 There's your this Thursday, January 18th to hear back on some of the work that we did in act 30, 17 last session. And so we're going to hear from a few familiar faces on the report and. The consequences or best that that that bills had and that laws had for the future of the desass and share. So, I'm pleased to have your first and any, did you want to testify jointly? Yes, good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair for the record. I'm here with Sheriff Roger Marcu and Roger and I, along with Gary Taylor, who was the former chief of police with Santa Alvin City and with Sheriff Anderson, worked on on the report to a large extent, I know that you've got limited time this morning, we have lots of witnesses so I thought Roger and I talked about perhaps we would testify together if that if that's okay with the chair. There's a lot of efficiency plus there are different pieces of this that, you know, I worked on more, more than Rod and Roger on others. The other reason we're not, I just want to say this is I'm unable to be in the committee room today because I had foot surgery a week ago and I'm not clear to walk on my foot yet. So I'm all bandaged up I could come in and get the sympathy vote, but I really think I really thought it'd be better if I just followed my doctor's orders and stayed off it for the rest of the week. So thank you for accommodating the remote process and thank you for letting us talk about this and I will try to go through if it's okay with you the report. As it was written it's, it's 14 pages but but a lot of it is just background information so I'm just going to go through the highlights and remind the committee, you know, a year out where we're at with things from from s 17. So, as 17 was passed last session and to a large extent Institute reform share reforms in the sheriff's departments with county elected sheriffs and I think everyone knows we have 14 elected sheriffs. Essentially act. Let me say act 30 act 30 impose it imposed additional oversight on the sheriffs from everything from a review of what the sheriff may be trying to sell or or to give away whatever of any value during any transition period. And that now has to go with some oversight to to the sheriff's executive committee and this state that the director of my department states attorneys and sheriffs. It also put in a provision for clear clearly put in a provision for conflict of interest that if a sheriff believes or perceives or the executive committee of the sheriff's believes or perceives that there's a conflict. The executive committee will review that issue and give some decision to the sheriff as to whether the sheriff should or should not engage in any activity. The required annual financial disclosure under under title three was made clear under act 30 and the sheriffs have to provide there to financial disclosure by January 15. In addition, act 30 asked for a model compensation and benefits policy and I'll get to that later on in the report. It talked about the administrative fee which is the 5% on the private contracts again we'll come to that in a little bit. And it created a director of sheriff operation. And I'll mention that it also talked about a sheriff being accountable as to their work schedule where are where is a sheriff are they working in in Vermont. Are they working out of state if they're out of working outside their area for more than three days. They are required to maintain a record of that so if there's any question from the public as to where the sheriff is that has to be available to in record as to where they are. The other piece of this was to coordinate with the judiciary for court security services. I'm pleased to report that the judiciary worked very closely with the sheriff's and has a separate. Report and budget requests that they're going to come forward with that we support as a department, the sheriff's support and the judiciary. So I feel like it's they did a very good job of involving many stakeholders in that. And I think you're going to see that separately from the judiciary. Yeah, I just wanted to interrupt you really quickly any my apologies and say for the communities context and everybody, all the stakeholders that today I wanted to focus on this report and we will make time to talk about the courthouse security as a separate block of time and with, you know, Terry Corson is and other folks. I think that the SCA that wanted to have representatives in the room for that as well. So we definitely related to this and the bill of course, but the act 30 the law should say now, but wanted to just make sure that the committee knew that we're putting a pin in that but it hasn't been forgotten. Great. And the other was the issue of the relief from abuse orders where the sheriffs are assisting people who have property retrieval issues under relief from abuse primary often domestic violence victims. And that was another piece of this that we had to look at and absorb. So most of the report for the next few pages goes through what are the duties of the sheriff. And it's just a whole laundry list of what a sheriff generally does what is required of them by statute what is required of them by policy. In essence, what we had to look at for policies is not only operational policies for a sheriff but operational policies around personnel and fiscal. Very briefly, we've recommended that the sheriff's established a policy committee, we have, we have in fact put out policy guidelines that are available for this policy committee to look at and they essentially were those that sheriff Mark who uses in his department in in in many areas. So the committee is supposed to be looking through those and deciding which of those are adoptable as is which of them need some edits, which of those are actually set by statute and cannot be edited so for example act 56, or federal law around military usera state law around parental family lead there are some things that the sheriffs have to adopt as policy that are not in their purview to edit in any way. There are others that are that are were provided by Sheriff Mark who so that they serve as sort of a starting point as you all know it's easier sometimes to edit a document and it is to create the document. Mark who provided a list of these with and most of these have links if anybody here wanted to see them we can get you a link to those policies. I didn't embed it into the report but they are available areas where the we will be helping the sheriffs are primarily around labor relations and HR issues whether it's hiring promotion job descriptions development of employees employee assistance programs we will be helping the sheriffs with those policies from our department primarily both the director sheriff operations and myself and other people in our department will help the sheriffs with those but obviously we're not going to be identifying things like you know proper patrol procedures that's really the law enforcement groups and the committees that that's their expertise not ours. One of the things that we did do was we looked at ensuring that we say sheriff should be trained several times a year and new shares should be trained within 45 days of taking over the office fiscal and accounting training is very much available from the auditor of accounts Doug Hoffer's office and has has a very clear manual he offers that training to not only the sheriff's but the sheriff's staff because most of them have a bookkeeper financial people in their office and he does that and has agreed to work with us on fiscal and accounting training for the sheriffs. They as you know the sheriff's departments are that odd. Combination of both the public and private operation so their salaries are paid and benefits are paid for our department and the transport deputies 24 transport deputies are paid for our department and then the sheriff's employee their own staff as sheriff's dispatchers bookkeepers and all of that so there they have to maintain a pretty comprehensive set of books and accounting because they also have their private contracts. So they have a they have a pretty substantial lift in terms of accounting I think some of them do very well. I think them so that they get some help in terms of all of that. One of the other pieces of this was to talk about a comparable salary structure for the sheriff's. And in this you'll see that what we're recommending to a large extent is an apples to apples who do the sheriff's compare best to within within the state system. For example and we had identified that we felt that the sheriff's identified best with the state police majors based upon the level of duties they have to they have to perform the supervision the budgeting all of that. We felt that they compare best to a BSP major. We will continue to look at that with the Department of Human Resources. And I think that similarly to what I had done with the director of sheriff operations which has been very well vetted through DHR DHR staff. I think we're going to be working continue to work with Department of Human Resources to identify is there a different salary model for the sheriff's. Their salaries are set in statute. The question is are their salaries commensurate with what we are asking them to do. Easier was trying to figure out what the sheriff should pay their non state. I want to keep saying that the non state deputies because the state deputies are under a contract under our department. And they so the deputy sheriffs that they employ that state the sheriff's can look at what the transport deputies get or what other law enforcement officers get. We've identified that we've identified similar job descriptions in state government for their civilian support staff whether it's a dispatcher admin administrative assistant A or B financial services directors. There are plenty of job descriptions within state government that show a range of salary the sheriff could could start with for those civilian support staff that they employ in their in their sheriff's department. I don't think that will be a big lift for the sheriff's. I think it's just a matter of the sheriff's agreeing upon some of these job descriptions do seem relevant. I think that that they'll be able to do that. The other piece of comparability and when you look at a benefit compensation package is what are the sheriff's get in terms of retirement. And I'm going to let Sheriff Mark who if I can talk to this issue but I just want to say you know we've been working closely with state treasurer Mike P check and his staff. Tim Duggan to identify a way forward. We've been asking for some revision for the sheriff's. And Roger will explain that you know it's very it's all over the place as to where their their staff are located. But we feel like we have a good model here with this group G retirement system that was established for corrections. And I believe the state treasurer agrees that this would be an option for our sheriff. So let me turn this to Roger. I believe. Good morning everyone. My name is Roger Mark. Well County Sheriff. I believe that perhaps the committee is somewhat aware of some of the retirement conversation that's been going on. But after six or seven years of me being personally involved trying to find an equitable retirement for the non state paid deputies. The the folks in Mike P check's office and and the sheriffs have found the newly formed group G which is a 20 year retirement which was formed I believe last year namely for corrections officers is a very very good fit. It's a it's a a system where the employee pays the true cost of the of the benefit. So and and so we're working hand in hand there's a there's a bill out right now which I think you're all aware of. But we're in hopes that that's going to make it through the legislative procedure this year. And then we can maybe come online for retirement which would be equitable with other law enforcement agencies not only municipalities with beavers but with the group C which is aimed at state law enforcement officials. So I think enough said on that but we're we're you know fingers crossed that that's going to help professionalize our group because at least on that piece we're going to have some equity. I think that that bills age 585. Yes. Okay. So I am glad to hear that there's appears to be some agreement between the trader's office and sheriff's association on a path forward there I know that's been a long, long conversation so we'll definitely hear more about that. Thank you very much. So the next section of this report is talks about the 5% contract administration food. And I know that that was a that has been a big flash point for lots of people in discussing the sheriff's do I think it's really important to just consider this that you know the sheriff's. As I said you know they are they are a strange configuration of public and private money and the private money comes in through contracts. And those are contracts that can be with you know construction companies but also with state government Department of Mental Health Department of Children and Family Services Department of Corrections for services that that those agencies can't do themselves. Whether it's sitting with you know a kid or transporting kids whether it's you know I mean UVM had a contract with sheriffs for a number of years. Sheriff Marcu and other sheriffs were very much involved in monitoring for security the homeless program during the pandemic where we had the hotels with the hotel owners said yeah we'll we'll we'll house people but we want some security on site. There are lots of there are lots of ways that the sheriffs are supporting private businesses in Vermont and public public entities in Vermont. And that 5% fee is it was written in to say the sheriff has the right to put that in as a administrative fee for for administering the contract monitoring performance hiring people and owning the general liability. If something goes wrong in terms of those insurance. I think a big piece of what I think a lot of folks don't understand is that the sheriffs often are using the money that they take in from those administrative fees for what I call their unfunded unfunded obligations and I think a couple of examples. So we have 24 state transport deputies that go over to the correctional facilities they pick up people and they move them over to court for their hearings and sometimes they're doing you know they're moving people helping do see occasionally move people around but primarily that's what they do. They're in the courtroom during the hearing as added security for the judge and all the people in the courtroom and for the defendant. We don't pay for the cars we pay the sheriff's mileage to use that car when the sheriff uses that car but the sheriff buys that car so it's a state program with state employees running people back and forth for which the sheriff is purchasing those cars. The sheriff is also buying the uniforms for the state deputies the sheriff is also equipping the the cars and equipping the state deputies. So that's like an example. Even last year with the reef the RFA property retrievals. It used to be that local whoever the law enforcement agency was you know could would be asked to do that and then the bill act 30 said now the sheriff should do all that work without any money to reimburse them for that. OK, you know we we reimburse them if they if they're using a state transport deputy but if they're transporting which we're very busy these days with transports. The sheriff might have to use their own their own folks and so they're they're paying their their own deputies to do that work and there was no money put into their budgets. In addition, the county this year started rolling back some of their support for the sheriff's departments saying well we really shouldn't be paying for X and we shouldn't be paying for Y. So a big part of what the sheriff's use their administrative fee for is to basically support their staff and their infrastructure and their comparabilities and I just just wanted to put that out there that that you know people. It's not it's I think there's a perception that whatever comes in that the sheriff is putting that right into their wallet and that is very far from the truth in terms of what is actually happening and I think that that's important. So what we recommended. Having said all that is that what we think that a reasonable cap and restrictions on the use of the 5% fee could be examined it should be examined first in terms of what is Farron and comp fair comparable salary and benefits and what does a sheriff need to be able to support the infrastructure of running their offices their departments and their equipment. So we have talked about that that that's a conversation that needs to still be ongoing among the sheriff's and among our department. Because we've been asked to identify what we think would be a reasonable cap and restrictions on that we are working towards that I do think that that we would be we are being very careful about advising the sheriff's about that money when it goes towards anything towards salary compensation for their staff or themselves. So we are working on that trying to come up with something that I think people would feel OK and supportive of with the sheriff's but that was a big flash point of all of this. OK. Then. Complaints about the sheriff we basically put out of just a simple thing and let me explain it this way. The sheriff's can get complaints about about themselves. They can get complaints about their staff their their non state employees staff and their state employees staff and other operational issues. So the easiest way to say this is it would need to be it would need to be examined like who who gets to examine the complaint if the sheriff gets a complaint about one of their staff members. Obviously the sheriff needs to look at that they need to decide if it's an internal policy violation something small something large. Obviously they have to examine it against whether or not it meets the definition of professional conduct as outlined under the law and act 56. And if so they have to immediately work with the criminal justice training council by filing all those reports that go to the council. They also have to try to determine whether or not they think it should be referred to another law enforcement agency if they think that it's a violation of the law. So in all areas whether it's a complaint about a sheriff a sheriff staff member it really all of those three things have to be examined internal policy violation of a non serious nature. Internal policy violation of a serious nature which of those go over to the council which of those go to the council and or law enforcement for further investigation. So that is sort of what would be the model for all three check this box that box in this box. So we think that obviously if there's a complaint about the state transport deputies our department would need to be advised also because we those employees fall under collective bargaining agreement. We would need to make sure that all of their all of their rights under the collective bargaining agreement are are followed even if something is being referred to the council or to another law enforcement agency. We need to make sure that the employee is advised of their rights and their right to union representation. So none of the other employees in the sheriff's departments are unionized. So this piece only applies to the 24 state transport deputies. Okay. The other pieces to create an advisory commission. We've been working on among the sheriff's as to trying to look at models for that. Obviously there is the state police advisory commission which is a larger organization a larger group of people than perhaps we might put together. But we think we would be looking at we've talked to the council itself the council members and the council staff about you know who might be appropriate groups to put on this. Obviously we're looking at stakeholders interested stakeholders that would include not only law enforcement agencies state government agencies but also advocacy organizations that represent marginalized communities people with disabilities. And all all other groups that we would you know lb l lgbtq and all the other groups that we would think we would want to involve in an advisory commission. Yeah. On this the state police advisory council is one organization that that advises the commissioner that you may or may not know how that works but but they have one internal investigations unit. They have one set of policies. So and so the right from the beginning of this conversation or this testimony right to now we have to have standardized policies. We have to make sure that internal investigations are all done in the same way in the same professional way. And so this is a process here. You have you have personnel policies that may be different in Essex County or Small County as as opposed to Chinatown County. So we have a lot of work to do. But this is only going to work if we can standardize everything very very important to have that transparency. But I think the foundation has to be laid in a way that everybody is trained the same way as to how this is going to work and the responsibilities of this commission if we can get it up and running. And we will rely a lot on the council of the council staff members, particularly when it comes to them explaining all of the aspect of Act 56, which is the oversight that the council has for certified law enforcement officers. And I, you know, we always presume that everybody fully understands it, but I don't think we should make that presumption. I think we should be training at least once a year, maybe twice a year with the council on anything the council thinks sheriffs as law enforcement officers should know or do. And so we will rely a lot on them for their help on this. One of the things to talk about was a sustainable funding model for the sheriffs. You know, we, I don't feel like we can do that without the help of like JFO. And I have not had the opportunity to really sit down and start that conversation with with JFO, but honestly, right now for when I look at the FY 25 budget. I don't, I don't think that we're going to see any additional shift for more state money coming into the sheriffs budget at this point. And I think we'll have to be looking down the road a bit and I think we would need some projections from from JFO to tell us what that might look like. As I mentioned, the counties got together, the county clerks or side judges, I guess it was it got together and started to pull back some funding on some areas for some of the some of the sheriff's departments. That was that's been a bit of a problem for some of them, but they felt that they were perhaps supporting some positions that they shouldn't have been. So we kind of need to look at how that what that impact will be this year. The other thing that Act 30 said is we should increase efficiency we think we are going to be doing that by standardizing policies, providing information about best rates of pay employment applications with things that we can standardize actually will reduce their costs. And we believe that and then recommendations for better oversight. We think that the director of sheriff operas operations in doing that. You might know that one of the things you do when you create a position in state government is you have to first do your job description job specification and then work with the department of human resources for their input on this. We have done that and DHR has been very helpful to us on this and we have been looking to have It's an exempt position. It was it was not it was created from a vacancy that we had within the sheriff's transport when they unionized to there were 25 positions I asked for one of those positions to be held out of the bargaining unit with the thought that at some point the program and the sheriff's might need more assistance. And it should basically be a more or less a managerial position and when Act 30 was being an S 17 was being 17 was being debated that came up you know is there a way to have a position. And I said well good news is I have a position number we can use and I have it in the budget we can use. So there was no no need for a new position number or new funding. We've been able to work work through that with with what we had existing. We are we are have talked to a few people on outreach for interest in the position and I think we will be able to be moving forward on that very soon. So that's sort of what all the news it's fit to print from Sheriff Mark who and myself. I hope that if anybody has questions they'll they'll ask. Thank you. I have a few but I want to open it up to the committee first anybody have any initial questions after hearing the. Thank you for summarizing that report I highly recommend everybody on the committee and take a look at that. One of my overarching questions for us that Annie Roger is are there other than some of the budgetary conversations that what we need to have to take up some of these recommendations are there policy recommendations that we would need to act on this year in order to operationalize any of the things that are in the report. I don't think so. Yeah obviously the committee is going to have to decide on on if they want to continue with the 5% administrative fee which is really important for a lot of reasons but there's so many policies that we can do you know without any you know involvement they're just pretty much standard things and you know they may be some some budgetary issues down the road. We got a director of operations and we just you know that that person and desass decides like we really should have a uniform. Internal investigations policy and we have to hire somebody or put something in play like that but that's that's down the road but I think we're good to go right now. A lot of this probably the only thing that that's out there that is also noted in this report is the retirement bill. You know I think a big push for the sheriffs on that is they were they were essentially being the training ground for people who would come work for a sheriff and then leave to go to a municipal plan that had a 20 year and out plan. And I remember that former senator and appropriations chair Susan Bartlett came in and she came in her in her capacity as a town select board person saying we're watching our sheriff's department train and lose and train and lose and to a large extent they were all going to local to Stowe and to Morristown they were going to other municipal municipal so supporting the group G retirement option as Roger mentioned which is will be paid for by the employee themselves doesn't really have a big appropriations impact but it definitely is a policy decision. We'd really like to see that happen this year and the treasurer has said that he thinks we would be able to instituted by January of 2025. Good morning. You both just said that the G plan would be paid for completely by the employee or will you get something for an employee or contribution. Otherwise, yeah, I'm sorry I didn't really make that clear. I believe that the employees going to pay about 12%. Yeah, and then there will be contribution by the employer. But at the end of the day. I don't think that you're going to run into the deficit problems that you have with some of the other current programs and I'll follow my sword and say that Treasurer Peachick or his representatives are the true experts and to the best of my knowledge, this is going to be cost neutral. Yeah, and I'm sorry thank you Bob I didn't mean to I meant to say that it would be absorbed by the by the participants and the and the employer. And that was that was always sort of the hold up in terms of trying to figure out where to move the sheriffs to because at one point we had looked at the viewers plan. And the question when when it ran against the actuarial numbers it was, it would have cost the viewers plan some money that they felt they didn't want to invest, you know, rightfully so they want to keep the plan upright. And we all know that that's a challenge these days. Thank you. Am I correct in remembering that there's about half of the sheriff's offices elected to be in group F. And so there are books that are in the state system now and then there are a number of sheriff's offices that and employees that are not. Yes. There's a number of sheriffs that are in group F. And there's a number of sheriffs that are in the Vermont municipal employees retirement system beamers. And there's maybe a couple that are not involved at all in any retirement. I wanted to ask about the model finance and benefit policy and that we required. What's the kind of timeline on operationalizing that are you thinking that you'll hire the director position. Soon and then have them sort of be responsible for. Implementing the recommendations. Yes, yes, exactly. And and. And working closely with department of human resources. I've I've had conversations with them. Commissioner, they, as you know that all that department's very busy. And during the point that we were working on this. That really didn't didn't and her staff didn't have the capacity to basically pull themselves off of some of their other projects. But I think that we will continue to work with them by by basically giving them stuff to review. As I said, sometimes it's easier to be handed something and to say, can you look at this and tell us if it makes any sense. Sort of like, you know, what I did with the director of share of operation jobs back is that I wrote the whole thing. And then presented it and said, hey, can you look through this and what do you think. So I think we'll be doing the same thing will have the director share of operations, try to really do this was preliminary research that was based on. Information that's, you know, that was available on the web and stuff but you know, what really has to happen is very fact based review. And research, and that's what we hope to accomplish and present to the. As part of the proposal, Roger, did you. Chairman McCarthy, one thing you had asked about any legislative action, maybe by the committee but there's this conversation about level three versus level two tariffs. And, you know, it's, it's my thinking that this could be taken up. And it's not a constitutional issue. I know I heard in Senate go box that the experts or an or an expert said it was a constitutional amendment issue. However, that is something that that even within the association, there's different thoughts on it. And I think that I'm, I have a different thought on it than our president, sharp Anderson. But that is something that, you know, as we look to professionalize the sheriffs that that conversation should be had and and so I just want to bring that up. And that raises another point. So you are probably aware that right now in the statute, it says that if a sheriff is not level three, if they're level two that they're that they're set they take a 10% salary reduction. Now here's the weird thing. If you have a sheriff who has no certification, the statute is silent. So one might presume that when that original language was passed, there was some thought by the legislature that said, you know, well, if you're not fully certified, you're going to take this piece of a salary cut. Well, if you're not certified at all, what do we pay you? You know, what, what, what salary cut can we employ this statute is silent. Well, you're not certified. I'm, you know, we're cutting your salary 30%. I don't have any standing to do that right now. So that would be something that is that is a note in this report. It would be really helpful if we could clean up that section of the statute and decide what, what difference difference in terms of a percentage pay, do you pay someone who's not certified whatsoever. I think that would be very helpful because I know that the sheriffs and I have talked about this. You know, we've all come up with, well, maybe it should be x, maybe it should be y and I said, yeah, but I can't do that without having somebody come back on me and say, show me where it says that I, I, you know, maybe logically I could say, well, I'm going to cut you 10% because you're not certified. We should not even certified at level two. Now what do I do? And there's nothing there. So if we could clean up that provision of the statute, come up with it, come up with a number that the legislature thinks is appropriate. I'd be happy to, I'd be happy to implement that. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions for the department or Sheriff Mark, who were we here from Sheriff Anderson. I didn't want to have the two sheriffs engage in a debate over this particular issue this morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. We're available for future questions from anybody email or in the committee. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much for presenting the report initially for us. Thank you. So I want to invite Sheriff Anderson up. Welcome back. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you. So, if you'd introduce yourself for the record and I wanted to hear your thoughts and feedback on the, the report and anything else that has to do with the, that you'd like to share with us about the current state of. The sheriffs in Vermont. That'd be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning committee. For the record, Wyndham County Sheriff Mark Anderson and here in my capacity as the president of the largest association. Very quickly, I just want to talk about the sheriff's association. We represent 13 sheriffs. 13 independent organizations with share responsibilities with different expectations of our communities. And so it can sometimes be nuance and how I respond. But I'm here to represent the sheriff's association. I'll be very intentional why I'm representing myself. And I'm happy to speak. Specific to my agency, but. This is very broad. This report is a lot of work. Any did. Did hear host work on this. It was pushing a rock uphill in some regards. And so I appreciate the effort that went into it. So, to start off, Vermont Sheriff's Association supports the body of work. We, there's nuance as we get into the, the weeds on any one issue. As one can expect representing 13 entities. But generally we support the work. You heard. Reference to some disagreement that Sheriff Mark and I have. That is respectful professional work. Good disagreement because we're looking at it through different lenses. So the, I think that's where if future legislation does come forward. Those are opportunities for the legislative process to work out. That said, I'm not going to go into as much detail as Annie did. Happy to dive in anywhere the committee wants to ask questions or would like me to explore more, but just briefly I'm going to go through the points. As far as the association is concerned. Skipping to page with it's. 5 with regards to policies. If you step into office, you're there. And your resources are what's there. Generally the department states, attorneys and chairs means call any. That's what it means to a sheriff. It doesn't mean we have an attorney helping us. It doesn't mean we have it support helping us. It's not to say that these things don't exist. They generally don't because we have some things that are funded by the state. Some things funded by the county and some things entirely funded by ourselves. So with that having a standard model policy manual that is handed to a sheriff saying. Good luck is better than walking in the door and having no one to greet you to say good luck and just figuring it out on your. So, broadly, we support the policies of the direction of the policies. Many agencies already have these policies. What was good about this report is that some agency said, there's a policy for that. And we said, yeah, here's 3 versions. So the association already contributes to that, but I don't always as a member of the association or as president of association have a look into what every policy organization has without having the shred of a second to say, hey, what do you have. And that share of having the shred of a second to respond with what they have. So to that end, we support having the policy model policies developed, which then we can tune to the specifics of our operations. Some agencies are very in depth or law enforcement. They need to have law enforcement deep policies. My agency does not use their deflation devices that pay cars in a pursuit, let's pull spikes across the road, pop the tires. We don't use them. So I don't have that policy. I don't need that policy because we never purchased that. We have a very, very restrictive pursuit policy because generally speaking, we believe that pursuits will result in death or serious bodily injury. So, only when we believe that our pursuit would be more beneficial to the public. Do we engage them? Generally, we can find the person who ran from us. We're very good at our job. With regards to training. Talked during a 17 during last session about. About basically offering the sheriff who has limited resources, an opportunity to have a shared understanding of what their job is in town. They are guided by the rails of statute. Those things do happen if they say, if someone says you need to serve civil process, they will serve civil process. However, if they don't know that Charlie's process for rid of possession or rid of attachment and all things that are part of stable process have certain rules. They might not know until they make the mistake and then they're sued and then they have the personal liability. So, teaching that before the mistake is made is helpful, but we need legal counsel on it because civil law is difficult to say the least. With regards to compensation, I'm going to bifurcate this specific to the sheriff themselves. You heard chef Mark who speak about the 5% shares generally want to be paid equitably. I think I said that word right, but I think you know what I mean, we want to be treated fair. If it's the 5%, fine. If it's a state salary, fine. If it's a county salary, fine. If it's the lottery, probably not fine, because you have to hope for it. We want to be treated as professionals we want to be compensated fairly we want to have anything that any other employee would expect as they talk to their employer. We're unique in that our employer is to a degree, the voters. It's not really a body that you sit down and say, let's discuss what salary is and so where does it come from it comes from government. Chef Mark who already shared, we don't or maybe it's any, we don't see that are changing our salary coming from the general fund. We just don't it's been the same way for over 30 years. If we haven't changed in 50 years, if we change it today, okay, but then what and where does that funding come from we know that budgets are always the tight point. So, does the system. Raise eyebrows at time. Sure. But we also have shares to say I don't need 5%. I'm treated fairly and I'm investing this in my department and my staff in our cars. With the 5% shares are often a new herd and you speak to this, we're subsidizing the state of Vermont. We're subsidizing the counties. We're subsidizing the judiciary. We're subsidizing our municipalities. So, we're not really raising taxes, but we are still subsidizing which is kind of an interesting feature of our departments, but it's the current design. With respect to our staff, we're in a competitive employment market. We have a number of agencies surrounding all of us who are often struggling with employment. We have a number of shares departments who are flush with staff. But then they're stolen away. So we work to remain competitive. Like any other business though, we have the market demands or the market pressures. And so when I say I need a hundred thousand dollar contract with the town to justify the position. And the town says, no, we can do it for 80 grand with the neighboring police department. I have a market pressure fighting against what I do. So there's already checks and balances built in by the sheer nature of economics on what limits or constraints or contracts as we deliver services. We can skip a couple of the bullet points, just because I think they're all tied into that broad statement with regards to retirement. I'm not going to dive too deep unless you have questions other than to say we strongly support h585. No, that's not on the discussion today. But that is something that we believe will be helpful for the departments that are struggling with employment. I was looking at my department's numbers over probably about the last 15 years we've employed roughly 200 people. I don't have 200 people. I will assure you that but most of them are still in law enforcement professions. They were taken by another agency. I just had two deputies taken by another agency. So it's just, it's we're always the training room. That's how it was when it started. What are you fully staffed at? I have 41 as of last week. No, that was without 41 at 43 before they left. And the, that said, I have, I think, 16 full time staff I might be plus or minus one or two, followed by a variety of I call them per diem staff. And that's 41 sworn, as well as civilian employees. So I have administrative staff at dispatchers, as well as deputies. The way we're able to absorb it is I cross train people and so I have an animal control officer which was intended to be a civilian position who wanted to become a deputy. It works. I have a dispatcher who wanted to become a deputy. It works. It's difficult to absorb some of those pressures in my operation, but not everybody does that type of cross training. It does come with its own detriment such as when I needed dispatcher and a deputy. I can't pull that person, but right now I'm sitting pretty strong on staff. So it's not detrimental even though I lose people to other agencies. With regards to addressing complaints of existing in statute is already a policy under title 20 about agencies adopting an internal affairs program. So every eight law enforcement agency in the state of Vermont is required to have that has set out the requirements to adopt that. If they don't adopt it, they are subject to the criminal justice council's model policy. So it exists in that regard. The cases are investigated failure to investigate it falls on the agency head. So shares are very tuned to that responsibility. The if it is a complaint about me, the council is also subject to those responsibilities to act 56. So I'm not investigating myself. The council investigates me. There's also we have the ethics commission, which has its own resolutions through the attorney general to conduct investigations as well as the state's attorney in each county. So not my daily work. I'm still talking and learning about the ethics commission, but I did file my disclosure. So, I mean, there's certainly remedies with regards to it. Talking about the saddle saying, I think, I forget the specific title and I don't see it right off the top, but I'm going to call the sheriff's advisory commission or the similarity to the state police advisory commission. Sheriff Mark who already mentioned, it becomes very difficult to have a statewide body that's going to analyze 14 different independent organizations, policies and how they are reflected in each county, especially when I don't have a policy on Stinger spike strips. And maybe I'm not sure who would but maybe Sheriff Mark who has. And so the differences of my policy to his policy. The, not to go too far into the discussion on this unless you'd like me to act 74 was a report done by the criminal justice council to reflect on act 56 the professional regulation law for law enforcement. So that is a report that you do have back and I hope you look at that as well. But it also contemplates the same issue which is when law enforcement agencies report to the council and issue, they're analyzing by the specific policy that agency, and we're finding even that's problematic. So there's advice that that body did that says this is actually a better system law enforcement supports this I think it meets the legislature's intention for accountability in a way that why don't we think of it. 10 years ago. We did. But that's also the exercise of learning from from practice. So, I do recommend that and I think that establishing through the sheriff's operations director establishing effectively a model board, which is already done in the internal investigations policy, but establishing a model board in each county. would make sense, talking with from all these cities and towns. They generally will reflect on a municipal police department, their board their elected board being the representatives. We contract with elected boards. So in my policy it says, I'm going to have a representative from towns I contract with serve as my, my citizens advisory for lack of better words. So I think having a concept that is carried across all 14 counties. Make sense. I think the sheriff's operations director can develop that policy, which is effectively the model internal affairs policy, which then says we're going to do this the same way in each county. It just makes sense to do it. And then we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. I could talk for hours on sustainable funding models. I don't think I have the support of my association to say anyone is the favorable one. I think that there's a willingness and desire for my association to have open honest transparent discussions about how that works. Simply, we could talk for hours and be no further. I think that that's an issue to discuss long term and establish what we can do. In those terms, following up on case question. You don't have a set allocation of positions based with fun or higher. It's not as you can find some based on need. In a true business sense, I hire based on need. I do not have an allocation of personnel slots. I have an allocation of funds that I can sustain under state and federal law. But that is also always with the anticipation of what's next year bring. Going to backtrack with my agency's history to about 2013. We had done a pilot program for electronic monitoring, which I think might become important in current discussions in the legislature around bail reforms. That's going to skip it other than say we did a pilot. We hired, I think it was 6 people in anticipation of that pilot project. Then we had a town say we want you 24 seven years or contract and that was done in March. They wanted us to start July 1st. So we took those four of the six positions and applied them to that town's contract. Now we went to recruit for the pilot program that ultimately while it was established July 1st. It wasn't really operational until September. So we had three months, about six months to figure out how to staff the pilot project. We're constantly playing that game. Call it firefighting call it being resourceful creative nimble. We don't, we don't have positions like a municipality or the state do we don't have position numbers. We have ability and opportunity. Increasing the efficiency delivery public safety services offered by share of departments. Again, I can talk for hours of this. We're talking about duplicity of services. Why are we paying for three dispatches and Wyndham County when we need one. We are. We're actually paying for more, but that's more nuance. Why are we paying for policing duplication of policing in Wyndham County. Variety of reasons organic Vermont did the Vermont thing. We brought it together. It's just where we're at. So I don't think it's about the efficiency of delivery services by the sheriff's department. We're already pretty efficient under the concept of economics. The state's not efficient and how it allocates resources. That's an opportunity of a far bigger problem of numerous issues. Dispatching EMS fire, mental health flood response. That's a big one. And we share a common thread with the conversation. We're happy to be partners in the conversation. But I can spend probably weeks on that conversation. And I'm going to withhold all further comments for the sake of your time. So. I know we have a lot of things to cover. I was hoping that this would be an opportunity. I think it has been for us to look at what progress has been made and what questions still remain unanswered after act 30 and we knew we weren't going to. And we're just a few months into most of that being. In effect, I guess I'd ask you the same question that I asked to Annie and Roger, which is. Are there, are there specific legislative pieces that we need to be looking at in this short session? And I think a few things have come up that we are going to look at, like the retirement piece. It's in each by the five. So that one's definitely on our to do is to talk about, but are there any things that I know they mentioned specifically, potentially us looking at. What happens if you have a non certified. Sheriff and other conversation. Yeah, so. Some of the discussion with regards to the disagreement isn't necessarily disagreement with Sheriff Mark who on the fact that. About what qualifications are necessary. It's how do we get there. So to that end, I use an example I know you've heard this chair, but for the rest of the committee. I attended what was called the National Sheriff's Institute at the FBI Academy. Two years ago, I think. And in a class of I think 27 shares from around the country. A question was posed who here is not certified. Or I think it was who was certified and all but one racer. So the one sheriff, Sheriff Houston. She is from Orleans County. I'm sorry Orleans parish Louisiana. She is not a certified law enforcement officer. She's elected in her county with the background that she's an attorney was an independent police monitor for the Department of Justice. She is the person who comes into agencies that are under federal consent decrees. And finally, she's the person comes in when federal government says you are acting so wrong and so bad that we need to give you an adult. What a cool background. What happens when we have a retired federal agent, FBI US Marshall, who comes in and says I'm running for sheriff. They don't have a level three certification. There are all these opportunities for a professional objective manager or leader to come into a sheriff's office general night maybe he retires from the military and says I want to be sure. That would be really cool. But he doesn't have a level three law enforcement certification just plays background as a military police, I think battalion commander. So, where do we define the lines what are the required qualifications we need leaders. We need people who can be objective and reasonable. We need people who administer their agencies that are incredibly complicated system. I can't necessarily give you a definitive list, but I can give you definitive exams. To Annie's point, I completely agree that why am I paid differently than a person with a lesser qualification I think we can we can wrap our head around that. What about a person with no qualification. What do we do there and so I think that as we talked about the the issues with compensation with benefits. There is a reasonable attitude of saying, well, if you are certified. You get this if you have these qualifications you get this if you're not you get this. I think there's opportunities in statute to say if you have had due process. It's the government so the Constitution says we can't deprive a person without property money without due process if due process by a court of law has been completed. Well, can the state limit salary. I don't see an issue with that I completely agree with Sheriff Marku and saying, hey, if you've done wrong, why can't we restrict your salary. I'm concerned about I'm concerned. How that process works, but I don't think that there's not a way there. I'll say that better. I think there's a way to get there. And I think that reasonable people can get there. So I don't want to see Sheriff punish just because they have a title share if I want to see shares held to an objectively reasonable standard and I think the work that this committee did last year, got us there. I enjoy coming here to testify because we can get there. And it takes good honest open testimony to do that. Questions for Sheriff Anderson. I think he will be making other appearances here on some of these issues that was later in session, but representative go ahead please. Maybe I can ask both of you whatever the plural sheriff is. So the job is actually law enforcement as opposed to administrative. I know it would differ between offices. I will speak to my agency. I roughly 25% of my contracts represent our revenues so I say 25% of my organization's law enforcement. But I'm talking about sheriff person that. Because I have about 41 people there comes a immense amount of administrative work and so I get involved on serious crimes. I get involved in a supervisory and review capacity to ensure that we have met the standards to burn and approve that we have a appropriately functioning evidence locker that we have the right equipment for staff that that's appropriately maintained. I will go but if I were to give you my breakdown of the day. I probably spend less than four hours each week on average. Because about 32 to 34 to 36 hours each week is going to be administrative. Public records or quests. I don't have staff that really does that like I. I pick up the slack on a lot of things from just not funding for. For any of us. With LaMoyle County. I meet with my patrol people. My commanders every morning. And I go over activities. You know yesterday's activities reports. You know investigation so I'm very very involved. And have been for the entire 20 some odd years I've been the sheriff there. Within six months we had two devastating floods in Johnson. I was out there. And I think it was very important for people to see me out there in uniform getting wet. And you know just just trying to be helpful. You know envision this. If you have a heaven forbid a mass casualty incident shooting in the school. Or something. You know I'd hate to be the person that wasn't certified. In office to be able to go and to participate in and try to help resolve that issue. So I firmly believe with you know we have 40 43 years 44 years experience. I firmly believe that every ounce of training and that a potential sheriff. Can have should have to do this job because we're we're here because. We're trying to take this to the next level and professionalize the sheriffs. So and yep there's there's administration. And there's business and politics involved in being a sheriff. But you should have the absolute top level training that you can have if you're going to do this job in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you very much Sheriff Anderson appreciate doing this this morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our last testimony and this first segment on these issues I wanted to invite. The criminal justice council executive director Heather Simons to testify. We'll take a quick break and then switch here. Some cheap work. You get started a little bit later than we have on the schedule. That's okay. Great. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm fine. How are you? Great. Thanks for being with us this morning. I was wondering if you could just give us your. Feedback on where we're at. With AC 30 and. With from the criminal justice council's perspective. Yes, thank you for the record. Heather Simons. I'm the executive director for the Vermont criminal justice council. And I want to thank the committee. For the invitation this morning. I. Honestly don't have a lot to add to the testimony from. My colleagues earlier. I think that. Sheriff Mark. Who and Annie Newton. Really covered. The cop, you know, a comprehensive review. Not only of the content. But also. The process and. Our involvement as the council. It was early on decided that we would not take the lead. However, we. Did provide feedback. And there was a presentation from. States attorneys and sheriffs office to the council. And the council was invited again to provide feedback, which we did. I've just in terms of the bullet points. Our investment obviously is around professionalism. And training. I agree with everyone that the level two and level three discussion. Is a little complicated. I also don't think that it's impossible. To figure out. And. From our position as a council that supports the professionalism and training. And readiness for all law enforcement. I think committee members, you know, that we are very interested in being clear about. What the jobs are and the job descriptions in terms of what the professionalism is. And then to provide training and support and resources. From there. And we're. Very involved, as you know. With a three year project. Around. Curriculum review that is being driven. By what. The state of Vermont will. Find out is. All law enforcement's opinion. And assessment on job duties. And that's going to be. I think that that's a critical conversation. For this committee. And with regards to. The sheriff's report. Because of the discussions around what is going on. What is the most critical skill to have. And does it come through certification. And. Additional training. Or as Sheriff Anderson said. There are other ways. To. To outline. Leadership. Knowledge skills. And abilities. And a lot of it has to do with seasoned experience. And relevant skills. But also. In 21st century policing, we know that resilience. Stamina and knowledge of systems is really important. So that's the. That is really in a nutshell how I'd like to. Hopefully compliment. What my colleague said earlier. And be available to answer any questions. One of the open items that we had. From our discussion last year that we didn't take action on an act 30. Was the question of. Category B. Complaints. When the first complaint is made. The discretion that might be given to the criminal justice council. To act on a first complaint rather than. Waiting for a second complaint. I'm wondering if you have any questions. One of the open items that we had. I'm wondering if the council is taking a position on that. In the interim. I. Not officially. And I have. I have mentioned to Andrea that if there was going to be a deeper dive into into that discussion that we have Kim McManus. On standby. If you had some questions. And not that I'm not willing to jump in, but she's really. The pro. Yeah, I think I think if the committee does want to take a deeper dive into picking up that conversation. We'll do that separately and I'll. I'll invite both you and. Miss McManus and your chair and to give testimony on that as well as others. So. I didn't want to take us down a rabbit hole today, but wanted to flag it as a. Top. Yes, I appreciate that. I mean it's it is a bit of a rabbit hole. So. I'm just being a little cautious not that I don't love to. You know, open a can of worms. I understood. Other questions for Heather and the CJC's perspective on us. Well, thank you for being with us and being part of the conversation today. I really appreciate it. Yep, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So maybe I was totally wrong, which is so often the case with trying to judge the timing on things. So what I would like to do is take a short break before we. So cheers and look at the LAB. Report. So. We'll break now. Good morning. Welcome back to the house committee on government officer's military affairs. We're picking up. Our morning testimony with a report out of the law enforcement advisory board. And of course, we pick up issues identified by the legislature each year. And this in this past year, the front burner issue was the domestic violence involving law enforcement employees. Model policy. And we also took a look at the law enforcement advisory board. And of course, we pick up issues identified by the legislature each year. And this in this past year, the front burner issue was the domestic violence involving law enforcement employees. And so we pick up issues identified by the law enforcement advisory board. And we also took up a leftover from the 2011 session on a model policy geared toward assaults that occur within the healthcare setting. And in advancing that work, I'll talk about the domestic violence policy first. We were charged with meaning stakeholders to address a new policy that was ultimately approved by the LAB at our December meeting. And we were able to have that in place by our statutory guideline of January one. And now over the next six months, the Vermont police academy will be working on a training curriculum. For all law enforcement officers. And we were able to do that. And then over the next six months, the Vermont police academy will be working on a training curriculum. For all law enforcement officers. On domestic violence more globally, but there will be focused time on the policy. And then agencies will have to have the essential elements of the model policy in place by July one of 2024. And that all appears to be tracking. As it pertains to the work that was done on the 2011 policy involving. Assaults on healthcare workers. Department of Public Safety did excellent work. Will the white did convene a lot of stakeholders. A lot of research got probably 90% of the policy done. Unable to connect with folks from the emergency medicine community, EMS. So we look to identify a partner in the Vermont EMS. Community here in early 2024 to work with will. To gain their perspective on the policy. And hopefully have that ready for LEAB review by say midpoint of this year. Say in June. We're by statute. We meet six times a year. So I anticipate that we'll have ample time to. Take that up. One observation throughout. My last I've served as the chair of the LEAB for less. I guess almost three years now. Observation over the last couple of years is that. A number of state model policies have been enacted or either. Enacted as new. Or taken up for revision. And there's. I think a little bit of coordination that could be done better in terms of. Who is has to do what. So ultimately the LEAB are criminal justice practitioners. We don't have a staff. We do not have design. We don't have designated council. So this work really defaults to the department of public safety. And I recently talked with Mr. Morrison about this. And we think that it's logical that it does. However, there should be an acknowledgement. That the policy construct. In review is actually work that is being essentially a sign. To the department of public safety. And then it is. Really the purview of the LEAB to make sure that we. Gather the relevant stakeholders and take public testimony at our meetings. And. Which. Then what happens is DPS takes that relevant information. And reworks the policy and brings it back for ultimate approval. And we feel that process is. Is an effective one, but isn't always necessarily clearly delineate delineated when the work is handed down from the legislature. There's also times where the LEAB. Will ultimately review and publish the policy that is assigned. And then there are other times that. We do all of the same work. And then ultimately presented to the Vermont criminal justice. Council for their approval. Whether or not there's. Really deliberate intention in that regard. We don't know, but we took the opportunity in this year's report to highlight that observation. Kind of from. The tactical or implementation side of the equation, if you will. I'm happy to answer any questions that folks may have. Yeah, so it sounds like there's essentially three, three chunks of. Things for us to think about one is the work that came out of each 476. And if. So I'll kind of start there. It sounds like the domestic violence. Model policy. Is on track and will be adopted by agencies. And it's just kind of rolling out. Do you have a, do you have a sense of what the timeline looks like around that? And were there any particular. Points of contention around trying to. Get that policy issue. No, there were no points of contention. Strong work by the, by the network. Helping us on the victim or survivor side of the equation. Again, a lot of police departments already had in place. Good. Operational policy in this regard. And I thought the process was really affected. And again, we're just meeting our, the expectations are set. By you folks and outlined by the letter of the law. So it is published on our website. It is adopted by the LAB. And it's a policy that, you know, agency heads are going to have to be thoughtful and how to implement. It's not a copy paste document. You really have to think about, you know, as an agency head, you're going to have to think about what you had in terms of resources. Early intervention programs. How do you do that? You're going to have to think about what you had in terms of resources. Early intervention programs. How you actually would respond to an incident involving domestic violence and then whether, how you would respond to an employee of yours that is potentially either a perpetrator of or a survivor of domestic violence. So I think it's an excellent opportunity to really think about this. Domestic violence is prevalent in all areas of society. Law enforcement community is certainly not immune. And I think we're tracking in terms of the timeline. And I look forward to seeing what, what the academy offers in terms of our in-service training in this regard. As you know, it's a even year. So part of our rule, I think it's still known as rule 13 training, our annual training mandates, because the balance is up. So it's all very timely. Any questions about the domestic violence and following law enforcement work that we did last year? Great to hear that the model policies out, things are on track. I always appreciate that, you know, a lot of messages I got in December as a chair of a committee that had ordered a lot of reports for other things to be created either in law or, or just asked for information. I got a lot of like, we have a little bit more time to do our homework. So it's really nice when something that's as important as this is happening on a timeline we laid out. Add one exclamation point to this. Department of Public Safety. And the next thing I want to do is get our attorney, Tucker Jones. He hit out of the park. So, although, you know, in my role, do I coordinate meetings and get the people together? Yes, but Tucker was the person who rolled up his sleeves and got this work done. Great. Well, if commissioner Morrison doesn't hear that, I will definitely pass that along to her. Anybody else with questions on this part? It's. We're going to be tomorrow afternoon. Hearing. Jointly with house healthcare from emergency medical service providers and from the working group report. That's more broad than the work that the LAB was doing. And so I think it's kind of timely to bring up. Their inclusion. Here. And I'm wondering if. If there's anything that we should be particularly keeping our eyes on too. It sounds like the work is kind of ongoing and dealing with the crimes against healthcare workers portion of the report. Yeah, I guess I'll just seize this moment to just put this on the table. I think the crises that we're seeing in our emergency rooms or assault on whether they're on police officers or EMS workers in the field. Really are driven by the mental health crisis that's playing out and the lack of resources that we have for folks that are in crisis, posing a danger to themselves or others. And I know in Burlington, the emergency room is not, is no longer a sought after post for healthcare professionals. And it's also a place that we see as you know, municipalities, both on the police and on the fire side, where we'll get sent to some type of incident involving a person that's in a crisis and whether that's a situational crisis or a person with a formal diagnosis. Ultimately, the end game after 4pm is to see if we can coach the person into going back to the ER. And that's just simply an overwhelmed system of care. And I think until we start looking left of boom, left of incident and to see where folks are falling out of whether they're community-based treatment options or whatever options that the mental health system tries to provide or can't provide, that some their focus needs to be given to that problem or issue. Because you know, we hear a lot right about public safety. And I'll say, I've been doing this job for like 30 years now. Seems like yesterday, but we've got three things that are playing out in our communities that really tear at people's perception of public safety. The first is the substance use disorder crisis. The second is the mental health crisis. And the third in my assessment is the homeless crisis in the state. And I do a lot of public speaking in South Browington about what the police are actually responsible for and effective in doing. And we're not tooled for the first three. And those overwhelmed systems of care or resources right now are really playing out in a way that are being cutting at Vermonner's perception of how safe they are in the places where they live, work or recreate. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important. Thank you. Thank you for coming here. And thanks for your work. Your point about. Security hospital. It is well taken. And I went from Wyden County. With with. Sheriff Anderson. We just had a. A significant issue with an individual. Recently. And it just highlights. These are not isolated incidents anymore. We don't have a hospital within the confines of the city of South Browington. During my career, I did spend a couple of decades in Burlington. And the emergency room is located within. Within Burlington. I know that UBNC has uniform professional security staff to what. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I don't know. I don't know. And public security staff to what. What levels of data they keep. I don't know about. Obviously the police department keeps incident data as to what they respond to there. I don't know what that looks like. Coincidentally, my wife is a nurse. And we're for a long time in the emergency room. So I know anecdotally where those nurses are no longer seeking employment. more than that, and how do you provide healthcare in that situation? So I know that our colleagues up in the judiciary, our colleagues in healthcare, or we're meeting up tomorrow recognize this nexus between us needing to provide more resources to deal with folks who are experiencing mental health crisis that's collaborative with law enforcement. I think you and many of your colleagues have been good partners in that. I think about what my chief Lamoth is doing in St. August PD in partnering with our designated agency. And I'm wondering if part of the exploration of the LAB's model policy work in regard to this is more integration, especially with hospital-based social workers and recognizing some of these things before they become an assault or a problem. But I think there's some big infrastructure things that we're trying to tackle in multiple committees that are more upstream than the incidents and the actual, by the time somebody gets to an emergency room and they're experiencing a crisis that might eventually involve law enforcement. We were probably a little too late. But yeah, I don't know if there's any discussion about things that we need to think about around empowering law enforcement to work more collaboratively with the mental health system we have or things like that that are coming into this conversation. And so again, in Chilling County, we are fortunate with our designated partner, we have what's called the Community Outreach Team, which is a co-response model that I love. They do a lot of proactive work as well. I find it much more effective than the embedded model. And we see success there, but we also see growing service level demands in the field. And Community Outreach exists on kind of a, I think there's three funding streams, some money from the Department of Mental Health, a lot of money from UBMMC, and then the subscribing towns individually, we all pay to play essentially on incident-based formula. And that has been a very good model. However, it's dealing with the crisis in the field and we're not getting upstream, right? So that's the problem. I don't think the problem lies with the level of collaboration between law enforcement and community-based providers, but rather the overwhelmed systems of care that have led this person to be in crisis. And I'm pretty bold when I say this, if our only response is government, if you're in a parking lot in a mental health crisis and it would no one to help you in our only solution as a police officer, I think would fail. I don't think any of us would argue on that point. Questions for cheaper on that one? Got a lot of work to do in this building. Some of these problems, I think as much as they seem, they can seem intractable. I think we are making some progress in terms of the finding beds and changing a little bit of some of the entrenched thinking around some of these issues. Not necessarily gov ops, but some of these places where the model policies, the way we train law enforcement, the things that are in our jurisdiction here bump up against some of these bigger challenges that are healthcare. We're going to work collaboratively with our colleagues and I'm interested to bring some of the perspective that you're sharing with us today into our conversations tomorrow with EMS personnel and the healthcare community. Great. Anything else we should know, Chief Burke? No, I had a blank slate coming in and I appreciate that. I hope that I conveyed the information that you need relevant to the work of the LAV and forward to seeing what's, maybe what's in store. I know the domestic violence fatality review, review commission report I think was delivered yesterday and I think there's a notion that the LAV might look at a standardized report slash affidavit for domestic violence in the state. And if that is our charge, we'll happily take it up. I did want to go back, I'm sorry, I just kind of blanked on it to the call that you had for us to look at what is the LAV's role and how is it really supported by the Department of Public Safety? And I don't think I've ever really thought about it the way that you presented it, but if we're tasking the LAV to review and develop policy and we need to think about the administrative support that it means is how I understood your testimony, am I getting that? Yes, yes, so that were defaults to the Department of Public Safety. And I think some consideration should be given when the mandate is made that the LAV is gonna do this, that there's a recognition, a public recognition that the Department of Public Safety policy and legal team does that policy construct. And then the LAV functions as it was designed, professional practitioners and criminal justice system, reviewing it from a variety of different perspectives and then approving it as model policy and publishing it as such. It seems analogous to me in the way we think about the Office of Professional Regulation Staffing, the Board of Medicine or something like that. Okay, you've given us an enormous amount to think about to break. Any other questions before we let him out of the hot seat here? I had a quiet committee this morning. There's a lot going on in this building. So what I'd like to do is sort of we'll take in what we heard from both the Act 30 report and this. What I think may happen as we stack up some of these recommendations and take a little bit more testimony in between doing other work is that we might try to put together a committee bill that's kind of miscellaneous law enforcement. I actually had asked Tim Devlin at legislative council to put a little committee bill that had a couple of the things that the Criminal Justice Council had mentioned to us and get some draft language together. So as we take some of this testimony that's a little bit, we may have kind of a miscellaneous public safety bill that will come together over the coming weeks. So if there are recommendations that, the folks who are involved in law enforcement agencies, we'll be hearing from the Criminal Justice Council quite a bit about some of their ongoing work and updating training. And I think what we've got you to for one of the things that I'm wanting us to hear from law enforcement agency heads is we're in the middle of a three year proposal to kind of modernize the way we do training with law enforcement. And if there are things that we need to be doing this year in order to sort of stay on track and it helped make it easier for you to recruit and retain officers, I'm sure that you're experiencing some of the same hiring challenges that other agency heads are. So don't open up a whole can of words, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to know we are paying attention to that and trying to see what we can do to make it a little easier. Yeah, I mean, I'll just say briefly because I'm here, I really appreciate the work that the director has taken up with the council in terms of an accredited standard, whether it's iatalyst or otherwise, I think that's important. But what can't be lost on us is that we still operate today. And although we may not love exactly how we've been training and how we've been reporting to the council, we still have to have clear standards in place while we transition. So the council and the academy are another entity that have huge lack of re-selectance, like the rest of us, and this change is gonna take some time. And I think I'll just use this by way of example, there'll be a change this year. So 2024 and I'll rule 13 training requirements where we need to capture more data about the CD of the instructors, the exacts for the precise number of hours that we spend in these trainings, and then we're gonna hold that apparently internally as a police agency. And then if it becomes of interest, we'll need to report that to the council. So some of these incremental processes can be tedious at times, as opposed to building a really clear roadmap to in 36 months, this is exactly where we're going to be. We're gonna be iatalyst certified. All of the courses that are offered or credentialed by iatalysts will be counted and accredited. And you need to report as such. That's easier process for government to respond to. We always need a little bit of a runway. Okay, I think that feedback has been shared with me by some of your colleagues who are other agency heads. So I thought I might hear a similar recommendation. So we will be in dialogue with the criminal justice council about how these updated standards and requirements are rolling out. But I think that may be some of the focus of our testimony when we have Director Simons and Chair Sorrell back in. So thanks for sharing your perspective on the spot. Great, so thank you, Chief Byrne. I think we're all set on that report work this morning. Yeah, thank you. So what we're gonna do committee a little bit early, I wanna have some time to work on my memo, capturing our thoughts on BAA. I did ask Maria Royal to put together a little draft sentence to capture sentiment of the committee yesterday around the $9 million grant money and getting a check back and sign off from the Public Safety Communications Task Force. So I expect that. So we'll try to show that to everybody, but given the timing, I'm just communicating that sentiment in my memo that I'm writing. We are gonna pick up our work after lunch at one o'clock on H649. And I wanted to relate to the committee as we're thinking about that, that legislative council and general counsel from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had checked in with the commissioners and got the feedback that they do not need to have any ability to meet with the groups that we had talked about. So I think the language that we looked at yesterday probably gets us where we are if we given that feedback. So we saw a couple of items to look into though. Yeah. Did they give an indication about staffing the groups or? No, it was just the only feedback I got was about the commissioners attending. So if you want to look into that or do that with me, I'm happy to do that, but did not get any feedback on that particular point. Great. And then I wanted to remind everybody that there is the National Guard second session today. I'm gonna do... Also use our early break here to make sure that I can make that this week. So I will be attending. I hope folks will join me. But other than that, I'll see you all back here at one. So we'll adjourn and go offline for now.