Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Follows a couple of troublemakers in front of us.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development and the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. This is a joint hearing on workforce, people that are incarcerated, how we're training them before they reenter life outside the facility so that they are on the path to having a skill that they can become employed. I think we all know that people that that have job skills, that have a job, are less likely to offend again. So this is for house commerce. This is an important program. I'm sure it is for you, madam chair. Yes.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: I really appreciate this joint meeting. I'm chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, and we've been working for a number of years to help folks who are reentering from our incarcerated facilities. And we know that for folks to be successful when they reenter the community after serving a sentence, they really need three things: stability in housing, stability in treatment, and stability in employment. And we've worked in the past trying to connect at least the employment piece, because when folks are incarcerated, there is a real opportunity there to work with folks to develop their skills, whatever their skills may be, and to really connect with our labor force. There's some moving pieces within corrections that we can do, particularly when someone has reentered the community on different statuses for corrections and are being supervised by the local parole board, local PMP office, our field services office under DOC. There's sometimes conflicts in terms of when a person needs to go to work, but when they have to check-in with their probation parole officer, or when they need to get treatment, it conflicts with their jobs. So we really need to work out those technicalities. We really need to work in terms of when someone is incarcerated, what connections we can make for that person. So I really appreciate the work. I know Department of Labor has done this. I know DOC has worked on this. And I really appreciate the collaboration and how we can get started. Should we introduce members of our committee? So I'm Alice Simmons, chair of Corrections and Institutions Committee.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: James Gregor, vice chair of Corrections and Institutions Committee.

[Rep. Sean Sweeney (Clerk, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Sean Sweeney, representative from Shelburne St. George. I am the clerk.

[Unknown member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Joe Luna, Saint Alvin City, member, corrections. Brian Meniere, South Burlington, corrections. Troy Hedrick, Burlington, correct.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Troublemaker. Mhmm.

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Deborah Lynch, corrections.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Mary Morrissey Bennington Corrections.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Judy Althetti, Barry Tom Corrections.

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: With Greer Bennington Corrections Institutions.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We had too much fun.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: I'm in commerce and economic development.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Herb Olson, Commerce, Economic Development.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Dave Bosch from Rutland two, Commerce, Economic Development.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Abbey Duke, Burlington, Commerce. Emily Carris Duncan, Lightingham, Commerce. Monique Priestley, Bradford, Commerce. Kirk White, Bethel, ranking member of Commerce. Hi, Edye Graning, representing Jericho And Underhill, vice chair of commerce and economics.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: And I'm Michael Marcotte from Coventry here at Coventry. So good morning. Thank you all for joining us, commissioner. Thank you, deputy commissioner as well. We appreciate your time, and, we look forward to your testimony.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Thank you. So good morning, everybody. My name is Kendall Smith. I'm the commissioner for the Vermont Department of Labor, and we are very excited to be here today with our partners at DOC as well as the Community College of Vermont who will be joining. From the Department of Labor, we have a good representation of our team that's actively engaged in this partnership work behind me, and you'll get a chance to hear from a few of them. We have 11 regional offices around the city, and each of those regions that are represented here today have a correctional facility in their district or region, so to speak, that we've been actively partnering with. So we wanted to raise up some of those anecdotal examples from the past year or so of activity that we're doing, if we're looking to expand to the other areas of the state as well. I agree with everything Chair Emmons said to start us off, as well as Chair Marcotte. Thank you. And then in terms of the kind of testimony order and narrative that we've lined up for you all is I'm about to hand it off to the Deputy Commissioner for DOC to talk a little bit of background. Then we'll hear from President Joyce Judy and Brian O'Connor from the Community College of Vermont around education, and then how that then links in what we're doing at the Department of Woodward for when people exited incarceration around reemployment support services. So there's going to be a lot of musical chairs. We do think we have this smoothed out amongst ourselves, but just you're going to see some musical chairs happening starting now.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I'm program service director overseeing vocational training, education, risk and prevention services. I think that's enough. I'm Kristen Calvert, Deputy Commissioner of Corrections. Really glad to meet some new faces and see some familiar ones. I'm going to give you a very high level overview of DOC for folks who aren't familiar. We have six probation and parole offices throughout the state, 12 probation and parole offices. We do have one out of state contracted facility in Mississippi. DOC is housed within the Agency of Human Services, and we are a unified system, which is rather unique nationally. And that means that we oversee pretrial, detention, detainees, prisons, traditional sentence individuals, and community supervision, so probation and parole, furlough, and home detention as well. Okay, so I'll pass it to Randy.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Good morning, everyone.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: And give an overview of the risk services

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: of RAP. Thank you for

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: your time this morning to go over everything. So I'm really excited,

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: it's my first time actually providing testimony here, so

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: thank you. As Deputy Commissioner stated, I am the new Risk Intervention Services Director. Some of you may have known Kim Busch in the past, I have taken over for her so I just really made shoes

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: to those, so I'm really

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: excited for the opportunity, really

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: nervous for that opportunity

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: as well.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: So risk intervention services with the Department of Corrections really is three pieces. We have the health services side which looks at our behaviors and health services side which really looks at

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: the criminal behavior, A violent crime or sexually offended and things of that matter. I'm not going to spend really any time on

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: that today, really my focus today is our community high school as well as our vocational programs. Some of you may know or may not know that we do have a community high school that runs within our facilities across the state providing education services to our incarcerated individuals. We

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: have a

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: number of teachers, boots on the ground, have provided numerous classes. It's an accredited independent high school recognized by NESC, which is the New England Association for Schools and Colleges. It's also acknowledged as accredited with the Vermont State Board of Education. So again, we provide a lot of education, a lot of services to our individuals, we kind

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: of meet them where they are because I think the average reading level for a lot of our individuals is about

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: fifth grade, so we have

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: to work really hard to kind of get that to a point where they're successful when they leave our doors. So very driven, embedded in that is also our vocational programs. So we have our educational side, our behavioral health side and our vocational side. So our vocational services really offer career assessment, career exploration, career counseling, vocational training, workforce readiness, transition release planning and employment services.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: A lot of this is

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: going be touched on later by the firm, I'm really excited to hear as well. We really figure out how the individual needs services through an assessment called workpiece. So they're not just coming to us and we're like, oh, think you need X, Y, and Z. It's a really driven assessment that's recognized by a country that measures foundational workplace skills. So math, literacy, writing, there's an intake process, interview process, a whole bunch of things that go into it. So again, it's not very willy nilly, we're gonna decide what we're gonna do. It's very true by the assessments that we have out there.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Can I interrupt and just is this just for sentenced folks, or is it also for folks who are detainees?

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: It's for sentenced folks.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Just for sentenced folks. So of our incarcerated population on the male side, not quite half of our incarcerated population are detainees. Correct. On the women's side, more than half of our incarcerated women are detainees. So that just kind of puts it in perspective in terms of what we're doing for folks.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: Yes, thank you for pointing that out, certainly. We target skill development to address employment barriers, maladaptive workplace making and attitudes. We have a lot of individuals who can get out into the community and they can get jobs. They're very good at getting jobs,

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: but something may upset them on the job, they can quit, or something else will happen in their life and they'll leave it to go to another job or find another opportunity.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: So our real goal is finding careers for individuals, and that might not mean being a manager or being a leader or something, but just the next step in their progression of being employed within the community. We provide vocational training to include credential services such as OSHA, ServSafe, it's up on the screen right now, construction and final, those are all very needed services within the state

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: of Vermont, so we give them this head start where they get out in the community as well.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: And then like I said, work ease is an opportunity to look at the readiness of the individual. I think it's also important to kind of have a plate shop still running up in Northwest. People just look at that as an opportunity to engage in kind of like a factory service. It's not, there's a lot that goes into it in terms of inventory and looking at billing and packaging and shipping and all those things that go about it. So it's a bigger process than just the plate itself.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Detecting license plates.

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: Yes, is correct. Be clear.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Where our license plates are made.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Yes, absolutely.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: So again, those are two important tips. This

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: will surprise nobody on my committee or probably the two of you. Can you give me a range of the

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: wages that the folks are making in my system?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Don't know.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We can send those

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: to you.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, I just looked at it, but I don't

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: want to mislead. So we can send that.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: I think

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: you can.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: They're not minimum wage.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: It's a return.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: No, absolutely not minimum wage. No, yeah. I think the overall cap for any opportunity in the system is a daily rate of, I think it's $9

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: is that transfer to I hourly don't

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: know that calculation.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: But it's very, very small.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: About twenty minutes for the Yeah.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: But they start at $0.25

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: an ounce? For some jobs, yeah. Thank you.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: So that's kind of like a big 10,000 foot overview of kind of the two sides, I really want to focus on the community high school and the vocational side. We do always run into some barriers which I think is important to point out, lack of space in the facility. Our facilities are old, our footprints are really old, and it's tough to build in different services into a footprint that's been around for twenty, thirty, forty

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: years before there was wifi, before internet was up and running like

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: it is now. So we get creative, we work around it, however it's tough to do it sometimes with some

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: of our spaces such as Chittenden, which we're running stations all the time at that facility.

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: I think this is probably the best point to lead into our work with CCD. I think I kind

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: of want to hand it off to them, there's more

[Randy [last name unknown] (Risk Intervention Services Director, VT DOC)]: questions. Sorry,

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: before you do that, We have adult education out, you know, if you're not incarcerated, and we have high school education. And I'm just curious why we would What is the difference with the community high school versus an adult education focus? And what decisions went into making that?

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: The history for the community high school in Vermont was it started probably back in the I think it started during the '90s, maybe even the '80s. A lot of folks were coming in without a high school diploma. So it was a way for them to achieve a credited high school diploma, not a GED, but a high school diploma while they were incarcerated. Over time, that has changed, where we have seen folks now coming in more with high school diplomas, but not at that level. Community high school is a requirement for folks, the way it was set up, if they did not have a high school diploma, they were required up to the age of 22, 23. 23. Three, because we worked through that. They had to be in a community high school of Vermont. And that's still the case, but we're not seeing as many folks that don't have a high school diploma. We have looked into why can't we hook up with a local high school or whatever? Many of the folks who are incarcerated have a lot of issues with their local high school. That's why they didn't complete. That's why they failed. So to put them back in that environment is very detrimental. Adult basic ed, you get a GED. Our goal was that they would get a high school diploma. So that was the whole structure of community high school. It yeah. Okay.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So it feels like we're separating this community out of perhaps what might be best practice education, the way we're looking at education in the rest of the state. And that's a different conversation for a different day. But I just want to flag that, and I'll look at it a different way.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Absolutely. And the thing

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: you're presenting that, it's important to know when we do look at individuals who are going through high school, they are pulling records from multiple high schools

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: to the point of the

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: chair if they have had issues across the board in multiple high schools. It is important.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Any questions?

[Unknown member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah. So the first one is just housekeeping. Do you want us to raise a hand and go through the chairs? How do you want us to?

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Yeah, through the office.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Can take care of us. We can take

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: care of yeah.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Brian?

[Unknown member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: I'm just wondering if either of you can color any more of the Wi Fi issue that Mark already worked on a bit last year, where things are, what the holdups are, and what opportunities are already present and what's being held back by the lack of robust Wi Fi.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, the Wi Fi efforts go back many years at this point. I think right in the tail end of COVID, we did a heat mapping in our facilities for ADS using our own funds and submitted that information to ADS to kind of get the kind of quotes and what the cost would actually be for original installation and then ongoing network access. That was originally submitted as a capital bill item, but then flooding came, and so prioritization changed. Then we attempted to get funding, and I think you all supported through a memo to the broadband access, the board, I think it's referred to, and that effort was not successful. So this year, we're strategizing. And I think that board is getting some new guidance on how to spend the remaining funds that they have. It's my understanding that they previously prioritized digital equity access and education and not necessarily infrastructure for us. But I think we are considered one of the rural, low access systems. So we're going to keep trying and definitely would look to you all for your thoughts and ideas on that, see how we can make it successful this third time around.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: What was the dollar amount? A couple

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: of millions? I think it was four total, but that included some ongoing operational costs as well.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Just getting back to the detainees, do detainees have access to the vocational educational programming at all?

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: They don't. That's purely driven on the length of stay. I think the average length of stay is three days. And so there's nothing we can really provide for them in that length of time. And usually, casework for them goes through their public defender or some kind of attorney. And so we're not offering at the moment those kinds of services.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Okay. Do they have access to wraparound services as they exit?

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: No, for the same reason. Unless they become sentenced through that process, and then certainly we'll pick that up. Thank you.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: One other question. You mentioned that there's a plate shop in St. Albans. So if you're incarcerated there, you have an opportunity to work. But if you're incarcerated anywhere else in the state, there is not an opportunity to work?

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That's the only site that has a plate shop. But the other areas have different vocational opportunities, like cleaning and coaching, laundry, things of that nature.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: What's

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: an impediment for a lot of this is lack of space. And then the other impediment, we used to have the Vermont Correctional Industries, And that was based in Newport. And we did a lot of woodworking, building, bookcases, desk furniture, office equipment. That was very successful, and that was back in the '90s. What was starting to happen, private industry, was putting some pressure on the state because the bids that came out from VCI were much lower than a private company. So there were restrictions put on. And over time, VCI and the workshop just went away. So we're really just And we used to do road signs. We used to make a lot of the road signs that you would see. The municipalities could buy, or the state would put up on state highways. That's gone away. We used to do farming at the Windsor facility. That's gone away. So right now, the only space we have in a facility is up in St. Albans to make licenses. In the other facilities, some of that is internally done within the programs that you have just defined, but it's within current space in the facility. It could be at the library. It could be in the cafeteria. It could be in the common room. That's what's all punished.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: How are things now, probation and parole? I know there was an issue years ago. We really had a lot of discussions about probation officers going to people's work, pulling them out, that was causing a lot of disruptions for the businesses. And they I know one in my area has taken a lot of people exiting the facility, but it became such a disruption that they stopped doing that. And so have we figured out how we can keep people employed and still probation can still function the way they need to function?

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, that's a great question. I haven't been made aware of specific examples of that still happening. So I can give an assumption that we're working with employers to have flexibility in when we're visiting or our own hours to accommodate folks so they are able to remain employed. And I think there's a certain amount of stigma when your PO walks into your place of employment. And so it can be kind of mentally draining, I think, for folks as well. So we're open to the conversation of making that a more formal process. But I

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: do think that folks are being of much more. Stuff.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah, mean I can add to that. I just

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: left the probation parole in Burlington. Was used to the history manager there for one that period, so brought the probation parole exactly as the deputy commissioner said. We worked around and found ways to not cause an issue to the business itself, but we still need to do our job. So we just came up with

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: creative ways to do

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: that whether it's to meet somebody down the road or after they got out of work or

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: using our second shift individuals to check on them when I got home later that day so they didn't have to be at their business.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: That's a good thing to realize how much of it can it can be be insidious used to this. To the business owners. Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Anyone else?

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Thank you. Still

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: hang out, so other questions pop up, but I think we'll turn it over to CCB.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank you all.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Morning, everyone. Good morning, David.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: So I want to thank Chair Martha and Chair Edye Graning for giving us this opportunity of joyous duty. I serve as the president of the Canadian College of Vermont.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: I'm Brian O'Connell, the director

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: of corrections education at CCP.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: So thank you for the opportunity to come and share a little bit about what we're doing in the corrections field. And why I like to come and talk about this program is because we're not coming to ask you for any money because we have funds and we figured out how to make it sustaining, self sustaining. And so we can share what we're doing, and I think it really complements. We work really closely with corrections and with Department of Labor to really make this program work. And Brian's going to I'm going to give a little overview of CCB, a little overview of our corrections program, and then Brian will really give you the details and a little color in terms of how it really works on the ground. But just sort of level set, just as I think most of you know about CCB, but just in case you don't, CCV is one of the two institutions that make up the Vermont State Colleges. We are separate but complementary institutions. At CCV, we often think of ourselves as the open end of the funnel. We really try to help people who, for many, who never imagined they could go to college get started. And so many of our students, it was fun this morning. I just talked with a student here who's in his last year at UVM, he started CCB and he's doing an internship here this semester. And it's always fun to connect with people and see what they do. Our students go on to do amazing, amazing things. CCB is the second largest college in Vermont, next to the University of Vermont, but we serve 10,000 Vermonters in a given year. And that's been pretty steady over the course of several years. Our spring semester is going to start in less than two weeks, and we'll be offering between six hundred and seven hundred courses to Vermonters throughout the state. The important thing I think from a CCD perspective and from your work is about 95% of our students are Vermonters, and even the ones who consider themselves out of state are people who have moved here, generally speaking, and just haven't been here for a year. So we are serving people who are here in Vermont, and they're going to be here in Vermont. We serve just a huge diversity of students. This semester we have 400 veterans and military connected students, for example. We have students who are 17 and we have students who are 75. People who come to us who have never thought they could go to college, and then people with a master's degree who are looking, they may have been hurt on the job, they want to repurpose. We also see a lot of younger students who, more and more younger students are starting with us because they can do their first two years, essentially their first two years at quite a significant savings and then transfer. We have transfer pathways for everybody because there's not a college in New England, I would say, that doesn't have capacity in their junior and senior years. So people are looking for, schools are looking for students who could fill those gaps. And so community college students in general, CCB is one of those, our students are a hot commodity for four year institutions. Another interesting fact about our students are more than 80% of them work full time, and so they really are, it's quite humbling and quite sobering to see what our students do to access their education. So now flipping to our corrections work. Why did we get involved in corrections work? Two reasons. One, our work is really about providing access to education to Vermonters, and any pool of Vermonters who can benefit by continuing their education is something that we always are looking to address. And so we began to think about all the people who are incarcerated and they're going to be released, and the majority of them are going be released into Vermont communities, and how do we make sure that we can, for Vermont and for them as individuals, how do we help them become productive citizens? And also, in our conversations with corrections, realize, and all of you know, that Vermont, like the nation, has a really high recidivism rate. But I often think about myself, if I committed a crime and I went to prison and spent time there, and then you released me back into my local community with my same group of friends and same structure, why am I not going to reoffend? And so I think that's where education is one of the pieces that can make a difference. And how do we, so for us, our work is how do we help people have hope and how do we help them provide them with some skills and for them to rethink who they are as they transition both within the facility, but then more importantly when they leave. And so that was really our work, is to really think about, we're not gonna change the recidivism rate on a dime, but can we contribute to, if we could change it by a few percentage points, that would be huge, huge for them, their families, and Vermont in general. So I think that's it. So in 2016, we actually started a conversation with corrections, and what could we do together to address this. And then we pursued some philanthropic support. The J. Warren and Louis McLaur foundation became a big plunder for us early on, and we ran our first class in Northern in 2018, and since that time, our program has grown and grown and grown, but there's been some significant pieces that have helped us help it grow, although there was one significant piece that sort of put it on pause for a while. So we started in 2018, In 2019, there's a program at the federal level now called Second Chance Pell, where can apply for Colleges can apply to provide training and education to people who are incarcerated, and they can be eligible for Pell Grants. And that's a way to really make this self sustaining, because Pell Grants will, for the majority of students who are incarcerated, they qualify for a Pell Grant, that helps to cover their tuition. So that's how some of this works financially. And so we were awarded that designation, and we were supposed to start it in June, July 2020. So as we all know, we were all ramped up to start it in July 2020, and then COVID, and then the lockdown, and I think, gratefully so, our prison facilities were locked down much longer than most other places for very good reasons. And so the program was really on pause for a couple years. But then finally in 2023, were able to really launch it. But in the meantime, we also were awarded a $4,500,000 congressionally directed spending earmarked, championed by Senator Sanders to support this program. This gave us a huge runway to really think about and develop a program that was pretty creative. And one of the things that has really set this apart, and Senator Sanders feels like this is a national model, I'm hoping that we can figure our way to continue this. There were really two threads to our prison education program. One is to provide education and training to people who are residents, and the second is to provide educational opportunities for people who work for the Department of Corrections. Because one of the things that we heard over and over and over again is that there's always a fair amount of resentment between particularly prison guards and people who are incarcerated, and they're getting opportunities to take college courses. And I actually had a president saying to me, What do I have to do? Do I have to get a college education? Do I need to commit a crime? And that is troubling. And so we were able to, with our support from Senator Sanders, really develop two tracks. One is providing courses for inmates, but also to provide educational opportunities for people who work in corrections, and we were able to expand that to people who are in corrections and their families. Because so many of the people who are working in the facilities, we know, employment's a challenge there, and they're working sixty and seventy hours and they don't have time. They said to us, We would like to access it, but we don't have time. But now that their children or their spouse could take advantage of it, that has really changed the sort of It's really smoothed out some of the remembrance in the program. And so it's been pretty effective, and we are approaching the end of our funding through with the congressional direct spending pipeline. But thanks to Brian's good work, we are in line, we think, for a very significant grant from a national funder who really thinks this program, it will allow us to continue some of the special things. We would continue it anyway, but to really expand the program, getting some additional funding has been really key for us. And this, if we are awarded this grant, and we'll know within a couple months, the focus will be a lot on transitional services, which I know this group is very interested in, because right now we have really, with our program as it's grown, we have really, really been working to try and figure out how to make sure that as students transition out, that they have the supports. And that's one of the things that I feel like is a real benefit to have CCD involved in this because we are throughout the state and we are serving. And so when a person is released and some release wonderful successes, they're small, but it's wonderful that when they are released back into their community, one of the first things we encourage them to do is to get hooked up with an advisor at CCV. And just that little change and just a different orientation can make a huge difference. And so, it's been very real, this program has grown, but as you've heard before, one of the limits of our program to be able to grow internally is lack of space. Lack of space and also it's a challenge for staffing because if they're short of staff, how do you make sure? Even though we have our faculty are in a class, there doesn't have to be someone in the class, but they have to be close by. Staffing, but I

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: would say space is the biggest thing.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: But we're serving over 100 students every semester, between one hundred and one hundred and fifty, and that's 10% of Vermont's incarcerated population. That's pretty amazing. And our faculty continue to tell us how students are just like sponges. They always are so grateful. They always do all their work. Our faculty, if you do it one time, if you teach in a facility one time, you're hooked. People really find it such a satisfying thing. I want to leave my piece with just two or three folks that just came in on a student survey that we had that I think will really tell why this program is so important. So one, this is a huge piece of my release program. I believe earning a degree will help me when I am released. Another, it's changed my life, I feel so much better about my opportunities to enter my community and now get into a career. And the final one is, it's all about going home and living a productive life. Those are exact exact quotes from students that we're serving. So it's pretty life changing. So Brian, I'll

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: go into a little

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: bit about what it looks like in the programs, but I was smiling because you talked about the engagement of students, and there's no cell phones in the classes. So if you're actually teaching one of those classes, just the give and take with the students is something that I missed from when I was in college. It's something you see inside the corrections classrooms that we don't see everywhere else these days. So we work with four different populations. And I'll talk briefly about those. And if there's questions, I'm happy to answer those. But one of those populations is the stat at the Department of Corrections. Anytime we can help somebody who's incarcerated, we know that we're kind of alleviating a little bit of stress on that staff. And anytime we can do something to help the staff and the corrections officers, we know we're doing something that's going to help keep the doors open for our students. So it's really if we're helping the system in any place, we're helping the whole system. And that's something we took really hard. We offer about anywhere between fifteen and thirty staff that are students at CCB at any point in time, and another 15 or 30 of their families, which is our second population. We also offer workshops to every incoming correctional academy. So the correctional academy is six weeks of intensive training before they become correctional officers. We're in there for half day on the third day just to try to teach them about some situational awareness, introduce some other skills really early in that experience. So we're kind of throughout the staff and the correctional officer experience as well. About two years ago, we added the staff family program, which is for spouses and dependent children. That's been very popular, and it's about the size of our staff program. A lot of correctional officers can't take advantage of the programming. We do because they work odd hours and don't have time, but they have children or spouses who really can use this in a lot of unique ways. And it's been a very popular program and I think a very meaningful benefit to the people who work in the facilities. Facilities have a much higher turnover rate than the central office staff does, and so anything we can do to help them, again, helps the whole system, helps post secondary education. So I think that that is one of the pieces that has led us to become what I think is one of the most comprehensive post secondary correctional educators in the country. We also then offer courses to incarcerated Vermonters, which is focus of this testimony is today. We are in four facilities. We have 11 classes running this semester and we have over 100 students in any semester that are participating in these classes, over 10% of the population. So our penetration inside those traditional facilities is very high. We're doing a lot there to engage that population. Last semester, we introduced computers with some limited internet access. So we were able to expand the courses, start offering classes that use academic journals with JSTOR, Microsoft Suite, and Canvas, which is a learning platform that we use. Different, by the way, from the correctional network, which is more of a state network. This is a very, very locked down, very secure network only for students. On that note, we had our first graduate with an associate's degree who completed their credits right before Christmas, right before they were released. We got to celebrate that. And she has already applied for a part time job on the team, which is something we try to keep open and make sure that we're getting that voice on our team. Her resume is in, so we're looking forward to interviewing her. It was a great way for us to go into the holiday season. She released on December 26. The final piece is our reentry program. So we also are offering free classes to anybody who's within a year of relief and other fractures. So about two to five students engage in that program each semester. But it's kind of the highlight that reentry, that six months two year reentry that feels like when everything comes due and when seeing somebody show up to CCB in business casual clothing, who we only know from the inside either to get ready for a class with me with their advisor. Those are the really important ones to us. So that's our smallest program, but it's one in which anyone that's in that program a means of success for us and for a lot of reasons. So we're in four facilities. We're in Northern, Northwest, Chittenden and Southern. We're continuing to expand and we're looking forward to what we're going to do in the future in terms of working more with the reentry, working more with other employers and educators, and hopefully expanding out and helping these learners become workers on the outside.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Do you just want to share about the main factor of flu? Because we are very excited about this.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Sure. So in order to use these Pell funds for an education, you have to have a US Department of Education approved as an education plan. It's a lengthy process. We've had a, it's called a PEP. We've had a PEP for professional studies for about two years now. And this fall, we were approved for three more PEPs including manufacturing. So now we're able to use federal health dollars for post secondary education in manufacturing, which should open up a lot of doors for these students in our facilities. And it's something we're

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: very proud of. Because one of the things we heard from a lot of folks who were taking classes is when they leave, they would like to get into the manufacturing field and get a job in manufacturing. And in order to be able to teach manufacturing courses, one, we need federal approval, and two, we also needed to be able to use technology. And so we actually have purchased with some, again, some philanthropic funds, what are they called? Skill bosses. Skill bosses, that really mimic CAD, welding, all of those, and we are starting in Northern. And so we'll be able to offer manufacturing courses starting in the fall to this population, which we think will be huge and there's a lot of pent up interest in those programs. So again, when we talk about technology in a facility, if someone said to me, well, they have access to the internet? No, this is a really lockdown. It's Canvas, but it's Canvas for people who are intoxicated, so it's the very advantage of progress. So, we're happy to answer those questions.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: John? And then Troy.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Right. It's nice to hear positive news. How could we help you get into the other facilities?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah, I think that so without going into too much detail, it's a class size issue because the other facilities are smaller and have a population that's less likely to be there for a long time. Right now, it's hard to put a faculty person in that space for three students. I think once we continue to evolve the technology, and I think it's an iterative process in which we have to go slowly, make sure everything's secure and earn that trust with our students and with VDOC. I think the next step would be being able to have those three students at Marble Valley up online with a faculty person and teaching at Northern. So I think that's probably the way that we'll be able to expand their spooky space, understand the Rousseau, because that's going to be connecting students in different facilities. So that's probably the path that held these resistance, but it's one that's going to take some time.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Quick follow-up.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: And are you I think we're going

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: to talk about the computer access, but are you finding that to be problematic in the

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah, so it needs to be secured. We all understand that access for us and we're all about access at CCV means fitting into a correctional system. And that security is really secure to the point that it is very hard to make sure things go through. It's a very, very busy part of our job is making sure, for example, Microsoft licenses get through firewalls. So it's a learning experience for us, for the master unit, which is Business the Applications Support Unit at VDOC, and for our students. Everybody knows that it's sort of a growing and learning experience. Anything we do now will help the students that are there ten years from now. And I think our student body at this point is really cohesive and is patient and is willing to work through those things with us. So it's okay, but it's a necessary one.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Try.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: I have concerns about what happens when your students who are incarcerated move to different facilities and how disruptive that might be. I'm especially concerned when that happens when some of our Vermonters are moved to our for profit facility in Mississippi. We recently, this summer, moved, I think, 30 more Vermonters in Mississippi. I don't know if any of them were currently taking classes. But how disruptive can that be? Do have any add on that?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah, it can be disruptive. There was a few that were students. And we're working with corrections in a couple of different ways. One way is if we know a student is going to be moving mid semester, we're not going to register for a class. We want make sure that they're not in a position where they have to have a withdrawal on their resume. And others are now working with the out of state movement team who's doing a review too of anybody who is being moved out of state to add to their checklist. Are they also taking classes at CCD? At the end of the day, we know we can't prevent movement. Some of those things are just going to be above the ability of a post secondary educator to prevent that. But we're taking steps to mitigate it and to make it so it's a manageable number. I think from my perspective, it's something that has to be mitigated in order to make sure that we're not setting things up to fail. But it's something that I think we're pretty close to getting it to a healthy spot and one that I think will be there next semester. But that's a real concern. Do you

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: have any data on the ones who were recently moved from Mississippi and up or along? Any social?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah, I think there was three that were moved out of state mid semester, but I can go back and remember those numbers and send those to you. We will always at CCB do everything we can to hold them harmless. So we will go in and we'll work with them, we'll identify them, we'll get their permission to withdraw them from a class and make sure that they are left without a failing grade or that we're able to drop them before the drop date. So we're going to go in and do everything we can to basically reduce any impact that that will have to their academic trajectory. I can follow-up.

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank you.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: And I think one of the things that we are grateful, we meet with corrections folks, well, I meet, Brian meets with them all the time, but we also have a quarterly meeting where we discuss bigger issues than one of the things that they have agreed is that if a student is, if a person is enrolled in a college course, that will be a factor in consideration, whether they move them. It's as disruptive to move from one facility to another as it is from Vermont to another place because right now all of the stuff is in person. Like we said, we understand for the reason probably why you're moving them, but could you instead of moving them in November, the wait until the December? And so I think they're very open to using that as a consideration.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: And if I also just talk a little bit about the other side of the coin, it does happen, but we've also had specifically risk intervention services work to move students from where we had no space available in classes and ship them to Southern State. That before it'll happen again, where we did add spaces. So there's movement. Sometimes it's a challenge, sometimes it's a benefit. And it's kind of a reality of the six locations in Vermont. Thank you.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Brian?

[Unknown member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: This is probably a secondary or tertiary or word perhaps is hearing. But I'm thinking about your offerings, and it makes sense that most of them are vocational or about reentry. But for folks who are significantly older or in there for a really long time, are there offerings like maybe you're not interested in Microsoft or maybe you're interested in or something. Yeah, are there those sorts of offerings, too?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah, so we have to get these students we have to offer classes that move these students towards their degree foundation. But if we're offering a class that's an elective and there's a student who they're interested in taking it as a non degree seeking student and we have corrections education funds available for them, we'll enroll them in that class as a non degree seeking student. So we have a responsibility to our degree seeking students to make sure that we're offering the classes they need to progress towards that degree. But we're CCV. We're CCV inside the facility. We're CCV outside. And so we're going do everything we can with the student, regardless of what their situation is, to try to make them what they are and get them what they're interested in.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: And I think going back to

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: your question about what you need to do, I think one of the that Chair Amundsen is fully aware of I think the challenge, and this is not a it's just space. We could run a lot more classes in Northern. There's a lot of interest, but we have to manage that because we only have the room a certain number of time, and it's just a lot of space. It's really helpful. And that's why I think the whole, I mean, it was huge and it was two or three years in the making to actually get to be able to use use of tablets or computers in the fall. That was a heavy lift, particularly on corrections, and that's the first step in really increasing access. What's fascinating about this work is you really marry two cultures who couldn't be more different. You have a higher education culture that is pretty left liberal meaning because we believe that education is so important, and Corrections, their role is to protect people who are residents there. And so, two cultures with two very different missions. But we've been able to do this, and I think the different mission is very supportive of it. Nick Demoille was amazing, so you've been very Vermont has been very lucky with the mission to believe in, from my perspective, believe in rehabilitation as opposed to punitive. Because we talk to our colleagues and counterparts in other states, it's not quite like this.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So I have two questions, and they're very, very different from each other. The first one is you mentioned supports for folks at post relief, and I'm assuming those are supports so that they continue their education.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: That's correct. And we try to do it. One of the things that we're really looking at, and if we are planning to submit a grant, it will really help us really think much more. Right now, it's just matching them up with resources, matching up with resources that see what people offer. Are there some additional things? Is it housing supports? Is it in okay it's No. Supporting them to be in their academic environment. Okay. Just like we do. Our students at CTB have food insecurity, housing issues. And so we work really closely with our community partners, but we are not

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: And then my other question, for folks who are incarcerated, do you find that there are people who have an associate's degree or who want to further their education past an associate's degree, and

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: how do we support them, or are we not there yet? We're not there yet, but I would say as a general rule. Well, I'll ask Brian.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: It's everybody. It's got a very large sort of cross section of education you'd find in a correctional facility, too. We are going to try to meet any student who's interested in being educated with education and try to find the resources for them. That gets tougher the more of an education somebody already has. If you have a bachelor's degree, you're not eligible. Doesn't mean there aren't other funds that we can look into, other financial aid, because we're just CCB in there using Pellet one way that a student can take part in this education. We are dedicated to making sure that students left with any sort of bill or balance. So we're not interested in going in those directions, but there's a lot of different ways that students can come in and join us. Though it gets harder, Really, a high school degree, GED, associate's degree, and something different from what we're offering tend to be

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: And I would just say that sliver gets smaller and smaller.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So, just have a question logistically, you offer the courses.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Sure.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Do your professors have to go in there physically to offer the course? Though the students have access to the course material on their iPads.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: So it depends on the course. We have two different types of courses. We have one that we're calling technology assisted, which is

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: that

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: very limited, highly firewall computer course. They'll have study halls. So they'll have their course, they'll have three hours. And then we have a tutor mentor, which I provide all these services. So while the tutor or mentored study hall has a proctor in there, and they can go and they can use the computers, they can download for our courses. The other courses are completely pencil and paper, like school in the early 90s. 70s. And those are do whatever we can to support faculty around that, knowing it's a shift for faculty who are used to teaching with technology now. So what we'll do, we can go order paper copies of academic journals, get books in there, print materials. But it's the faculty's always in there, the students are always in the class. Even the technology facilitated ones, it's still very analog because we're leaning on those technologies slowly. So it's in person classes, in facilities. And actually all of our faculty have to be fully background checked and credentials with VDOC contractors. So

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: does the lack of Wi Fi impact you folks

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: at all?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Does. Your

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: ability to offer more courses?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: It does. It's something that I think we're used to sort of problem solving around and the technology has grown with our needs to depend on it. And so we'll hopefully continue to do that. As these students get to their capstone classes or their associate's degrees, the niche needs that they will have in order to complete those degrees will be harder and harder to get in paper on a chalkboard and will need a little bit more. But at this point, the technology growth has kept pace. I just hope that will continue.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Emily?

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Just a question about your educators. I imagine that teaching folks that are incarcerated takes an extra special skill set to be able to go in and provide service. Are you finding educators that are able to meet that, or do you train your educators to be able to meet that need?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: That's a good question.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: All of our faculty

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Since CC started in 1970, 100% of our faculty are part time. So we hire practitioners from the Joint Duty and they have expertise. And then we, as a general rule, we offer a lot of professional development to faculty to help them become good teachers. And so when they're in a facility, we do some additional orientation because there's the orientation about just the logistics of being teaching in a facility. And then there's the logistics of, or just the sort of overall approach in terms of the students that you're going to be seeing in a class. And so there's a lot that goes into it. I will tell you that, as I mentioned earlier, well, first of all, we as a general rule do not put a new CCB faculty into a facility. It's usually people who have taught a lot for us. And our students, as a general rule at CCB, are just hugely diverse, so faculty are very used to a 17 year old and a 70 year old and everybody else in the middle of the class with a lot of different skills. What is very interesting with our students who are incarcerated are just like you would be. They're really no different other than sometimes they might have been incarcerated for five or six years. So they don't know what's going on in the outside world. But beyond that, they're really I mean, visited a lot of the classes. It's quite sobering and incredibly powerful. If anybody I hesitate to do this, but if there's somebody or a couple of somebody's who wants to visit sometime, we can probably figure that out, because it is incredibly powerful to go and see. Most students incredibly skilled, incredibly bright. They just have made some bad choices. Andy Toledo, who was Commissioner of Corrections for eleven years, our dean, left Corrections and left the state and was our dean of administration for five years. Now he's retired and living in Florida, I can't believe he thinks he can retire, but nevertheless. But it was very interesting to me. He taught us a lot about correctional facilities, and he said, You know, I always thought of the prison population as three buckets. He said, One bucket is, like you and me, they just made a dumb choice, and now they're paying for it. He said the second bucket are people with a lot of structure and a lot of support and a lot of opportunity can become really productive citizens. And then he said there's a third bucket that is really a struggle. They're really difficult to deal with. He said, So I would focus your educational opportunities. We don't limit it, it's corrections who decides whether students can participate or not. But I think that, so I would say that what's more important to me as opposed to, what it's, how do you deal with a really rich and really diverse classroom of students? One more question. Yeah. So for folks that

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: are sentenced that have advanced degrees or are beyond that bachelor, is teaching a track that they can pursue?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: We haven't gone there. Interesting,

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: interesting thought. Just a fun fact really quickly. Dana Lesbrance, who was the director of CHSBT, is teaching his second semester, now he's retired, as CCB faculty at North Bend starting this spring.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Hey, Troy.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Just a quick question. Is there anything you need or that would help as you pursue this new grant from the legislature or from these two committees? Would a letter bolster that application in any way or anything?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: I'll think that, and I think we're in pretty good shape.

[Kristen Calvert (Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We think we're in good shape, but that's

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: I would

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: say not to understand it.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Let us know.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Yeah, okay thank you. Have

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: you talked about the type of personnel requirements on DOC to support this wonderful program?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Yeah. We're aware of the fact that there is a small burden placed on DOC staff, particularly around corrections officers at facilities in which their education is in a separate building from the rest of it. So for us, that would be Northern and that would be Northwest. There's a yard there. It takes some extra steps to keep that open and free of people We're going be teaching there. Because of that, for Northwest, we actually teach during the day. So we embed our CCP staff at the same time that the VDOC educators are there. And at Northern, that's really the place that we're asking for some help there keeping those doors open. So in that case, we're trying to run three plus classes simultaneously in order to make sure that we're getting a lot out of that. So we know that we depend on correctional officers to keep the doors open. We just try to make sure that we're doing enough good for that system to make it worth

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: that time. But it's something we can do. Sure you will.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Anything else?

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank Thank very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Now we're gonna open to Barbara.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: As we're transitioning, I just want to say President Judy and Brush has been very modest about this program and their effort and just how special it is nationally in terms of this model and the leadership they have both exerted in a lot of different regional positions and other lives in terms of trying to help other states understand how to implement similar programs.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: So I think that's it's

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: a great program, they've been very honest with how they compare and the amount of work and time and effort that's not

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: been through over the years. And I will say,

[Rep. Herb Olson (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: morning, Commerce Committee, the Corrections Committee. My name is Jay Ramsey. I'm the director of workforce development at the Department of Labor, which means I'm responsible for all of the employment and training programs, including the operation of our 11 job centers across the state. And I'm going to be holding this chair down while other people cycle through. These are the folks that are experts and that are leading and doing the work in our regional offices with their correctional facilities that we're working with currently.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: So, Emily, would

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: you introduce yourself? Sure.

[Cindy Roebler (Assistant Director, VDOL Workforce Development Division)]: My name is Cindy Roebler, happy to be here today. I'm an assistant director with the Workforce Development Division. My focus primarily is supporting a team of six program administrators that manage and oversee our federal and state funding to include the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, our registered apprenticeship, our business services unit, a few more, but I think those are the ones that are most relevant to today's conversation.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: So I think we have one of our case managers or employment and training consultants joining us online. So they're not all here in the room physically with you. But Christina, if you're there, I'm going to have you round us up at the end. So I'm going to only talk for a couple of minutes. I come back to this facility map so that you can see where in the Vermont Department of Labor world, we call them American Job Centers. The American Job Centers are part of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which is federal funding. That's what makes us work. And we have 11 job centers across the state. Other states have job centers. Other states receive WIOA funds. So the language that you'll hear me say is a job center. You might also hear people refer to them as offices. But the job center is a place that you can go access a computer, search for jobs, get help with your resume, get help with your interview skills, and have a case manager and employment and training consultant help you make a connection with an employer if that's what we want, or we can help you explore training options. So if we go to the next slide in the reverse order, thank you, Roland. I just wanted to kind of raise up four, I think overarching goals that encapsulate the work that we do, that we want to do, that we're trying to do in partnership with Corrections. One is to prepare Vermonters who are exiting incarceration for a successful return to work and community life. Our part of that is about employment. Second goal is about early access to career guidance, labor market information, and job and training options. You're gonna hear us say labor on location. You're gonna hear us say hiring events and job fairs. The third bucket that I think our goals, spot launchers are connecting workforce services with education opportunities, including post release college coursework that you just heard CCB speak so eloquently about. And the fourth category would be strengthening employment outcomes and reducing recidivism. And so some of the stories that you might hear from regional managers today have to do with where the rub lies in that with employers. What gets in the way of people getting a job and keeping a job when they have been formerly incarcerated or they're justice involved? So we're gonna move ahead to slide seven. We're to turn it over to Cindy.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: All right,

[Cindy Roebler (Assistant Director, VDOL Workforce Development Division)]: so I think one thing that I would love to just start with, which I'm sure you all are aware, is that we really have two customers that we serve in the work that we do. We're working with individuals, all individuals across Vermont, to really secure employment, to secure training opportunities, to evaluate what their goals are. And I heard, I think it was Randy say at the beginning, not just help people get jobs, which we do in our job centers, but help them on a path toward a career. So that's really our, that's one customer. And then our other customers are the business customers. And particularly in recent years, and everybody's aware of this, but there are less people looking for jobs. Our work has been really focused on listening to businesses, making sure we understand what their needs are, and trying to help them line up with the available workers that there are. So, that's why the work with directions is really, really important, and that's part of that focus. We've already talked about the job centers. I mean, two core partners that we work very closely with in this work are the adult education providers around the state and also HireAbility Vermont and the Division for Blind and Visually Impaired. And then the other kind of engine behind it all is we have the Vermont JobLink system, which is our job matching database that allows Vermonters to be able to create a profile about themselves and also to access and it allows Vermont businesses to be able to post their job openings. It also serves as our case management system. So behind that, our employment and training specialists are keeping records and are keeping notes and enrollment information on the people and employers that we serve.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: And I think the other important part of the work of the employment and training consultants is knowing what the resources are out there in the community to make a referral. Like President Judy said, we're not trying to solve everybody's problem. We're trying to help them with employment and training. And if they need housing or they need referral to reach up, that's training that our staff have that we make those referrals and we know those partners and we work with those partners. And sometimes we're co enrolling people. We have our part, they have their part, all with the idea that there's a positive employment outcome and financial stability for that person.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So as we're talking about that, I know a few years ago, the Department of Labor held regional workshops convening everyone together. I think those were Cindy, I know you read the one in Yep. That we found that different regions of the state have different I think different times or where they all meet together. I think up in the kingdom, there were a lot of meetings, I think, at least once a month. And we found other parts of the state, they might meet once a year. And so is there any progress been made in the regions of bringing everyone together to have these conversations so that everyone almost becomes a seamless way of helping people navigate everything that they need to have, all the supports they need.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I think some of our regional managers would be able to speak to that, so I might put a pin in that proposal to talk about. We have the ICANN program, which is with Reach Up, the Individual Career Advancement Network, and that team of managers and staff people and managers from the Department of Labor and our staff meet, this was really at the individual level. Let's try to problem solve and troubleshoot what's going on for the individual. We don't have these large meetings like the summits, but we do tactical work with partners in each region. As the State Workforce Development Board has been receded and the Office of Workforce Strategy is standing itself up, I think those are opportunities, again, for us to pull people together and say, Here are all of the people in this region that do x, y, and z, so it can be a little bit more coordinated. But there are some tactical things that happen.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Yeah. Because I think, you know, I think just that one time that we had the summits, that we were able to everyone was able to meet. Probation and parole, corrections, know, adult learning services, all you know, CCB, all of the supports that are there. And think everyone was able to learn from each other what services they offered and were able to make inroads that way. And I think learning that probation and parole, we had conversations that that was a real issue, that I think that was taken to heart and things were developed that way. So I think they're valuable, and I hope that we start working towards convening those again.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I agree. Helps us all, especially when there's turnover in positions. Hold on.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Sure.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: So

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: I guess I'll just say that in our job centers, especially post COVID, our walk in traffic is not as robust as it has been maybe even distant years, and we have really applied a lot of new strategies to be able to meet people where they are at in the community, and honestly, this corrections work is an example of that, but in addition, our teams are out at local libraries, and we have a center in Orleans. If we need to serve people in remote parts of that county, we are out there at different libraries and supporting people. We call it labor on location. It's been really successful, and our staff are able to really meet people where they're at. I talked a little bit about our employer customer. Serving our employer customer has been really at the front of the work that we've been doing. We have developed some restructured our systems within our division to have staff in our regional offices who really focus on outreach to businesses. We have a business services manager that coordinates local job fairs and hiring events to just serve the employer customer. You're going to hear a little bit later about a really exciting piece of work a job fair in a facility. So that was like the ultimate, and we really did a lot of coordination and collaboration with DOC to pull that off. We also really rely on our referrals. So your point exactly is that if we're around a table with other service providers and sharing what tools we have in our toolbox, and they're hearing, well, I have an individual or someone that I'm working with that could really use the kind of support that you offer, we rely on referrals to generate good employment plans with people based off those referrals.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I'm sorry, I missed, I'm not following the referral thing. I did like referrals, who's referring who to what?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: We I'm sorry. That's okay. Good question. That's a

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: great question. We receive referrals from partners in the community whose participants are looking for support around employment. So it might be an educational institution, it might be a high school, it might be the Department of Corrections, it might be a probation officer who is working with an individual and seeing that they're continuing to stumble with making job applications out.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: The women's shelter who was working with some women who are escaping bad situations and relationships and they need to change jobs. They're referring them to us to make a connection wherever the person wants to go. And then we're gonna say, we'll work with you to develop a training plan, but also do you need help applying for food stamps, Three Squares? We're gonna help you do that. The reverse, if it comes from three squares, they will say the employment part of the work that you have to do with three squares is with the Department of Labor. So here's a warm handoff. I know this person, I'm gonna call them or I'm gonna walk you down. We see that as a referral. It's just the way the system integrates to provide the safety net. Thanks.

[Cindy Roebler (Assistant Director, VDOL Workforce Development Division)]: Yeah, I can add just one more example real quick. It's something that we're developing right now in real time is a partnership with the Office of Child Support to support non custodial parents that need added support to be able to continue to meet their obligations. We're going to start small in one region of the state, but we're hoping that we'll be able to receive a referral, do an assessment, learn a little bit about the person, and figure out what is the path that we need to put this person on to get back to work.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I want to go back to something Cindy was talking about with businesses. So the end goal is that people are employed. And in order to be employed, you have to have an employer, someone to pay the wages. We view that work with employers and the way that we talk to them through the lens of the quality jobs framework. And it's a policy at the federal level. It's a policy work that they've been advocating for even in the Biden administration. And it has to do with pay transparency and access to benefits and time off and recognizing that people are people and they're coming to you as an employer with all sorts of things in their background. And they're not all going to be able to show up to work in the same way. And if an employer has decided that they're going to shut the door on a particular part of someone's background in this instance, if they've decided that they don't wanna hire someone who's been justice involved, then they're in our current labor market, they're limiting access to a pipeline of potential workers. That is an employer's decision. They run their business. We're not trying to convince them otherwise. But in the work that the job centers are doing, that our regional managers are doing, we are looking for those employers who will say yes. Those employers who are willing to entertain this idea of taking someone who was just released, that they made a contact while they were still incarcerated and we're facilitating them out into the community, we want those employers who say yes. That's the network of doing. Those are the people that we're trying to work with.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So I've got a question on that. So are they also looking at what the person was convicted of? I'm particularly thinking of sex offenders. That's always been a tough situation in terms of placement of folks, regardless housing, education, whatever, once they're released. So you picking anything up from employers? Yes, we'll take folks who are reentering the community that have been sentenced, but if it's certain crimes, we're not taking them.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I have heard that, and I'm going to put a pin for our next guests to be able to tell their stories at the local level. But the story that I have is that it was an electrician and they were trying to hire, they're looking for workers, And I was inquiring, would you be willing to hire someone who's exiting corrections? And well, no, my customers don't want people in their homes who have this in their back. And it didn't matter what it was, but this is just an example of that maybe wasn't the right field for this person to go into, and maybe we should be coaching them to be considering other options just so that they're not limiting themselves.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Along those lines so this is a little new to me. But as I was prepping for this testimony, one of the things that was brought to my attention is the Second Chance Act grant through I it's I have it here. Hold on. It's Council of State Governance Justice Center. For employers, maybe there's some money available. If you hire folks who are coming out of incarceration, here's some wage support. You looked into those sorts of grants at all?

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: I am aware of them.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: I haven't looked at them.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Sure. So, I'm Kendall Smith, Department of Labor. So there are a few committees that we have done so far in Vermont. We did fill back in maybe 2015 or 'sixteen. So for most employers, you cannot ask on an application if you've ever been incarcerated. You can ask maybe in the first or second interview. There are certain occupations where there are federal requirements where you can't have certain criminal convictions on your background and a fingerprint scanner is required, so there are some federal strings attached to certain jobs. In terms of funding, I am not familiar with the specific programs we're referencing, and we will look into it, but we do have some funding support at the Department of Labor, particularly in the term called bonding, where we purchase federal bonds and a person I'm going to use, I apologize, just a very plain speak example. Let's say you've been incarcerated for stealing or embezzlement, and you're interested in applying at a jewelry store, and the jewelry shop owner is a little bit hesitant about employing you based on your background, we can actually apply a bond to that individual and them for a certain amount. So let's say they do end up stealing from you, you could recoup $5,000 $10,000 So that's a tool we do have in our toolbox to help support these populations transition into employment. But I'll have to look at the specific act.

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Yeah, and I don't know a lot about it either. Literally this morning, somebody mentions it to me, Second Chance Act grant program through the Justice Center. Thank you.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: And Jay, I just want to slide for our team. We're going

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: to have about half an hour. Okay. Video is scheduled. Yes.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We have another question though, so hang on. Carter?

[Carter [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: Yeah, this is a slight deviation, but it's just something for a snapshot. We've got you here and we're talking jobs and we're talking corrections. Just yesterday you know in our committee we debriefed on that six seven year crisis we have staffing at a correctional facility and it feels like it really needs to be an all hands on deck approach. I love what you're saying about going where the people are you know. I remember back in the day when I was working at BCA, was like DOL would go to American Legion, trying to find people out of the military. Demographics have changed obviously, but I was hoping you could just give me a picture of what the work with DOL and DOC looks like to try to sell

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: those cricket officials. Or billing correction officer positions. Exactly, those are the things that I'll talk about. Just generally, we produce a weekly jobs newsletter that's distributed to about 20,000 subscribers. You all might be on it because I might have added you all to that list just so that you can see it, but it highlights five jobs from each region, each of our regions of the state, and we have a spot to feature an employer. So just last week, corrections was our featured employer. Again, getting those jobs in front of 20,000 subscribers. Excavation. We also in the Northeast part of the state, the staff have taken a tour of the correctional training facilities so that our staff can see what kind of training the correctional officers go through. Why that matters is because it helps us talk to people who might be considering corrections. This is what this experience is like, this is what you're through. And I'm looking over here at Jen, you've had something else.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Yes, we've just had early conversations with corrections in New Port facility. They're going to table in our American Job Centers in Newport, where they're actually going to table the Great New York Job Center and meet the job security as they come in and just engage with them and you know, inform them of what a job with corrections might look like. And that will be happening soon.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: And then we host job fairs for all employers and Corrections is always invited and generally is showing up unless some other, some things are happening in the way that prevents them from being there. Idea being we're highlighting the opportunities and letting people just come through and have conversations about what those jobs look like. So that's some examples of the things that we're currently doing in collections. Okay, so just in the interest of time, I'm buzz through the right side of the column here. So as Cindy, I'll start to pick up at the bottom part here. So as Cindy said, we also connect people with training. So we're apprenticeship registration agency for the state, meaning an employer develops a training program, they document it and send it to us, and we register it because it met a certain set of standards that's established by the federal government. And that system allows for portability across state lines. We have some kinds of programs called pre apprenticeship, which means it's a preparatory program to get someone to be hired into an apprenticeship. We can talk more about that if you're interested. We're also interested in short term credentials. So, as our friends at Correction said, they are oriented to WorkKeys, which is part of the National Career Ready credential, which is also a credential that the secondary technical centers prepare students for. So they exit the tech centers with that credential at a minimum. That's something that shows to an employer you have some basic employability skills that you know theoretically what it is that it takes to show up to work on time and be a good employee. We're interested in all sorts of credentials, including the ones that CCG was talking about, manufacturing. So those are proxies for skill sets to employers, and employers are looking for them and value them when they're searching for workers. On the right hand side of this slide, I am going to not read all the words to you, but these are the services that we offer both in our job centers virtually and out in the community. The way that we work with folks is there's sort of two models. You could walk into a job center, talk to the job center specialist, and they're going to get you on the computer and help you with a job search. They might help you file for unemployment, but they're also going be talking to you about what the labor market's like and what kind of occupations are in high demand and what sorts of things pay well, and oh, you're interested in hospitality and tourism. Well, we have this job fair coming up and there are all of these employers that are gonna be there. We're trying to provide resources to folks when they come in because nobody likes to search for a job. And it's challenging for some folks to try to figure all of those steps out. We wanna make it easy. If you came in and said, well, I'm interested in hospitality and tourism, but I have this work history and I need a lot of, I'm having trouble putting all the pieces together, then we're going to set you up with a case manager and they're going to be working with you on a plan. So we're going to set goals with you, we're going to do assessments, we're going to sit with you and work through what are all of the things that you need to do to be employable or to get a job in this field that you want to be in, and we're going to start assigning federal resources to support you. That might be tuition for this training you want to be in, it might be that we're reimbursing some costs, or we're giving you a voucher to pay for the uniform that you need, or the steel toed shoes that you need, or tools. And if we don't have those funds available, we're making referrals to VSAC and some of our other partners. For instance, if you have a disability, we're going to refer you to higher ability. If you don't have a high school diploma, we're going to refer you to Vermont Adult Learning or whichever adult ed provider serves the community you're living in. So we have this network of resources and partners to be able to support people on their employment journey. And also one of the other tools that we have is work based learning supports. So you be in, you think you're interested in hospitality and tourism, we have an employer that will host you, we will pay your wages for a work experience for up to eight weeks. And if that employer says, we really like you, but we need to train you, then we're gonna convert that into an on the job training contract where we're going to then reimburse the employer the wages they're paying while they're training you. And so these are all the mechanisms and devices that we have to support people. They're not programs that we're outwardly promoting to people, but these are tools that we would use to support anybody and everybody, including those who are exiting correctional facilities. So I'm gonna hit that real fast, But in the interest of time, I'm going to invite one of our managers up. Jen Paul Mary is the regional manager for the Northeast Region. And Jen Introduce yourself. Jen also has two.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We do have a quick question.

[Unknown member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Is there

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: any way to find any data if this is successful? Like what you're doing, do you have like, did 3,000 people come through last year and 3,000 people have jobs? Good question. Because all of our work is federally funded, the federal government has performance measures for all the states that are all the same. We have a number of people served, number of people who exited our services. I didn't bring that with me, but Just where I can find it. Yeah. I can send it to this group if you Fantastic. Thank you. So Jen has two job centers, Newport and St. Johnsbury, and I'll stop talking for you. That's okay. So

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: we Just

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: for the record, Jen, name

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Sorry. Jen Palmieri, Regional Manager for the North Muskegon Region, St. Donsbury, Newport.

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: started doing what we call enrichment workshops with the Newport Correctional Facility last fall. And like what we talked about earlier, our staff had background checks. Once that was completed, we'd go in, we'd look similar to this. We have a PowerPoint that we deliver. It's in a classroom. Residents are very, very respectful, very engaged. A lot of what Joyce was saying, they ask a lot of great questions. They are sponges that just soak up the information that we're sharing with them. And by going into the facility, hope is that we're hoping to create a relationship with them, and we can start to build trust so that once they're released, they know the services that we provide, there's no fee to them, and that we have 11 job centers across the state. So wherever they land, there is going to be an employment and training consultant leader them that is eager to help them. And so we just started that in August, and then we went again in November, and we're going to do it quarterly. And this is at the Newport Correctional Facility.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Jen, when someone is released, are they expected to reach out to you, or does someone from your office reach out to them to see where they are? Do they want more help? That type of thing.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Either way, while we're in the facility, we help them create a remote job link account, and we also help them draft a resume. And so depending on where they land and maybe like your contact information, with their email or phone that might change. So, yes, they know they can get ahold of us. They have our contact information, and we're very new for us and we started this fall. So we're hopeful that we'll see some positive outcomes, but really just to let them know these services are available to them at no cost, and that we're a friendly base, and that we're eager to help them.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So, it's really up to the person that's being released to connect with you. You don't hear from DOC that the person has been released, or do you?

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Not yet, we haven't, because we just started this in August, there's some folks that are going be released in the next 1980s, and we're not sure where they're going to end up, It will be in the Northeast Kingdom or maybe other parts of The States. This is just a very, very particular level of information sharing services that we provide. And the feedback that we've gotten, like I said, the residents are very, very respectful, ask great questions. They'll say, gentleman said, So I just go into your office? And I said, Yeah, We have somebody right at

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: the front desk. Sometimes they bite you

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: and your baby. You never know. I heard you over, You just come in and we'll take it from there. He goes, What do I say? And I said, Just say you want help while you talk? And he's like, okay. So I think, you know, it's like anything, it's that first step. It's difficult, and I feel like if you can make that first step happen while they're in the facility, they'll be more likely to engage with us once they're released. So that's, like, our biggest goal. There.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: I'm just wondering if there's a way of follow-up with you know, between corrections and and with Department of Labor to be able to follow-up with them when they're released if they haven't followed up with you, if they haven't done it on their own. Maybe just another prod that is, we're we're still here. We're here. We wanna help you. You know, come invite them to come in again.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: He might be able to speak more because they're a little bit further ahead of us in the process. So so that is, you know, what we've just started and so far, it seems to be going well. And like I spoke earlier, we did get a tour of the correctional training facility in Windham at the Investment Park. We just did that a couple weeks ago, our team, and got to see the facility and meet with the director and just get a better idea of what that six weeks looks like so that we always refer job seekers to jobs with corrections. But it just helps us better inform them of that. So we've done that, and like Katie said, their jobs are featured in Vermont Job Link, they have a featured employer, and our weekly newsletter. Oh, I did want to mention, just because I really forget, we when you were talking about the summits that we did. So we have what we call NAQ workforce partners. We do meet every two weeks virtually on Microsoft Teams, and that is all of the community partners. So like part of labor, higher ability, CCB, adult education, working scheme and learning services, probation and goals, working scheme and business services, VSAC. We all meet every two weeks and just do an info sharing. Like if there's training that's happening, we have guest speakers that come in. We had Northeast Gaining Learning Services talk about their step up healthcare program that's going to be launching in March. And so just so we do do that we meet every two weeks for one hour, and just share what's going on in our community, how can we support one another. So yes, not a big, large summit, but it is online and we need to keep the communication flowing.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Is that something that Department of Labor kind of takes charge of and sets that up?

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: It is actually a labor that does that, so hireability. But I would say there's key stakeholder. We also put on the large job fairs, anything workforce partners.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Just wondering if there's a way to replicate that around the state or if we are doing that.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: Those meetings, higher ability to be able to organize workforce partner meetings do happen at the

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: you want to share?

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Oh, okay. So I had the opportunity to attend a reentry simulation at the federal correctional facility in Berlin, New Hampshire back in 2024. If anybody ever has an opportunity to attend one of those, they should. It's absolutely fascinating. And that is a very large federal correctional facility. At that time, they had seven eighty five inmates roughly. And so it was in a big, it looked like a big empty cafeteria, kind of just empty. They had all of the inmates sitting in the middle of the room and then tables set up all around the perimeter. And the tables, each table represented a different service provider in the community. So I see some pinching in you guys.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: You asked you ran one last

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: year for us at the hotel, and it was one of the most frustrating things we've all ever done.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Okay, so you got to go.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: Yes, we did. Yes.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: And I've worked with folks of all walks of life for years, and it just was like an moment for me. And one takeaway for me is that we have terminology, free swears, which is food stamps, food benefits, hireability, vocoria. Every state has different terminology, and the residents there were like, What? It's only a different language. They were just like, What is that email? This is federal, so they don't come all over The United States. But they said it would be really helpful if we could mobilize services somehow, if we could have an app, so that wherever they planned, that they could see all the services around them and how to locate them, how to access them. So that was very interesting. And the inmates asked the same questions. They said, I had no idea that you provided these services. And there were representatives from all of New England at this reentry stipulation. And the inmates were just like, I had no idea that you offered these services, that there was no charge. And one gentleman said, I can't keep coming back to prison, I just can't. So I'm glad you had the opportunity to admit that.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: It was

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: very impactful.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Thank

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: you. Thank you, Jeff. Next up, we have Dean Montebiccia, who is the regional manager of our Southeast Region, which includes Springfield and Broward. Dean and his team are sort of ahead of the rest of our regional job centers in the work with Corrections, so he has a few more illustrative examples.

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: So good morning, thank you, chairman and the committee for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Dean Mutwiccia, I'm the regional manager for the workforce development team in the Southeast Region of the state. I'll just start with saying that jobs save lives and make communities safer. Can you imagine a situation where a justice affected individual was preparing for reentry in the community, and they had stable employment waiting for

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: them. Let me tell

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: you a story about that. Our team worked with an individual with the DOC, partnered with the DOC and the Department of Labor, and we worked with such a situation. This individual was incarcerated just prior to completing his electrician's apprenticeship. He needed to complete the apprenticeship, but he wasn't able to take his journeyman's exam, and his hours were due to expire before he was released. Our team worked with this individual, our team, our teams, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Labor, worked with this individual. We were able to enroll him in the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, this is a federal grant that my team has been talking about. And we were able to support him to take his test while he was incarcerated. The Department of Labor provided free vocational education support to help him take his practice exam and additionally provided financial supports to help him take his licensing exam. We met this individual through our quarterly enrichment workshops, which would help us to build relationships and connections with all of the individuals that are preparing for reentry within six to nine months. So I'll get into a little bit of, you've learned about what we do. I'm going to tell you and you know about

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: the why and I'm going

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: to tell you a little bit how we do it from our region. Through labor on vacation activities that our team has talked about, we helped him create a resume, retool his resume, help provide interviewing skills, mock interviews, discuss training options that are subsidized through ELA and help them work towards garnering an industry recognized credential. Through our work with the Department of Corrections, our team was able to arrange a connection with a local electrician, and this individual was offered a job upon her lease. So while we provide these services to all of Vermonters, especially those that are considered priority populations, like justice affected individuals, I'll say that it creates safer communities, it's more efficient use of tax dollars. However, there is work that is needed to bring this to scale. Basically, we ultimately create and cultivate relationships with these individuals as they prepare for reentry. This provides an opportunity to provide a warm handoff anywhere in the state that they may be released. We've talked about, Jay has talked about the things that we provide as far as labor on location. All of these services we provide inside the facility through extensive work with the DOC, our team has a very unique situation where we have access to the DOC. We go in there on a quarterly basis with our other partner agencies like ICANN and other human agencies like Hirability and Adult Med, providing information on all of our services. We then go in on a monthly basis to provide labor on location services to help them do all of these things. Now, what we just started recently doing was launching, if you can believe this, a job fair inside of a corrections facility. Imagine that, right? I mean, it's pretty interesting. So we pulled one off last August with the help of the DOC and through our close work, we're going to be hosting and pulling another one off in February. So with the host that with justice affected individuals that are gonna be leaving incarceration and approaching reentry within six to nine months, we can provide them with all of the tools to prepare for these events and then arrive at the event and then have an opportunity to cultivate an employment opportunity with these global employers. And I'll let you know that we also do provide some partner agencies that come to these events that will help provide some services. The commissioner talked a little bit about bonding. We'll have our bonding person there. We'll also be able to talk about the work opportunity tax credit. So this is something that our team can talk to the just suspected people, we'll say the job seeker in this situation, as well as the employer on-site. And then we'll have our partners there that talk about opportunities and resources that are available as they approach re entry. Eight zero two Vermont is a resource that we use and the mover is a resource we use because these participants may not necessarily have reliable transportation. I'll just say, I'll finish with saying that this work is important to the future of Vermont, because jobs save lives and make communities safer.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Can you

[Troy [last name unknown] (Committee Member)]: say more about the job fairs and how easy or difficult it was to get employers to go to those job fairs and how many employers showed up and do you have a target number in the future?

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: Sure. So at our first job fair, we had five employers and we had four agencies. It took a little bit of We're working on affecting the stigma and blowing up the stigma around corrections and just as affected people. So in advance of that, for this event, the team at the DOC at the Southern State Corrections Facility has been kind enough to provide the employers with the opportunity to take a tour of the facility prior to the event on the day we're having the event. And our team is also meeting with these employers virtually and in person prior to the event to have meetings to discuss what their concerns might be and how we can create a workaround for that. The second part of your answer to your question is, it was challenging. I mean, it's initially very difficult, but thankfully with some of our employers that we work with, they are willing to hire justice affected people as a second chance employer.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So those at the job fair that you had, were they, you had it at Southern State. So were those employers more from Springfield, Rutland, or was it further out?

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: Great question. So our target for these job fairs is to provide a few statewide employers. An example might be Casella Waste Management or Ryder Foods or Sodexo.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: So

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: they're across the state because as you know, not everyone is going to be released to the Southeast area of the state. We also provided some local employers in the Southeast Region that were able to provide opportunities so that they can make connections for the people that are being released locally.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We had some questions, Gina, and then

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Have you thought about a way to make this scalable to small employers?

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: Like

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: I have a small painting company, think it's deployed for maybe five to seven people at any given time. I've had a good number of folks that have been involved with corrections that have worked for me and with great people and with second chances. I think that if you could reach out to a lot of smaller employers too and figure out a way to scale that, then it can be really helpful because it's not necessarily the company that can give you 50 job openings, but the company that can give you one that needs one person. And it's a great labor force that's on path.

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: It could be Well, it is true working with this largely untapped labor pool. We're trying our best small team, small but mighty, in trying to cultivate additional and more relationships with employers. So while I did mention that we included statewide employers like Sodexo, Celebate Waste Management, for example, Rutland Foods, we do have some other small employers like Lawrence and Wilbur Electric is an example.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Really small companies look at the contractors registry, pull up emails from all the people that are on the contractors registry and shoot them an email.

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: That is a fantastic selection, that's a fantastic suggestion, and we are working our way through the list that we've got.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Yeah, absolutely. We do agree with it.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: Thank you. The opportunity, so we're starting small here and I think we want to be able to replicate this work and so as we start to expand out, that would be where we're going to reach out and connect with more employers. We are changing the way that we're doing the external kind of basic job fairs. And so I'd

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: like to see if we talk to

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: you about that. Yeah, absolutely. That

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: mostly answered my

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: question. Kevin?

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Curious as to whether you have any idea, rough order of magnitude, of what percentage of individuals don't take advantage of all these opportunities that you can't provide for two hours. I would consider those individuals at risk if they don't avail themselves of all this good information and help. I'm wondering if DOC has got some kind of a Well, first of all, and then action plans that If they don't have housing, if they don't have health, if they don't have employment, everybody's at risk.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: Yeah, I just was looking. We serve 92 people who are justice involved just this and this last calendar year. I think our services are voluntary. So we're not trying to keep anything a secret. We're out there promoting and they think just people aren't paying attention or they think it's not for them. And I think when Jen was up here talking, it's a surprise. Oh, there's a place that I can go, and people will help me search for a job? I think there's a little bit of a disconnect there, and I think it's also a matter of pride. There's a member of my family who, you know what I do, but will not go into a job center and doesn't want to work with anyone to improve their life. And so I think the challenge is, how do we help people see that this is for everyone and we want to serve as many people as possible, and it's for you, and it's for you, and any of your constituents. But how do we get more people in, I think, is the challenge that we face.

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So maybe my question should have been to DOC, put a nice spin on it, but if only half of the people who are being released take advantage of all of these services, what are we doing about the ones that don't? We can't afford some, a horse to drink, you know, at least to be aware and then have some kind of follow-up that says, yeah, we're aware

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: of it.

[Rep. Deborah Lynch (Member, House Corrections & Institutions)]: And you're not the people necessarily to answer that question, but

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: Yes, and I can speak to that a bit from my team's perspective. As we work very closely with the DOC, how do I say this? Word's gotten out. So we are cultivating this history and people are, it's generating additional interest.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: Now, I

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: think that the longer that we do this, the more interest will be generated and the more participants we can capture.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So along those lines, I know we're running out of time. It would be lovely to understand when these programs started, how long they've been going, and some of the learnings that you've had from them. And as you're talking about this job fair, and I know how much data collection you do, I'm just curious what that loop that you've set up is to learn about what's working, what's not working, what are the training tools that we need to focus more energy on, right, all of those things. And I know we're out of time, but just we see each other a lot.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: You've asking about it when it comes to your community.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Yeah, I haven't. Those

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: are good questions. And this

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: is really early work. Dean's region is ahead by about two years. Two years, but really,

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: ten months of intensive work. I mean, if you're a human, you'd be right about your gestation period right now. That's where we're at. So it's very new.

[Unknown member (House Commerce & Economic Development)]: And then the last thing is we're in such we don't have enough jobs for the people we have sorry. We don't have enough people for the jobs that we have in the state. If we ever get to the point where we do actually have a population with enough people for the jobs, I would hope that we don't stop focusing on these programs, because these are the programs that change people's lives. And that is what we need to do as government, is change people's lives for the better. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing. So I have one off the wall question.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So the folks that you've worked with today, has there been any issue with their ID identification? Has there been any issues with their ID? Be honest about it. The

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: short answer is with the people that we have worked with, that we've enrolled in the WIOA program, no.

[Brian O’Connell (Director of Corrections Education, CCV)]: However,

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: we do have issues with identification, birth certificate, social security card, all the great stuff that you need on your I-nine. That they don't have. But I think that the DOC team is working really hard to try to make that happen. And we're also trying really hard to make that happen through our other partner agencies in the event that these things are not, they're not able to obtain them prior to release.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: And that's pretty common. Folks don't even know where they were born. Some folks don't even have a clue about a social security number or even how to access it. And that is the stumbling block to even getting to an ID. And I just wanted to put that on the table because we just assume that everyone who's incarcerated is like us, where we know where to go, we have all that information, and that is not the case. I just want to put that on the table for folks to start understanding this. That

[Dean Mutwiccia (Regional Manager, VT Department of Labor – Southeast Region)]: really speaks to our ability to provide referral services to help provide the pathways for them to obtain those credentials.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan (Member, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Okay, the highway to the work that agencies and individuals have to do to get information across state lines is, I'm going through it right now. It's very hard.

[Jay Ramsey (Director of Workforce Development, VT Department of Labor)]: We have a staff person who is going to testify on Zoom, but I think in the interest of time, we're going to need to not do that. So I will just make my closing remark, which is the takeaway here is that we're not done. There's a lot of opportunities for us to continue to grow in the relationship with Corrections in all of their facilities. And the work that our team has talked to you about today is the sample of the work that we intend to do with corrections. And I appreciate the questions that you've all asked that highlight some areas where we need to put our thinking caps on to improve that connection even more. So thank you for holding this joint hearing and for inviting us all in to talk about the good work that we're doing to support justice affected individuals as they exit our correction facilities. Thank you. You, Greg. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Commissioner, thank you, deputy commissioner. It's good to see our departments working together. This is something that we've, I think, talked about for a long time, and it's good to see that that things are moving in in a good direction. So thank you. Appreciate it. All the work that everybody does on both Corrections and and Herb Olson. So with that, I think