Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Submitted.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You're live.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hey. Welcome back, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Tuesday, February 24. We're shifting gears. We're now gonna be talking on H five fifty nine, going over some new language with our Hillary, with our legal staff to talk about the legal counsel pilot project. And I'm also going to hand out, this came from the attorney general's office, an email that was sent to many of us, and I make copies of it for the committee. Terms of. Kate, can you forward that email to Shawn?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: If you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have that posted on our webpage. Is other councils or boards in the state that have legal, that contract out for legal representation and the cost. And what they provide is to give you folks a basis. What we've talked about right now is 25,000. What we spoke about was there's 25,000 in the FY '26 budget that would be available for legal costs go out to contract. There is nothing in the FY '27. They did go out for an RFP with a 25,000 with no bids. But that 25,000 is our understanding that that is still available in the FY '26 budget. Well, the thinking is that 25,000 could be used for another round of going out to see if we can find a legal counsel to carry out the language that's highlighted in five fifty. So here we are, I'm turning it over to you.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right, Hillary Chittenden Ames for the Office of Legislative Council. We have draft 2.1 of the strike all amendment to age five fifty nine. Quickly before the new language at the end, on page two, line five, this was a suggestion from the committee several meetings ago on this bill. But instead of saying prior to appointing a member, the governor shall consult with the parole board director and chair. The suggestion was upon notification of a vacancy, the governor shall consult with the parole board director and the chair, such that ideally it is after a vacancy and not after someone has already made a decision that the governor is consulted. So that's just one small change before the legal counsel and budgeting piece that the chair previewed. Moving on to this is page four. New section four in session law, creating a rural board legal council pilot project. So this is line seven, subsection A creates the pilot project to provide external legal support for annual training to the board on topics related to due process and parole violations. And two, legal advice to the board as needed related to board hearings. This is my understanding from discussion the committee had the last time it took up this bill with witnesses that these were the anticipated subjects of the support. But of course, easy to modify this if this does not reflect the intent when committee last discussed this. Subsection B, the Office of the Attorney General shall coordinate with the board and DOC to identify and contract with external legal support. This was part of what I understand to be the party's proposal about how this would be handled. Subsection C, as part of the fiscal year twenty twenty eight budget development process, AHS and DOC shall coordinate with the Parole Board Director to evaluate the pilot project and determine resources needed for board external legal support for fiscal year twenty twenty eight. It sounds like there is also going to be language about submitting a proposed budget to Department of Corrections separate and apart from the legal counsel pilot project funding. But both of these would involve some requirements around the budget development process for fiscal year twenty twenty eight. On line 19, subsection D, this is the report back that the committee was looking for. I picked 11/01/2026 as a time, Easy to fix that date if the committee thinks that a later or earlier report back makes more sense. But as written on or before 11/01/2026, the Parole Board Director shall submit a written report to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions detailing the operation of the pilot project. Any questions about section four before we turn to section five?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: No. Did

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you have a question, Wayne?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Just well, about the November 1. I mean, that's so minor in the grand scheme of things, but do you think that's appropriate to do that?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, we have that. Sometimes it's December 15. But

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I don't mind it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: being on the date. Yeah.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't mind it being earlier. That way, it's not all cluttered with all the other reports.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It would be Remember, when you have a new biennium, what

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I was

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: talking about with the new biennium. So we might want it December 15. Doesn't matter as long as it's there before the new biennium. So we talked about going out to contract for legal advice for training of the parole board members that would be related to due process in terms of how you carry out the statute and how you deal with the world of someone who's incarcerated and coming before them, asking to be paroled, to give legal backup with that process, but also when there's violations of parole to help the board work through that in a legal manner as well. So that's what number one deals with. And then number two is any other legal advice that the board might need related to board hearings. Now would that be number two, would that be on top of the annual training? So they would be like on call. Is that what number two is? Correct.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Both of these things were discussed. Legal advice as needed does not necessarily require that someone is available at all times at hearings. But the idea would be if a question arises at a hearing, asking the external legal counsel about that question would be within the realm of what they were hired to do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions from the committee on this. Troy?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm just wondering if, one, line nine is too restrictive. I can envision, personally, potentially other training topics beyond due process and parole violations. And does this restrict us too much? Maybe I would turn to Mary Jane for her thoughts on that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mary Jane, you want to identify yourself for the record?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Mary Jane Eames, our director of the frail board. I think our two main topics are these to start off with, but definitely could look at other topics as well. Same thing with the legal advice. I'd really suggest leaving the legal advice in there because there could be legal advice around other aspects of parole, not just around the due process and the violation needs. Because we do have discharge statutes. We have no longer eligible for parole statutes, other statutes that we would need to look at potentially at times from a legal aspect?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One option if the committee wants to make the language a little bit more expansive on training is to say something like annual training to the board, comma, including on topics related to due process and parole violations, which lets it be a little broader, but still mentions that that's the kind of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can you read that again, Hillary?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. This would be page four, line nine. Annual training to the board, comma, including on topics related to due process and parole violations. Could you say included but not limited to? Yes. I think what I understand from our kind of statutory guidelines is that when we say included, we always mean including but not limited to. But I'll double check that just to make sure.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does this give one and two enough information to go out with an RFP?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: so. I'm looking into I believe so. We've already started that. We started that process already. We I started to schedule a meeting and start and we've already started the attorney general's office has already got a draft.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So who would be issuing the RFP? Would it be the parole board or the AG's office or both? Todd, you want to go ahead?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: Sure. Todd DeLuis, Assistant Attorney General. So there are a couple of little pieces here, but essentially, it's a simplified bid proposal, so it doesn't actually fall under full RFP under OAM 3.5. And therefore, we would send it out to the folks who have done this work in the past. And the examples provided to the committee are a few of the contracts that result. I would say what we are likely to do, I haven't actually reviewed the draft because it's not really my lane, but we would be pulling language from existing contracts with other legal service providers for other simpler boards and essentially just say, here's the scope of work. It's pretty broad. And then we narrow in as the board needed from there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the BAGs that would go out

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I don't think RFP?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: I can double check on that chair. I don't know if we necessarily run the full simplified bid project. But under not to get too far in the weeds, though it is relevant to the draft in front of you. Bulletin 17.1 in AOA, I don't know how much you all deal with administrative bulletins. No one's Not

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: very many, but we're familiar with 3.5.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: 3.5, so A certain next step. Yeah, so 17 is layered on top of that and requires the AG to sign off any contract for external legal services. So I would say, and legislative council hasn't walked through it quite yet, but subsection 4B, which is lines 12 through 14 is redundant of the existing requirement for the AGO to work on that. So I might suggest that that is unnecessary in session law. And we would work with the client, in this case, the court board, DOC, AHS, depending on where the money's going from to make that process happen. I just am not certain who issues it, but we would facilitate putting that information out, which is part of the reason we think it'll be more successful than the last.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it would, though, I know for you're seeing B and C is redundant because that would be the process you're doing. I think for us as legislators to know when we hear the report back at the end of the year, we need to know what the structure of it.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: I totally understood. I think it's really for us just be as redundant of the existing administrative pool. That's all I want to say.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions? We're okay with one and two. And B, any questions on B for folks? Anything on C? So who would determine what resources would be needed? Would it be the agency of human services and DOC?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's all three parties in consultation. But for purposes of the written report on 11/01/2026, it is the parole board director that would submit the written report detailing the operation of the pilot project, which could also mention the resources needed. But as written, I think it's the the the three entities would consult and defer to other witnesses if it's appropriate to write it differently or if there's another way to structure that given how the budget development works, which I know very little bit about now. Hope to learn more in the future, but cannot speak to in great detail.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that would almost tie in with the new thinking about the parole board budget needs and submitting that for FY '28. This will be part of that submission.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think there would be overlap exactly with the new envision. One being conflict. Not in conflict because this just says coordinate, talk about it. But the new provision, as I understand it, envisions the parole board being able to submit a proposed budget such that the parole board will be able to document what they are requesting in terms of budgetary needs.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For legal support going forward in FY 'twenty eight.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. As I understand it, the new section to be added would be a proposed budget generally for the parole board, which would include presumably specific monies for legal support, external legal support.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you have your hand up, Mary Jane?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Okay. And I will keep an eye on this as I'm drafting to make sure that those sections stay complementary instead of.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Some people follow that. Okay. And then would submit to us. Yeah. I would leave it at our committee at this point. I don't know who in the senate, if this ever passed the senate. I don't know what committee would be working on it in the senate. I would assume it would be senate institutions. But I don't wanna put that in yet because I just don't know where it would go over there. So is November 1 a good date, or should it be December 15?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My idea with November, which may not matter much, was just trying to anticipate some budget conversations. But obviously, the committee is not meeting between November and December, so perhaps that does not make a difference.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I just don't care. How about December 1? I'm president of Bushwick. Yeah. Really?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've seen when I looked at different statutes on pilot projects and report backs, there were some that were November 1 and then some certainly December 15. And one advantage if you anticipate, perhaps not here, but sometimes if you anticipate wanting to draft a bill coming out of one of these reports, having it earlier makes the office of legislative counsel happier because we have more time to work on your bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think November 1 makes more sense because also it ties in more of his seat.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Well, no. November 15, they have to. So they

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There's a new vote.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That could be a real game changer for the travel.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: My only concern with November 1 is just how much data that we would have at that point for the pilot project, just understanding that I'm not sure how long the contract process will be. We just may not have a lot of data. So just want the community to understand the earlier the report, it might have less information

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in it. What about November 15, the senators after the election? I would just kind of consider who will be Who will be drafting bills? Fifteenth? November 15? Yes. That's what I have. No worries.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Anything else on these? Here we go. Exit into Appropriations Committee.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And here we have a new section five. I worked with JFO on this language since they are the ones who know how to say this. But section five is the Department of Corrections fiscal year 2026 carryforward. And this is a way of saying what I understood the proposal to be, which is that the $25,000 that DOC has set aside for the federal board in the 2026 budget shall carry forward into fiscal year 2027. And this adds, this is lines five through six on page five, for the purpose of hiring external legal counsel pursuant to section four of this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So is that dealing with FY, when it says in 2025, action resolve number 27. That is dealing with the current f y '26 budget. As we understand it, yes. The money is there in the current budget '26. It's 25,000 there for legal services. In the FY '27, that 25,000 was zeroed in. So in the current '27 budget that's being looked at downstairs, in DOC budget for the parole board, 25,000 was zeroed out for legal services. Was that an additional 25? This is 5.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: James? So my question for over here, I think, or maybe to those guys. So the 25, you know, if anybody else brought on 25, or we thought that 25 wasn't enough. So is there more money somewhere? Or We'll find it. We can find it. Okey dokey.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can find it, trust me. So if you go over this, it came from the budget of DOC. It says, for all boards, third party legal counsel not able to secure private counsel allocations since FY24 BAA item, they zeroed out to 25. Well, there's 25 in FY twenty six that we're saying could be used, could be used, for this legal counsel. But I

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: don't think they didn't have any takers during this year, they certainly probably aren't going to the 25,000 again.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That then leads to this conversation, what I just sent out, which then leads to what we can recommend to our House of Operations.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And that first one is just essentially spot on to what we're looking for. But that was '22, '24.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But how much time for the Criminal Justice Training Council,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Todd

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is the one that put this together, AAG's office. How much time for the Criminal Justice Training Council is given compared to what's given for Liquor and Lottery and the Pension Investment Commission? Do you know at all?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: So I would just be doing math. Public math is not

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not good.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: The greatest thing.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I have to state your name, please.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: Certainly. Thank you, Reverend Morrissey. Todd Davis from H. S. Office, for the record. Don't believe one of the contracts, and I can't recall which one may have had an estimated hours per week, as a suggested amount, five to ten hours a week, I think is what it was. That may have been the DLL board. But I don't think any of them have a maximus hourly, but that's why I put the dollars per hour in there, the hourly rate for those particular contracts,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And the only math I would do

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: is just divide 120. Thank you. Rev Headrick has done some public math. Been he's now showing me, but about one hundred and eight hours for CJTC and about 500

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: can check the lower case. About what?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: And about $500 deferred delivery and lotteries. And again, those are both two year

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: contracts. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's over the two years?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: The total value is over the two years. And both of those contracts, I believe, have renewable policies in them. I didn't dig in to see if they've been renewed and whether there have been some to just get the information in two smaller boards. I put the VPIC, the Tension Investment Committee, in there just to demonstrate you can go deeper. You can have a much more sophisticated level of legal research all the time. I don't think that's what the proposal is asking for. I return to General Counsel Fisher, but I don't think that's what they need either.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So do you know how often the Criminal Justice Training Council meets?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: I don't know how often they meet. But by way of example, those are the folks that when there's a question about certification of law enforcement officer for whatever reason for the request to decertify a law enforcement officer based on the behavior, that is the group that has those adversarial hearings. So is a part of the reason I included that is there's an adverse subject to process in nature to that proceeding as well. So I don't think it's as regular as the parole

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not as regular as the parole board.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: But I would also just say I think they are the work is maybe more specific to each case as opposed to the parole board, where my sense is that with training, you get categories of cases.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In the liquor and lottery board, how often do they meet?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: I think they meet more regularly, whether it's monthly or biweekly. And they're doing hearings on licenses, license verifications.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And my gut tells me, or I may be off, but my gut tells me 25,000 is I'm gonna get somebody to even bid on this. No. I just wanna say you guys go 50. I would get It's only 75. Location.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, you're a 100. No. I'm not going down a 100.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. I think 100 something definitely a bit on it, but I mean, with the pandemic, less it's something

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Well, this

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: would be for the pilot project. It's not annual at this point. If you go back to the language in the bill, it is C, which would be evaluate the pilot project and determine resources needed for the board external legal support for FY '28. So it would be for one year to get someone to start doing this. So I don't think $25,000 is going get to anybody.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No, don't know. The

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: thing I termed last week was jump change. I don't usually use that.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Let's do 75. The tropes will cut it to 50 anyways.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, if we find the money. Brian?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Just in the spirit of made up math, I was wondering if we shouldn't ask Mary Jane or Laurie how much counsel might be used, like in a week or a month or a year.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, that's for two purposes. Training and then on call is needed for

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm hoping you accomplish both of those. Do have any question?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: We would probably defer a little bit to Lori Fisher, who was our counsel. However, I think it varies depending if this is, I think for the pilot project being that we're just looking at the training and the legal advice, it'd be a lower number than if we started to include potential for litigation, which I believe that the assistant attorney generals will still be covering covering the the litigation during this pilot project until we have an accurate number of hours so we can give a more correct price to the committee. We wanted to focus solely on these smaller pieces. I will say I reach out maybe once a week or once every two weeks to get some legal advice. How much research is done around that? I'm not sure because I'm not doing research, but I don't have my numbers with me from the last time we tried to scope this out.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But I guess just from the first example on the sheet that we all got, the criminal justice training council that averages out to about an hour a week. That sounds like, does that feel like?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: On my end, an hour a week?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not if you're doing training.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And also just to let the folks know, one of our board members is on the training council as well. And she said they meet at least once a month, if that helps answer that question as well. And you meet? Amy, it's 10 times a week? Approximately nine to 10 times a month for hearings. And then, so it's three times a week, the first three weeks of the month, then possibly an overflow day the last week, and then a board meeting the last week of the month as well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you're basically meeting every week?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Every week, yes. A

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: few days.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Whether or not an attorney needs to be involved in that, probably not. Especially the last week of the month, the attorney would most likely be involved for part of that in case the board during their staff meeting had any questions to pose to that attorney. And that can range from an hour to two to three hours, depending on the conversations.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think too, we need to weigh the weight of those decisions. Criminal Justice Training Council versus the board. Because the council, their real role is to classify or basically declassify a law enforcement officer. The parole board is dealing with someone's liberty and public safety. And there could be a decision made by the parole board to release someone on parole, and then a tragedy happens and who gets the blame. Citizens who are sitting on the parole board that have very little legal backup. So I just wanna put that on the table for people to weigh. Well, do you have anything?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I know I had something, but now we've got racked up that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So is 25,000 gonna get us what we want? No way. Does 50,000 work? Will we find 25,000 in a a budget?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Almost like what Conor said, I'm good with

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'd go to 75 because they're gonna cut it. If we find the money, it might be a little different. Three refills working on it. Yeah, but that's different money. Well, there's money moving, pretrial supervision folks. There's money moving. Right? We have two open positions in the license plate shop. Just putting that on the date.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: K? So regarding the shot, did they figure out what's actually needed? It's not

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: something No. I'm sure going forward if it's needed or not, kind of depending what happens with going to one plate or not. Yeah, I can speak to that

[Unidentified DOC Communications Official]: a little bit. For the record, has some director of communications with DOC. To my understanding, the center of transportation has discarded the idea

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of moving to one plate. So at

[Unidentified DOC Communications Official]: the moment, DOC's operations would continue with two. We can speak to the budgeting piece on Thursday around the positions, as I know are scheduled for follow-up budget testimonies. But to my understanding, the issue was an accounting one as the state had transitioned to a new accounting issues. And so those two positions that are vacant, we do not plan on them being filled, but they were essentially brought from one accounting software to another as technical error. So we remedy that on Thursday. So I'm not sure. I don't believe that that money is actually available for other use as those positions were swept. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we will see. Look into that. I think to find 50,000, I think we could find 50,000 in a $220,000,000 budget. 50 plus 75. We got 25 already. 75 total, right? Yeah. That's 50 more. Yeah. We could find that somehow. And then if they find that they could get someone for less, then that's carry forward into the next budget year, like the reallocations.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: 02/20, $2.40.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does that make sense to folks?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: Yeah. If I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: were to offer the proposal for 75, I'd make sure that I'm providing $75,000 for sales. I don't think you're gonna be able to lower bids. Depends on what you asked for, right? I'm Okay with 700 I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: mean, that would be for us to find that money. To approach and say we want more money. It would be up to us to find that money. It would be fair to our colleagues. That's the direction we want to go. We have to find the money. Okay?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You alluded to the last set of testimony before the money likely exists already.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, I have to say it does since it's likely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's built into their budget. So for the new language, people are comfortable with it? Yeah. Just trying to think. Do people feel that $5.59 is in good shape at this point? Yes. Yeah.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yes. We're changing that date right now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's reach out to all board, Laurie Fisher from DOC, and Todd from Attorney General's office. Anything you folks want to weigh in on this latest draft? Jane?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: One thing on I know it brought up before about whether on page four, section lines 11 through 14, and that was talked about whether it should be in there or not. Sounded like the committee wants to leave it in there. I would just recommend on line 13 replacing Department of Corrections with Agency of Human Services as I believe the Agency of Human Services will be the contract holder for us, not the Department of Corrections.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that true? Yeah.

[Ted Fisher (Agency of Human Services)]: It's Your record, Ted Fisher, Vermont, Agency of Human Services. I'm the Principal Assistant Communications Director. I'm filling in for Brendan Atwood, who is somewhere

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: warm I and lovely this

[Ted Fisher (Agency of Human Services)]: am not Brendan, so my expertise on this is not great. But yes, the parole board is housed under central office. The intent of that is for it to be independent of the Department of Corrections. And I recognize there's some funniness with the DOC budget there, but in this case, yes, we would be the contract holder. So we absolutely did it on Mary Jane. I think there may or may not I'll leave this to counsel and the committee review, Madam Chair there may or may not be other places where it could be AHS rather than DOC.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The money is in DOC's budget. That's the issue. The money is in DOC's budget. It's under HHS, right? DOC is under agency of human services, but the role board is not directly under the secretary.

[Ted Fisher (Agency of Human Services)]: And this is where me not being either a financial person or I was at one point a policy director for another agency, but I'm not policy director for AHS, is just I apologize, I'm a poor replacement for Brendan today. But I will do my best to find that out. You're absolutely right, Representative Greer, is DOC's budget, but DOC's budget is part of the agency's budget. So it may be that that's the place where we would like it to remain, but the contract itself would be reasonably We would ones be supporting the role boarded in doing that contract. So regardless of where you do anywhere else, this line, in your opinion, should be changed to ages. I would just say there might be other places as well, but I can also go back and try and get a stronger answer when it comes to budgeting as well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm remembering correctly. Didn't the chair of the parole board want a more direct line to the to the secretary of the agency of human services? And we decided not to do that. Right? I mean, are people remembering Dean George's testimony? I'm hearing silence.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: They decided

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: not to do that because the money is in DOC's budget, which is under the Commissioner of Corrections for that budget. And yes, it's under the agency of human services. But the request, the money gets allocated to the parole board out of DOC's budget.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: But again, those are fine. And so I think, obviously, like you said, we would find out because there could be a fine line between.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I don't remember all of the details, but I do know when we went out for bid with the RFP, it was under the agency of payment services, even though the money was in our line items in the Department of Corrections, where it's with the human services folks to put the contract out, the language was with the agency of human services. So I'm not sure, I'm not a finance person either, so I don't know all the details of the finances, but that's how it was drafted the first time around. Because that's our place of being in the DOC budget, but also an independent entity housed within the agency of human services. And Chairman George did speak about putting in more the training piece that was under way at the beginning of the bill section line 13 through 17 on page one. That's where he was referencing the agency of human services changing that section, but there's other there's other pieces in that section that the commissioner of corrections really falls under commissioner's purview, not the secretary's purview.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Section one of the bill is under powers and responsibilities of the commissioner of DOC, not the secretary of the agency of human services. And that's what the chair of the board was recommending would shift over to the secretary of the agency of human services. And we decided to keep it within DOC because that's where your money's coming from. And you do get administrative support at times from DOC. So is there anything else at all on the bill or the new language, Mary Jane?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I don't have anything else in specific. I will say that I ran through the previous version of the bill, and we had our above board staff meeting yesterday. I ran through the previous version of the bill, let them know what had been discussed, what the changes were most likely looking like, and they were very supportive and thankful to all of you for your work on this and your recognition of the board.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Laurie Fisher from DOC, do you wanna weigh in at all on the current draft on May?

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Thank you, chair, and for the record, Laurie Fisher, general counsel, department of corrections. I just want to and I apologize. I I'm I'm adding to the not a financial person in front of you today. We don't have those brains here, and I apologize for that as well. But I would just like to support the suggestion that the Department of Corrections, think if I can add a little context, I think the goal is to get the parole board their independence that statutorily they're supposed to have. But excluding the financial piece and all the budget stuff that we can't speak to because we would mess it up, I think in relation to getting DOC out of the conversations, it would be the agency, which is where the parole board is technically housed for purposes of our internal structure. So the guidance that I'm getting from age legal is consistent with what you've heard from director Ainsworth and Mr. Fisher today, not related. And I just wanted to support that change that the department kind of be removed from those sections and the agency human services be reinserted instead.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm a little confused. The only place that we changed DOC to the agency of human services was in going out for the RFP for the legal. And that's the only place where we've changed anything. I appreciate that. Just to make sure

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that I'm clear, is that where we were talking about, let's see, in page four, line 12?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Okay. Yep, that was pertaining to the legal counsel pilot project. Okay. It would be the board, the office of the AG would coordinate with the board, parole board and the agency of human services to identify and contract with external legal support. So we took out Department of Corrections and put in agency of human services. That's the only place where we made that change.

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Okay, I appreciate that clarification. The only other, we are certainly, partners in this and happy collaborate as the parole board needs. But the, on the development of the budget process, I'm just wondering if to align that previous change you just clarified for me that maybe on page four, line 16, that the department would come out of that and the process would be between the agency of human services and the parole board in the manner that Mr. Atwood previously explained.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But what happened on that one was, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but the thinking was that the parole board would submit their budget needs to Department of Corrections Commissioner because the Department of Corrections, that's where the money for the parole board is. And then the department of corrections submits their budget to the agency of human services secretary.

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Fair enough. Fair enough. I don't, again, We going

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: wanna keep that same process in place because this is talking about the budget process for FY '28, that it would include resources needed for the legal support for the board. So the board would present their budget to the commissioner of DOC because the money for the board is coming from DOC's budget.

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Understood. I appreciate that. I think the only other place that the department was mentioned was the collaboration on the report on the pilot project and certainly willing to support and assist in that process.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you, Lori.

[Laurie Fisher (General Counsel, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Todd, anything from the attorney general's office?

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: I would just reiterate that section four, subsection B, just page four lines Yes. We feel redundant to the existing So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: if this looks good to folks, which I'm picking up it is, with the change of agency of human services and the change on lines nine and ten. So it's not so limited in terms of the training and then the date change. And then we'll get new language in terms of session law for the budgeting process in general for the parole board. We'll get that Thursday. And then we'll deal with the money aspect. It's 25,000, 50,000, or 75,000. People are leaning towards 75,000. So that means we have to find fifty deaths. I'm not going to appropriations. We will find it.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one note on the next draft. It sounds like you are not ready to include appropriations language yet, but that appropriations language would need to be added in the event that $50,000 is spent as of tenth.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe we'll have a brainstorming session, the committee we might be able to find it prior to Thursday. I don't know.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We can do

[Unidentified DOC Communications Official]: it. Yep. We should

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: do it. To draft an appropriation section, I just need to know how much, where it's coming from, and where it's to. It's poppy book. Anything

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: else before we finish on this one? I have to get this puppy out this week. Really would. It would so nice. Because it does have to go to Appropriations Committee. Anything else? Thank you all. Thank you, folks, Thank for you. We've put in a lot of work in this one. And Ted, good luck.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And you weren't a terrible replacement.

[Ted Fisher (Agency of Human Services)]: That's nice. I'm doing two jobs.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Enabling other people's vacation is really the highest calling of a colleague.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: School vacation time. See a halo. That's just a refresh. Anything else on the committee before we finish up on YouTube? And then we're back here.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: Thirty. We are. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm gonna look at the schedule here.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: The weather is supposed to be decent? Yes. It's not. 05:50.

[Todd DeLuis (Assistant Attorney General)]: Oh, it's

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: supposed to be good. Almost 10:50. I've been so deplorable most of the sessions so far. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right in front of me. Thank you, Tomorrow, we're back here at 08:30, and we're gonna be talking about gender equity. And then we go into telecommunications. Those are the two bills that we've been trying to work on. And then we get back to pretrial supervision in the afternoon because we gotta really bite the bullet on that and figure out what we're doing. So let's go off of YouTube and we'll see everyone tomorrow.