 Okay so if folks want to pull up H546, I'm not sure Eric if you will be sharing your screen or not whatever works for you but that is what we will be looking at. So committee we're going to be doing the walkthrough today and then we will start with with our witnesses tomorrow afternoon. Folks have you know when everybody has what they what they need in terms of 546 and Eric do you want to share your screen what works for you? Yeah I think that makes sense if that's okay with you Maxine yeah but if the committee has a preference I'm okay with that too whatever whatever you prefer. No go ahead go ahead share your screen and okay so welcome Eric. Thank you should I go ahead now or yeah thank you. Okay great great well good afternoon everybody this is Eric Fitzpatrick with the office of legislative counsel here to do a walkthrough of H546 for the committee that's an act relating to racial justice statistics my first time appearing before the committee this year I think so it's good to see everybody you've been at it for a while but I've been down in senate judiciary pretty exclusively on a number of bills which I'm sure I will be working with with you on later on this year so but anyway I haven't seen you all yet so great to see you. The bill we're working on now before I switch to my or maybe as I switch to my screen chair I'll make a couple of comments about it but it should seem familiar to everybody because we worked on it in committee last year as well and you may recall that the judiciary the miscellaneous judiciary procedures bill last year which was s97 and when it was signed by the governor it was act 65 that bill contained some direction about this topic the what was then called the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics and what s97 did was it instructed the racial disparities and criminal and juvenile justice advisory panel RDAP to report on this issue back to you all by last fall so the idea was that they were going to look more at this topic to study where the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics or whatever it would be named would be located where it'd be situated as an entity how it would be staffed what its mission would be etc so the bill you're looking at now h546 is based on RDAP's work and their report which they made earlier actually last year now so that sort of the genesis of it and before I get started my walk I should probably give a quick staffing bit of background and that I am pinch hitting today for Amron the attorney in our office who works on government operations issues so she was the one who actually drafted this bill and worked on it with the sponsors and I'm probably going to be taking it over to the extent that it's in the judiciary committee because the government ops committees are busy with other subjects that Amron is busy with so I'm going to probably pick it up from here on in but so some of the background questions that might come up that I would ordinarily have an answer to I might not and might defer to the sponsors on that on some of those because as I say I didn't actually put this trap together I can certainly do the walkthrough but as far as some of those sort of context questions or questions about why certain directions were chosen I'm going to defer to others on that so with that by way of background let's take a look at what H546 says the first topic that it's addressing here right here on page one is one that you may remember was discussed at length last year which was where should this entity be situated where should it be in state government should it be outside state government should be a standalone entity of some sort what's the right place for it to be located and to be stood up and the the proposal that the bill makes is that essentially you'll see right now the executive director of racial equity sits situated within the agency of administration it's sort of a standalone position within AOA the agency of administration so what the bill proposes to do is to create an office of racial equity so he would then have the office of racial equity and within that office are two different entities the existing you see line 14 page one there the existing ED of racial equity would be within the office of racial equity as would the newly created division of racial justice statistics that we're about to take a look at so you'd have the office of racial equity and within it two different entities slash bodies the ED of racial equity and the division of racial justice statistics so that's the proposal for how this would be set up and you'll see that the executive directors has a role with respect to the division and that's an oversight role that's on line 18 that you see there the director shall oversee the division so in addition to sort of this moving around organizationally you also have the director's role being expanded to the extent that it involves an oversight role over this newly created division so naturally actually sorry excuse me Eric Ken is waving and again when we screen share sometimes it's hard for me to see folks so so jump in if I don't call on you go ahead Ken thank you madam chair just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly they we the executive executive director already that's Susanna job correct yes we're looking what I'm sorry I just said yes that's correct okay and we're looking to possibly expand on that build what I assume the administration wants in this in this area that's the part I have not been involved in I don't know what the what the administration's take on this is okay thank you yep so kind of segueing off that question one might sort of an obvious one that sort of arises okay well if the director has oversight authority over division what does that mean exactly what is what is the oversight role entail and conveniently the next three subdivisions exactly state what that oversight role would entail so what would the director do with respect to the this newly established division well they would have the c-line one there they would have general charge over division may appoint employees as necessary subdivision two they in consultation with our depth they can hire a deputy director to oversee the the division and they also subdivision three may apply for grant funding to sort of advance the divisions and duties and responsibilities so that's the the role of the ed the existing ed of racial equity with respect to the division so then you get into all right what is what is the division itself do and that's sub chapter two this this is where the the division of racial justice statistics is created what its purpose is is laid out what it does it's legal charge is all detailed when it with a great deal of specificity in this sub chapter two so first thing that happens is it's created you have to have it statutorily created and that's what is done here in section 5011 it's created within the office of racial equity so you see that as I mentioned earlier you have this office of racial equity that includes both the executive director and the division and they are both within that office and the division is created to and this is very similar to the language you looked at last year to collect and analyze data related to systemic racial bias and disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice system so this overarching purpose is then sort of expanded upon in subsection b where you have some specific language about the mission and purpose of the division first sentence has to do with the mission says its mission is to collect and analyze data relating to racial disparities with the intent to center racial equity throughout these efforts so that's your mission your overall mission the purpose is to create promote and advance a system and structure that provides access to appropriate data and information ensuring that privacy interests are protected and principles of transparency and accountability are clearly expressed so you have this broad mission statement and articulation of purpose here and lastly in that subsection that clarifies that the data are to be used to inform policy decisions so what's the purpose of creating this data to inform policy decisions that work toward the amelioration of racial disparities across various systems of state government so as I say this this subsection is really the very overarching broad mission statement and articulations of the purpose of the division and that as I say it's a broad statement and then you move into section five thousand twelve which is a specific statement you get from that general articulation of the purpose to a a section that lays out the specific statutory duties of the division and that's what you have in five thousand twelve okay what what exactly is division supposed to do and you know it's a lengthy list and as I say or as the chair mentioned I also can't see folks because I'm sharing the screen so please and I tend to you know move along fairly quickly so if anyone has any questions please do interrupt me and let me know if you want me to either slow down or stop for a moment so that we can answer a question or talk about a particular piece of language a little more in detail so the duties of the division are laid out here quite clearly there's a number of lists that begins on line 13 the first one is to work collaboratively with and have the assistance of all state and local agencies and departments of this collaborative work with other entities of government for purposes of collecting all data related to you know that ties you back to to the mission and purpose it because it's all data related to systemic racial bias and disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice systems duty number two collect and analyze data so they they're going to work collaboratively with these agencies and subdivision one subdivision two they have to collect and analyze the data and this the data that we're just talking about related to this systemic bias subdivision three conduct justice information sharing gap analysis so this analysis of where gaps exist and this justice information universe out there moving on there's a requirement that the division maintain an inventory of justice technology assets and a data dictionary to identify elements and structure of databases and relationships if any to other databases so division five we develop a justice technology strategic plan so that's that also a duty of the insane this is has to be updated annually plan is has to include identification and prioritization of data needs and requirements to fulfill new or emerging research proposals and operational enhancements I also have to make recommendations under subdivision six for designing and implementing interfaces and other technology solutions that are going to address the needs that are identified in their strategic plan which we just mentioned it's also going to be required to develop interagency agreements and mo is memorandums of understanding for data sharing and and to publish public use files there's a two reporting requirements and subdivisions eight and nine the first one is a monthly reporting requirement to the racial justice statistics advisory council this is the oversight body over the division that's also created in this bill you may remember we talked about a similar concept last year so in addition to this division that we're looking at right now which does the day-to-day data collection and analysis there's also an oversight body known as the the racial justice statistics advisory council that interacts with the division that makes policy recommendations to the division analyzes the data that the that the division creates and forwards and so every month the division of just collecting this data has to report its data analysis and recommendations to the advisory council and we'll talk a little bit later on about exactly who the advisory council is who it's composed of and and what its duties are but one thing that's we are looking at here that the division has to do is send their data and their other information to the council every month now annually this is subdivision nine there's another reporting requirement annually and this one is to you to the justice sorry the judiciary committees and the government operations committees each year the division has to report its data analysis and recommendations to you folks so you'll get an annual report in january or owner before january 15th of every year as well uh the uh last subsection on this page subsection b is rulemaking rulemaking authority so you see that the division has uh is given rulemaking authority under the administrative the vermont administrative procedure act which is the citation we see there three vsa chapter 25 so it has to go through the standard rulemaking process that i know um the committee is familiar with uh but it is provided with this authority and you'll see how important that is in particular when we get to the next section and this is section 513 data governance you know what do they do with this data how do they collect it who do they give it to you know that sort of thing is all addressed in this section of the bill and you'll see the very first thing lines two and three the division shall establish by rule the data to be collected to carry out the duties of this subject now you may remember in the in the bill that the committee looked at last year the data to be collected was specified there was a there was a lengthy actually a couple of different lengthy lists of the type of data of uh related to racial justice and uh criminal juvenile justice and criminal justice statistics uh laid out quite in detail that describe the different stages of the criminal and juvenile processes and you know that was the the list of what data the division was required to collect here the bill takes a different approach and says the division is going to establish by rule what data should be collected so it's got to go through the rulemaking process it'll it'll uh be proposed and the legislative committee on administrative rules l car will have a chance to look at it um so you'll the the collection the type of data that should be uh collected by the division by rule will come through the legislature in that way so subdivision one uh makes clear that the data that's collected uh according to these duties are not public records so they're not going to be uh available for uh information freedom of information act requests for example under the public records law instead they're they're they're released you see that's line six is governed by the data sharing agreements or mo use um and that they themselves will be public use files but the data itself uh is not a public record that can be um obtained generally speaking by members of the public now an obvious question that might arise is well how did the division get how did they get this data well one way you'll see a specified specified subdivision two is division shall be granted access to the data of any state agency or department it designates by rule as necessary for the division to perform the requirements and objectives of this chapter so think about that process what that's saying is that um if there's sort of a a preliminary step that has to be taken and that step is that the division has to by rule again this goes back to the rulemaking process by rule the division has to designate a state agency or department for purposes of gaining access to the data that it needs to perform what is required to do under this subject so uh if an agency is not designated by rule the way I read that then there would not be this mandatory access because you see it shall in line eight divisions shall be granted access so it's a a requirement that the division be provided with access to this data so long as the division designates that particular state agency in its rules as necessary um for their their duties now if it's not a state actor that's the second sentence you see but what about a non-state entity well in that case uh they they can they may remember see that's not a shall they may access a non-state entity's data as long as they have a data sharing agreement or an MOU with that entity so that way that sets up a structure for them to do that um voluntarily to provide that data to uh the division through that sort of a like I say an MOU or or sharing agreement correct yeah I have a quick question on our line uh be aligned for an unknown data collector the sub chapter is not public records uh I see where they give the office that protection however subsequently the law enforcement entities that release this information uh to this office are they subject to this as a public records request well they would be uh they they're they presumably they have the data themselves yep uh so they would then be governed by their own uh statutes and rules related to whether the data is uh public record or not you know so if someone made in other words the very the simple the act of transferring it to the division you know the way it's you're looking at in line four it's not going to change the law enforcement entities obligations with respect to their own data so this would only be once the once the division has it that means that it doesn't just doesn't become public by virtue of the division having you can't just go to you know for example if it was if it was um confidential and not a public record under a law enforcement agency's own statute and rules and it's not going to be become public just because they provide it to the division so it's still the entity's own internal and statutory responsibilities that will govern that so that wouldn't change so individual law enforcement entities are not protected under this uh i'm not sure i understand what you mean by protected if you've got 10 law enforcement entities that have to provide these records to the office of racial equity or whatever we're calling this right or your request go into those 10 acs to release those records which kind of circumvent the whole process well there the law already exists with respect to even if somebody's trying to see those records if they're confidential now then they'll remain confidential that that isn't changed by this at all okay i'm still confused what what's referred to as confidential what's not but thank you yeah eric can you let saline represent the coburn and she's in the waiting room uh and apparently you're the host i just have to switch him to co-host real quick he was made co um host you'll just take a moment i'll set great thank you so i believe we were on um subdivision three and we're going through the statutory duties of the division and number three sets out that the division has to work with the agency of digital digital services on the collection and retention of data data governance and data security issues and they and the division may contract with a third party vendor for storage management and retention of data if recommended by the agency of digital services so if the agency of digital services recommends it then then the division can contract out the storage management and retention of data to a third party now subdivision four actually goes back to the to the very first one we looked at remember very toply we noticed that we were looking at that the lines two and three that the first duty of the division that's laid out that the division has to establish by rule the data to be collected to carry out the duties of the subjector so what data is going to be collected has to be identified in rule subdivision four says that when the division is doing this or when the division is establishing which data is to be collected they have to consult with rdap and the racial justice statistics advisory council which i mentioned earlier the oversight body over the division so the division in other words isn't by itself deciding what data is to be collected it has to do it in consultation with both rdap and the advisory council all right so that that was the duties of you said data collection so that was all the data collection duties now there's also data analysis so once the division collects this data it has to analyze it and it has to analyze it with several goals in mind that you see was the three goals laid out there to identify the stages of the criminal and juvenile justice systems at which racial bias and disparities are most likely to occur so the data will inform that identification to to they have to analyze the data to organize and synthesize it in a cohesive and logical manner so that it can best be presented and understood and they have to present the data to other the advisory council as required under the subject to remember we talked about that a couple of minutes ago there's a monthly reporting requirement that the division has to has to do with respect to the advisory council every month they have to report the data that they've collected the analysis analyses they've made etc and so this plays that put some specifics on that you know what does that report up to include has to be this this data that they've collected has to be presented in that report uh the division also has to develop and adopt a data governance policy and that is in other words a policy that governs the data that they've collected and this has to establish a system or systems to standardize so this is standardization required so division one standardize the collection and retention of the data and two methods to permit sharing and communications of the data between the state agencies local agencies and external researchers um it's sort of connected to this you'll see the next subsection d data retention that the division has to recommend to the state and local agencies evidence-based practices and standards for collection and retention of racial justice data so you can think of that as sort of a back and forth because remember we just went through the fact that that the division that these state and local agencies who have this data are going to be required to send it to the division as long as the division identifies them by rule but there's a back and forth in the sense that you know these entities with the data have to send it to the division but the division also here has to recommend to the agency's best practices evidence-based practices and standards for collection and retention so you can think of that as kind of a as I say a back and forth between the division and the entities who who collect and have this data in the first instance there's a although the as we were talking earlier the the data collected are not public records there is a public component of this and that's that the division has to maintain a public facing website and a dashboard that maximizes the transparency of the division's work and ensures the ability of the public and historically impacted communities to review and understand the data that's collected so although the you know the raw data isn't itself a public record there is a requirement that transparency be promoted here via the website and a dashboard and ensuring that public and historically impacted communities can review and understand this data and there have to be public use data files you see in line three toward that end uh so that brings us to the advisory council which we've talked about a little bit and now this section five thousand fourteen talks about what the advisory council who they are and what they do you'll see subsection a creates it and it's uh it's you'll see line seven eight also has the administrative legal and technical support of the agency of administration which is where the executive director of racial equity is housed as well now who's on who's on this advisory committee council sorry no committee you can see there are 18 members two from the general assembly one appointed by the committee on committees and one by the speaker uh a court representative appointed by the it's the chief justice or the chief justice's designee attorney general or designee defender general or designee ed of the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs for designee commissioner of public safety commissioners sorry commissioners of public safety dcf and corrections or their designees as well as the secretary of education ed of the human rights commission or designee individual substantive expertise and community-based research on racial equity to be appointed by the governor so that's a gubernatorial appointment and then you have uh subdivision l which has six individuals who have experienced one or more of the following situations and then you have some specific uh uh criteria that are laid out here and they are one or more of the following situations either facing eviction uh violence discrimination or criminal conduct including on enforcement misconduct moving to vermont as an immigrant or refugee effects of racial disparities and discipline policies within the educational system or participation in treatment programs addressing mental health substance abuse and reentry programs and the last point here is that appointments made from this group uh shall be made by this list of entities and you see this is in line 16 subdivision roman numeral six so each of these entities appoint one member then double acp vermont racial justice alliance migrant justice AA lv inc vermont commission on native american affairs and outright vermont so each of those entities of which there are six i believe one two three four five six yes each of them makes one of the appointments there's some language about the qualifications of the members of the advisory council they uh and you know this language i'm sure is familiar to the committee we look at this with respect to other appointments and other bodies before similar language members shall be drawn from diverse backgrounds to represent the interest of communities of color and other historically disadvantaged communities throughout the state and to the extent possible have experience working to implement racial justice reform and represent geographically diverse areas of the state now the terms of the members of the council are generally four years see that line for and there's just some boilerplate language that follows the four-year terms it talks about how terms generally are appointed sorry members are appointed to fill expired terms and they serve until their successes are elected or appointed you see there's in a sense a term limit provision lines nine and ten members shall serve not more than two consecutive terms of any capacity so two terms maximum uh you have a chair and the members of the council elect the chair by majority vote um the members are to be appointed by november first of this year so that gives a few months after the effective date of the act for implementation of these members and terms officially begin on january first 2023 now the council duties are laid out here as well the council is directed to work with and assist the director or designate to implement the requirements of this chapter so they work on implementation with the director buys the director to ensure compliance with the purpose of the chapter evaluate the data and analysis for sheet from the division remember that's that's that monthly reporting requirement that we talked about so they get this this monthly report with the data and analysis from the division and then here is a requirement that the advisory council evaluate what they receive and make recommendations to the division as a result of the evaluations so they look at over and circle back with recommendations and they have a reporting acquired requirement to the legislature as well so remember we saw that the division has an annual reporting requirement to again the judiciary and government operations committees and there's also a reporting requirement on the part of the advisory council and this report they are required to submit to you each year has to include and this is a and b its findings regarding racial bias and disparities within the criminal juvenile justice systems based upon the data and analysis that the council received from the division so again that goes back to that reporting system and the analysis requirement so the council gets the gets the data and the analysis from the division and based upon that they make findings and report them to the legislature and in addition to to those findings that subdivision b they also have to include a status report on progress made and recommendations for further action so including legislative proposals so if there's any proposed legislation that would come from the advisory council and this these could address systemic racial bias and disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice systems the council meets monthly they have per diem pursuant to statute and that concludes that section the section two though has to do with the implementation of the council because remember and this is a common approach that's done in legislation and say well it's essentially how do we how do we get it started right how's it going to get up and running and it's specifically provided that the first meeting is going to be called by the director of racial equity so it's the director of racial equity that calls the first meeting of the council but after that all subsequent meetings are called by the chair because remember at that first meeting the chair is going to get elected now remember that in general the members of the council serve four-year terms we just discussed that however the initial terms are not all going to be four years and that's so that and this is also a common device that's used when a when a body is established for the first time you don't necessarily want every member of the body to be appointed every year to have to be reappointed every year you want to stagger the term so that a couple of members or some smaller number a number of the members are reappointed or newly appointed every year and depending on whether the person is either seeking reappointment or in this case has finished their two terms that they're permitted uh so you stagger it to begin with for the first in the first instance and the way that does it it takes a group of the members first serve a two-year term you see them to subdivision one then another group serve a three-year term to start with and uh a small another group serves a four-year term so essentially you divide it up into three groups I believe six members each and um and they each serve those staggered terms to start with but then after that they each can serve the same for your term can I ask a question yeah are we setting up a a complete new um a new committee that basically is it's is like what was set up for like the cannabis board is that what this is like following uh I don't I'm not real familiar with the with the cannabis board but I I think it is setting up a new entity yes it's a new a new uh a new division within the uh within the office of racial equity and a new um advisory council that oversights them yeah those are those are newly established in the bill yes thank you yep um and lastly there is an appropriation for uh the establishment of these entities that we were just talking about um and this appropriation which is uh 539 960 about 540 approximately this is actually you may recall uh the appropriation that was used last year based on an analysis from the joint fiscal office uh that the committee got I think it was in the context when the bill was being discussed last year before it was in the miscellaneous bill but anyway the the JFO fiscal analysis uh was itself based on the idea that there was going to be four full-time positions an executive director two information technology data analysts and one administrative support person so four positions total uh as well as startup costs and annual operating expenses and and um JFO did an analysis and for the for that uh for those four positions and the other expenses I just mentioned this was the figure that they came up with so can I interrupt again I'm sorry yeah please please do so in this in this appropriation is like I see agency of digital services is that including how much they're going to charge for the service also uh I do not believe so I do not believe that that this appropriation uh covers what whatever time and expense other state agencies would have to to be working on this thank you yep and effective date of July 1st 2022 brings me to the end of my of the walkthrough so I can either leave this up representative grad or pull the document down whichever whichever is your preference yeah how about if you um pull it down for the moment please so I can see and I am going to turn to um coach see if you have any anything that you would like to um to add after the walkthrough and thank you very much Eric let's appreciate that and then also more as well after that well I'd like to start with um Eric incredible job um you know picking up the ball you know that you hadn't been designing from the beginning well thank you representative Christy I almost said I was I was pinch hitting but as a baseball fan pinch hitters usually strike out so I hope I didn't in that particular case you made your salary this year I'll tell you thank you very much I appreciate it so so basically I think one of a couple of things to think about we just heard the report from justice reinvestment to and remember one of their key findings was the need for a bureau of racial statistics in Vermont that was a key finding of justice reinvestment too we had started working on this proposal last year at the beginning of the biennium with 317 which was creating you know that that entity uh that's why some of the budget numbers were available uh and a lot of the design was available as well one of the the other uh interesting things and you know I I've I actually created a graphic to show you know some of this uh interconnectedness and what I mean by that if you go to the uh enabling statue that set up the office of racial equity okay and and you know I'll we'll call it the office versus the person but you know for those who might not recall that's Susanna Davis's office when the legislature created that office part of that office's job was to analyze racial statistics across all entities of state government all not a couple departments not one or two all you know and it was very specific needless to say in our creation as a legislature we almost created some directions that we knew we'd have to fill in along the way because we we we never really staffed that office to do the work that we asked it to do and that's why I think that when justice reinvestment looked at the data components it became very clear to them that we needed to get to that work um so so anyways you know there's a couple of um you know clarifying pieces that we can address as we go you know simple things like instead of executive director of the bureau a suggestion would be director of the division because the division is part of the office so rather than having an executive director and an executive director you know twice you know in that office it would make sense to have the executive director of racial equity and then have a division director of racial statistics you know just just to not confuse you know the the chain of command so to speak uh but we can address that you know after we hear more testimony um I I really believe that you know we're on the right path um we'll hear from witnesses you know across state government you know over the next uh you know a couple of uh uh interactions you know on this bill and hopefully they'll be able to support that you know after everybody gets done madam chair you know with their you know martin and then other you know questions um I can make an attempt to show you that uh that little map that I put together that shows you know how things are actually connected uh and you know it might be able to help from a visual perspective once we're done with that thank you very much martins do you have yeah I just wanted to make a couple comments and I did actually have a question for Eric so just uh I've asked amber to post the two our DAP reports the one from this past uh November which led directly to this document to this bill and then the one that was posted in December of 2020 uh which also relates to this so folks can can take a look at that that should be getting up it's probably not up yet I just sent it to her but it's the two reports from our DAP really that relate to this um the question the question I have a little precursor for the question first um but this is one of the issues I'm going to I'm going to want to certainly get some input from the witnesses because there there are some choices that have been made in this initial draft that we do want to raise with the the committee and and with with the witnesses and that was how much directive there is from the legislature as far as how this should be done versus how much discretion should be provided to the entity that we're creating to to do this work and we've leaned more towards the discretion side of this although we do have you know certainly a rulemaking that is part of this process that the division would undertake to decide which data to obtain but this is one question I'm going to have is you know do we need any more detail and I actually have some suggestions for folks to to consider when we get into the testimony but I'll leave that for for tomorrow but the question I have is more specific for you Eric and that's with respect to the rulemaking and I'm looking specifically at page five where we talk about the division shall be granted access to the data of any state agency or department it designates by rule as necessary for the division to perform the requirements and objectives of this sub chapter when we say state agency or department or then it goes on I'm sorry it says the division may access the data of a non-state entity pursuant to a data sharing agreement or memorandum of understanding with the entity so what I'm thinking particularly is that we have a number of entities that would be involved in this it could be sheriff's departments but but I'm thinking more of the courts a completely separate separate branch of government the various states attorneys etc and presumably that's what we mean when we talk about data sharing agreements or memoranda do we need to have more of a legislative dictate to require and can we require the court for instance to provide the data that's deemed necessary under this rule or is it going to simply be very much a matter of the court be you know agreeing to a data sharing agreement do you understand the question I'm just wondering if we need to be a little more directive yeah with respect to some of those other entities if not the court then states attorneys for instance I mean I'm not anticipating that we're going to have an issue but who knows is it better to to be more directive can we be more directive I think you can be I'm just thinking of you know it seems pretty common for the legislature for example to require the court to make various reports and include data in its reports of different kinds to whether it be to the legislature or to other bodies so I think there is a precedent for for statutorily requiring the court to provide information and data so tech you know speaking technically might someone in the court conceivably raise a separation of powers argument I suppose it's possible but I haven't heard about that with respect to at least information production but I see what you're saying you might be you might it might be advisable to make that information production requirement more explicit well well it could be just a one of our favorite words that we kick around here judiciary committee is whether we use the word may or shall and perhaps it's as simple as on line 10 of page five that the division shall access the data of a non-state entity pursuant to the data sharing or pursuant to data sharing agreements if we if we change that to a shell does that not then obligate the non-state agencies to comply or to enter those agreements or at least I'm raising that you know that's probably more detail than we need to get it right now but but just something to think about well I had wondered with that one is to whether or not you know I guess I don't know who the non-state entities might be but it occurred to me that perhaps that was a may because if it were a private entity then you probably couldn't require them to produce it that's probably why it's a may it may need to be finessed a little bit more but that is a question I'm throwing out there that we probably need to ponder a little bit excuse me Martin Martin and Eric one of the the pieces that are actually already in statute potentially with the uh the office of racial equity in that statute it says specifically pursuant to section 2102 of this title the director shall work shall using the termination shall work collaboratively with state agencies and departments to greater relevant existing data and records necessary to carry out the purpose of this chapter and that was the data integration piece that is already in statute that is under the jurisdiction of the office versus the division so there's a nexus that occurs you know in that area so anyways it was a thought I still think it doesn't quite get us to the non non-state agencies no no not not but everybody else that's under that that part of the umbrella you know you know we've got a hole in the umbrella you know but we can we can find a way to cover that one yeah yeah we can bookmark that um we have quite a few witnesses tomorrow and possibly into friday and next week so we can also keep these questions in mind uh ken go ahead just trying to um trying to um understand this we are already this legislature is very um um they don't like data that is shared now you basically want to pull any data that you want whether it's from a private or public entity to go and do what you want is it that isn't that kind of talking out of both sides of our mouths so um ken i'm gonna it sounds like a policy discussion for the committee unless you're asking if that if you're asking eric if that is how it is it reads this from a drafting perspective sure i'm asking eric thank you yeah i can't answer that sorry the uh the uh i'm not sure what other statutes you might be referring to so i i don't have the ability to answer that one sorry okay and and ken again um we're gonna have quite a few witnesses that that may or may not raise that but certainly uh you know keep that keep that question in your mind to to ask the to ask the witnesses tom thank you um first off eric you said something about pinch hitting and uh pinch hitters usually strike out now let's not forget the 1988 world series in the first game of the world series when uh kurt gibson hit that home run in the bottom of the ninth that's pinch hitter true there's always an exception yeah but so i guess i'm a little confused so so uh and maybe you can uh interrupt me eric if i if i get off you know and i'm making some not i guess not wrong statements but if i'm off on the wrong track so um so right now we have i believe we have some entities in the state that at some point we mandated collect information around racial uh i guess you could say disparities is is that pretty much uh uh true yeah i think that's correct okay okay i want to go kind of slow here so when we mandated these entities we we just told them to collect it and not do anything with it uh i'm not a hundred percent sure the answer to that okay only because i'm i just haven't looked into it um right i'm not sure i know the collection is required i'm not sure off the top of my head what what the data is done with after that right well i'm guess well i guess i'm i'm guessing that because we're at this point uh to take to recollect the data um by another entity and as kind of a clearing house type thing i guess and and and kind of to go back to what ken said about uh government agencies and and uh getting them to share information and that type of thing i i'd brought this up the other day uh talking with a couple members that uh ten ten or twelve years ago um we had that same issue in the human services division in in the uh in the state i was on human services back then and there was uh and i don't remember the exact details on it but i do remember there was a lot of divisions within human services that that weren't talking to each other and weren't sharing information with each other and the term used back then was uh breaking down the silos to get everybody to talk to each other um and i kind of see this as as maybe something similar uh getting all these entities to break down their silos to get all the information into one place and i i i don't know for reinventing the wheel here uh from what was done uh 10 or 12 years ago in human services and and i really think it would be worth looking at to see if uh if that's a process that that could be used here or not um i know there's a lot of people uh still in the building that were around back then what what david uh yakovoni was commissioner back then so uh he would know a lot about it there's certainly members uh uh floyd niece is another one who was uh involved in human services back then uh if not maybe he might have been dcf but um i mean in a lot of members of the legislature or a few members of the legislature that were uh really involved in that whole process along with uh chair pew uh uh and donahue uh mike merwiki these are all people who would have uh potentially have knowledge on that process um and and uh and whether or not we could adopt it to what we're trying to do here thank you see uh if i may uh what tom's referring to two over that period of time we were trying to break down those remember tom you know every time that somebody would say well this agency doesn't talk to this one this one doesn't talk to that one but if you were talking about a kid wouldn't you want to be able to get data from school and from dcf you remember that you know that was one of the dilemmas that we had you know back back then when we were having some of those data discussions you know so in actuality they've cleaned a lot of that up because over you know over that time they started to do these data sharing agreements that are referred to you know like in this you know in this legislation uh is it where we'd all want it to be not yet quite but at least it's heading in the right direction you know so that experience like you said um could be pretty helpful especially from like amp you and bill lippard and those guys they're you know their committees great martin i'll let you have the um last question and uh certainly look forward to our witnesses to tomorrow who hopefully will address uh these questions go ahead martin yeah this was just a little bit of a follow-up that the the trick here is that we have and i what i one of the mean hey i'll let them know a question i think you're still unmuted sorry sorry that that one of the question i had as far as being able to get data from the court for instance is that this is a situation where we have different entities much more so than like just within one agency it's you know the courts the state's attorneys the defender's office could have some data from dcf actually going into this so it's really aggregating that data together and we do have some good witnesses i think we'll be able to help answer that question that tom had as well over the next few days that's all i had thanks great okay all right thank you i am gonna um i'm gonna stop this discussion for now um because like i said we do have quite a few witnesses um that hopefully will answer these uh questions and eric thank you thank you very much sure yeah that was that was great appreciate it um okay so um committee in the last uh few minutes we have i know we're supposed to adjourn at 345 um it may take us a little longer i have a meeting at four with uh dcf that i don't need to go to so hopefully we can we can go back to the center for prime victim services and discuss uh proposal that um barbara put together just for discussion purposes a um a draft memo bar right no if you want to um email it to us or um i don't know tom did you have a chance have you seen do you have a chance to look at it i know i certainly want to make sure that we um capture um your preference of um i didn't i didn't get a chance to look at it no yeah yeah so um barbara why don't you email it to us and that might be the easiest way to do it just email it to house you just share a unless you can screen unless you want to um share your screen i'll email it quick i i'm sorry i don't i probably could well it's on my i was doing it on my laptop and i'm i'm on with my ipad so that i could be writing while i did this so i'll email it right now and it's just a draft to get us started here great all right so nice to see everybody i'll see you soon yeah thanks take care thank you eric stare see you at the bottom of the nights next week yeah that's right see ya and uh i believe amber is part of the house judiciary group and so that way amber can um can put it on our website and also we want to make sure that uh jennifer and carol get it so you know what i'm going to email it to the two of you right now but then it will also be on our website so um so the public can see it as well let me know if people just got i just got the copy i said myself okay give you a few minutes to uh to read it everybody yeah the piece i was concerned with is is in here okay it could use a little bit of an edit which i'm sure will is already on i'm seeing some stuff already but uh and i just a question dan's not here but maybe carol or jennifer might be able to help me so if if the money doesn't come from arpa and it comes out of the general fund um the money in the general fund has got to come from somewhere because that's the amount of the general fund is already set right so so would it be uh um basically shuffling money around and say if somebody in their department had extra money uh you know money left over in their budget would it would it come from things like that isn't that house appropriations job to sort of sort out where it comes from no no and i realize that but i just wondering if that's the basic uh uh process that's used daniel who's not here today representative for it uh for it and this is jennifer polman again for the record from the remand center for crime victim services my understanding was that there was going to be more of a relook at the general fund since he had testified that it was doing better than expected so perhaps it wouldn't be a shuffling but maybe there are these um pieces that weren't otherwise allocated but um i don't have the memo in front of me um didn't come through but as far as whether it's arpa funds or general funds we just want to keep the doors open and you answered my question because i uh i did forget about the part where he said that the the revenues are up a little bit in the general fund thank you thank you remember uh tom the the difference in timing was the july report that we got fiscal analysis report that we got from the economist was at almost like a parity level it was like operating flat as far as revenues the report he gave december um force or whatever date that that was that he did the presentation you know i went back to my notes and he was saying that the general revenues alone were operating at almost five point six percent higher you know so you take five point six percent you know of a seven you know billion dollar budget you know that's a big chunk of you know on the revenue side but but if you go back to the to that fiscal presentation that he made in december there was some pretty poignant pieces of information you know around the operation of our revenue picture and i think that's you know that's what dan was getting at too the you know the only problem is because you know jfo has been so overloaded he hasn't been able to you know to finish his report which is as soon as he finishes his report we'll have some cleaner data uh as far as making a decision for gen's department as far as moving um in let's say a new direction at least that's my observation i said dan has joined us um slina yes thank you so much i have a suggestion but i just i was missed a lot of the testimony and your subsequent discussion earlier so i had to be two places at once so so you can tell me i'm way off base here but um in the i was glad to see that there's meant some discussion here about finding a more sustainable funding model moving forward and not just sort of looking at this as a crisis moment in budget adjustment and um you know as i was hearing um the testimony it really struck me how um imperative it is that we sort of start to decouple support for victims and survivors of crimes and their family from the fines and fees and sort of outcomes of because we don't we're we're working really hard through things like justice reinvestment to to kind of push things in a different direction and i just wonder if it's worth stating that more explicitly that that's like a policy that has been a clear policy direction of our committee um that we're looking for opportunities when appropriate to reduce people's interactions with the criminal justice system through the recommend in line with the recommendations of um projects like the justice reinvestment working group to and other initiatives and we need to kind of come up with more permanent revenue streams that aren't tied to those outcomes you know i just wonder if as we're talking about a sustainable funding model as a policy committee if we just want to really put that on the record and be happy to help craft a sentence along those lines it would be helpful yeah i think i i think that makes sense i i would support that personally that context i i think i was kind of sensing that maybe that's what some of the recommendations i mean dan's with us we can maybe ask that question you know at least in his analysis to this point even though we don't have a formal report in order to assist us in drafting you know our letter you know two appropriations um if if it's his impression that we're on the right path you know that that could be a little helpful Barbara is that what you were getting at in the in the last paragraph of your letter where it starts with we also fully understand the importance yes because yeah because one i got your point about um policy changes for a budget adjustment and wanted to say we're not trying to do that stuff now but we get why adam gression was asking like well what's the plan because i'm sure they're not excited on the 5th floor to have um if we know this is going to keep happening which it sounds like it is the way to deal with it isn't for the Center for Crime Victims to then come forward with a budget adjustment every year it's like it's bad for government it's bad for the Center for Crime Victim Services it's bad for their grantees it's like a bad way to operate period but so i got that and i was trying to not confuse people with feeling like particular policies for being um suggested for the budget adjustment and when coach and i got to talk during the break we have that subcommittee that's supposed to be looking at um a sustainable model and so it seemed like offering to help moving forward with the budget seemed like a a way to go but i'm totally open to every and all change i was um obviously doing this super quick right in another entity it's bad for is us in judiciary because it's putting it's putting us in an almost in an appropriation uh position which isn't our job right you know to really to i mean it is our job to to deal with these things but it's just not necessary if the if the funding was done in uh not that it was inappropriate a way to fund in the past but it's uh we're running into problems with it and it and it needs to change right so um again i'm looking at the time so tom i'm going to go back to you um uh i don't know we need to have some edits here but is this something that that for starters you could support this the memo and the concepts here is it strong and um is it strong enough in terms of our first um not doing policy in the baa i just want to make sure we capture your concerns it definitely captures my concerns if it uh it uh makes it uh the first look at the arpa funds which was the biggest concern and uh you know and i and i realize that the uh the funding problem isn't the problem of the departments here it's you know it's got it's not like it's overspending by any means you know that they're short of money um it's a you know it's a it's it's it's our flaw you know and it just wasn't um it just wasn't visible in the past and uh and it's a weakness that uh has come to light that needs to change but but yeah i i can uh i can certainly uh support the way this is okay great thank you and so i think i really appreciate that tom and um and thank you so much barba for for drafting this so i think what i would like to do is um i want you to just do a show of hands um of support for this letter um memo and then um let barba do some edits if anybody has edits they can send her away or whatever but um is it inappropriate to ask if if the administration is is okay with this if that's what they're looking for i think it's not for the administration it's for the house appropriations right so but there will be a number of proposals there'll be a number of proposals throughout the building that are going to be putting put forward right now and uh and that's the way it usually works and and it it just comes down to the administration doesn't know what all these proposals are going to be and they have to see them to to decide whether or not they will support something but this program is not in dire straits until they're out of money in on july one right so i would say if if it's the message if you felt like you wanted to get one to the administration is oh my gosh i sure hope when you're doing your budget for 23 you've got a good plan in place for this for this important service the budget adjustment i though think i think we would be out of line because it's got to go to appropriations and they've got to put together a package but it's not too early to say for the budget for next year like here's and they probably know that because adam met with them but something's got to change well that's fine but you know you know what i can't stand is something being given to me and then all of a sudden i've got a draft right in front of me immediately that i got to make a decision on that i have nothing to make a decision on i can't i don't operate like that and i'm i'm not supporting that right now i don't think that's fair to anybody to ask to do that right now in in in a matter of how many minutes it is that's just not how i do things and i'm not going to sorry to be uh so whatever but you can't i don't operate like this so madam chair yeah quick question i saw dan contemplating a response to the question that we had about because i mean you know he's been studying this and i know that he hasn't had a chance to formalize a report but to get to selena's point and tom's point and barb's about you know our policy piece what are our next steps you know we're trying to move away from some of these crimes and penalties and things of that sort so of course why would we why would we link funding this service to something we're trying to decrease you know there has to be a new stream and i think that you know that's part of that project that barb was referring to that a subgroup of us can hopefully work with dan and jennifer and her team to come up with you know some directions for helping for the 2023 because that's that's where the rubber is going to hit the road you know we're kind of okay now we're just putting a a covid band-aid on what's occurred you know to to this point just for the record that's kind of where i'm coming from i don't have enough information to go by the administration is going and saying okay you know we've already heard that there there there might be enough in in revenue and then opera and all this stuff it's like why are we why are we making a whatever that word was strong recommendation or whatever it is feel strongly or whatever it is when i don't know how much of it that is is is really desperate i haven't seen numbers i haven't seen anything so i think again our our role is less about the numbers but about the policy that that the the services at the center provides our consistent our priorities you know top priorities of this committee in terms of supporting victims of crime and i think that's really what is where where we weigh in and we say you know please appropriations committee please do what you can to keep them to keep the center and the programs you know alive and and sustainable and then it's up to them to to look at the numbers to look you know to look where the funding comes from but we madam chair i don't want to be misunderstood i i i support uh the group it's just it's just i want numbers i i want to know what we're talking about i'm not just going to throw um uh taxpayers money out just without having more to go on in more direction of of of me agreeing to a to a letter that i'm quite frankly not i'm i'm not going to agree with that yet i agree with what's going you know what i mean i agree with the program it's just i don't have enough information especially in two hours of whatever we've been dealing with this on madam chair are we are we going to be voting on anything today because um i need to jump off um and i don't know if anybody else does but uh if we don't need to vote on anything maybe we can um continue the discussion another day sure yeah now we we don't need to vote on anything we do need to try to get an answer to uh house appropriations so we can certainly think about this tonight but again um this house appropriations job to look at the numbers and to come up with the numbers it's our job to say you know this is important policy the center is important please um as you're looking through requests for budget adjustment we ask you to put the center um up top i mean sort of a simplistic summary but i think that is our our role um so before we adjourn i don't know if um dan do you have anything here that you wanted to add and bob i do see your hand but um i i do have i i think i can add a lot but i'm i'm cognizant that you're running short on time for today and so i you know i think there's there's certainly a discussion to be had you know at least the short term in lieu of having a report in front of you as far as um you know what the what the ongoing need is and a few ideas for how to how to start to address the need um i i will say um upfront that um the report that i issue given where i am currently i don't think i'm going to have answers that that solve the problem in its entirety i think you know my recommendations are going to sort of hinge on um continuing the you know the the current surcharge provisions and statute um would have to stay in order to sort of provide the full funding picture um you know and and that's certainly you know something that it sounds like you want to get away from um so i i think there's it's you know it's going to be a longer conversation um and so i i don't know if that's extremely helpful but i i want to give you some sense of of where i'm heading um and okay all right well thank you and we'll find time to pick this up again um i do have a meeting but after my meeting i can gen i can follow up with you barber and and uh take it from there so okay well thank you thank you everybody and uh we will adjourn and go up of youtube thank you