Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the Health Appropriations Committee. It is Friday, 01/30/2026. It's just after 02:00, and we are as the Department of Corrections Commissioner and Friends. So welcome everybody. Commissioner, have you been in this room?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I've been in this room. Wait, have you met our committee members? No,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: have not.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Well, let's do that. And then we'll have

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you all introduce yourselves and then you can start on your budget. So the first one is actually the fellow online. So Dave, do you want

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: to start?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Good afternoon, Commissioner Dave Yacovone from Mooresville, and I represent the Lamoille Washington district. Greetings.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Great. Welcome. John Kascenska from Burke. I represent the Essex Caledonia district, 10 Townsworth.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Hi. Nigro. I represent Bennington of Health.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And this is Tom Stevens from Waterbury. And I'm Martha Feltus from Caledonia 3. I live

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: in the five chapters there. I'm Robin Scheu from Middlebury. Tiffany Bluemle from Burlington.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Trevor Squirrell, I'm gonna go with Jericho.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne Laroche, I gave Franklin, Berkshire, and Rich Frutt.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Hi, I'm from the Windham Floor District, but I'm just the end of chance.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: It is a pleasure to meet you and to re meet those of you who I have met before and worked with before, and thank you very much for having us today. My name is John Murad. I am the interim commissioner for the Vermont Department of Corrections, and I have brought staff who actually know what they're doing and talking about, with me.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Marlene Petit, executive director of finance for corrections.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Hi, everyone. Kristen Caledonia, deputy commissioner of corrections.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Welcome to all of you.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Thank you. We brought a presentation, with your permission, we will go through. If we have a person here working our slides who's acting as our policy person today, Jenna, can you go through the first one? These are our mission and our values. These our vision and mission and values were were created under the previous commissioner, Nick Demmel, And it was a long organizational effort that was really one of the first in certainly institutional memory as far as creating these. They were created in conjunction with all members of the department and really do reflect, I think, the organizational direction, and where the heart of our staff is. This is an overview of the system, and many of these are things that I did not know. Previous to this job, I was in law enforcement for more than twenty years. I was the chief of police in Burlington most recently, and I certainly had experience with corrections sort of from the front end of of bringing people to correctional facilities. But I didn't know much about Vermont's system, and I've learned so much over the past six or so months that I've been with the department, all of which have impressed me greatly. The quality of the staff, the efforts that the staff make, and the scope of this department. It is one of the largest in the state by head count with regard to personnel, and it has an incredibly important remit. We sit in the agency of human services, and we're the only correctional department in the country to do that. And I think that that's really important with regard to where we are philosophically and where we are with regard to our direction. We are not a part of the Department of Public Safety, as is the case in most other states. We're not a standalone entity, as is the case in many states. We alone among all states have our seating under the agency of human services. We're also a unified system, in that we are like only five other states. And what that means is that Vermont does not have sheriff's jails. So in addition to people who have been sentenced to a term of incarceration by a court, we also have people who have not yet been sentenced, who are detained awaiting sentencing. In most states, those would be people that would be remanded to a sheriff in a jail, and they are there for anywhere from a few days to long periods of time, and maybe a very short, less than a year usually sentence of incarceration. But for us, everybody goes into one of our six facilities. There are five male facilities in state and one female facility that is in Chittenden County CRCF. And then we also house about 150 people out of state at a facility in Mississippi. We also have under our ages, our probation and parole, and that's not, not every system has that, though most do. That means that the people who supervise folks after they have been released from incarceration, if they're still under a period of supervision, or if they never actually go into incarceration, but are instead given probation by the court, are handled by these 12 district offices, which are scattered around the state as that map shows. And We have about 4,500, 4,700 people under supervision. It's 45, and it's about 47 if you include people who are currently absconding, and are not We don't know where some of those folks are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm gonna pause you for one because I have been remiss in also including that we have representative Sweeney from the Corrections and Institutions Committee. So, Sean, if you have questions along the way, feel free to raise your hand, and we'll get my attention, and I'll call. Sorry for that.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: No, not at all, or corrections to offer, because our HCI is incredibly involved in what we do, and we consider them really strong partners. Chair Emmons and Sean and others too.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we're grateful for that. Thanks. Next,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: please.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: So this is our 2025 in numbers. We brought aboard two fourteen new hires. Our overall vacancy rate is about 13%, just under, and that's better than it has been. Commissioner Demmel did incredible work over the course of his tenure, bringing us down from a height of about a 30%, plus 30% deficit, and cutting that more than in half. However, our facilities continue to have a higher vacancy rate than overall, and that number is also does not reflect the real core part of our facilities who deal with the incarcerated. That would be our correctional officer one and correctional officer two positions. And there, the deficit is a little bit even it's higher. It's probably around 20%.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just back up to the absconding. What's the about 400 people absconding, three, four hundred people. What's the you know, where are you losing them? Out of Are they off on parole or how are they being lost?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: So it's about 400, a little bit less than 400 that are absconding. Generally, are folks who didn't appear for an appointment with supervision. But when we issue warrants, most of the time warrants are executed by means of incidental contact. And what that means is that we don't send we don't have a team that we would send out after an absconder, and police generally don't go looking for absconders. It's really a matter of, do they come into contact with police at some point, and the police run their names, and there is a warrant for that person? And honestly, if a person is under supervision and absconds, and we don't come into any contact with them, then on some level, the purpose of the supervision's being met. It's not optimal, it's not what we want. We would prefer to be able to help those individuals, and continue to work with them, oftentimes to ensure success by helping with employment opportunities or treatment opportunities, what have you, but some absconding is sort of indicative of the fact that the person is not really on anybody's radar anymore, and is flying on the straight and narrow, as it were.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Any trend, increasingly increasing, staying the same?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't know the answer to that. It's only something that I began tracking in our daily reports a few months ago, and so I don't know the answer to that yet, sir.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do you have a turnover rate for staffing?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Ah, for staffing. Not on this slide. We know that our challenge right now with staffing is in fact retention. We've done very well with hiring. We are not doing as well with retaining, and a component of that is the fact that we are still putting those CO1s and CO2s through extraordinary amounts of overtime. And so, we lose folks, frankly, to burnout early in their careers.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, do you have a turnover rate? Do you know what the turnover rate is for your

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't know that rate off the top of my head. No. I don't either, but we can get that to you for sure.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. I'd be curious. Yeah. I don't wanna guess. Yes. I understand. It's like Get out of it. Public. Yep. Got us. Okay, thanks.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: The biggest increase, we have also, as we have seen our staffing drop from historical norms, it's up from its worst point, but it is lower than it has been historically. As we've seen that staffing decrease, we've also seen our our population increase over the short term. It too is lower than historical highs, quite a bit down from, say, fifteen years ago, but it's a it's very much up since the era of the pandemic. During the pandemic, we, along with many others, did everything we could to get people out of the system if possible. The system was also feeding fewer people into corrections in the sense that courts had closed, certain offenses dropped during that time period in 2020, 2021, 2022, but we've seen those numbers really increase over the past couple of years, largely because of increases, and there are other slides in this presentation that will show that, increases in detentions. And so that's people who have not yet been sentenced, but are in our system owing to the fact that maybe they are being held without bail owing to the severity of the charges. Maybe they are being held with bail but can't make that bail. And so the number of detainees in our system is much higher than it has been in the past and is responsible for a significant portion of the increase that we've seen from about a low of about 1,100 right after the pandemic to where we are today, which is sixteen fifty. Again, 150 of whom are not in state.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, I've got Tiff and then Wayne.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Hello. I'm wondering, I mean, 44% increase in the women's population is significant, and I'm wondering what is the number at the prison now and the capacity of that prison?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: As of this morning, I believe we have 172 women who are inside CRCF, the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. Those 172 comprise, really, that's the capacity. About a one It's 177 absolute, but that is far more than what the general population capacity is. There are two numbers that we look at with a facility. There's the absolute number of beds, but that includes things like infirmary. It includes things like special housing. And the fact is that what we really want is a population that is at or under our general population total, because ultimately, we don't want anybody in the infirmary. Ultimately, we don't want anybody in the special housing, for example, segregated housing because of behavior. We want everybody in that general population area, and are, best practices in profession say 80% of gen pop is where you should be, and we are well over that, at about 140% of gen pop. The other number that matters to us, at least in the case of South Burlington, is a number that's dictated by sewage capacity in an agreement with the town, and that's just over 180, I believe.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And our focus being some folks,

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: are there group settings in which you're having to have people on cots, like in a gym area, etcetera? We did have our gymnasium open to housing, owing to construction that we were doing to comply with ADA, with OSHA requirements around ADA Act, but we don't anymore. Right now, the gymnasium is back to being used as a gym, which is good. However, we do have units where we have additional beds that have been put into the unit that aren't part of the regular construction. They're beds that are temporary and can be inserted. They sit on the floor, and they do constitute a crowding situation that is not optimal. We desperately need something that the legislature has authorized and rightfully so, which is a new facility for women. We had plans to create well, we have plans. We were looking at properties that were owned by the state in Essex, and we are not able to use those owing to an inability to get variances necessary to put an institution of this type on those properties. We are now working closely with BGS in order to identify well, to create an RFP, a request for proposals that would go out to property owners in that region who perhaps could identify forest properties that they have that we would be able to purchase and then build on. And that's our our next sort of avenue. But we really do want that process to be accelerated. We need support in that process because not only do we want to decrease the crowding issue that we're experiencing right now, but we also want to be able to improve what we offer. We desperately want to make as modern a facility, as progressive a facility, as healing oriented a facility, as trauma formed facility as possible. And that is in our grasp if we can build a new one. We can build it the way we would want it to be built based on today's needs, rather than, CRCF is as old as I am. And I think that the approach to incarceration and to rehabilitation was very different fifty years ago.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I don't think I ever heard the actual number of general population beds that is normally at CCRF without all the extra stuff that you had to add. There's no My apologies.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I can find that for you if you allow, but it'll take me a second to find it. I believe it's about 100 and, I wanna say, 120, our general population.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: That's what I was looking for.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I figured you had a different question. My question is on detentions. As I recall, some of a lot of that detention issue had to do with court backlog and with that special court down in Burlington, have you seen any any improvement in detention?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: But have we seen an improvement in the sense of fewer or more? No, we have not seen fewer. Our detentions are still unusually high, at least given the picture of the last four or five years, And so that is, it continues to be a pressure point. Courts, many of the courts in the state are still experiencing backlogs, partially related to the pandemic, partially related to upticks in unlawful behavior and criminal conditions that occurred in the last few years. We're seeing those crest in other parts of the country. I am optimistic that we may have seen them crest in our state as well. And if that's the case, then it's possible that our detention numbers will decrease. Some portion of detainees will ultimately become sentenced incarcerated people, but not all by any means. And so if we are able to see that change and also not have as many people pushed into the system owing to bad behavior and criminal acts and prosecutions, then perhaps we can get some a handle on where we are with regard to capacity. The number is a 130 is is the gen pop number at CRCF. Next, so these increases are reflective of significant changes in, I think, the overall picture of crime in Vermont over the last few years. It should be noted that we have no control over how many people that we have. The people that we have are sent to us by a criminal justice system, usually from an arrest by a police officer or prosecution, and then a court sentence. And so we must address that. That's our mandate and our obligation and our responsibility. And then it's also our responsibility to do so with as much compassion and care as possible. Next, please. These are our department priorities. Staffing being incredibly important to us, both decreasing vacancies, improving retention. Health and wellness, we've implemented a new program in which we will be able to keep people on a hiatus status of Medicaid while they are in our custody, and then get them quickly enrolled basically before they're released, so that we can have a much warmer handoff than we've had in the past with regard to the things that Medicaid could provide treatment, medicine, etcetera. We are working on enhancing our treatment options with regard to substance abuse inside our facilities. We currently obviously offer MAT or MOUD, and we have been for a long time. The state was a pioneer on that. I think that's something that Vermont can be very proud of, its role in that, but we are also looking to say what calcium you do beyond medical amelioration through Suboxone and other medicines, but what can we do also for treatment, including various kinds of therapeutic treatment? And enhancing that and expanding that is something that we are working on now. That's a goal for us this year. That includes working with our provider partner, WellPath, to hire clinical personnel, and right now that's going to be focused on CRCF, Chittenden Regional Facility for Women, and Northwest Facility in Swanton, which is a male facility, but it's ultimately something that we want to see available everywhere. We are working hard on issues around equity, around justice, and that includes partially staff retention. It includes issues of making certain that our internal practices are equitable. We've instituted under our our our new strategic plan created by commissioner Demmel, way of reviewing every policy through the lens of whether or not it meets these needs. And then modernization, and modernization obviously is something that we're very keen on doing both with regard to policy, but also with regard to technology, and that has impacts. We're working on camera roll outs and certain capital construction plans, but we're also working on on body cameras and rolling those out currently on supervisors. We're working on determining whether or not there are efficiencies that we can realize in our our computer systems, etcetera. Our our current operational management system is actually pretty old, and it's time for a new one. So we are working on that plan as well. In

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: terms of employees, my understanding in the past is that complaints, prisoner complaints against staff result in staff being taken offline for integrations of time until those things are resolved. I understand human services deals with those complaints and not you folks. How big a problem is that in terms of staffing? And are the resolutions to those indicative that the system might need to be changed in some way in order to be fair to the folks inside, but at the same time, be expedient in terms of making sure that staff are not online, causing increased costs and staffing through time? Yeah, thanks.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That's a terrific question. And it really does get to the heart of balancing the fact that we have to, we're obligated to take seriously complaints from people who are in our custody. We are morally obliged to give compassionate care to those individuals, and we are legally obliged to follow laws that are designed to ensure their safety and their wellness, but we're also obligated to treat our personnel fairly and ensure that they are given due process and rights as well. One thing that really doesn't come into play when we evaluate those kinds of situations is whether or not that's going to leave us shorthanded or more shorthanded in a particular space or not. That is not the consideration. The consideration is the nature of the allegation, the credibility of the allegation, risk that's posed if the allegation were to be shown to be true, and then the continued risk. Is this a behavior, for example, that's alleged that is really negative? If we have somebody who is not If we have an allegation that an employee is not treating incarcerated people fairly or is abusive, that's unacceptable. And if we have an allegation that's coming from somebody who's made multiple non credible allegations, then that weighs in that as well. But we are not the only people that make those determinations. We do work with the Department of Human Resources closely in order to make certain that we're being fair in those cases and fitting everyone equally.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So you think that system's working well?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I think that system can be improved in the sense that we want faster outcomes. We want to ensure that every outcome is fair, and to the extent that sometimes they're not as fast as we would like them to be, it is because we are trying to make them as fair as possible and as accurate as possible. But that can leave people sitting for too long and getting the right outcome. It is not dissimilar to the old business maxim, which is cheap, fast, or good, pick two. And so that's true in a lot of ways. It's true when you're looking at a new product. It's true when you're looking at whether or not you're hand how you're handling a complaint against an employee or disciplinary process.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: By the way, I did find the turnover rate because I looked at the workforce report that we've just talked about last time, and it was 25% Okay, in 2020 I

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: was hoping 30, so I guess it wasn't too far off,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: but yeah, we found that. Yeah, So it has four years of it in the workforce report, so that went up

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: in 2025 over '24.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yes. Hopefully that will go down. We're hopeful. Yeah. Okay, continue on these things.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do you want to add body cameras?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Oh, do you wanna talk about Yeah, body As opposed to one? Just in response to a fake question. Oh, we are rolling out body cameras on supervisors. We're hopeful that that too will provide additional information in order to make complaints to to get to the heart of a complaint better. If if a supervisor responds to an incident and is able to capture video that that is able to prove one side or the other of that allegation, that's very helpful. Certainly in policing, we got to the point where body cameras were integral to many investigations. Really, really important. To the point where I I would venture to say that most police officers who wear body cameras would no longer go out without body cameras. Thanks. Yeah. Next, please. So these are pictures of our population over time. They're stacked in the sense that the numbers are sort of up on top of each other, And you can see there in the one that is on the left hand side of the screen, the real increase in the detainee population. It's as high as it's ever been, and that even goes back to days when the overall population was much higher than it is today in the 2000s. And so that is something that's really a pressure point on us right now. Next, please. These are field services and the number of folks who are under supervision in the field services. The defender general with whom I met when I began told me that at one point, it was in the

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: 10, plus 10,000 numbers.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I think he actually quoted a 20,000 range in the early twentieth century, but that would have been pretty extraordinary. We are going it's going up, but we obviously want to be able to control this as well, and yet one part of getting folks out of the incarceral system is to get them under supervision. So these numbers tend to go up when the population is going up.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, go ahead.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just a quick question. In the women's facility, what's the percentage, or what the numbers for detained population? It is fiftyfifty.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: That's right. And

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that really is unprecedented in people's memory. This is similar data, except that it's just done by percentage, and it shows our supervisees the percentage. What you'll see there is that furlough has been drastically decreased. Furlough was the one part that the department did have a certain amount of control of. Earlier, I had said that the number of people in our custody is not really up to us, and that is largely so, although there's one exception, which is furlough. Furlough is something that is partly under the discretion of the department. It depends on the individual's behavior and the individual's actions inside and also the totality of circumstance or what they've done or not. But we've greatly diminished the use of furlough, and that is because parole has been much more active in this. And so that red bar, which is parole, excuse me, is probation, and the people that are sent out by the court, even without having been incarcerated in some instances, the blue area is parole, and the use of that by a parole board.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Next, please.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Healthcare services. Here, you see a very big picture of the fact that our populations are getting, frankly, sicker and older than we've seen in the past. And a component of that is the opioid epidemic, and the transition of that terrible problem over the past two plus decades, from over the counter opioids, prescription opioids, to heroin, and then to fentanyl, And it creates a population that is sicker than it has been in the past. An additional slide about health data. You'll see that ER visits are significantly changed. And then that we have a population about ninety five percent of whom are obtaining some kind of medication from us, and more than half of whom are getting medically assisted treatment. That's the mat that is up at the top of that graphic. And so both of those are, I think, stats, not both, but all three. The increase in ER visits, meaning maladies or conditions that can't be met at the facility, but have to be taken to an ER. The percentage of medically assisted treatment, meaning people who do suffer from opioid disorder and come into our custody, and then the overall meds, which is just indicative of the fact that we have a population that is sicker than it has been.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'm curious as to why geriatric starts at 55. Is that a common industry thing or I mean, that seems a

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: little young to be geriatric. Fair, and as somebody who's 53, I hear you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You feel like you're getting into the geriatric age?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I know that when I turned 50, I got mailers from various funeral homes. And then I also suddenly got AARP membership mails. But they don't

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: call you geriatric. I mean, this a difficult term that's actually used by

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: correctional facilities? Or is that just a thing? I believe it's from our health care provider that that's their definition and term.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, and it's due to the environment itself being just harder for folks to live in. And so it kind of ages you quicker than if you're otherwise. Generally, no, I would not consider geriatric to be good. Although I also got my AARP card.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: That's why I look so young, right, if it's spending time in jail. Question, is between math and mental health, they're about the same. Is there a major crossover between those two?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Certainly, a lot of people are there for both. So I mean, of them are over 50. So by definition, at least some of them are in both of those categories. But I don't know that I would not say it's a one to one by any means.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, I wonder if you could speak to the resources required when we do the ER visits.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: The resources required for a visit to the ER, they are not insignificant. It means taking a person off, It means that a single individual is now tasked to a single incarcerated person, and that is not the kind of ratio we really need, especially when we are experiencing staffing deficits. But Commissioner Devil and and our current chief of operations work to create a really innovative program where we brought a number of people together in a centralized division that's actually called COD or central operations division, and it's taking care of about 72% to 75% of hospitalizations. So that central unit is able to bear almost threefour of the hospital cases and not have the facilities expend resources on that. So what happens is generally a person from the facility will take a person in need of hospital care to the hospital, but then will quickly be relieved by somebody from COD, and then the rest of that hospital stay, which can be hours or it can be weeks, will be handled by members of that central operations division.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: If you have been something because I sat on crisis institutions back for as I recall, you had to send two two people with someone when they went there in the past. So it sounds like them changed it around and brought it to something so you didn't have to send to them anymore.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Some individuals do still require two.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah. If the federal folks will require two, sometimes armed. And then just depending on the individual circumstances, so if there's a handicap ban or we need to physically help someone to be mobile, they're gonna be too. So

[John Kascenska (Member)]: a little bit of a jump here with ER visits here, clearly from one year to the next year. Are these, you know, with the population growing older, are these primarily medical instance versus physical kinds of things happening? I don't know

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that we have data on that, but my, I would say

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: it I think, I mean, if you look at it in comparison to chronic illness of seventy eight percent, I think that's the majority of it. And just out of abundance of caution, if our facilities aren't equipped to deal with that certain person's condition, then we default to the ER visit just to make sure. And certainly, the population getting older combination.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Next slide, please. These are the staff vacancies at the facilities only, and it shows, again, this is total facility. So it's not narrow. It's not as narrow as just the correctional officer one and correctional officer two, which would probably be a little bit higher, but it is for the facilities and it does not include the PNP offices or what we call the field, and it does not include our central office in Waterbury. But it has upticked a little bit at the end of this year, as you can see there, and it's a little bit higher than it was in '24, and we are definitely working to fix that. I think that there are a number of efforts that we're making right now around recruitment, around advertising for roles, and we are very keen on fixing this number. This is a priority for me at least. Thanks, please. Yeah, just

[John Kascenska (Member)]: a quick

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: question. Back on that graph.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It was trending down, but it had to put back up in twenty four, twenty twenty. Was that a result of incentive changes and things like that?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I suspect that was from the collective bargaining agreement changes. There was a number of additional provisions in there that gave folks some pay boosts. The new pay chart was increased, and so now it's just

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: kind of leveling out. But I think that's what happened at that point.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Next, please. And now we get into the budget piece, and I will turn it over, I think, to Marlene, as far as talking about where we are with what we're looking at for both changes from previous years and look aheads.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Okay. So we've had our key budget changes are increase in salaries and benefits, and then we've also had increase in the internal service fund, and the ADS allocated charge is up relative to our other ISF allocations. The WellPath contract has had an increase due to the ADP and the Burlington Response Recovery Project and an increase in out of state beds due to an increased population there, due to an increased population here, increase to operating expenses to bring in alignment with actuals, increase to transitional housing under justice reinvestment, and then decrease in other personal services and operating expenses to meet the FY twenty seven reduction target, decrease in GF payroll and an increase to, global commitment with eligible activities via the random moment time study statistic, which is in the probation and parole offices, Decrease in general fund for justice reentry Medicaid and the offsetting increase to the Global Commitment Fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Did you eliminate any programs? We did not.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: And the next slide just basically shows where we are at and how the budget is broken out, with fractional services being the majority at $215,000,003 45,000,000 and then the justice reinvestment, two, at 11,000,000. Administration, 6.5. Education, 4.4. And then out of state beds at 4.1. Correctional facilities recreation, 1.1, and then, the Vermont Offender Work Program at six seventy six, and the parole ward at 607023. Where is the, is it well pathed, the contract, the health contract?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Does that end with correctional services? Yes. And that had a huge jump in budget adjustment because of the number of the contract within the number. Are we expecting that to sort of level off now?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We're hoping for it to. The biggest adjustment you'll see this time accounts for a percentage increase that happens annually that's been negotiated with the contractor. And then we the BAA, most of that was prorated from October to the end of the fiscal And so this will be the full year. Which was a lot.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What is a full year contract now with them? Twelve months.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Oh, the total amounts. Know what it It's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: about It's 4. $88,000,000

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I just looked at it the other day again.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: How does that compare with other states? I mean, it feels like when I was on corrections institutions eight years ago, I just

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: can't believe it was

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that positive. I mean, that seems really high.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: It is very high. I don't know how it compares to other states. But we can And this does not work

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the out of state folks that are in Mississippi. It doesn't. They get their health care if it's all part of the And

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that $44,000,000

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: is for FY 'twenty seven, not FY 'twenty six?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah. It's still a twelve month.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: But yes, it is.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And is there a there was a population cutoff at which point it jumped up. What is the next population here? Fiftyfifty. But beyond that, I

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: think is what she's asking. We don't have it blocked out like that. We would have to negotiate if we got to that. Oh, okay. So it's not already predetermined.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you aren't near the Sean? Yeah.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: It's actually one of the better deals out there

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: at $24,000,000 Correct.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: It gets worse really quick with some of the other companies that provide health care to prisons.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You guys have looked into that. We have. Shockingly not.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Well I'm talking just keep in mind that that costs about $50,000 per person.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And that's considered inexpensive compared

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: to that's just for our prison population that's where we're at. There's 50,000 per person per year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Go ahead Marty. If you

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: think of our health insurance costs they're talking about $35,000 per person for a premium and your health insurer is paying the rest of it. So, you're coming pretty close to your health Well, know. Someone who's trying to offer healthcare services, the whole gamut, and there's no insurance company to pay part of it. It does sound very expensive. Agree with Yes,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I wasn't expecting that. I was thinking you were going to tell me it was 16,000,000. So I've just got to readjust my thinking. All right, thank you. I can wait.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, go ahead, Marty. The Vermont offender work program, I'm not familiar with that. Can you give me a quick sheet?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Also, you've probably heard it referred to as Correctional Industries. So right now, it's the plate shop. So they make the license plates for DMV. That's not all into it.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: The next slide is the budget overview. The total budget increase is 13,272,002 and 75, which is a 5.75% increase over last year's appropriation, total appropriation. The total general fund increase is 9.660546, which is 4.37% above last year, as f y 2026 as passed of 02/21 183,300. This year's budget total FY '27 budget as presented is 244,149,002 and 93. The general fund total is 230,843 thousand 8 and 46, which is 94.6% of the total budget, which it actually was about 95% last year. It dropped slightly because the I think the global commitment.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So what's the percentage of or general fund increase is 4.37? Yes. Got it.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: And then special fund total is 0.9%. Interdepartmental transfer is 0.2 at 49 five forty five, 0.99. The internal service fund is 676,004 and 63, which is 0.3% increase. The federal fund is 581,007 and 90,000 which is a 0.2% increase. Medicaid Global Commitment Fund is $1,000,907,140,000 which is a 0.8 increase. And the Investment Global Commitment Fund is $7,513,007.00 2 at 3.1% increase.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I guess I'm not familiar with the investment in global commitment fund. Is it tied to

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: the eleven fifteen waiver in that program?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That one is for the probation and parole officers. We spoke about the random moment time study. And what that does is be able to quantify the number of hours that they're working on Medicaid eligible activities. And so we have that time study in place to validate those hours. And what we've seen, since we put that in place, is that their eligibility has increased. And so we've been able to leverage more investment dollars.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So the $2,500,000 which was in the budget adjustment, that's the same?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Correct. Same thing nicely that you were able to use some of that in the past okay we certainly don't need to go through all of the things you know we're looking for it you guys too

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: will just building on what our chair was saying I don't think we need to go for personal services but I just want to step back and you have contracts with a number of agencies for different kinds of services. Many of those agencies community based, I'm just wondering, have you cut any of those programs in this year's budget?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: There are two downs in correctional services in Section three thirty eight. What those are doing is refocusing the work. So we're not cutting back on the activities. We've just laid the groundwork in previous years. And so now we're kind of moving ahead, having laid that foundation, but don't need the funds any longer in that same. Can you

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: just say what the rules are?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yep. It's Gray Media, or WCAX. And then it's called Intentional Revolution, I think. Evolution. Evolution. Excuse me.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's okay. That's a good one.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: WTX is for advertising, and we have other funds throughout our budget that also supports advertising. The intentional evolution that She helped us develop some of the DEI kind of initiatives and frameworks that we have in place. She's also developed the training at the academy that she delivers, which is fabulous. And so we just have the groundwork laid and didn't need the extra funds. But no other programs as far as service delivery. Within facilities? Within anywhere.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, you'd also probably have a decrease in the community justice centers too, right? Because those pieces, those justice centers that were doing pre charge, that's going to AG's office.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Right, we actually don't, we didn't decrease funding there.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We kept it the same.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We kept it the same, because we've asked them to now go into our facilities and do restorative work there. So we use that funding that was for the pretrial. Precharge. Precharge, thank you, for that work. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: see you have some federal grants that

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: you've done ahead to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: page 26. It looks like your budget's pretty standard, so we can

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: It is very standard. Yeah, we're happy to walk through each item. Thanks, Michael. You

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: don't need to walk through your interdepartmental transfers. Right. So,

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: federal grants. Right. So yes, we do have federal grants. The Community College of Vermont, which is two, includes two limited service positions, as the funding ends eightthirtytwenty six, and there's a balance available of $4.69 $6.47 19. And then the Prison Rape Elimination Act reallocation, which ends 10/3126, and the balance is $22,001.17.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So these are monies that you could reallocate elsewhere?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: No, these are grants in progress that we're using.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That you're losing. We're using.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: There's no We'll lose it all.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then, then they when they end, they're just there. Correct. Yes. Okay.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: And then the Second Chance grant, which is, for improving reentry education and employment outcomes, vocational training model services, which ends ninethirtytwenty six, and has a balance of 490,689. So when these

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: end, you expect to use fully use the federal funds? Yes, we do. And then do you expect to have other grants to take their place, or are we just going to move on and not do anything?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: So the way they're designed is that they don't cause a base budget pressure going forward, so we wouldn't have to seek additional funding or support it with general fund. What they do is help us stand up programs that are self sustainable, particularly in the Second Chance Act. We've been working pretty closely with DOL on certain initiatives in that space just to connect people to viable employment, training, prerelease in our facilities and things of that nature. The Prison Rape Elimination Act reallocation was funds to help us remediate some issues that were found in our audit in the previous year. And so no additional funding will be needed beyond that. The Community College of Vermont is a congressionally designated spending package from Senator Sanders' office. That is for education, post secondary education for incarcerated individuals and staff and dependents. That does end, but we are working with CCB to try to find, additional funding to support the actual classwork itself.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And if you don't, are those two limited service positions gonna be

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: They would, yes, they would.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: necessarily related to these grants, but the discussion about education. Does the Community High School of Vermont still exist? Yes, it does. And in what format? Yeah, in the same format

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: it always has. So they offer a high school education diploma program and also GED services, depending on the individual's needs at the time. They are in section B3.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Those are employees of the department as opposed to CCD, which is

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: a partnership. Right. They're employees of the department that you have in each of the various locations. Yes. That's correct. Persons may have six or seven people, 10 or

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: 12, whatever. Hopefully that many. It depends on how folks come to us and where they're at in their education at the time. But that's been a fantastic program. Then we're also trying to expand the educators' capacity into vocational training opportunities, just to kind of fill gaps there and also be able to offer that bridge into successful communities.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then you have something from Senator Wilson, which is in progress, and when do you

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: think we didn't hear about that?

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: It is in progress. We did actually get an acceptance or award letter this week, so we're kind of working out the details on that. Very excited

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: about Yeah, I'm glad you're

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: looking at that screen.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: The next slide is about the Vermont Medicaid Reentry Project. And that was a 1965 Social Security Act, which explicitly prohibited incarcerated individuals from receiving Medicaid, except in rare cases. And Vermont received approval from the Biden administration in '24 to pursue it, the 115 waiver, eleven fifteen waiver. And then the initiative is driven by AHS interdisciplinary team. The implementation did begin 01/01/2026 and Medicaid restarts ninety days prior to release. The program is currently serving the sentence population, current reinvestment funding, Vermont Chronic Care Initiative staffing to provide care management, federal capacity building funds to modernize MMIS, which is the DIVA claims processing system.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Questions?

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: The next page is reports. We had one other report, but I was informed by Haley that that was extended, that there was a deadline extension. So that's why there's only this one, which was done on December 1.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't know what the HRBP is.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That's the Vermont Entry Work Program. Yeah, we had requested funds last year to fill the deficit that existed, just that had built up over time. And so a report was requested to address that outcome to be and what measures were put in place to keep that from happening. So that's what that report Solved the problem? I think so. Yes.

[Marlene Petit (Executive Director of Finance, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Appears to be.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yes. All right. All steady, and it's looking just fine.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great, we'll stick you on a few other thoughts. So this is Trevor's budget. Anybody else have any other questions or anything else you all need to tell us at this point? Thank you very much for coming in.

[Kristen Caledonia (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: This is very helpful.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And thanks for the work you're doing. So we'll see you around and we'll be in touch if we've got more questions. Thank you. Thank you. Right, Cindy, we have one more at 03:00, so let's take seven minutes.