just, for example, in the barracks that covers Bennington. The Bennington Police Department would be able to access those services from that worker. Important to note that right out of the gate, we're talking about only one person per barrack, so a little bit limited in the amount of time that can be covered and the total number of people they can interact with. But the overarching goal is to sort of break the log jam that's existed here. We've been talking about deploying these workers for years. The model that's been put forth previously has always started with blended investment. State puts in some dollars, municipalities put in some dollars, healthcare system puts in some dollars, service providers put in some dollars, and then we deploy the services. What we're suggesting is let's not wait to build those coalitions because budget pressures for everyone are always top of mind. Let's invest the dollars, start that program everywhere, and then by demonstration of the efficacy of the results, we bring people to the table to co-invest and then expand those programs statewide. The other notable thing is that we've got a variety of these that operate statewide. Now, we've got two in barracks, but they operate independent of one another. The goal is to create almost a statewide team of people that, well, they may not be employed in the same place and they may not be doing exactly the same thing in every location because the nuances of each county or municipality might be a little bit different, that you've got a functioning multi-disciplinary team similar to our SIUs that is constantly thinking about training and sharing experience to improve response on a statewide basis. That's the overarching vision. You'll note in one of our documents that we originally had put forth in our budget that we would pay for two positions, corrections would pay for two, and mental health department of mental health would pay for two. COVID pressures have kind of blown up everyone's budget, but we were able to add priority to this and put forth the budget committee C, which has got the seven workers in addition to the two that are in service now. Sorry, that's probably a longer answer than you wanted. Actually, I just want to say to you, the quicker we get here, get there, the better off we'll all be. And in our prior conversation with Commissioner Baker about reducing out-of-state beds, one of the ways you do that is by reducing the number of people that are held on detention. And many of those people are in the situations that you just discussed. So the quicker we get this on the ground and up and running, the better off we'll all be. I've got to take a short break for myself. So, Senator Nicke, could you take over for a minute? You're muted, Senator Nicke. Yes, I can. Thank you. I'll be right back. Thank you, Commissioner. Can I ask a question or make a comment? Go ahead, Jeanette. So I think, Commissioner, you did not particularly mention, I don't think unless I missed it, the hiring of ATON and how that is going to hopefully move us in the right direction. And I think the committee might be interested in that. Yes, great point. So embedded in the work around fair and impartial policing and really accelerating several years' worth of work that's already been done and a great foundation that's been laid, we have brought on ATON as a co-director of fair and impartial policing alongside Captain Gary Scott who's been doing it for several years. Unfortunately, Captain Scott will be retiring later this year. Captain Julius Scribner will be taking over as the co-director. There have been some questions in the last few days or last day or so around whether we jump the gun on hiring ATON without having the legislature approve the budget request for it. I just want to clarify for folks while we're on the line that he's been hired as a temporary position, temporary part-time, using our existing budget. And what we're suggesting in the budget we've submitted to you is that we memorialize that as a line item in the budget to move, to continue to move it forward so it's not just temporary. But his wealth of experience having chaired ARDAP and the Fair and Impartial Policing Committee for years is an incredible asset alongside the work that's already being done to do community engagement to help us craft strategy and policy. And as I mentioned earlier, really trying to get a lot of this work into the main lane of travel so that it is consistent across the entire state. And those are the key roles we see for him. And I may have left something out there that I would defer the kernel on. No, I think that's it, Commissioner. I think the state police has a long and positive history with ATON and to bring him on board in this co-director position is incredibly important for us. He will be there to, one, help guide us, but also to bridge the community divide that may exist and does exist between communities of color and marginalized communities and sworn law enforcement officers. So his addition in that role is going to be very important for us. Jeanette, did you have something else? No, no, I was just, thank you. I just thought that was important to mention. Sounds good. Anybody else? What else do we have that we wanted to discuss here? I hadn't, I don't have my agenda. Is anybody, did you have other things, Colonel Birmingham or Mike, that you want to let us know about? It may make sense just to flag for the committee. I know you probably know this, but there's a lot of work being done on S-119 right now and we really are very much interested in ensuring that there is the requisite level of accountability and the right policy standards for use of force statewide going forward. Again, part and parcel of the plans that we've put forward so far and we continue to actively work on. We do have some concerns about a statutory overlay for that that we really want to spend quite a bit of time talking with you about. And I also understand from various committee testimony that's happened in the last week that there have been questions about scenario kinds of things. What happens if under a statutory construct has been put forth and I can't stress enough that the number of variables in the scenarios are innumerable and we would love to spend some time talking through various scenarios of different types to ensure that you've got accurate information. I think you've heard from a variety of people with varying backgrounds and they've done their best to try to eliminate through their lens what it means, but I would submit that some cross-section of what you heard is not reflective of how this will actually operationalize both the challenges and advantages going forward. So I think that's just a flag for the committee that there's a lot of exploration and a lot of depth that I think we'd like to put into this conversation when possible. Thank you. I'm just wondering you asked about the need for a lot of depth, a lot of conversation. Is that a way of saying that you think we should hold off on passing 119 in this short session? Yes, obviously that's in your purview, but I think there's a large cross-section of information that is missing from the conversation right now. This is the most complicated area of criminal law that exists and there are people who have written literally treatises, multi-volume treatises on search and seizure, which the use of force is a seizure. It's a seizure of a person. This is the most well-formed area of the law in police operations and I think we just need an opportunity to explain all of that to the greatest extent possible so that you can make informed decisions about where to go and that's really hard to do on a short timeline and it's really hard to do frankly in half hour or 45 minute snippets. These are dozens of hours of training, hundreds of hours of training over the course of several years to really become proficient for police officers. It's a tall order to get folks up to speed on all the nuances. I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to delay progress. We are simultaneously working on the same issue on a parallel track moving toward statewide policy to memorialize the best practice as well. We're not trying to handbrake progress here. It's just there are potential downsides to the statutory overlay that could have wide-ranging cascading effects. Both are inability to train. I guess high level there's two primary areas of concern. Creating a statutory construct will actually create more ambiguity for us because we will not know how to train for probably upwards of a decade until the courts give us an interpretation of what your words mean. That is just standard with any new piece of criminal law whether it's a new crime. We don't know exactly what it means for some time. We do our best to interpret it or it's a piece of criminal procedure as this would be. As important, this will create a lane of litigation that will cost the state and municipal taxpayers hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Not for good reason necessarily but because creating ambiguity in the ability to litigate creates additional apologies to the tort lawyers out there but some of the tort system is organized extortion and oftentimes government finds itself at the receiving end of organized extortion trying to create a scenario where it makes more sense to pay someone than to pay the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars it takes to litigate something. This will create that and that will be a significant challenge for us for taxpayers. It'll create difficulty in training and it will create a tremendous uncertainty in the operating environment because we just frankly we will not know what to do. We'll do our best to try to interpret it but without the courts guiding us we won't know what's going on. I think what we want to do is be able to provide you with the details about how much framing there is already in what the courts both the United States Supreme Court and the Vermont Supreme Court have given us. I think that is a tremendous gap in the discussion right now. Can I just break in that we could keep you from your press conference with the governor and probably that wouldn't go over well but I want to just let the committee know because we haven't had this discussion yet. My plan for next week is to spend the bulk of our time talking about the House amendments to S119 and I hope that you would come back with us next week and arrange with Peggy and you and perhaps the Colonel to talk further about this subject but I've also reached out to the just Council of State Government's Justice Center who has a law enforcement section to it. A guy named Terrence Lin who is the head of it. I think I think he's a former Boston or New York City police officer but also because the deputy director happens to live in Seattle I'm hoping to hear something from Seattle law enforcement about how it's working there since representative LeMond based most of the amendment on Seattle law or Seattle city policy so I'm hoping that we spend the bulk of our time because at some point if the House proceeds with S119 we're going to be asked to either agree with it, disagree with it or do something with it and so I'm hoping that this committee can be this Senate Judiciary Committee will be prepared to respond to that and I've also been in correspondence, I haven't talked to her yet I think I'll talk to her Sunday with Representative Grad about this subject so I just to give everyone an update on where this committee's at in looking at S119. Thank you and I just want to be really clear we're not a no to ensuring that we are doing things absolutely the best way possible we do have some ideas on how to execute this that we think will mitigate some of the the primary concerns that we have will give us the ability to train and won't create a cascading set of litigation that's just frivolous in for some cases not that every I want to also be clear not every piece of litigation is frivolous we make mistakes and sometimes we get sued and that makes absolute sense and we pay people luckily not with great frequency here in Vermont but I don't I want to not have us in a position where we're distracted by hundreds of frivolous lawsuits as a result of an inability to to firmly interpret a new statutory overlay. Appreciate that. I didn't mean to interrupt Senator Bruce's conversation with you but should probably be the final before you have to leave actually that was just my one question we had mentioned the possibility in committee yesterday of not acting on S119 and instead taking up the issue in January I was just curious to hear your your take on that so that's very responsive thank you you're welcome I just to give you something to think about where we see a short-term solution to this is having the legislature direct the adoption of a statewide use of force policy that matches best practice and and similar to what you did with S219 couple that to an inability to get state grant dollars and also expand that to an inability to use the state's training resources if an agency fails to adopt that model and then we ensure that we've got the key components to solve the challenges and problems that are identified by all of our communities in Vermont embedded in that policy that also makes the other challenge that I didn't mention is this kind of an operating landscape has to be able to evolve as we learn things as new tools emerge as other case law in parallel to the if there were to be a statutory overlay as other case law emerges it becomes far more difficult for us to evolve on the fly and we're constantly changing our use of force policy as we learn more to ensure that it meets the best practice it meets the accreditation standard that the state police have as an accredited agency so again it's not whether we go there it's the mechanisms that I think we've got some ideas on on how you might accomplish the same thing without the downsides mr can you and Peggy work have somebody work out a time for about an hour with you and Colonel Birmingham on all these subjects next week absolutely sir I appreciate your testimony and want to make sure you get time to take a break before your press conference I'm assuming it's a press conference with the governor on it is the the Friday press conference starts at 1055 for us so okay well we don't want to hold you from the press are either is there a final question for the commissioner or Colonel Birmingham thank you so much been very helpful to discuss this and I'm gonna forward you a copy of Paul Dusset's email and as well as Colonel Birmingham and see if we can't get some discussion about what we can do down here great thank you very much and thanks for your indulgence on the side road into into 119 appreciate thank you all very much for your time have a great day thank you Colonel thank you can I uh I want to the next witness is uh commissioner brown of DCF and commissioner and I had a conversation yesterday about Woodside but I wanted to make clear that I'm also looking at what are the alternatives to Woodside how far along are we with the plan and so I want to just frame this a little bit commissioner that the legislation required before the closure of Woodside to have a plan in place to replace Woodside with alternatives for substitute care so that these kids would be dealt with I realize some situations I've developed that has forced the closure attempt and I'm going to call it temporary closure on Woodside while you develop the full plan so hopefully that frames at least from this committee's point of view the issue of whether or not um DCF um is complying with what we asked we also asked for a comparison of costs between Woodside and some alternative and we're still awaiting that yes uh thank you senator so with that I guess I would turn it over to you yeah so we did submit a report to the legislature in mid around on August 18th as requested in legislation regarding our plans for Woodside as you indicated a decision was made to as youth were moved from the facility more appropriate treatment placements we made the decision to close the front door based on concerns about our ability to provide the adequate and safe programming for the youth in the facility based on incidents that occurred in 2018 and despite best efforts to train and bring in new programs to the facility similar incidents happened in late June in July that were very concerning and reopened the federal litigation that was filed last year in the U.S. District Court of Vermont by disability rights Vermont and that is still pending currently um we do have an interim plan in place as we work out the details of the longer term um a secure residential treatment program in the state of Vermont has been reported in the news we are working with Beckett to develop and implement that in the next nine to um uh 12 months is our goal um and I can provide you an update of where that is at currently um but on the on the interim plans um I would say that um for justice involved youth who come into the system um historically um there was just an automatic assumption that those youth needed to be placed in Woodside for various reasons and what we have learned over time is that that's not the case that many of those youth can be um um placed in less restrictive settings that are more appropriate to their needs and risks um and so that work um is kind of what's been focusing us is what's the most appropriate placement for our youth instead of it being a default uh of Woodside that we're really looking at um what where can we most appropriately place that youth we've developed crisis beds in Washington County for um youth coming to us who might be experiencing some mental health issues um we are also working with the default program to provide a little higher level of care um we also have a an interim agreement um to place youth who come in um depending on the hour of the evening or on a weekend um to place them in a facility operated by the Loyal County Sheriff's Department until we can place them in a more appropriate setting our agreement with them is no longer than 24 hours and then for youth who need a longer term um secure residential placement while we're building out um the the program with Beckett um we are are finalizing a contract with the state of New New Hampshire to place up to five youth um in their Sanunu Center um that agreement will be at a rate of just over $1,500 a day and we will only pay that rate when we have a youth placed in that facility um and we currently do have one youth there now who's scheduled to leave in the coming weeks um at this point um I will say um that given our our proposal in in the restatement budget to close Woodside Effective October uh first um we have moved forward with the contractually required processes to notify VSEA um of the reduction in force for this for the staff who work there that will no longer be necessary so VSEA was notified earlier this week that 30 staff will receive a reduction in force notice next week after the five-day period of providing that those reduction in force um do not take effect until uh the third week in October so depending on the process in the legislature and where the legislature supports our proposal if not we are able to retract those reduction in force notices before they take effect in October but just given the way the contract it requires certain time frames and notices to occur we needed to start that process now to be able to achieve the savings in the budget that we contemplate by winding the program down at Woodside um currently staff are um you know cleaning the facility um and you know storing records and and winding down the program right now um it you know depending on where the legislature goes um we'll have to have a conversation we don't believe that we can safely reopen that facility in current circumstances um you know we are heading back to federal court in a next week um and you know we'll see where the federal court is going to go with that but based on the incidents um we could be at risk of the federal court ordering the closure of the facility as well um and so that that could be a risk here that we should be aware of as well and so our but if there's any question so our budget in the restatement um really breaks down our our spending instead of the six million or so that we normally on request for Woodside we're asking for four point six million dollars um just under one point five of that would be for the operation of the facility for the first quarter of 21 that would be through the end of September um just over 1500 of that would be for you know placements of youth that would uh need the level of care or that Woodside would provide and then one point one would be new cost for the program that we're working to establish with Beckett and then just under 500,000 for miscellaneous grants and contracts we are consulting with several national organizations as we move through this process and so when you look at that and this is broken out in our our report our Woodside report that we filed in mid-August it's just over four point six million dollars is is what we're requesting to care for uh justice and all of youth. Hi Is there any just as a beginning question commissioner um where are we at in the Beckett the in the process of the Beckett contract and being Medicaid eligible so um I'm understanding the Sanunu would not be Medicaid eligible correct and correct I think how we're approaching uh our work with Beckett is that um there's there's the facility's piece and then there's the programming piece that we're developing with them and I think how that uh programming piece is developed will will answer the question once that's further along whether that will be Medicaid eligible or not currently there the other current on budget for Woodside doesn't contemplate the use of Medicaid I know historically that was the case but given CMS's um you know guidance we're not able to do utilize that currently for Woodside and so that's currently not in the budget nor in our request for 21 but certainly our goal is as we develop this treatment program that we would design it and implement it in a way that it will be Medicaid eligible but we won't know that answer until we do more of the work with Beckett on on the programming side um what about other programs within the by the way that the agenda item said and I didn't catch it it's my fault um substitutions um that was really substitute care any plans in terms of other programs within either for upgrades or whatever within the substitute care grouping yeah we do utilize a variety of programs um out of state and in state for youth and some of those uh maybe Medicaid eligible and others may not depending on the nature of the program and the services being provided um and I would let uh Sarah Truckel jump in here as well to provide a little additional information yeah so Sarah Truckel DCF financial director for the record uh our substitute care programs do leverage Medicaid dollars in many cases for um their treatment services however they do not leverage Medicaid dollars for the room and board expenses and that's outlined in our um FY21 Gov original submission you can see um some of the movement within those lines based on cost per case and um average case and are expected and projected caseload for this coming year so for some of the youth that might have ended up in Woodside that we're placing in other treatment programs um depending on the program we would be able to draw down Medicaid for the treatment but not the room and board what about on the yeah on the detention side um you know we really you know Sununu is the true detention program where we're placing kids and and that is not Medicaid eligible but the other programs while they may be secure they are treatment programs and the treatment portion um and many of those could be and probably are Medicaid eligible um but it you know depends on the specific program they're in and whether they've been Medicaid approved and it is a complicated process but many of them are Medicaid eligible has there been any discussion with Beckett about hiring some of the state employees or having state employees work for Beckett I know there was a discussion about a 10 bed Woodside facility that would be operated by a private provider but um there was there is there are some examples Senator White may know more about it than I do or where um we have state employees working for a private group um I think prison healthcare at one time was like that but is there any been I thought there was a discussion about having a five bed mental health unit and a five bed lack of a better term uh treatment program for uh the youth that are currently that would currently be going to Sununu um could you clarify are you referring to um well at one point you talked about back in when the um there may have been commissioner shats by the way and I so I don't mean to put that on to you um there was a discussion between mental health and DCF you have prior to the uh Crawford decision um regarding Woodside and the use of Woodside for seriously emotionally um problem youth there was a discussion about having a combined 10 bed type program at Woodside which would either and I'm getting ahead of myself but there was that discussion and five of those would be mental health beds and five of them would be DCF beds that would handle the traditional um current Woodside or now Sununu group and um that was the discussion anyway yeah um you know I my understanding is that that while that wasn't a conversation and discussion whether that made sense I believe that plan was abandoned prior to my coming on board and so our focus has been standing up a five bed secure residential treatment program is what we believe is the size we need you know for for the kids that need that higher level of care you know we're really seeing a drop in the number of kids coming into the system but also kids that would need that that level of care that we're able to provide other treatment for them in less restrictive settings and that's always our goal is to have kids receive services in the least restrictive setting possible yeah I'm going to ask you a question that um you may not be able to fully answer but um from free field to say because of confidentiality I can't but you had at one point we discussed at least five staff members at Woodside out on paid administrative leave then we know that the current Woodside staff received uh rift notices we had put into language at some point um the um the idea of helping those staff to integrate into other places where their talents their skills could be used whether it be mental health corrections etc um or DCF locally what will happen to those that are on paid administrative leave what are they rift to or do they remain on paid administrative leave pending the investigation and I don't know what the number is now I know at one point it was five or are they also rift sure so I I I'll step back a little bit and maybe provide a little bit of a context for I think my response to your question senator um Woodside has approximately 48 to 50 uh positions to run the facility um and Sarah truck will please jump in if I misspeak here um approximately 20 of those are vacant positions um and in 30 are currently filled of the 30 filled positions 11 of those staff are under investigation for misconduct and um and I believe seven are are on relief from duty pending those investigations and and um at this time so those staff will receive a reduction in force notice um our goal is is that those investigations it should be resolved prior to when the final um a reduction in force takes place um you know depending on the outcome those staff would be my understanding and talking to HR is those staff uh would be eligible uh for placement in other positions um our goal is first for staff um you know that are still with us after those processes that um you know we had conversations with the secretary of human services and we're we are comfortable um and would provide a preference to all Woodside staff for all vacant positions they may be qualified that are open and offer recruitment across the agency with the goal that we would be able to find um a job that suits their education and skill set within the agency of human services um however I would to answer your prior question regarding Beckett um they are interested if if um in employing state employees to uh in in this program if they would want to join the Beckett uh organization to to help um uh run this five-bed uh community-based secure residential program that we're working on standing up and so our hope is is that all of the Woodside employees will have will be still employees of the agency of human services um when the process is all said and done um just a quick read of that of the 30 filled positions 11 it's like 35 percent are on paid administrative leave did that have something to do with the closure yeah we uh to be uh it um we that's an amazing number it is a high number and it's a concerning number um and it and and there was a couple other factors that played into the closer closure decision um and that was one of them we were starting when you look at staff who are on relief from duty and then staff who are out on other leave we were starting to not be able to staff the facility um also i to be transparent for the for the committee um another factor that went into our decision making um when i came on board um on june 29th as commissioner we had five youth at the facility at the time um three of those youth were of color and i found that um shocking giving Vermont given Vermont's demographics and i was incredibly concerned um about the impact that Woodside is having on youth of color and the rate and the racial injustice involved there and i was concerned about Woodside playing a continuing role in that system and so and i think if you look back in the history of Woodside um youth of color have been disproportionately representative of the youth placed at that facility and i think that speaks to the broader juvenile justice system in general um but um that was pretty shocking to me as well in concerning other questions for commissioner brown or for sarah i don't know where where it ends i'm prepared to say that um i don't know what did the human services committee in the house i understood that they took a vote they voted uh 10 to nothing in favor of closing Woodside effective October 1st okay i am reluctant to join them because i still really want i mean i understand there's nobody there and nobody's working there so effectively it's closed but i still think and i i want to hear from the rest of the committee but i still think we're in need of an actual plan before we jump in um represent a senator nick and myself both worked in the industry i'll call it the industry and over the years we've seen attempts at changing different programs and having these solutions and oftentimes um they don't work out um and i don't want to i mean i'm ready to say the short term closure of Woodside is realistic and has to be done i'm not ready to say that the plan is in place yet to fully move our juvenile justice system in a new direction well and senator i'm sorry does that make sense committee i i don't know where others are at but i just without knowing exactly how beckett's going to operate what it's going to have what the other factors are in um the contract with sinu the contract with um lamoille county sheriffs all of those factors seem short term solutions to me which i think are appropriate given the current situation senator bruce i would just note i agree with you and i would just note that the last time uh there was an attempt to move people out of woodside it was unsuccessful uh originally so um you know and then there was scrambling to figure out a place so it seems like having a plan before a permanent move is not not a crazy idea right what what is the time frame for getting something in place with beckett i mean is there a firm date or um one of the things we're waiting on um and uh we had a site visit yesterday at the facility they're proposing uh for this new secure residential treatment program was architects and structural engineers assessment of one whether it was feasible to retrofit this this um which was a pretty nice facility to upgrade it to be a secure residential and so we had a site visit yesterday um with the beckett team the dcf team and architects and engineers from a white river firm um and they gave us the thumbs up that it's possible we're uh they're going to provide us uh you know those details and the technical drawings to to do that work so that we can hire a contractor and move forward with those um renovations to that facility to bring it up to the secure standards that we need um our goal is nine to twelve months i can tell you that we are finalizing a letter of intent um to move forward uh with beckett we've agreed in principle we're just need to execute it we're also negotiating um what i would call a development agreement you know to to um you know to to build this program to then set the table for us to enter into a contract to run the for them to run the program um we're talking about governance structures right now they would like us like to run it looking for the non-profit board which we think we support uh they want a broader community participation in the running of of this program and we think that that's a good idea um and we support that um well can i just ask something else first of all um would it be a no refusal yes yes it would be no no no no reject no eject as how we informally would say that yes and so that's as part of the contract you're getting that in yeah that that is a piece of the letter of intent so that everyone understands that that's a piece of moving forward with this is that this is that type of facility i see that's good i mean i think the worry on my part is many times of uh when there wasn't a place to go you either spend the night social worker spends the night in the police station in the room or you have the child in your office overnight or of course there are the motels so you know just really like the idea of no refusal even though you could be so i guess the hard part is if you become full and then you have to move somebody out who is less of a difficult position and get the the child on the outside in and also are you free to say where it would be what town um we're still given the negotiations we've committed to back it not to announce that yet they need to engage the community uh huh okay thank you thank you commissioner um i mean you started your job on june 29th and you got handed this hot potato and i i appreciate your your work on this and and the difficulty that you and your staff have had um does this mean that we get beth sawsville back in bennington yes it does thank you um they i don't know that we need a formal motion the way that the house human services committee did but i think that it would be the sense of the committee that um we approve of the temporary plan we await further information on a permanent plan for these kids and uh you know i've been dating myself all day that today but i do remember um when whip side first opened um it was actually at the vermont state hospital and one of them well i'll refer to as a dungeon and visiting there i couldn't believe that we were actually and this was in the 70s i think gallus um i was there they were actually putting kids in this place um and so as people look at wood side and how horrible it might be today um you looked at that facility and oh my god i think there were eight kids there um or eight beds um and it truly was um it was it looked like the rest of the state hospital yeah well it was even i remember having to go through tunnels to get to it yes yeah um but anyway um hopefully this plan will work out i do feel bad um for the staff who have done some exemplary work with kids many of them that i worked with back when i was operating to well for depot in bennington um who are really good people dedicated professionals and i hope they're able to seamlessly move i don't have a lot of sympathy for some of the staff who have been placed on administrative leave because of um their own difficulties but i do have and i do know there are a lot of good people there um so my hope is that um we can help them senator nicker than senator white or white nicker i don't care with regard to the staff that are happening when that happens um are our majority of them eligible to move into social worker positions i mean do they have those qualifications generally you know i haven't gotten to that level of detail of their backgrounds but that's certainly one of the job classes that we have always have a lot of availability of yes similar to an economic services we have a lot of benefits program specialists i know we have up many former woodtide staff in those positions and economic services just be given it's it is a transferable human services background that works there so thank you thank you senator white so i just in general have um problems with us um privatizing things that have been state functions in the past and i wondered by so that's that's just a general feeling of mine about most of the things that we do so have you did you have to um go through the privatization rigor here around the savings and why it's best to do it this way as opposed to have it be a state function i certainly appreciate the question i i think the the there's a couple of ways we view this one is we don't believe we're privatizing the current function of wood side wood side has been while it's tried to be a treatment program it's really been operated as a detention program in reality and we and we are building a a residential treatment program so we're not really privatizing it i think we're recognizing the state's not able to run a treatment program so it's not privatizing it it's actually contracting for a different service just as we do other you know we we use we have 125 youth currently placed in treatment programs through family services some of those are just as involved youth and some of those um are through the child protection side of our house as well and so we already use a wide variety of community programs to provide services we've just um always had this facility over here and if you read the sign it does say detention facility on it and that's how it operated for most of its history we're really trying to build a treatment program for these youth to make sure we're meeting their new their needs and preparing them for adulthood okay i forgot to mention one thing about the about the original it wasn't called wood side but the one at the state hospital it was actually operated by washington county mental health and not the state of america it was just housed i believe at the state facility and the mayor may not have been state employees joe dick i hate to cut off this conversation but i think we're going to be having it again in the not too distant future unfortunately we're on the floor in 10 minutes and i need to go find my jacket um are we going to take a vote here or are we i think i have the sense of the committee and unless somebody objects to the idea that we're approving a temporary closure and awaiting a permanent plan that would be my recommendation to the senate appropriations committee okay okay or our rec i should say our recommendation not my recommendation but our committee's recommendation is a temporary and all of us need to put our ties on in jackets and so i appreciate sarah and uh commissioner brown thank you so much for being here um and we'll continue the conversation thank you very much thank you thank you all right now that ends the meeting