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[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Reports that we have to
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Give up for life.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Give up some folks to see the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is January 21. It's Wednesday. With us today is one of our committee members, Troy Headrick, who's gonna walk us through it quickly on age six thirty five, which deals with supervisory fees that are charged to folks who are on probation, furlough, and for all, any community summons. So I'm turning it over to you, Troy. Robert Headrick, state representative from Burlington, Vermont. Section of
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: it anyway. Today, I am introducing 06:35, a really, fairly direct, not complicated at all sort of bill. In a nutshell, it ends the practice of the DOC administrating any supervision fee for folks who are on being released parole, burial, probation, no supervision fees. The goal is pretty simple. It's to reduce unnecessarily burdensome financial commitments on Vermonters who are trying to stabilize their lives after release, after being involved with our justice system. For me, it's about affordability, word of the year, fairness, and modernizing what has become fairly outdated practice. Let me just give you my story here. I have worked a job since I was actually in grade school. Parents it was important for my parents to send me to the private Catholic school, and that came with tuition. I have three brothers, so those costs add up quickly. But even in grade school, I worked to the dish room cafeteria in exchange for tuition or part commission. Went to the same sort of high school. I worked for the custodial staff after school for a similar thing until I was old enough to be able to actually get a job. And then I worked at all the dish room experience, so I worked in the dish room of a restaurant.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I hope you wash dishes at home.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I do. I'm a dishwasher now. Seriously, I have never not been without a job. I oftentimes taken a second job to afford a project or whatever. Because when I get my house redone He
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: charges so much.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: He does. I have to build a little extra cash. Anyway, I have worked for a very long time. I have never had to pay the people who supervise me for the privilege of doing that. I will concede that there are times where I might be worthy of a supervisory fine of some sort.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Put that on.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Perhaps that has happened. Yes. The chair can talk about that. The thing is, I don't have to pay people to supervise me. Nobody does. We charge a supervisory fee to folks who are on probation, parole, or furlough. And these are some of the these are folks who can probably least afford it. So what the bill does, eliminates the statutory language in title 28 that authorized DOC to be able to do this. It ends future billing and collection of those fees. It ends any collection activity that's currently going on tied to unpaid supervisory fees, including garnishment. Although, I'll turn to DOC. Don't know if that do you do garnishment right now? Yeah. Yeah. It would forgive any outstanding supervisory fees, balances, and then it would just require DOC to align their rules with any statutory change that we make. I wanna be clear about what this bill does not do. It does not affect restitution in any sort of way. And I'll turn to DOC again just to make sure I'm not speaking out of out of turn here. Restitution funds and things like that are in a separate statute, separate practice. Supervision fees do not fund any sort of restitution fund or anything like that. It does not change sentencing authority in any way whatsoever. It doesn't change supervision conditions in any way whatsoever. It doesn't alter victim rights in any way whatsoever. It does not create any new program, funding stream, or mandate, or anything like that. And it would not require any backfilling of revenue in any sort of way. This is just ending the practice. And DOC, I'm sure, can provide I've had a brief conversation with them. I don't think this is going to be an onerous task, but we can certainly bring DOC and the deputy commissioner in to talk about the actual money that's involved. Why this matters people under supervision are often housing insecure. They're often working very low wage jobs. They're oftentimes rebuilding their credits, supporting families, and oftentimes managing treatment or recovery. Even modest fees and it's up to $30 a month, if I remember right can, if they're not being paid, immediately begins that accumulation of debt, increasing their instability, increasing their barriers to employment and housing, housing especially, and then potential long term financial harm if that persists for a long time. As I've already said, this burden falls disproportionately on people with the fewest amount of resources. That inequity does not improve public safety in any way whatsoever. These are folks who have been released. I think it works in a general sense against a successful reentry, which is something this committee is charged with improving. Practical impacts this reduces administrative burden on the DOC to some degree. We can ask them about that. Again, removes a recurring financial stressor for people who are trying to comply with supervision. But oftentimes, this might be the only thing that puts them out of compliance. So I think we can handle this. I think it's a pretty quick lift. I'm not allowed to do it. It just ends a practice that, to me, feels out of dated and inequitable.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: One question. It's in the part
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Perfect.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah. In the that's striped that's through, that supervisory fees collected by the Department shall be credited to a special supervision and victim restitution fund established advantage pursuant to 32 PSF. Are the current fees going to victim restitution?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: My understanding is no. Let's ask DOC that to Oh, okay. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Talked about this a little bit last year. I remember commissioner Demos saying they're not collecting any fees, costing the department money to implement this, and they're not doing anything. I remember the commissioner saying that last year.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So then a follow-up question. You had mentioned that it would add you, from your preliminary talks with DOC, it would add some administrative burden to remove any restrictions. Oh, sorry, okay. That's because that's what I understood from that as well. Kevin, come here.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: God bless you.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: think these are all gonna be DOC questions. I just wanna make sure when
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: it got instituted, how many states do it, how much this is
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: per year, blah, blah, blah, Are these all DOC questions? Are there any sort of context or history or anything you want to talk about?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't have the answer, but the chair might.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was back 2002, 2003, 2004. There was a push in the state house for folks who were incarcerated to pay for their incarceration, as well as folks who are under supervision to pay for their supervision. And that's where the language came. That's why it's up to a certain amount. And that's why it's only for those in supervision. It wasn't for those who are incarcerated. But there was a move in the building for folks to pay.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Well, so what you described is Vermont specific. And then my other question, and it can be for DOC later, is what is the national context of the build?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't know. I think it
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: was just the mood in the building.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: These are all DOC questions. That's fine. Yeah. Okay, thanks.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What do you mean by the mood in the building? Can you give us a sense
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: of it?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There was people wanting people who are incarcerated or folks who are under supervision of the community to pay their way. There was the mood in the building among legislators at the time. And that would have been 2002, 2003, because I know the committee that I was on, I wasn't on this committee. I was on another committee. More folks who were putting forward those pieces of legislation. Makes
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: sense to me, Troy. At some point, it may not be appropriate today, but it's like to hear from DOC. I'm guessing that these are very small revenue streams.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you want to weigh in? We haven't decided if we're going
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to work
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on the bill or not.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I can speak to the fiscal impacts. I think it would be around three hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It What, would 350,000?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Annually.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That would be collected?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That you would have to backfill as a result of not having the supervision fees. So what are you saying?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That the supervision fees are providing, are bringing in 350,000? Very small stream, yes. $3.50 or 350,350 thousand.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So 350 k.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Let me reframe the what so it it would be and I know it's premature, but when we get to it, what those streams are,
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: what the pump rate is, and what's and
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: there must be staff who spends their time solely or mostly the bed. So so there would be an outside, and so you wouldn't need that staff anymore. That's the thing.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Doesn't make any sense.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: It sounds like a
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: lot of money.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't make any sense.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: How many people do we have on supervision?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Around 500.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. And it takes $30 a month. So Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But are you collecting that $30 up to $30 a month? Because testimony last year that we heard from the commissioner was they're not getting money in, it's asking more to administer it than what you're getting in.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, I can't speak to the quantification of staff time and administrative burden for that at the moment, but it does go towards the cost of supervising someone. Obviously, it makes up a very small amount of the cost of supervising someone, but we can have our deputy commissioner come in to share more about
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that. So you're saying the fees right now are bringing in a revenue of $350,000 that you're collecting from folks, actually collecting from folks who are on probation, furlough and parole. Yes. So why did we hear last year that it's costing more to administer it than money coming in? Because I remember hearing that from the commissioner last year. Yeah, I can't speak to what
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: the commissioner was saying last year, but we can certainly come in with a cost analysis prepared for the committee. Shawn?
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Just doing some math. So you're saying that there's 4,200 people that are on parole, payroll, I mean, furlough, and just and and are in are being, you know Supervised. Supervised. So you're saying it's about 4,200 people. Is that, like, an average? Like, a month? It's fair. Yeah. And they're paying $30 a month each?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Of there's sorry, slightly understated. As of today, there's 4,740 people, so 4,740, on supervision. A majority of them are on probation.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: And all of them are paying $30 a month? No. That's how much they would pay a year. $75 for the record, and it says up to in that amount.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Because it's a lot of it it just seems like that's a lot it's a lot more money than 200 or $300,000 a year.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah. I think
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: we I need to figure that out. Right?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I I think our deputy commissioner gets
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm gonna bring us back. I don't we don't have to have we can have we can have this conversation on the members' arms front
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of us.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Right. I wanna just want to reset here too and talk about the fact that from a fundamental basis, I think asking somebody to pay for their own supervision is ridiculous and lands on people who can least afford it. I don't like the system. The fundamental equity question here as well. And these are not conditions of release. That's not what these are. This is just a fee. Tack down to people who the state has determined needs continued supervision. That doesn't make sense to me.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I just say I'm interested in continuing to work
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on that.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I think it's a and it's inconsistent, though. Right? If somebody's incarcerated for a year, we don't hand them a bill for $90,000 when they get out. Right?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We wanted
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to. That wouldn't cover it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Wanted to. Very slow.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: No. I I I would certainly be interested.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. That helps.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I agree.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. Shawn? Yeah. I I mean, I'm really struggling. You know, we're trying to get these people to get to a spot in their lives where they're being successful. I kinda can't this I don't wanna get too sidetracked, but I can't even believe that they're not getting, like, unemployment when they're leaving or something to get some kind of money to get ahead, and then we're hitting them with fees. Do we want them? Are we saying we want them back in in our facilities? Because that's it's it seems to me that's where we're pushing people. So I'm a big believer in pushing.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Sounds like a representative from Chevron might have them back then. Yeah. At
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: least he seems interested in the bill. Possibly.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I am. Schedule we'll schedule POC. Who administers the victim restitution fund? Do you know? Is that true? It gets under your private services.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Don't do it. Yeah. You got a good thing too.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we could schedule DOC and someone from the Center for Crime Victim Services just to see what the impact on the restitution fund would be. Other folks that folks wanna have in?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: In some sort of context, you've given me some in terms of local history, but some sort of national context. I don't know. You know? Is this happening in lots of places? Has it happened in lots of I I don't think it's right either. I agree with Troy, logically. But
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'd let council could take a look at the
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I suppose.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else? We can know what to schedule. So, Tay, if we could reach out to DOC Center for Crime Victim Services and see maybe if we have time Friday. If they have time on Friday or next week, Tuesday or something. And you will need to let who drafted this? John? John. John. So I'll have to let John know about it too.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Good.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And John could also give us a walk through of the bill. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. I don't know if John really needs to, but John could give us a quick walk through of the bill, and then the two folks could testify.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Have you, yourself, spoken with anybody who's had to pay this restitution?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I mean, I'm sure I have. I haven't talked about this topic with folks who have been
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was wondering where we could go. I
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: remember
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: pretty clearly last year, commissioner general saying, do away with these fees because we're not collecting. It's harder to costing more to administer than what we're getting. I don't know if other folks remember that, but I remember him making that statement a few times last year.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Do you happen to know, Haley, if there's an outstanding balance total right now? Uncollected. Uncollected.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't know that off the top my head, but we
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: could I
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: seem to remember that. I've had that conversation too.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're almost something.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Alice, among the testimony that we're seeking then, is there already included what happens? Suppose these folks get off of supervision, but they haven't paid everything. Does that go to collections? Does it stick with them? Is that its own problem? Can that be among the things that we hear? Right? Yeah, I don't know who to ask.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a condition of relief. Law enforcement wants
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to I would be curious because one mechanism now and I'm not
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: it could be that it's just taken out of state tax return. It's a mechanism to say it's available to it. I'm not saying that's the case.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There rules that have been promulgated for this, or is it just your policies and directives?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I can check.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I do think there are some rules. This is part of the bill directing that John and I were talking about. There's I'm remembering an email right now. He said, if you have to change the rules, that happens anyway because that's in the bill, which just tells me that there are some rules in our
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the rules may dictate what you do when a person finishes
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: supervision. The
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: rules may indicate that, or the policies and directives in DOC. So, on page two, what's being deleted, is that the only place in statute that refers to these supervision fees?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Know That's under tab.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I can the
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: email I'm sending, John. I know he was thorough in trying to find this. I'm not remembering the email conversation we had specifically to know I could call up emails from just a second.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Well, would it then be in the rules where how is it determined up to 30?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, rules would include, if you look on lines 14 through 17 on page two, rules will govern the collection, including period of time that they'd be subject to the fees and then the offender's ability to pay such fees. So that would go into, what, up to $30 would play in.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Let me just read from an email that I had from John as we were working through this. This is early January. Rules repeal I've included section four for a DOC rules review per your direction. But please note that the repeal of rules happens by operation of law when the underlying statutory authority is removed. So we don't have to technically direct them to do that. Additional fees. I did not find this is a little different than your question, but said, I did not find cross references to the underlying statute or any related special fund, but did want to flag your attention to the location of other fees where DOC conceivable could smuggle a supervisory type fee. Could what? Smuggle a supervisory type fee. There's other places where they could offset these fees that we might want to explore. I didn't go into depth with him about this. So '28 BSA, 03/1953. We don't have to get into this now. But let's talk about this with John when he goes through the bill. He mentions one, two, three, four very specific exceptions of '28. Yeah. So 28 BSA seven fifty one is offender work, wage reduction for various purposes. Those are some sneaky things in there. I'm not saying DSE is sneaky. I'm just saying
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, but offender work as well, they're within the facility.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And then 28 BSA four zero three, parole, reasonable fees for counseling and treatment services. 28 BSA seven fifty five, work release, disposition of earnings. So there's some other things that might creep into the conversation.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I wonder if that's where some of the $350,000 revenue is coming from.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: yeah, so there's a bit of an onion to peel here that could potentially peel here. But I think the fundamental question remains.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was simple.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah, I got one more question. Confusing to me. So this is from 28 BSA 100, which is cited in what you provided us. And it talks about collecting the fee of up to 30 a month. Supervisory fees collected by the department shall be credited to a special supervision and the victim restitution fund.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And anecdotally, I've heard that that doesn't happen. So we want to
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So they're named together. You're saying it all goes towards the one
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't know the answer, but I've been told that restitution is not funded through this lawsuit. Cool. I was
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: just surprised to urgency at the end. Thanks.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else? We'll schedule some work on this, and then see where we go. Okay? Make a chart? I have a bill for that, he says. Okay. Let's shift gears a little bit here. And in the cell. So this is coming from House of Labs Committee, and this is just an exercise that we have to do every year. There are reports that come in on an annual basis or different times of different cities. And what we need to do is we need to go through this, and it's also on the back, and indicate, do we want to continue receiving these reports? Do we wanna say, I give it one more year and see? Or do we wanna say, no way do we need this? Okay. That makes sense to folks?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yep.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The first one, of course, this impacts many folks, not just us. Progress report on implementing RACH. Yes. We keep
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that. James?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Twice a year. Yeah. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Department of Corrections, reinstating practice of connecting individuals in a correctional facility due to what?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Is this the caps?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Due to the caps with community based use. Year
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: One time report.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a one time report in '26. That's done because we don't have enough recovery beds out there. Encaps are coming into corrections on and on. So I say we keep this because it's '26.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So it's
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: only once a year.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we had a big report about this way back in 2010 or '12. So with a plan on how to do it and never got funded and never got done.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Facility. So just question. So when it says once,
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's does that mean one time.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Just a one time an annual means every year when they go? Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I would assume. Mhmm.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: And then why if there's a report from 2025 that's scheduled for once, are we even looking at this? It should just be gone. Right?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, that's the cash fund, which I'm reading well. This starts me. It
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: says they do
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any reliance on this document by a user is strictly at the risk of the user. Did you read the introduction?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It was almost fabulous.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Facility work programs, act number 26 27 is this last year's bills? Yes.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Oh,
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we did that. We did that. There's a budget adjustment we did last year because of the offender work program was running a deficit. And then it's miscellaneous. We asked you guys for a report back.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We submitted a report.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We did. Okey dokey.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: At the request of the committee. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Troy, maybe you could find that report.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mean, not Troy. Kate. Now it's Troy. I'm
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: very interested in that report, and so I vaguely remember it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, because they had a hole in their budget, and we wondered why that accumulated over time, and we had recommended language in the BAA last year. Not our BAA, but the general fund. The cash fund for capital and
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We need that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We need that every year.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We definitely don't need the victim notification. That's where it's
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: any of that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's coming in.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Need that to be.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Good for this year. S 109, last year, fund participation outcomes services programming for family support. Was that kids apart? I think that was the family advisory committee. I told her 09:00 to look at it. And that's annual. So that would just be stuff.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Wait, S109 one is not annual. It's a one time.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, it's annual.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, it's S109. It's on there twice. Sorry.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, it's the family support program from DOC. It's Act 64.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Act
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 64. You know, that was that was a was a big bill that was going all over the place. We added things, judiciary had things.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Sansi's right. Acts 64.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I believe that's 27 pages. A lot of it's been readapted.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I can't
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Here. I got it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't even come up.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Here. It's the bell proposes to make number of miscellaneous items.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know. But you gotta get the actual that came from the senate. You gotta get the act. It doesn't
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: come up. I'm this right now. Ross. All right. This Provide and sustain trauma informed family support services and programming pursuant to section 128 of this title. I don't 128, Incarcerated Parents and Guardians Family Support Program. So this is on page 27 of Act 64. Department of Corrections shall establish the family support program to provide free parenting and family support at each correctional facility to all incarcerated individuals who are parents and guardians regardless of gender. I don't remember putting that into Act 64. That well, that's where it got jumped on too at the end of the year. Oh, that's right. That's right.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: After
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I because we had the bill. You did the bill, and then we used the vehicle. So this
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: vetoed. Is
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Did s one zero nine get vetoed?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. No. The original Kids Apart bill got vetoed, then we added it. Right. It.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Right. They're vetoed because of the Language.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Legislative oversight.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Or Overreach. Overreach.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Annual report on or before July 1, written report to us and judiciary on the funding participation outcomes, any progress towards sustained statewide
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Pull them in.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Implement under in Chittenden and Newport. Right. So we started this. So I would say maybe keep it for a few years, see how it goes because we just opened up Kids Apart in Newport.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Wait. Well, I don't even know if they're are they even open yet?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't even know if they're started it yet. They've started I think they were staffed and ready to go.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Did she get it going? I mean, that was last month, they hadn't gotten up there yet.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: But they were close.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Next one is inmate population reduction from the judicial branch. What's that?
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I think we noticed that.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Didn't see
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: That was 01/1986 of '24, but that was in the previous biennial.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Right now, there's no reduction.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: That was from a bill that proposed eliminating out of state housing for folks who are incarcerated. And I believe that the kind of outcome of that bill was to end up doing a report about reducing the population of incarceration.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. That was short. Was a few
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: years Come on, Headrick.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's how we approach
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: it. Oh, that's yeah. There was a compromise there?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. So do we get rid of this? It's a one time thing in '25. They already did it. It was the judiciary.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It's not even us. Yeah.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: It just just so yeah. Yeah. So I have to say, if it's a one time thing and we're in '26, why is
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: it still here? Is it because they don't go away? Once the Conor and I are asking, yes.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You can say it's a one time and should go away. Right?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yep.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: One time report in '25.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So did we get that back?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Don't know. Come on, Casey.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I don't remember seeing anything like that last night.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I'd be interested to read in that one. Know?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we have to go to another this was not This was in this is act one fifty nine. So it's in the previous session. Right? In the 2324 session. Right? And
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: it says other, but we charge judiciary with being the point on that one. I remember.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: 159.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Not Haley. Somebody else.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What? Wait.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So you can't look at it in you gotta go to the right session to look for that?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You gotta change its session.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Got it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then it kicks back.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's the act number on does anybody know the act number on the it's well, act number 159.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah. That's follow-up on there. I show that in the script sheet.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, there it is. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: oh.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was 876. We're waiting to amendments to corrections loss. We had medical care.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: That's a big one?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, that's when we did third party providers. This one, we did the reentry planning and medication for folks. This is MOUD. Part of reentry. Driver ID. We did not drive RD for my visitation study. They made population reduction.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. That's the book we're talking
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: about. It's report. It's the intent by the general assembly by 2034 practice of inmates being housed in privately operated out of state facilities be prohibited. Further intent the general assembly that such prohibition does not affect inmates who are incarcerated pursuant to the interstate compact. Report on or before November 15, the judiciary station with DOC states attorneys and chairs, defender general and law enforcement advisory boards shall submit a written report to us and senate judiciary on detailing methods to reduce number of offenders and detainees in Vermont's correct ional facility. That's the one time. So did we get a report at all, Tate?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Sorry. From who?
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: A review from act?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It'd be from act one fifty nine, and it would be on or before 11/15/2025, the judiciary in consultation with DOC, state's attorneys, defender general law enforcement submitted written report for a federal judiciary. Do you folks remember working on this, Haley?
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I personally don't recall, but that's not to say you didn't reach out to someone else in our department. I
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: didn't know if it's a report. I can't find it anywhere myself.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So maybe, Tate, you could follow-up with the judiciary? Yep. And that would be Terry Corzon? Yes. Let's see if there's. So, the next one, pre and post charge diversion program outcomes from the AG and there is no frequency. And this is from act one eighty, which I'm assuming is still the previous session. I would assume.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Both '24. Well, yeah, it gives you the year of the ag
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: when they get older as we go to the breast down.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And where that brings us. Oh, it's the expansion of restorative justice. That was June. Adult court diversion outcomes.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Let's see. Yes.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: A lot of this stuff
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: sounds like it's more germane to judiciary.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, this is the community justice centers. Yeah. That's in the AG's part. That's more you're right. That's more judiciary. Just trying to see the reports who they're supposed to go to. Just looking at the app.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: No. I I get the intent, and I was once a, you know, a volunteer for a few years at our, you know, state office in JC. It just doesn't sound like a
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it depends who the report goes to. That's what I'm trying
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to get it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You know, bill. It's a long bill. It has 58 pages. Yeah. You're on the act too?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Program outcome. On page four, hold on. On page 18. I'll develop program outcomes following consultation.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Towards the end is what I'm on going. Page 20. No. Strike. Okay. What's going on here? Okay. I don't know if this is it or not. Yeah. This is in consultation with community based restorative justice providers, the office of the AG shall develop program outcomes.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There's a report later in that paragraph.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, in consultation with the state's attorneys, defendant general, crime victim services, judiciary, report annually on or before December 1 to the general assembly on services provided and outcome indicators. So that's not even to us.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I'm not being facetious, but why is it on our feet? Just because somebody hadn't scrubbed it?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we overlap quite often.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I understand.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that's probably they just want to cover the basis. So this is in judiciary.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: And that'd for both those? Yeah. Right? Yeah.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So this is a tracker then of these things.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Right. That we're looking at. This tracks all those Reports.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Those reports and requests and got it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. And then GovOps will look at our recommends, and sometimes we say, no. We don't need this reporting. Then they'll get rid of the statute that protects.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Or in this instance, would we just
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: say, does this government ops right now think that we we need this report? Is it here or no?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They've asked so quite often, our subject matters overlap with the I understand. So judiciary probably got their list that would include this particular report. So for us at this point, doesn't come to us. And I just made a note in judiciary committee for them to make the decision. We overlap so much. Understood. Budget well, so for the adult court diversion, also, it's in judiciary committee for them to make that decision. Capital budget cash fund, that's annual that we need to keep. Criminal justice investments and trends in Vermont statistical on that. That one is new. That is act one eighty five. I would assume that's also the previous session.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: No. 22. It's 22.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, shoot.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Oh, Jason's out.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Somebody looked that up.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: I'm not doing that.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'm trying.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, shit. One energy management.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's only 236 pages.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But it will tell you what page to go to. K. Which one are we on? I'm I'm way ahead. You're on criminal justice investment.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'm just I'm I'm not finding it anywhere in that section. It's
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's section 41. No. Is that the wait a minute.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. It's twenty twenty two.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's it that's your big bill? It's E335Dot2.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Oh, okay. Gotcha. So that's alright. I wasn't.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's just reinvest it's JR two. JR two. Oh, okay. Page one seventy nine of that act. But Okay, gotcha. Yeah, here it is. On and before January 15, each year, the Commissioner of Corrections in consultation with the Commissioners of Health, Mental Health, and for Children and Families, and the Attorney General shall submit a report to the House committees on appropes, corrections and institutions, and the Senate committees related to the following initiatives. And then there's a number of them.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: It's mostly funding. Right?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's semiannual. So that's twice Yeah. A
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's it's all on funding for six different programs. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that was done in
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: '22.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: 02/02. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that when we switched justice reinvestment to gets funded as a line item, and then they have to go back to a certain committee to get approval? Look at that language. I don't have it up. I'm looking at something. Let's look at that language. So what section is that?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right here. It's it's you're section one forty five?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Item. Channeling expenditures of justice reinvestment two.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Domestic violence. You know? Yeah. Community based. Don't know.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So six things.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mary, do you remember when we started doing a line item for Justice Reinvestment two? Were we still over in our old room, or did we do that when we were on Zoom? Do you remember that?
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: '22 would be Jim,
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: right in the middle of Zoom land.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just wanted to say, I can use this. We talked about it when we were sitting in that room. And this is I wonder if you have that. This is my old because I heard it was The amount reported to I would almost say I would almost say we could get rid of this because the whole system is different now.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's yeah. I was just about
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: On or before January 15 of each year, did we get any report, Tate, on Justice Reinvestment two initiatives by the fifteenth of this year?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: It
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: would be DOC. Consultation with mental health, DCF, and the AGs. That's when we were really trying to track just this day or two. I would say get rid of it.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay. I'll take your lead on that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Still working through. We haven't forgotten you. Don't worry. It's not quite ten. We're early, so no worries. That's fine. We just gotta get
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: some the
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: twenty fourteen thing that you sent
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm looking. That is You
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: killed that. You said that was
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: gonna occur once, twelve years ago?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I would. It's the emergency management program, energy management program, which is within deals within BGS. It was established within the Department of BGS an energy management program. Would implement through two revolving funds used to finance energy management measures in state buildings and facilities. Talks And about the fund. And
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: let me just see.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Beginning on January 1535, and annually thereafter, BGS would report to institutions committees. So do we still once? It's not once. It was every year. Beginning on or before January 1535, and annually thereafter, BGS will report to us on the expenditures of funds from the State Resource Management Revolving Fund for Resource Conservation Measures and the Energy Revolving Fund for energy efficiency improvements and use of renewable resources. And that's all connected to our state buildings. So did we receive anything from BGS about this?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yes. I'm I'm uploading that one right now.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So it's in accordance with. Correct.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah, we
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: did receive that. So do we wanna keep receiving it?
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Chair, with some of these, would it make sense just to I wouldn't need 10 pages on that, but it might be nice to get a paragraph every year with what are the highlights of the energy program? Could we like condense some of these into just one report where it's just the highlights of each of these things?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: know. Let's put a question mark.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You have to change statute probably. You would, yeah.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: It Just seems like it's less burdensome. You know? The
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: 2011 thing, I'm not quite sure how to find that because it doesn't have the act or anything. You know? Just I'm trying to look that up. I looked under title, but I can't I don't think I'm in the right spot. I mean, I
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: might be, but it doesn't correlate with anything on the
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: in the
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: statute section. Well, let's let's we got people waiting
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Concerned here. Let's quit right here.
[Unidentified member (House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 178. Let's pick up act 195
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yep. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Tomorrow or when we get back to it.
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: K? Yep. Complicated. It takes more time
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: than we thought.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If someone wants to do some research on this in the interim, feel free to do that for folks. It helps us next time.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'd be happy to, but I just don't I just need some guidance with how to find stuff without Maybe the
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we could sit down with Hillary, and she could help us.
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Thanks. We can help with that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because the rest of everything doesn't have the app. So we'll sit down. We're Okay. Do folk hate to say this because I know you were early. Do folks wanna take a quick five minute break?
[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I would like to go to bathroom. Thanks. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Quick five
[Haley (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: minute break.