 Welcome everyone, we are switching gears here and talking with the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. We've got, we've got three folks here with us to, to help us understand how the work of the council has evolved. And in order to set the context for that I guess I'm going to invite John Gannon to, to help folks who were not on the committee last year, get oriented to the changes that were made to the council by acts of the legislature last year so John go right ahead. Thank you. So, last year we worked on a bill s 124, which, among other things, modified Vermont Criminal Justice Council. The first thing it did is it changed its name. It used to be called the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, because one of its prime functions was training enforcement officers. However, it has other responsibilities. And probably one of the ones we're most concerned about in the legislature is its importance in reviewing unprofessional conduct by law enforcement officers. And hence the name change because I think it, it captures better what the council currently does. Another change was we changed the membership of the council. And among the changes were the majority of the council is now made up of non law enforcement officers. So, for example, the executive director. Let's see. The executive director of racial equity is now on the council. An employee of the Vermont League of Citizen Towns appointed by the executive director of the league is on the council. An individual appointed by the executive director of the Center for Crime Victim Services is on the council. The executive director of the Human Rights Commission is now on the council. An individual appointed by the executive director of the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence is on the council. Governor gets to a point seven public members who I'm quoting now who shall not be law enforcement officers or have a spouse parent child or sibling who is a law enforcement officer current legislator or otherwise be employed in the criminal justice system. And of these seven members, at least one of the members shall be a mental health crisis worker. As you know, law enforcement officers are often the first to respond to people who are having a mental health crisis. Since one of the members shall be an individual with lived experience of mental health conditions where psychiatric disability. And at least two of the members shall be chosen from among persons nominated by the Vermont chapters of the NAACP. And each of these members shall represent a different chapter of the Vermont NAACP. In addition to that, the governor is to appoint a chair from among the members who do not have a law enforcement connection. So this is a significant change because now the majority of the council are not law enforcement officers. And we also require that the council provide different training options for officers, including the requirement to provide for transition from level two to level three certification. So those are the most common two certifications for law enforcement officers in the state. And the council service and this is a new addition is in section nine of the bill, the council services are contingent on law enforcement agencies, complying with requirements for collecting roadside data. I don't know if you all saw the University of Vermont just released a new report on traffic stop data, and we still have many law enforcement agencies throughout the state not fully complying with the traffic stop data. So those agencies would not be able to use council services until they get into better compliance. And I think that covers most of the significant changes with respect to the council. Tonya Behovsky. Thank you, Madam Chair rep again and if they're not able to use council services does that also mean the council won't review on professional conduct for those law enforcement agencies. I don't believe so I believe what it does is they're not allowed to participate in the training programs that the council offers. So if you have a new police officer that needs to receive level three level three certification, that would be at the police academy, which is part of the council's responsibility. So they would not be able to do their level three training. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from committee members, especially those who weren't in the government operations committee last year when we contemplated these changes. Rep. Gannon, was this what she were concerned about when we were talking yesterday, I believe, or the day before that some of this would get all the work that you had done will go away if we're not careful with some of the executive order work. That's correct. Is the board you're. Yes, and please call me john. You don't need to call me rep Gannon. So yes, if one of my concerns was with respect to the executive order is the continuing independence of the Vermont criminal justice council. Okay, well, thank you john for that overview and I very much appreciate the clarifying questions from committee members as well. And so I guess I would like to invite Bill Surrell and Bill sheets and Cindy Taylor patch to, to share with us the reformation and reconfiguration of the criminal justice council and a little bit of a status update on what you've been up to. It's been a busy couple of months. Thank you, madam chair, thank you committee for the record, I'm bill sheets I'm the interim executive director of the Vermont criminal justice council and Vermont police academy and those two are essentially interchanged right we're kind of all one family. First and foremost, prior to coming here and filling in as the interim. I had a 30 year career in the Vermont state police and then I was happily living in the consulting world when my phone rang on what I consider a great opportunity to come in here and work with with a group of people that I had a tremendous amount of respect for before but even more so now. I think first, I want to say thank you. I don't think you heard enough as 124 comes with a lot of mandates for do. So thank you for that. I served in my capacity with the state police on the council and it's old format 12 person format for decade. Vice chair for four years this is exactly how the council should look the way it looks now. So you'll hear from Bill Surrell in great detail coming in as the chair but the onboarding process for the new people in particular the new positions, specifically the seven governor appointees. It was tremendous, having those conversations people are here for the right reasons. We've only had two meetings, but we are full steam ahead in terms of taking a comprehensive look collaboratively toward everything in S 124. The use of force bill S 119 anything related to cannabis highway safety and the primary means the concern was is a 24 person council manageable when you also have staff and proxy so the meetings are averaging about 35 people in attendance. The answer is yeah they're very manageable because we're going to we're going to harness the power and the energy and the compassion of this group and through subcommittees. So yesterday was our second council meeting, and we have assigned every single person kind of an interwoven approach into subcommittees where they will now dive into the meaningful work that has to be done. And that's 124 and elsewhere. So there are 10 of those right now. There are 10, either subcommittees or working groups, essentially following the approach outlined in the legislative report that we sent to house and Senate and appropriations and gobs. And I think the first meeting of these groups has to occur by February 5. So we're going to make tremendous progress during this legislative session. I am glad that we're being held accountable by all of you. I do hope that we have conversations and follow up related to the Criminal Justice Council. The Council should remain an independent body. I think that is the intent behind the agency of public safety. From a viewpoint of leadership from where I sit, I do think it's critically important that this executive director's position, which will be filled by the end of March hopefully reports to somebody right this position also needs to be held accountable. So it deserves to be held accountable. So I think we're the position itself and the cadre of staff here are going to be held more accountable in that agency construct than the current mechanism which essentially is the secretary of administration and even that is loosely defined. So there have been a few hiccups here in leadership in the past decade, and I think those will largely be prevented by a selecting the right candidate, most importantly, but the accountability factor that comes into that agency of public safety. So I just wanted to open with an overview. I really want to make sure we talk about act 56 at some point. That to me is one of the most critical components the professional regulation. Madam chair I'll defer to you should I jump into that now and continue or should. Okay, yes please. The internal regulation is critically important. And it's not. And I know you understand it better than anybody as a committee. It's not designed to be an internal affairs component right the agencies are supposed to do that. We, the council. And under this new construct that we have. It's designed to hold the profession accountable. So the steps that we've made the immediate inclusion of a five person subset of the 24 person council into a subcommittee for professional regulation. Before, as you recall, the language essentially fell on this executive director's position to receive either category AB or internally category C complaints from the field from the public how or however they came in. And essentially with the, it was almost the sole responsibility of this position. And with council with led with council from the attorney generals in our case now a very part time role for for our appointed council. Now the concept is going to be these cases come in and I'll talk about the depth and the impact with us and how. Honestly, we need your help. We need your help to do this better and to do this better we need the resources to do this better. We can do it, but we can't do it as quickly and effectively as as we should be. So, a case will come in now. So say for example, without naming names, but we have 29 current cases in the queue in various forms now nine of those are things that made the paper category A is where officers in the past since July of 2018 when act 56 went into play. I have been arrested charged with crimes. And those cases have not yet been adjudicated so they haven't been heard by the full council. One of the primary things that I that I really love about act 56 is in the past for any case where an officer might have said you know what, I'm going to resign. Maybe even then when the cases, the case was dropped criminally. And then they would look for employment downstream three, four, five years with another law enforcement agency. That's not good enough. Bermonders deserve better. The profession deserves better. Now we're going to make a concerted effort in each and every one of those cases to bring it to the full council for a hearing, and ultimately hold officers accountable and decertify them because there are people more than there should be that need to be decertified they shouldn't be operating as law enforcement in the state of Vermont. So under the current format a case would come in for review. It would come directly to me. I would work with our legal counsel but more importantly the five person professional regulation subcommittee that truly has both sworn and civilian members to include governor appointees that will look at each and every case. And then there's three options right but I don't make it on my own or whomever sitting here doesn't make it on on their own. Option a is it simply doesn't meet the criteria. It was a complaint. Six people plus the attorney look at it and decide collectively it needs to be essentially remanded back to the agency for whatever punitive punishment or corrective action they're going to take. Option is a category B first offense, which we have to make sure that we're tracking here, weighing up the privacy rights and due process rights of the individual officer, while holding them accountable by statutory language category first offenses do not get forwarded to the full council. But we have to do a really good job of making sure securely here we have a good record and either an access database and Excel and Excel database, whatever format that we ultimately decide on, so that we can determine future second offenses. And then any category A, any category B second offense, any category C, which is essentially a rules violation need to go immediately through this committee up to the full council. I just want to give you an example. So there was one, even though we just review we do not have internally the capacity or the capability to handle these in the manner that we should there's no professional regulation position. Candidly there's no one trained to that degree capacity is very thin on who we have here. While it's a tremendous staff gifted staff we just don't have the current capacity to to handle these act 56 cases. We did a review of one again without naming names that was remanded to us from the Attorney General's after review, where the Attorney General rightfully said, you know, although criminal charges might not apply in this case, I think it should be reviewed by the Criminal Justice Council. We have an investigator doing that right now. Leslie Bodette who is a training coordinator, but because we don't have the capacity we assigned it to her. It's not important yet we're 100 hours into that because we have to do these right. We have to make sure there's so much of stake we got to get it right. So when we do bring it to the council, right, essentially we're providing the, the investigative background for the prosecution of that officer. So times that times the 29 that we have in the queue. And we need help. I think that we can demonstrate through testimony from multiple fronts that we critically need a staff attorney right now the part time attorney just does not have the capacity in their schedule. And I think that's outlined fairly articulately in the in the legislative report. So we need to make sure that everything is being funneled in the right way and then additionally have the responsibility of kind of tying in everything the council stands for now. So we need to ensure that all the meaningful work that's happening in subcommittee doesn't get lost. It's somebody that can be a center spoke that makes sure that it's coming in the meaningful works not getting lost it's getting getting reported to the full council but more importantly it's being acted on. Right, there's a lot of ask in 124. And they're all over the place. And they're all in opportunity, and we should look at each and every one of them and give them the do do regard, but the biggest threat in my personal opinion after being here only three months is our capability capacity to currently handle the way that they should be handled those act 56 professional regulation complaints. And I think, you know, if time allows I'm going to defer, unless there are questions now, and I see hands up so I think Madame chair if it's okay with you. Yes, Rob LeClaire has a question. Thank you Madame chair. Good morning Mr sheets of the 29, I guess you'd say cases you have out there. 29 of them find their way to that subcommittee. And does the subcommittee then sort of do a cursory look, walk through of the case and then make the determinations from there. What I'm trying to drill down to is, you know the case that you refer to where you've got upwards of 100 hours. Do all 29 of those represent that amount of time and effort. Well, I think they all vary in time but yeah I think that's the important part here is that yes, each and every one of these will go to this new professional regulation subcommittee starting as early as next week. Chris, Chris Burkell is going to be the chair of that subcommittee. There are some that will probably take longer than that investigate investigatory wise. So, a lot of these are going to be review. So we man, we ensure that an agency is doing a valid investigation right we want to make sure they're getting it right so there are some agencies that are large enough to do a really good job. At their internal affairs investigations. There are others honestly that we get the report and we say it's not good enough and we send it back. We internally here have to do the full investigation. If it is an agency head and the full investigation if it's any category C. The rest fall on the agencies and are just review. So it's a it's a long way of answering that instead of just a single person with a part time attorney determining what should be moved forward we're going to harness the power of the subcommittee they're going to review every single case. In the case of the 100 hour investigation that person are our training coordinator will be present to provide any answer any questions the subcommittee might have, but it's condensed right now and what I believe is about a 25 page report that will go to that Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Samantha Lefebvre. Thank you. Mr sheets. Do we know who all the members on that subcommittee are I said you said that Chris was the chair. Do you know who the other members are. I do. And I can, I can certainly send a roster after but if you just allow me a second I want to make sure I get it right. Sean Pratt is a governor appointee. He represents the Rutland chapter of the NAACP. He is a member. Trevor Whipple representing the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Morning Fox, who is the deputy commissioner of Department of Mental Health. Heather Simons, who represents the Vermont Department of Corrections. We would love to have the roster of subcommittees when you have a moment we'll post those on the committee page. Tonya Behovsky. Thank you Madam chair, Mr sheets, how are cases reported to the council is it any complaint or do they always come through the AG's office after adjudication. So that was a case that was referred for criminal review so if it is a category a those go to any number of either the attorney generals or the state's attorneys. There are only nine of those. The rest typically come directly to me. The valid investigation is completed we get details. They're required within 10 days so this is any of the law enforcement agencies in the state of Vermont, affording to us notification of an act 56. That simply triggers a placeholder for us that says they're going to do a valid investigation upon completion of the investigation they must give us all of the documentation that supports that investigation. That is also why there's always going to be a bit of a lag time some of those take a long time. Then we will bring it to the professional regulation subcommittee and then determine through that body whether or not it goes to the full council. Thank you. Thank you for testifying today. Going back to the staff attorney position that you you reference and the need for that position. Is that an immediate need. I would suggest it's an immediate need and I should back up because I wasn't involved in the testimony last year. Honestly, if it was decided that the professional regulation aspect for this should live somewhere else. And I don't know that anybody is truly opposed to that I think it's the best fit here right were the body that certifies the the 1800 law enforcement officers and we should be the body that decertifies. I think it's an immediate critical need, because we don't have the expertise to navigate this. And there are other things that come in, for example from other attorneys at the same time. The presentation is aware that there's an act 56 we also be often get an accompanying letter, just things that right. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not qualified to be one. And it's, it's confusing at this. When they called me about this job. They conveniently left out all of the act 56 impact and literally it is, it is crushing us that the time is just crushing us and again. You all put a lot of time and that's 124 Vermonters our citizens, our police, we got to get this right. There's a lot at stake here. Thank you. I mean, just so you know I'll be in house appropriations this afternoon, hearing from public safety about their budget adjustment act needs. And, you know, that's why I asked the question I mean, if this is a need that needs to be funded in this fiscal year. That's a good question and in fairness we as a council under, you know, we're not aligned with the agency of public safety yet we did not ask for a budget adjustment this year just so you're aware. Okay, thank you. Peter Anthony. This is a great presentation. My question goes back to a sort of sequential example you gave where you went through a disciplinary investigatory the disciplinary then concluded, and I'm paraphrasing now. This person should not be a member of any law enforcement agency in the state of Vermont. But that I wanted to focus on my understanding was, while exercising prudence in the area of personal, how would you say, difference to privacy rights. Still, that person could not move across state lines, without the potential higher or employer, knowing that that was the result in Vermont am I correct about that. I think we have less ability to control what happens outside our borders. But the other function of legislative impact that's positive very positive is Act 166 that went in effect October 1 of this year mandates that any higher age agency in Vermont whether or not that person comes from in state or out of state, have that candidate sign a waiver. So if officer a leaves an agency and goes to agency be they have to sign a waiver that kind of indemnifies right the threat was always what can you disclose and what can't you disclose that legislation because you must. That has been a great tool because that hopefully will will keep the. I don't even want to say bad apples because now we're talking about people that haven't been decertified that's easy that's that's public facing if you get decertified. We think that's going to be basically to the point where we're going to announce to the world, and it's a public forum and a hearing that they're decertified. It's the other ones that don't reach that level that we're even concerned about. To your example, say it's a candidate that's coming here that worked in a law enforcement agency in New Hampshire, Massachusetts or any neighboring state. They are not compelled to necessarily release based on our our legislative Act 166. If they don't, it should be a flag for hiring agencies but you know that's the other positive thing. I don't hear any law enforcement agency saying, we want to be less professional everybody's behind this it's just again it's, it's a capacity and capability thing at this point and honestly it's why there's there's a backlog that there is. Okay, thanks. That's very reassuring. Tonya Behovsky. You madam chair. Are these council positions paid positions or are they volunteer positions. No, they're 100% volunteer and I, they are eligible. If they're not working for their agencies so say for example you work for a state agency and as part of your job duties you're attending. Obviously, you would get qualified for no compensation. The others actually do qualify for $50 a day if they choose to submit for it. That's when they're not a day that is when there's a council meeting. Let me clarify or some other subcommittee meeting. Thank you. Thank you madam chair and thank you, Mr sheets for your service to the criminal justice council and the police academy. When we were working through this bill. There was some pushback about having a citizen chair of the council. So I'm just curious to know how's that working out. Outstanding and it's exactly what it should be. And the expansion of this is exactly what it should be. Look, it's threatening to some people change is threatening. Good. We should. Again, this is I can't just say enough and praise and thanks for this because we're having Bill Surrell and I as the chair and I know I want to make sure he gets some time here. We are spending hours and hours on the phone each day and working together, but it's the outreach to the community members in particular those governor appointees that are here for all the right reasons. And you know what they're going to lose accountable and that is part of it and I have heard no one in any way shape or form from any organization say, you know, I don't like the way that this is going. We're ensuring that these subcommittees include chairs and or vice chairs that represent the 12 new members in particular the publicly appointed members. Some might think that it's a concern that part of this professional regulation subcommittee includes a citizen appointee representing the Rutland chapter at the NAACP. I would say that's ridiculous. It's what we need. It's it's how we should be doing business. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right, I don't see any other committee questions. So we'll go back to to you and we're going to turn things over to Bill Sorrell or Cindy Taylor Patch at any point. We'll welcome them to introduce themselves as well. Yeah, I would like to turn it over to Bill Sorrell before I do because we may run out of time Cindy Taylor Patch is our director of training long standing person here she is the one that runs this show folks she is tremendous in every single way so I hope that we do get a chance to hear from her because she's just absolutely tremendous for sure. But I hope we do to be. I hope we do to Cindy and I and before we go to bill I want to just give you a moment of thanks for all of the flexibility and nimbleness that that you have had to exercise this year. Everything's going during coven in very challenging time so thank you for all that and I hope we get a chance to hear from you on this as well as how how the training has gone during coven. Thank you. Bill Sorrell thank you for being with us this morning. We may get to you sooner rather than later Cindy it looks like maybe bill is either having trouble on muting or maybe stepped away for a moment. So, can you give us a little status report on on all of the changes that you've had to make to training this year in order to accommodate the coven safety protocols. So for really quickly on that. I think everybody's aware of the quarantine academy that we had to do last year so we actually had staff and a number of folks from BSP and Wilmington PD and Colchester PD that all lived here in quarantine at the Academy with us not leaving the grounds for several weeks so we could get a class through basic training and to their certification, and then we finished that and came back with a coven mitigation plan for the class that's just recently graduated and had to make a number of changes. The facility could only safely hold a certain number of students and luckily we were able to meet all agencies needs so we didn't have to deny anyone which was really great because we don't want to be in the position of having to do that but everybody has to have their own individual bedroom. So for people that come to take in service classes who want to stay overnight. And the most part we had to say, we can't do that right now because we have to have the recruit class all in separate rooms. We had to remove move the class from our classroom space into our gymnasium space to allow for physical distancing of everyone in that learning space and to give the instructors plenty of space. Recruits are masked all day every day they have very strict cleaning and hygiene protocols. Our food service delivery process had to entirely change so we used to if anybody's been here and seen it we've had a buffet and a salad bar and things like that and people serve themselves and we had to completely change that so not any part of the day that wasn't impacted by COVID mitigation. And as you probably all are aware from the media coverage that we had a COVID outbreak here anyway, despite all those precautions and you know daily precautions and restrictions even on what recruits were doing on the weekend so we had them sign an agreement that they would restrict their behavior on the weekends as well. But thankfully, none of the recruits were very ill. We quickly shifted to an online training environment as much as we could. You know a lot of our training isn't completely conducive to an online model but we took what we could and kept them busy for a couple of weeks while everyone was getting tested and in recovery and then got everyone back and graduated the entire class so it's been a lot of hiccups and a tough, tough road to hell but it's everybody was able to get through it and and thankfully no need for you know hospitalization or any significant medical treatment so we're pretty happy about that, but certainly has been a lot of challenges and limited what we can do here at the facility so everyone's trying to be creative, trying to constantly be on top of making sure that you know people are getting health screen screenings constantly, working with our partners to try to do some regional training still, but you know, there's a lot of limitation on who wants people in their building so there's a lot of information a lot of work and communication with all of our law enforcement agency partners around the state. Thanks Cindy I really appreciate that update and thank you again for for going above and beyond and and try to make make this work throughout a pandemic committee members any specific questions for Cindy before we go to bell serral. Just real quick I know there's a number of you that I haven't met before so just to give you a sense of who I am as director sheets that I've been here. Going on almost 20 years and prior to my career here I was a mental health crisis worker so I'm a civilian employee that's in charge of basic training and all the personnel who run it. I'm a sworn law enforcement officer and I worked doing crisis mental health response, based both in patient and out in the community. I was a case manager for children and families for mental health for a number of years, and I teach primarily on social issues, mental health crisis response, how to conduct a compassionate death notification diversity issues and all that sort of I think substance use issues are very important to me as well so just for those of you who I haven't met before that you know where I'm coming from so nice to see you all hope to be in person sometime in the not too distant future. Ideally, john Gannon has a question. Thank you. And thank you for testifying today Cindy. Quick question on an appropriations related question. I know that public safety is requesting $450,000 for s1 19 training. For Vermont State Police and $1.4 million for municipal law enforcement in the budget adjustment act but there doesn't appear to be any training request coming from the council. The executive director sheets can speak more specifically to what he's requested on that. But yeah, the training that would be mandated under the law certainly does have a significant impact on our training budget, and I can certainly turn that over to him to answer that more specifically. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I think that the funding request is essentially to identify a mechanism to fund the training but we would be a key critical part in the delivery of that, whether that's space expertise. And that is going to be a heavy lift because I don't know exactly we don't know exactly what that looks like yet. If we struggle in a coven environment. We, we have to be mindful of continuing to do the training and certification of those level twos. Those are the roughly 200 200 hour trainees that can do all but nine things that the 800 hour trained people can, and still in a rural world we're going to roll out a full time basic the 16 week starting in the April May timeframe so it's how to do all of that and roll it out but that's why there's not a particular line item and coming from the state police to the rural world for 10 years into this right, our budget's not complex in its current format and 92% of our budget goes to fee for space, you know, paying the rent essentially food services and salary benefits. And it's, you know, it's that we're about $2.6 million. So, we're, we're pretty tiny. The use of force training area I will say, you know it requires a lot of practice to be a good instructor, and you have to be extremely intelligent to navigate the legal complexities to be able to teach it well to others, but also the physical techniques require a lot of practice so it's a pretty heavy demand on any of our staff that do get involved in that. And also, since the council passed a rule administrative rule requiring every officer in the state have four hours of use of force training every year. In order to keep their skills fresh, in case they do need to use them that they should be doing them correctly. And that requires practice. We have a lot of requests for support on that four hours of training. And just, you know, because of our staffing it is challenging for us to be able to help. Most agencies do have an in house instructor but we help them as much as we can but not as much as we'd like to because of our staffing. Thank you. Thank you madam chair. Forgive me just be trying to get up to speed here but I hear that there's a four hour yearly use of force training what if any training requirement on a yearly basis is there for de escalation. There's there's not on de escalation specifically sometimes that can be a part of an ongoing use of force training requirement. Instructors can include that from our curriculum in theirs but right now that's up to them. The council doesn't mandate with the content of that four hours is Peter Anthony. Thank you very much, Madam chair and and thank you very much for her being a 20 year veteran of the training regime. I hope it's okay I just wanted to remind the veterans on government ops two years ago, I was in with two chiefs of the police with a bill that proposed to have a mental health crisis worker partner with the local PDs. I've reintroduced that instead of just a pilot for Barry and on Peter which was two years ago. I think that's a 45 essentially offers that opportunity any qualified municipality with state funding partnership. I really do following on Tonya's question I really do think contemplating crisis intervention or some sort of familiarity with mental health crisis work and other strategies would be extremely helpful. If that bill gets legs which it seems to be it's time may have come since mental health workers are now stationed in all the SP barracks. I suspect that this is a comer, and it would be useful to have that as part of ordinary municipal training. Thanks. So quickly to that because I know chairs surround me some time but real quickly on that so one of the things that we do we've been doing for quite a while is a basic level of awareness for new officers in mental health response. And then recruits get that and any level two officers also required to take that course, and then there's also a program out there that you're probably aware of or will hear about. Soon as the team to training so Kristen Chandler and I work pretty closely together and that sort of a secondary level of crisis response collaboration between law enforcement and mental health. We're also strategizing now that team to has been out there for a while, some additional level of training, whether it's new content or some refresher concepts of what we can do going forward. Hopefully once things get a little more stable here with our staffing and we get our new executive director in place and our committees up and running and all that work kind of moving forward that will be able to launch that sort of third tier couldn't agree with you more. Thanks Cindy, and welcome Bill Sorrell. Thank you for being with us this morning. Well, thank you. I apologize for the technological glitch I think I'm more experienced with Microsoft Teams than zoom but I finally hit the right buttons. I just want to underscore the expression of gratitude to the legislature for S 124. There's an awful lot in there, but it's hugely important stuff. I spent just a couple minutes saying how I became chair I. The truth of the matter is when I got that first call, got two calls on a day in late October from Commissioner Sherling and then later in the day from J person Johnson the governor's legal counsel. Asking me if I would be willing to consider becoming the chair of this newly created council. And I in truth had not heard anything about S 124 and but I took a request from folks I like and respect like that and they they indicated they were calling on behalf of the governor and so I embarked on several weeks of due diligence. And then finally reading the statute carefully, typing up three or four pages of questions for J Johnson about what does this mean, what exactly are the powers and this. This and that talked with folks in law enforcement out of law enforcement I called and spoke to Senator white because I knew it came out of her committee as to really what was the legislature trying to accomplish here. I asked some of the law enforcement folks I reached out to. How's law enforcement feeling about this new council is it a feeling that the legislature is kind of messing in our business or your business and, and, you know, is this just a political thing. And it was a couple of folks that even I don't know well but I are perceived to be progressive law enforcement leaders in the state. And they, they expressed how much they were looking forward to the operations of this council and the broadening of the voices. They were looking at not only police training, but the importance of taking a hard look at the front and stuff of what kind of candidates should be admitted to the Academy to become law enforcement officers in the state and, and one of the priorities of the council of course will be the professional regulation subcommittee that was the, we asked the council members to express their top three preferences for what subcommittees they'd be on. And professional regulation was by far the most popular committee or the one that the most people express the preference for, but others said, we got to really look at the personality tests that people take before they're come into the council. We've got to take a hard look at various issues in, in the curriculum of the training. There was a question about de escalation. Well clearly, I think the legislature in not only adding the commissioner of mental health, a representative of an organization that deals with those with mental health challenges or requirement that one of the governors appointees have a history of dealing with mental health challenges that de escalation and police officers in responding to situations involving an individual or individuals who have had or are having mental health episodes or their, their, their behaviors are impacted by these things law enforcement officers got to be better trained to deal with these situations, just a few of the, the priorities for us. So I, after doing all the due diligence I asked to have a virtual meeting with the governor because I really wanted to ask him what are you really trying to accomplish by this you signed the bill. And his answers were the last thing I really needed to know. And, and so in that call, which was a week or so before Thanksgiving, I said, after he gave his answers to my questions I said, well, I was flattered to be asked to, to consider doing this and if you still want me I'd be sure. And truth is, I haven't put in for the $55 a day, but I've worked the vast majority of days, including sometime on weekends, since late October, and right up through. We had a whole bunch of calls and meetings and week ahead and then we got two days set aside for executive director interviews, subcommittee meetings on and on I. So, I reached out personally to all of the governor's appointees before they, we had our first meeting, and I was so impressed by the appreciation they expressed for having been chosen and appointed by the governor to serve. And secondarily, they're in enthusiasm, the recognition of the importance of what this council is being asked to do, and their enthusiasm to, to get to work so it's kind of feeding on itself. I hate to see Bill sheets return to his life before his acting capacity because he's a star, and we are going to do our damnedest to have an executive director who's going to come close to be in the bill sheets with personality experience and law enforcement and respect for the community needs that law enforcement has to serve. So, with that I'm, I'm happy to serve as chair, I spent five years as administration secretary so I spent a lot of time in GovOps committees and appropriations committees on and on and then didn't get so much in GovOps when in my almost 20 years as attorney general but occasionally and my mother was when I was younger spent 10 years in the Senate representing Chittenden County it was the only woman in the Senate for one or two of her terms. So I've always had a lot of respect for the legislative branch look forward to working with you. Going forward. Thanks Bill and welcome to you in your new role. This has been a an area of focus for this committee. I think in large part because our communities are constituents are asking us to look at ways to change the way law enforcement interacts with civilians. I think that during this hearing this morning about about law enforcement interactions with people in mental health crisis, but we also touched very briefly on the data reporting short shortfalls that we think are really necessary in order to get a better handle on where implicit bias exists in law enforcement and so I'm hoping that you can speak to that for a moment. Well, I alluded to it slightly with the the front end stuff of the the council, among other responsibilities is going to approve the pre Academy testing for potential recruits and to try to have the status as a state of the science improves in these kinds of tests discerning some of the the personality traits that can be masked but when they rear their ugly heads can be unfortunate and if you're given the power of being a law enforcement officer and you harbor some of those personality traits. It could be terribly ugly and so the the the front end issues. The quality personality integrity traits of the recruits coming into law enforcement. Then taking a hard look at the curriculum including de escalation and importance of that every bit as important as when it's appropriate to use deadly force. And then a streamlined inclusive back end process when officers from departments large and small or accused of professional misconduct. This council will be a repository of those reports, and we'll have the authority to take another look at what discipline if any but any has been imposed at the local level and to revisit that that discipline those decisions if the council deems it deems it important to do so and so front end mid course. Back end response to unfortunate conduct and with us being a repository of those records, knowing the allegations of professional misconduct and getting away from a situation where it's maybe an office department doesn't have a bad officer but they have one who's not as good as they particularly want and so that officer quietly moves to another department and maybe that department doesn't know adequately what the service history of this or that officer can't you know is all about and so the provision of having them have to wave everything that's in the the personnel file and you know and a settlement of a disciplinary case where part of the settlement is this letter will be removed or not disclosed or something like that. There's no such thing as a perfect mousetrap but this statutory configuration the authorities of the council are going to be steps going forward to try to make those loopholes smaller and smaller and smaller and just one final point on that is I think one of the great things about as 124 is that various of these policies like on use of body cameras where to take a look at facial recognition if that becomes more prevalent in law enforcement. There's there are some other things but the I think what the legislature is thinking is that and this was a frustration for me as attorney general I could suggest that these are those policies for use of tasers and reporting use of tasers be adopted but I didn't have the authority to order it and I think what the legislature is thinking is that these policies in these areas like body worn cameras are going to be for statewide application and enforcement and so police department X isn't going to be able to say hi that's not clear stuff and we do things differently here in our neck of the woods or whatever. Fundamentally, Vermonters and those in Vermont who interact with law enforcement can have very very different experiences depending where they get stopped and or by whom I mean state police is a big organization. And I don't mean to call out this sergeant who has resigned, but who allegedly posted some ugly stuff online. After on January 6 or thereabouts, and I don't think there are many people who would think that an uncolored operator or occupants of a car that gets stopped by a trooper who harbors certain sentiments like that is going to be treated in quite the same way as folks who were stopped by Bill sheets when he was just highway trooper and we've got to do a better job on this and we've got a lot to do. Thanks bill Cindy. Just wanted to say really quickly an update for folks specific to your question about race data collection. So we have a grant through the office of highway safety that specifically focused on race data collection, where we're going to be able to look specifically at what some of the data issues are where people are not reporting and then coordinate very specific targeted remedial training if needed. I'm trying to get to the bottom of what the issues with the race data reporting are and to train people accordingly so those that's currently about to be in the RFP process and will be active and in place this year. And, and the council will not be reluctant to exercise its authority to require individual law enforcement entities that haven't complied with these obligations, they will, they will lose access to many of the things they need to run a professional police force. Thanks bill Tonya be house key. I have a couple of questions but I'll try to limit it. So one of my questions is what specific data is collected I know that we have raised data that we're collecting and I imagine that some of the challenges we see in disproportionate police involvement also spans the scope of whether or not someone is housed or not so I'm wondering what specific data we are collecting, and if there's a repeated pattern of non compliance with collecting of data at what point, or if it ever rises to the level of being sanctioned I'm worried about police losing access to being able to run a professional police force and how that might in and of itself negatively impact our communities. Who wants to answer that. I'd be happy to answer it so I was the chair of our vice free policing committee for 10 years worked very closely during that time with many people to include Dr Stephanie seguino, and was involved in the inception of what was collected at roadside. So essentially, and I apologize for the banging they're actually working on the pipes in the basement right below my office so if you hear that all is okay. So essentially it's, it's related directly to traffic stops so the first one is the reason for the stop. So whether it be speeding and defective equipment, somebody had called in and said you know this person's all over the road driving drunk. There's certain criteria those criteria are restricted. Then it is the race of the operator based on the perception of the officer, right so you don't ask that question you simply. And then, there are a few other data points that are collected essentially the outcome of the stop whether you give a ticket whether you give a warning whether there's an arrest, for example, and I can send you exact a back copy of a police department and then really where it truly ties in, whether or not there was a search conducted, right, so that then ties into the race of the operator and the operator only based on the perception of the officer. And the last piece was, was their contraband found though where their drug sees was there still the property, etc, etc. And the highlight, you know, and again, I don't know that I'm hearing from anybody that they don't want to get this right, and people need to know that they need to be better. Any agency that tells you that they're perfect and they can improve. Let's just leave it at that right they got some things to work on. But that traffic stop data, I think is just, it should be looked at collaboratively, and it should be a basis for discussion, because everybody has biases. And I'm fortunate enough that in the three years spanning my career with the state police, I got to travel around the US and Canada as a consultant in behavioral science based leadership, focusing on things like culture and bias and a number of other things that I've done over what is a three week course and madam chair if I can have just two minutes to kind of, I just, I love this topic, and I think we collectively based on your work. We can start to identify trying to get people in here on the front end that are better prepared for this career. So it starts with the selection of a good candidate right, we can help with that while making sure that our team doesn't have those biases, or as little as possible that it's contemporary that it doesn't have a sex or racial bias, the psychological profile but the recipe for a great police officer is not a secret. It's not like the Coke recipe or KFC right it should be shared with all. It is somebody that is always going to be polite professional whose moral compass points true north that has empathy and compassion. And the tough part is the correct balance of IQ and EQ emotional intelligence and a law enforcement career and the ability to communicate effectively is vastly as important if not more important than your IQ. And if you can package those things up to all together. When they leave here. They're going to be in good shape, then you got to work a little bit more on ensuring that there's a consistent socialization process and culture in place in the organization say go to. And if we can do a better job collectively at all of that, we will raise the level of professionalism and Vermont law enforcement. And when I say that, please, I go all over the US and Canada. Vermont gets it more right than anywhere I've ever been and the fact that we have a single point of training where all officers go through, I think is probably the most, the biggest reason for that. You know Vermont one stop shop, we're all in the same page we can do meaningful impactful training, the state of Ohio, 64 places to go for law enforcement training. So there's a wide range we're one of only four or five states where all state county and local law enforcement go through one training session. With all that being said I think we're great we do it well, can we get better of course we can. And I think we, we truly I know it sounds like a cheesy appeal, but we need your help to make sure we're doing everything we can to bring that profession to the next level. Thank you, I would really love to see that form that you talked about and I wonder just as a bit of a follow up if there is any openness to an expansion of the data required some of the things that came up for me as you were talking were age perceived gender and what neighborhoods are stops happening and are there particularly concentrated areas where more stops are happening which would indicate that perhaps people are spending more time the officers are spending more time there why. And so I think there's a lot of information that we could gather not necessarily roadside but that we really do need to really examine the bias that we all do have. Yeah, I can send you so I'll send you both copies of a traffic ticket so all of the criteria you you talked about. So that is data that can be measured and can be examined it you know I think what you'll hear is, there's not often a true agreement on the methodology for the examination of that data that, and I'm not an expert in that area but by the end of today you will have a front and back of a ticket as well as the roster, a draft of the roster sub committees that we have so far. Great, if you could send those to our committee assistant so she can post them on the committee page in case anyone's following along from the public and would like to access those. Sure. Thank you. Mark Higley. Thank you. This is a question I know even years ago, it was getting to be a struggle to find qualified candidates. And I know the screening process years back also filtered out a lot. I'm not too early to tell but are you finding that it's it's getting harder and harder to get applicants to even apply. I can't speak on behalf of the respective organizations but I can share with you the conversations are that it is getting more difficult and it's an owner's process right this this career is a calling. But I still think that that process is in place for a reason and the selection process is still very stringent. I do think you're seeing a drop. I wouldn't call it a precipitous drop but a drop nationally on number of applicants that's true here in Vermont as well. I think the good part is the 22 recruits that just graduated from here after 16 weeks looking out at them. It's 22 folks that certainly appear at this point in their career to be here for the right reasons for all the right reasons for that noble cause that that it's a career it's a calling it's if you take that formula that I talked about where you'd have that empathy and that compassion you're polite professional and you do it the right way. You're going to have an impact and that's why people are getting into law enforcement if you have an impact on people. You can be transformational in ways that might not be apparent every day every month but you will make an impact in a positive way on people's lives. Thank you. Any other questions. Tonya go ahead. Thank you madam chair in terms of the authority of the council does the authority have the council to mandate disciplinary action and if so what kind of disciplinary action or do they simply make recommendations. It's no we can impose discipline ranging from a letter so that is separate and apart from what the agency might impose. The agency might in as part of their internal affairs investigation send a package that says here's the investigation. We know it's going to go to the council subcommittee looks at it goes to the full council. They may impose whatever that might be ranging from a letter all the way to dismissal. We have kind of a similar menu. If it comes to the full council we can do things ranging from a letter all the way to the certification. Which is the ultimate punishment and it's it's right you lose your right and your ability forever to to operate and serve as a law enforcement officer in the state of Vermont. I'll cost him. Thank you madam chair. I just want to share a brief story, and it really, I think, it's a great bill about the need for having recruits with high IQ and EQ. The executive director of the National Office of League and Cities and Towns came to Vermont, and he flew into Burlington, right out of the car, and was on his way to Montpelier. On his way, he had an important phone call. So he pulled over on the shoulder and took the call. And moments later, he saw blue lights coming towards him, pulled right behind him. So you can imagine his blood pressure goes up. He's like, Oh, stuff. What's, you know, here we go. And the officer walked up to him and said, I'm going to help you. He was on his way to a meeting to decide whether or not they're going to have their, their national meeting here in Vermont. That's all. It makes all the difference. So thank you. Thanks how Bob Hooper. Thank you madam chair bill you just talked about the ultimate removal of your certification. I know it's a different department to just that bleed over into people who used to be a cop, getting a PI arm PI license anything like that through secretary of states or anything is that a certain nexus there at all. I think that I'm aware of at this current time I think it's just based upon purely on the certification to be a law enforcement officer in the state of Vermont does not have any tie into being a private investigator or similar duties. Have an opinion on the appropriateness of that. I think you can already sense where I come from on all of this but I don't know how you would make that nexus and how you wouldn't force it. So I have this current time, I don't know enough about those, those processes and how they would tie in. What's kind of like I see it as one step away from, and maybe it's not a big enough step. Bill, can I solicit your opinion. Right, asking this bill. I think it's good question for the Secretary of State. I have no idea what the criteria are for licensing for PIs and whether there are different licenses for different things that they propose to do so. I think I'm in the bill sheets camp that if you are lacking such and behaved in such ways that you shouldn't be a law enforcement officer. And what a PIs being asked to do, you might not be well qualified or even minimally qualified to do that. But again, I'd ask either either the Secretary of State or the fellow who runs the licensing part of that operation to talk about that. Thank you. You're welcome. Go ahead, Tanya. If someone is sort of an addendum to that if someone's decertified in the state of Vermont, are they able to cross state lines and get certified in another state? I think technically they would be I would hope that the hiring agency would know that they came from a position in Vermont and would be well aware that they were decertified here. I think it would depend. I guess the answer is I certainly hope they wouldn't be hired in a different state if they were decertified anywhere in the country. And there is, by the way, there is talk right of doing some type of national database and some states do have kind of a consortium amongst at least neighboring states where they share a database. But we have that public facing registry now. And I think at least for decertifications, when you Google somebody's name, I think it's going to be easy to find that they're decertified in Vermont. So, technically, I think they could be hired in another state, but God, I hope not. On the national decertification index that's on the web. We're actually one of 11 states that puts those names forward. So that is available to anyone who checks that index. It's with the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training called by Atlas. They have a national decertification index that they have and we participate in that. Thank you, Cindy. Any other questions from committee members. Well, I have to say this has been a really good conversation this morning and I thank the three of you for for coming to spend so much time with us to give us a snapshot of where the council is right now. Thank you so much for any great hope for for the future that that so many of the changes that we put into statute last year are being embraced and and acted on wholeheartedly by the sounds of it. So, thank you so much for all of your work and any anyone got any parting thoughts that they'd like to leave us with. Thank you so much for the three of us. Thank you for this opportunity and I'd suggest that maybe, maybe next session for that, a couple of the other of the governors appointees maybe you should ask them how they're finding their experiences and are we doing what you envision when you set up the council. Excellent, excellent suggestion. Thank you. We will, we'll, we'll take the time to do that I'm sure. So, I guess for the benefit of the folks who may be watching from outside of this zoom room. I want to welcome you to stay in touch with the members of this committee to share your thoughts with us. If you have any questions or to request a virtual meeting if that would work better for you. This has been. This has been a long conversation and one that we have attempted it very intentionally to have with members of our communities in Vermont, all members of our communities. So, if you're tuning in on this and you have thoughts or reactions. Please don't hesitate to look us up on the legislative website and share your thoughts with us. So thank you bill and bill and Cindy for for the great conversation this morning and we will see you again. Thank you. So committee that is it for us for this morning we are back again this afternoon 15 minutes after the floor so I will let you all go get get stretch your legs go for a walk, maybe some fresh air if it's not too cold out and see you back on the floor and then in committee after that.