Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Weren't we live five minutes ago? And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: welcome back, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee, and we are just the bill will take longer and longer. We are going back to h five fifty, and we have a new draft, which is 2.1. Why did it change from 1.3 to 2.1?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because some of the changes discussed this morning in 1.4 are different in this version. Generally, go up in the number before the period. But because there had been some subcommittee versions under version one, now we are on a new committee version. So we're on 2.1. There was a method to the madness. There is in your world.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Our method to the madness is quite different. But we have it too. So Hillary, welcome. And this is Wednesday, March 11. It's our afternoon meeting. So why don't you quickly give us the changes? I'm assuming they're highlighted, but maybe not. Okay. A little bit. Yes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There are two versions that I sent, one of which had all the full internal edits. But given the committee's limited time this week, I think it will be easiest to use the clean version, and I will point out where the key changes are. But Tate has a yellow highlighted internal edits version if anyone wants to see every internal edit between versions.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I I get it. You got it, too.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I do. We all got it as well. Gets the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I read some paper copies.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: We got some.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Perfect. And this clean version does have still has a few highlights because there are a few areas that we had kind of put a pin in in testimony yesterday to return to to discuss. So I wanted to make sure that we did not forget these as we move through it. Thank you. So for the record, Hillary Chittenden aims for the Office of Legislative Counsel. We have draft 2.1 of H550. This reflects changes discussed during yesterday's testimony and changes discussed this morning with respect to section what is

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: was

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: seven and I think still now to section six. But I will flag that this version does not contain the medical care section, but it sounds like the committee might still be interested in taking testimony on that. So version 1.3 has that language for purposes of tomorrow morning's testimony. If the committee's direction is to put that back in, we can certainly do that on the next.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So for tomorrow morning, we have Doctor. Who will want to work on our previous draft, which was one point Right? It was 1.3. Three. Correct. So we're still trying to figure out what to do if we have enough time to do the work that's needed.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. So however the committee decides after tomorrow morning, we will merge versions as appropriate and reflect them on the next round. So draft 2.1, the intent section has not changed from version 1.3, that's section one. Section two were the general definitions. There are some changes here in numbering to reflect removing definitions that were in sections that were removed. So health care professional is not included here now, because if the 28 BSA section eight zero one amendments are not in the bill, then the bill does not need to define health care practitioner. So for the definition section, that was the key change made. But the definitions themselves are not different from the version discussed yesterday. So I think the committee can still consider any of the testimony or policy considerations about including definitions and how, but there are not changes in the definition section for walkthrough purposes. So this was one of the sections the DOC had concerns about

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: keeping these definitions, putting these definitions in statute. And this would be in Title 28, which deals specifically with corrections. So these definitions would only be appropriate when it's pertaining to corrections. It's used in other sections of law, be it DCF, the Department of Mental Health, or Department of Motor Vehicles, or any other place in statute, except if there was a reference to another place in statute. So this is specific to POC. So we went around this yesterday, and the committee came down on the side of keeping the definitions in. Are we still there? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Moving forward So to be aware, folks. We're gonna get this bill out. We're just gonna do a line by line. It's not taking a long time to read this line by line. And whatever we've agreed to at this point, when there's time, we're not taking a lot of testimony, will be a lot more tomorrow. We're not spending a lot of time reading and interpreting the language.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I would suggest taking it home tonight and reading it maybe once or twice. People will do it. To go. So We have to just

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're gonna have to read this because this is gonna be a lot of work to walk this through on the floor. And whoever's reporting it will need a lot of backup from the rest of us. And Gina has offered to report it, and we're not gonna leave her hanging out there. She's not gonna take recesses, and she's not gonna yield to the chair. It's gonna be all of us working together to support her on the floor.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But she I like how you emphasize. Go. You

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: can yell to the member from Franklin.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. Not even gonna yell to the manager. Can you maybe sit again for second? But we're going to support our committee. Absolutely.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So for Section three, this is the section that has two pieces. One is the department ensuring that individuals are addressed in a manner consistent with their gender identity. And the second piece is nondiscrimination. So there's one change requested in testimony yesterday that on page five, line six, this is subdivision A1C that for transgender, gender diverse, or intersex individuals, comma, that's new language to clarify that the individuals who are requesting the gender of staff who may perform a lawful search are transgender, gender diverse, or intersex individuals. Instead of just saying And the department shall ask everyone their request as to the gender of staff and we perform a lawful search. The only other change or not a change, but I think the next piece in section three to flag for discussion. This is page five, line 17. This is in all verbal and written communications that involve the use of the individual's pronoun and honorific department staff, contractors, and volunteers shall not consistently fail to use the gender pronoun and honorific an individual has specified. So this is a more specific way to say the kind of principle at the beginning of this section, which is that the department shall ensure that each individual is addressed consistent with their gender identity. Testimony yesterday flagged that some department volunteers are clergy. There would be a potential issue with requiring someone to go against their religious beliefs. So for the committee's discussion how to handle this, this specific language is covered by the general principle in subsection A. So one option is to leave in the bill the general principle in subsection A without further specifying the shall not consistently fail. So for the committee, can you show what you're talking about in subsection A

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: so people understand how the sections are connected? Yes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm highlighting it. Yeah, perfect. Highlighting the language in subsection a. Highlighting it very poorly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Page

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: four. Yes. This is the bottom of page four. The department shall ensure each individual is addressed in a manner consistent with the individual's gender identity. Something we had talked about yesterday is that there are broader principle ways to express something and more specific prohibition or requirement ways to state something. And this language in subsection A establishes the principle that this language in subdivision four says in a different and more particular way. But it covers the principle for statutory purposes. So one option for the committee to avoid this issue with requiring volunteers with religious beliefs to potentially speak in a way that is not consistent with their beliefs is to rely just on the principle in subsection A and not include subdivision four. Another alternative could be to not list volunteers in this specific prohibition. The trade offs there, including the principal means for statutory purposes, there's no suggestion that anyone is excluded and it lets DOC policy handle on a more individual basis what is appropriate. If the statute refers to department staff, contractors, but not volunteers, there's some suggestion that it isn't intended to cover volunteers. So if the committee's intent is for it to cover as broadly as possible, it may be preferable to just use the language in subsection A, that is that general principle, and not use language in subdivision four. There may also be other potential ways to address this, but those are the ones I can suggest for now. But I would not recommend, given the testimony that the committee heard, that some volunteers are clergy, leaving it as is would pose some risks.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Why don't I mention that? Yeah, I just, with the volunteer part, and it's a good note to make about the clergy being considered, only question would be, I think that volunteers, and I'm assuming clergy, they fall under professional conduct, just like a profession, like a doctor or a lawyer. Is there a current statute around something like this, like in other titles or different sections? Interesting.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is a First Amendment issue, effectively. Ways that you can restrict First Amendment rights. There are different rules for government employees. There

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: different rules for

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are not lawyers or doctors or by profession. So the fact that some volunteers might be regulated as a professional matter would not extend to their First Amendment rights.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Right, okay. Well, I guess what I'm trying Obviously, I think also using the word restrict, think I'm trying to kind of like, how do we respect their First Amendment rights? Because again, this is their religious beliefs, and it could, I don't want say counteract, but it could be a gray area. But I'm trying to think. I don't want to get too into the weeds of it.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that is a potential advantage of having the statute provide the broad and firm principle to DOC that will guide their policy and decision making. So A, is broad and affirmative that the department shall ensure each individual is addressed in a manner consistent with the individual's gender identity. Having that in statute means that DOC is guided in decision making about selecting and allowing volunteers, the kinds of conduct that it expects of volunteers, but it lets the department do that on an individualized basis and as needed and in a way that is not teeing up a challenge in a statute.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's still I mean, that principle is a guiding force for whatever DOC policy or decision making happens. So it's still, I'll defer to DOC here, whether they have specific examples or want to add anything there. But that is the benefit of a broad principle in strategic. So if you go to four on page five, does that gives more ability to tee up for a charge against the department? If it includes volunteers, potentially yes. So if on its face it says volunteers shall not consistently fail without going into very detailed considerations of how exactly that could come up as a challenge, because there would be details, that would pose a risk to have it in there. Gina, Troy? I think we just take volunteers out right there and let DOC handle it on their own policy basis within the guidelines. Just out of Section four, just take that out right there. And then the rest is still in there. It's kind of a nod to how serious we are about this being in written and verbal communications with staff, and just allow DOC to resolve how they treat you know, a situation in the long term. Alice, could Josh

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah, that's okay. Go ahead.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Troy, and then I'll go to your Josh.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay. First of you've got a pop up window on the screen over here. I don't know if you can see it on your laptop.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There, right there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, perfect. No, I hit on. Happened? There

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: we go.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, first time highlighting in a PDF here.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So four subsection A already gets us there to a broader extent. First, before I play with what Gina is suggesting, what does four get us in addition to that, to A?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a more specific direction to the department. So the the broad principle, I would say, doesn't require that the department put four into policy specifically. It means that if the department is making a decision for drafting a policy, it needs to keep that broad principle in mind. The department couldn't enact policy that conflicted with that or shouldn't be enacting policy that conflicts with that direction, but it wouldn't affirmatively require the department necessarily to adopt something like what is in subdivision four.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But if we're ensuring, as subsection A requires, ensuring that each individual is addressed in a manner consistent with their gender identity, that should, by default, include verbal and written communications. Correct?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think a reasonable interpretation would be that. I think DOC could probably best speak to if they think they would interpret A in any particular way. I just think if you have Subdivision 4 in there, DOC couldn't have a policy that omitted written communications for some reason that It they would let them have a policy that speaks a little more broadly or works a little bit differently.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: If we just remove volunteers, we are deliberately or we're definitely creating a potential loophole. I don't know if it would ever show up, but we are creating one. So I'm wondering if we just get rid of four altogether.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, can I throw in another curveball? Yeah. That's when we say contractors, is that contractors through DOC or is that contractors through BGS doing work within a facility? Because there are contractors out there that do work, maintenance, renovations that are in contacts at times with folks who

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are incarcerated. Are they contracting with the Department of Corrections or with? GNGS. But they're in the facility. So one way to specifically to make I think the best read of the statute is that it is contractors, specifically with the Department of Corrections. But I think to be very clear about that, line 16 would say department staff, comma, department contractors, comma, and volunteers. But not volunteers. So department staff and department contractors. Or if you're removing the period, then department staff and contractors is also best read as including just department contractors.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Troy, and then I'm gonna go to

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So on that line, let's say a BGS contractor is in the facility adding Wi Fi that we've funded. Okay? Right. And the department is made aware that, hey, the BGS employees are not consistently using the pronouns that I've asked for the use. The department still has a duty to ensure And for me, back to your reasonable interpretation of A, my expectation is that statute would require the department then to pull BGS aside and say, look, we've got policy here. And this person is using these pronouns or prefers this name. You have an obligation to use it. You can do this because we're informing you that, or we can involve BGS leadership. That's, to me, ensuring that an individual is addressed appropriately.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is he nodding from Josh? If

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you could introduce yourself for the record.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: For the record, Joshua Rutherford, Facilities Division Deputy Director. A couple of different things to unpack in that. In terms of contractors, folks like BGS contractors don't regularly interact with the population very much. That's not their role when they're there. However, when they are there, they are subject to reasonably following our rules, including things like what you can bring in the building, how you can interact with our population, whether it has to do with gender or not. We could have someone coming in saying other offensive things to our population, and we would, as Representative Headrick suggests, address that with them, or with the leadership, our folks from our building, done all of those things. I do have concerns about simply striking volunteers entirely, because we would want to hold all volunteers to this standard unless there was a specific reason around a religious, sincerely held religious belief where we felt we couldn't. So I think A gives us the general principle and not just the principle, an obligation. There's an affirmative obligation in there for us to do it, but if, say, within consultation with the general counsel, we can't for First Amendment rights enforce that against this religious volunteer who's providing a service to a religious community in our facility, that I think we would be able to defend why in this specific case we didn't do it, but still hold everyone else to that standard.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm afraid to bring this up. Might open up another can there. We don't really specify inmates and how they treat other inmates in this legislation, right? I would imagine that could get if a volunteer is dicey on First Amendment grounds, probably an inmate is even dicier, right? Because they're not even in there through. Josh is shaking his head, but I would think it would be difficult for First Amendment to tell inmates you have to use Less these difficult. Really? Yeah. So

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: depending on the setting, there is more scope to limit a variety of rights. But for First Amendment rights, if you are in a school, there are some things that you can tell schoolchildren they cannot say, that you could not tell someone on the street they cannot say. And similarly, in a correctional setting, the standard for the rationale you would need to justify restricting speech is a lower justification. You still have to impose justification. And this is a can of worms in terms of going into the different legal standards, and there's some shifting law there. But generally, if you have a penological justification, a reasonable, correctional reason why you are doing that thing, courts will allow you to do it.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So even if an inmate said, This is against my religion, I'm not here voluntarily. And you're making me say this to somebody else?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think part of the reason the bill does not necessarily go into covering inmates is that I think that is not settled law one way or another. Just as background to your broader point of don't inmates have greater rights than volunteers? In some ways, no, but for this particular purpose, potentially. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian and then Will.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So it seems like most of what we're talking about right now, if I can do shorthand, is the difference, if there is one, between it. A at the bottom of page four and then four on page five. Do we need four on page five? And to the degree that this bill is a result of things that have actually happened in testimony that we've heard, I think four on page five was meant to address those circumstances where somebody, again and again, like if I'm addressing Headrick there, Okay, ma'am, intentionally doing that. I think that's covered by A. And so while four may have been there for that reason, and I can understand its inclusion, I don't think we'd lose anything by getting rid of it. It just comes back to an operational choice. And as much as I want to dot all my i's and cross all my t's, I don't think we can in this case. And I think you'd lose more by including four. So let's leave it

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: out. Going

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: back to Conor's point about the inmates, how

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: well, I guess my question is more about is that state or federal case law that determines Generally federal because First Amendment constitutional. So there could still be some Vermont case law, depending on what provision the Vermont constitution could be at issue. And I am not an expert on the First Amendment in correctional facilities. So if you want lots of details, will have to bring someone else in or I will have to report back. But generally, it's federal case law that we're talking about.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: If you want, I can offer some insight on that as well, if you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: want. Sure.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: So we do have existing rules on how incarcerated individuals communicate with each other and staff and we address inappropriate behavior, threatening statements, derogatory statements, identity based statements, all of those are discipline violations that carry infractions that we've enforced for years. That being said, we cannot hear and interrupt every comment that folks make to each other, and in particular their ability to use pronouns all the time or use them effectively can be a challenge. But if someone was intentionally being derogatory to somebody for an identity based reason, we can do address those. And as, going back to my time as Chief of Security when I first made this change in 2015, that was kind of a big deal. As an officer, if you hear that, address it. Say something, write the disciplinary report, but hold that accountable. And we have had incarcerated folks complain when they felt that staff haven't done that adequately, because they do feel that it is part of their conditions of confinement that to the extent reasonably possible, we should be protecting them from verbal abuse, knowing that we can't do that 100% of the time in that environment.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I have a question on A. How we wanna ensure that each individual who are the individuals? Is it just inmates? Is it everyone within the facility? The department shall ensure that each individual is addressed in a manner consistent with the individual's gender identity. So how do we interpret that term individual? Is it just inmates? Is it inmates and staff? Is it everyone who's in and out of the facility? So as originally drafted,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: because this was in a section that referred only to folks in custody. It used the word inmate because this moved to a broader section that covered, I guess, this part of because the intent was to have these Prohibitions cover the department's work generally, it was moved to this earlier section and inmate was changed to individual. But the chair's point is a good one that if there is an intent that individual be interpreted narrowly, that we should specify that here. As written, it has broad application. There's a lot

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of individuals in a facility. And there's a lot of individuals that come and go out of that facility. I'm thinking like recovery coaches. I'm thinking Trin coming in. I mean, I'm thinking maybe some folks coming in with art classes, music classes. Then you've got your staff, your ongoing staff. Then you have the folks who live there 20 fourseven. So I just want to put that out there. How are we thinking here?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Troy.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm fine keeping it broad. I think we're creating a culture here where respect and dignity are ensured. And I don't think that is contained for one population, whether that's the inmates or the workers or the visitors.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: And that was kind of a question I had yesterday that you were touching on. It's like, I was wondering, should we take into consideration a DOC employee being gender diverse or transgender intersex? So I had that, I was thinking about that yesterday and last night. So it hits I'm I I I do feel that we need to, like, think about that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm gonna say this for the record. Is there a legislative intent that the term individual is broad and not specific towards inmates or staff, but it is broad? Is that our legislative intent? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Saying that on the record.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes. I didn't I I wasn't sure how we were defining individual, though. I'm fine with that being the intent. I just

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I'm saying this on the record in case there's ever anything in court, and they have to come back to legislative intent. That's why we have things on the record. So we set our people in this committee. Our legislative intent is the term individual is to be interpreted broadly. Yes.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Yep.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One other way to further emphasize that in the statutory language could be to say, the department shall ensure that all individuals are addressed in a manner consistent with their gender identity.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's clear. I don't want any interview with any individual. Well, because

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: I'm thinking, what if there's a transgender correctional officer who actually isn't put in charge of doing the searches, which could be like, I don't know if that exists. Oh, well, there you go. So like, okay, so that's

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We're officers as well. I know we have

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah, so We have correctional officers who are gender diverse, transgender, and we honor their pronouns the same way that we do our incorporated population. We treat people respectfully I and will say the broader issue of searches in terms of gender diverse folks as staff is an area of definitely open law in the country with some contradictory rulings. So that is a bridge as a profession that we have not yet, but in terms of, we prescribe folks' identity as they identify to us. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: reading out my thoughts again that the department shall ensure that

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all individuals are addressed in a manner consistent with their gender identity. So does that make it clearer there, and therefore, we don't need number four?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: That's what Brian was saying.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's yeah. That's what

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Brian I agreed with his suggestion.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Shall we take out number four? Yep. You've got volunteers out of there, Gina. Long way around. Okay. Well done, manager. Well, I don't know about that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Gotta navigate it. The beauty of testimony and revision. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: number five

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: will now be number four.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do we want number five? But has volunteers in it as well? Shall ensure department staff, contractors, and volunteers receive gender responsive training? What?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So I think we may have touched on this a minute ago, but when I hear the word training, is there a financial implication with that? Well,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: department staff for Correctional Officers Academy, that's already implicit within their training. I I don't know what you do for your administrative staff, contractors. I just don't know.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: There is training for those folks, especially for volunteers, for contractors, depending on what their role is in the building, because a nurse or a mental health provider is going to be different than the guy who is there to fix the refrigerator. But there is training in terms of everybody's obligations under pre act and basic sort of safety, and so I think some of that gender responsive has already built into that. Can certainly look at it, but I don't see that we already have to provide some training to those folks based on their role.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the one difference there in terms of mentioning volunteers is that an obligation for the department to provide training to all volunteers is different for legal purposes than requiring all volunteers to not consistently fail to use the right pronouns. It's an obligation on the department to provide and not necessarily on the volunteers, which I think situates it differently.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So probably a question for Josh. So somebody goes in for a day to do a voter registration drive. Are they getting trained up in this?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Our voter registration folks, interestingly, are certified volunteers. So they've already had training.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They have

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: to go. I see. I am more concerned about repairmen training for them is pretty slim because you're not having much contact with anybody or you're not addressing our population very much. But yeah, like the League of Women Voters is coming in to do voter registration, but those are certified trained volunteers. They've already had their training.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So any volunteer that goes into a facility has to work with that volunteer director.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: The volunteer coordinator, yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Volunteer coordinator in the facility, and they are screened. There's quite a screening process there on that level. I mean, in Springfield, and I use sample with this recovery coaching happening there through our local turning point. And our police chief in Springfield wanted to be one of those folks going into the facility, working with a recovery coach. He had to go through an extensive volunteer screening process with a volunteer coordinator in the facility before he could be approved to come into the facility to do that. So it's there. Joe?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But I would assume refrigerator repair day or overhead door day. Probably not gonna I mean, overhead door company, you just the corollary would be nobody's gonna come fix your overhead doors.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Right. And that is where I I I because contractors includes both those folks who fix things and those folks who directly deliver services, does cause me a little bit of concern in that It's tweak that I think. How cross that because the language doesn't differentiate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So so if if you're going in there and you're doing door door lock replacements or you're doing a renovation to a freight car, you're bringing in some electrical circuits in there. You're working with BGS on that usually. Usually. Do they have any training of their contractors in terms of gender?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I'm not prepared to speak to that. Distinction might be contractors delivering direct service to incarcerated individuals.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And what would some of those direct services to incarcerated individuals?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Well, that's certainly our medical and mental health providers, that's the biggest one, but also those some of the folks who deliver our risk intervention services programming and those folks all

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: get more expensive. Or recovery coaching.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Well, are mostly volunteers, I think, but yes, same, I mean either way, whether you call them contractor volunteers, but those folks we certainly would want to have the more extensive training so that they're acting in accordance with sort of the values and the obligations. Because those smaller contractors, not that they should be walking around a facility saying things willy nilly, but how much training we're going to give to somebody who's there for that purpose poses a challenge.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm just going say, can we say proportional to their service delivery, to their level of service, proportional to their level of service provided or something like that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Proportional to their level of interaction. Also, it could say, if you're in a place where you're interacting, whether it's service delivery or otherwise. That would

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: give us room to target it to what folks are doing. Yeah.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And it wasn't random that I spoke about over at door repair guys. I have a buddy who's an open door repair guy who does work with some of the facilities. Frankly, the company They just hate going there. The technicians don't. They say they gotta count on the screwdrivers and the bolts, like, I get that, but it's very aggravating for them. And then you throw some other hurdles. And, like, these guys are busy. They're just gonna say, you know what? I don't wanna work for deals. But I think that kinda covers it.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. I I could see a few other loopholes in this language. Right? BGS employee doesn't work for the Department of Corrections department isn't technically a contractor. They're a state employee and they're not a volunteer. Joe Aja could be spending a lot of time.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Perhaps.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Ultimately, the department is still obligated to ensure we still go back to A. Right? So BGS is in there and they are not being respectful. The department still has an obligation to say, you're not being respectful. Okay, You be respectful.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So if that's the question, do we need five at all? Or should we just

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: have a, b, more all encompassing? That's training, though. Right? This

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is training.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I do like the fact that volunteers are getting some training on this is how we do it at DOC. This is how we do gender work.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I might be overthinking that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the normal person isn't going to think of BGS, but we are because we live it.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Can you say the normal person?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The average person. The average BGS, sometimes there are BGS employees that go in there and do the work. Other times, BGS is contracting out with a construction company to do the Mhmm. Work. So so you got two different scenarios there with BGS.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I think to representative Headrick's point, I think a does still put that obligation on us. The same as it would if, you know, somebody's in there saying derogatory things about sex offenders or about voteric parsonage in general. We wouldn't tolerate that behavior, and so I think that still gives us that tool. We just wouldn't be required to provide training to BGS staff, which I don't mind not having as an obligation on the department. I agree with that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So where are we with number five?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Do we keep it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in, but we tweak it a little bit in terms of some language that proportional to their interaction or something to that end.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Do we need to put it at the discretion of DOC to determine that proportionality?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it says the department shall ensure.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, you're right. Yeah, sure. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I think the default would be that the department is determined proportional. I think the option I mentioned was department shall ensure department staff, contractors, and volunteers receive gender responsive training proportional to their level of interaction with inmates.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So I realized I was out of the room for a meeting, contractor, is the intention for the word contractor here to be the service guy Or is contractor meant to be the provider of a service to an inmate?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is it?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, contractor But I

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: know what it says,

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: but is that was that the intention?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, one of the contractors is WellPath.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But that's a service provider to the inmates, not somebody who's working on an overhead door. So is the term contractor in this case need to be more specific that it is service providers? Or was it the intention that it's supposed to cover labor, the blue collar worker too? That's what I'm asking. Because they're different kinds of contractors. And so what's the intention?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One thing that came up earlier, maybe with respect to four, but if the intention is to specify department contractors, so three groups Josh mentioned as contracting directly with the department who do in effect provide services, I think department contractors would be distinguished from a BGS contractor coming in. So if you want to narrow that somewhat, let's say department contractors. And if you wanted to be particularly specific about I'm

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: just throwing it out there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, let's think this through. So if you narrow that to DOC contractors, people who contract directly with DOC, then they would receive training in proportion to their level interactions with inmates. And you would only be incorporating those contractors that the department contracts with directly. If you leave it broader, you're saying that the department would ensure that there's some gender responsive training proportional to their interaction with inmates. So some of those contractors may not have any interaction with inmates, and some may have some. So that would be the difference if you narrowed it to DOC contractors versus other folks to lose the committee. Does it not matter, or does it matter?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think with the qualifier of personality, it doesn't I think we're good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: With a qualifier of the personality?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: To

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: keep general, just to keep the word contractor and not to point it, not narrow it down? Josh is nodding.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah, think that works, it also allows us to target sort of our staff, because some staff have lots of direct cost pad, some staff have almost none or none at all. Some of our folks who do finance, like we still have obligations for them as state employees, but they don't have to get that training around how to interact with parsory folks because they don't. Right.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: And contractors aren't really supposed to have any direct contact either, right Josh?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Or do It really depends on what the contract is. Right. You know, like the overhead door guy? No. You really shouldn't have any The mental health provider, like those folks very much so. So I do like the proportionality language because it allows us to target it to what is the person doing in the building. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are there folks for the educational piece, are there folks who, and I'm thinking the old model community high school for the teachers. Are they also just employees of DOC or

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: They're they're they're the employees of the department.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Correct. So they're not working as teachers in a public system?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: We have a public system, like we have it certified high school. But I think contractors in that firm would include like CCB, would either be contractors or volunteers because they don't work for the department, but they do deliver services in our building. What about CCA? Oh,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: okay. I was looking at The

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: accountant has volunteered for contractors, probably contractors, but either way they fall into that. They're not Vermont DOC employees, but all the correctional educators are DOC employees.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm sorry, I was supposed to stop. It's okay. Thought I heard CCP, but I wasn't sure what's going on there.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And if anybody is missing that loophole, we still have A, above, which establishes a broad obligation on the department for anybody who's interacting with the population.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the proposal is for five to keep it the same as it is, but only to add a proportional to their interactions with inmates. Does that work for folks? Yes. Okay, let's keep going.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. We are now at the top of page six. This is the second part of section three, subsection B, nondiscrimination. So just a reminder, this started with language saying the department shall not make placement decisions based on any discriminatory reason. There was a question about specifying what that meant. The last draft suggested any other discriminatory reason, meaning based on any legally protected category. There was some testimony yesterday that some decisions might in fact be based in part or largely in part on mental health was an example, which could be, not in all cases, but could be a legally protected category. So I think the question for the committee here is, are there specific discriminatory bases that that we are trying to exclude here, and should we list them? Or one option that I think we still might want to hear DOC testimony on. But one other option was trying to limit the language to say solely. So the option here is the department's decision not to accommodate an individual's search, classification, housing, or programming placement request shall not be based solely on, one, which there hasn't been any concerns about, two, any other discriminatory reason, meaning based on any legally protected category.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Have a hard time interpreting what two says, the way it's written. I'm just having a really hard time, and I had a hard time yesterday interpreting this. So the placement request shall not be based solely on the anatomy. That makes sense. And it shouldn't be based on a legally protected category. Is that what that's saying? Yes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think the intent originally in the draft was to have some really broad anti discrimination language, which makes sense. I think the challenge is that as applied, there are actually some scenarios where DOC is considering something that in other contexts is a legally protected category, like a mental health condition, that is part of how they're thinking about whether a placement is appropriate, at least how I understood some testimony we heard yesterday. And if that's the case, this language would be a challenge because it's saying DOC cannot do that. I think adding solely, solely is a new word from the previous language, that means that the department could still consider something like mental health as part of its overall picture. But it couldn't make the decision, like the determining factor could not be mental health.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just wonder if that could

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be worded so young. Maybe it's only me, but I'm really having a hard time understanding number two. And maybe it's just me. I think that if other than broadly saying the department should not be discriminating, if there's something specific that this is intended to prevent, like the department should not be, I mean, is very specific. So the question might just be, is there another, either a specific legally protected category that the department should not be making decisions based on. Because I think otherwise, the language doesn't provide clear direction to DOC and might, it sounds like, could create a problem because there is some consideration of at least the one example of mental health.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what are some of the protected categories, the DOC? And I'm just thinking through this, that you would house someone, an administrative seg, either to protect themselves. It could be disciplinary SIG because the discipline, they're not abiding by the rules of the facility. It could be a mental health unit. Could be the infirmary. It could be the geriatric unit.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Those latter three are all potentially based on protected categories. In fact, it is often the primary reason. You know, when we put somebody in an infirmary, it's because they have a serious medical condition or possibly a disability. When we put someone in a geriatric unit, certainly age is a primary consideration. So I think perhaps sexual orientation isn't a reason why we should be determining whether somebody's living, and that might be sort of what's being thought here, or one of the things being thought here. But in particular, on actually age and the other end, terms of youth, we make specific decisions about how we house young folks. Those are all potentially protected categories that absolutely do affect housing determinations.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: A SEG is not so much a protected, it's more of an administrative.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And we wouldn't put anybody in seg for I can't think of how we put somebody in seg for one of those sort of protected reasons. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: they could be put in seg.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: They could be put in seg, but it wouldn't be for that reason.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It might be to protect them from being harassed or not. Because it could be because testimony we've received in the past when we've looked at SAG is for administrative SAG could be they're not abiding by the rules of the facility, or sometimes you might put them in there for their safety because being targeted.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: There is a protective custody thing that's I would would say that that's not ever solely identity based in that we have folks of all sorts of different identities, living general population, a specific person may be being targeted in part based on their identity and in those cases we'd want to, and I think Priya set some rules on limiting that, but we'd wanna find another housing assignment other than protective custody for that person, although in a short term that might be. But even then, it wouldn't be if we're not putting this person in there because they're transgender, we're putting this person in there because the assessment situation right now is that this individual is in danger.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what I'm trying to That's why I put this out on the table, because these are all little nuances that are happening out there in terms of how you house folks. And I want to allow the flexibility for DOC, but also to be respectful of the accommodations the individual. And that might be in conflict with what the individual wants, but what DOC is really needing in terms of the safety for that person and the security of the facility. That's my concern. Think Does that make sense, Josh?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: It makes sense to me, and I like the legally protected category, except where it runs into areas where we actually do have to use that information.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think one question to ask in thinking about how to handle B, and especially B2, or B insofar as it includes two, is what are the bases that this bill intends to tell the department it cannot make these decisions based on? It's clear that they cannot make it based solely on anatomy. But given the testimony that there are some legally protected categories that the department has reasons to consider in their decisions, what are the categories that the bill intends to say? Department, you cannot make a decision based on this. Because my suggestion is that if we don't have a specific example, including the broad language is going to create more challenges than provide clarity.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Shawn? There are open and infinite lists of prints now. You can't deny it because you know the color of their eyes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not at least a protected category.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: No, no, no. But that's what I'm saying. The list is

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Without referencing legally protected category, it could be very broad. Legally protected category, as drafted, would include there are couple of Vermont laws and a proposed constitutional amendment that mention specific protected categories, and this would reference any of them. So it is a discrete list. And looking back on it, than, I think Josh mentioned, sexual orientation could be a specific one to prohibit. But other than that, I think it's just a trade off of it wasn't clear to me which protected categories would be reason would be something the bill would be telling the department not to consider. And there are several, as mentioned, that the department is considering.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Kelly, I'm just wondering, is it and I might be missing the point too, but can we split up? Does it help to split up two as a sentence into two and three? Like, does it is it or any other discretionary reason or any legally protected category? Does that help or is that not helping? You can tell me that was dopey, but I wanted to ask. I've never used dopey.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think that solves the challenge.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Okay. Alright. I was just trying to be because it seems like there's a lot

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Do the you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: right to be stupid?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Reserve the right to still use dopey.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yeah. Okay. I'm

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: trying to it

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Sometimes sentences that they're anyway.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We love all suggestions. Okay. That particular one won't solve the problem. Okay. It's my new fault.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: AKA, what a dope. So

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I just it reads weird to me and I Why is meaning on there? Like why can't it be any other discriminatory reason based on legally protective categories? Why is the word meaning in there?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So as written, it's it's trying to keep that kind of broad anti discriminatory principle. So for any other discriminatory reason, but to be clear what discriminatory reason meant, it's saying essentially any discriminatory reason, which means based on a legal

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You say which means?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, but that doesn't solve. That solves James' question, but it still doesn't solve the challenge of mentioning any legally protected category when there are in fact some legally protected categories that the department has reasons to consider in these decisions.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Any suggestion from you to?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think so. My suggestion is if there is a specific legally protected category that the committee intends to tell the department it cannot consider, we should specify, the bill should specify that legally protected category. If there isn't a specific legally protected category, then my recommendation would be to include one, but remove two. That doesn't accomplish this kind of a broad statement. I think the challenge is the broad statement includes some things that it shouldn't include. So it's either we specify something or we remove the broader principle. So

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm leaning towards that, but then maybe beefing up one. So what we're at here is when a person identifies as, let's just say, transgender in this case. There's more gender diverse reasons. And they've requested an accommodation. So I identify as a trans woman. I'm requesting to be placed at Chittenden Regional. Their spidey sense is triggered. And they're like, I don't think we should house this person, despite the fact that they're saying they're a trans woman at CRCF. Right now, if we just left it at one, they could not use my anatomy to make that decision or physical characteristics. That's essentially saying, we're prohibiting the Department of Corrections from saying, you don't look like a woman, so we're not going to let this happen. I might get lost now in my talk to talk process. That's what we're trying to protect here. That's essentially why this is in this particular bill. I guess my question then is, is that enough? Is that what we're doing? Is there any other scenario in that instance? And I'll turn to DOC here where a denial might happen. This is essentially what we're protecting. But that might be enough. That might be enough for a denial. Because your spidey senses

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are up for

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: a reason.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Well, we would usually tie that back to behavior, including criminal history, institutional history, things like that. The only other thing that pops out to me is sexual orientation, because surprisingly enough, we do have lesbians at Chittenden. The idea that somebody is attracted to women not a reason we would not let somebody go to Chittenden. So that's the only one that comes to mind. We wouldn't make a decision based on race or religion, but I also don't see it ever coming up in this context either. It's just not reasonably related to the topic at hand. Sexual orientation is the one other that sort of gets brought into this, because people tend to conflate gender identity and sexual orientation, and we try pretty hard to split those things.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So can you just say, or gender diverse category, gender diverse expression, another reason why deny you the request. You can't do that based on anatomy or physical characteristics or I'm thinking of the broader gender diverse umbrella category.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you look at the definition, you've

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to go back to the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: definition of gender diverse. It's an individual with a gender identity or expression that is different from social and cultural expectations attributed to the person's

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: at birth. So gender expression would be a way to Diverse gender expression. Could be a way to keep one somewhat expansive while being specific. And

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: then get rid of two.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Tenacity. So in that case, subsection b would read, the department's decision not to accommodate an individual's search, classification, housing, or programming placement request shall not be based solely on the anatomy, including the genitalia, other physical characteristics, or diverse gender expression of the individual. That sounds

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: good, right?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Troy? Sounds good to me.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Sounds good to me. Somebody

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: on the floor will find something.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It's a Gina problem.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: All

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right, mindful of our time. Any other thoughts for now on this non discrimination piece? And of course, there'll be new language.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Shot to death.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I think we've usefully explored a potentially challenging language and found a solution that seems to work, at least for purposes of the next draft. Moving on to section four, this was searches. The testimony yesterday and the position of the committee was to keep subsections A through C, but to remove what used to be C1, C2, and all of the subsections afterwards. So on pages six and seven, you'll see that all that remains are subsections A through C.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was a rebuttable presumption. Yes. Yep.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The first rebuttable presumption. I can see there's alternate the housing section. And then just to keep our conversation about searches in the same place, if you turn to page 15, I will scroll down there on my screen

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: as What about page eight?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We'll come

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: back to

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: page But seven through the search policy review that the committee discussed as part of the searches language in the bill, I think would be session law. So that's why it's the end of the bill on page 15. So this is section 10. This is page 15, lines seven through 13. So the committee's decision was to keep those first few search sections and then to add You

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: got this. Yeah. It's different from yesterday. Yeah.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To add section 10, search policy review. So this is page 15, line eight, A, on or before 08/01/2026, and the committee could change that date. Just bugging. The Department of Corrections shall submit a revised search policy to the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee. Subsection B, the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee shall review and recommend whether updates to the policy are warranted and what, if any, statutory changes might be warranted?

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Are you suggesting to change

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: that date to make it earlier?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm just flagging that I-

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, I wouldn't do it earlier.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Okay.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I understood testimony yesterday to mean that the new search policy will be ready at some certain point near in the future. So it didn't seem necessary to push this date out until November or December. But it also I tried not to cut it too closely. So if the bill is going into effect in July and there might be a new surge policy in the next month or two or three, this would be a relatively timely report date. But I just wanted to flag for the committee that I selected that date and another date, either DOC testimony indicating another date is appropriate or the committee thinking that another date made sense. But that's where I was thinking with August.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm just thinking of when we have our meetings. Mhmm. We have about six of them, and it depends when it starts, if it's in June or July. And I don't wanna wait long because Mhmm. This we're gonna need more. We only meet once a month if that Hailey, if you did it by August on it before August 1, that would mean doing it July having it completed by July. So would August 15 be better?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: August 1 is fine. The attention of the commissioner is to have this done. He told us three weeks. He is the boss, so it'll be three weeks, but that's pretty aggressive, but certainly before the August 1. So I think that date's perfectly reasonable.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At July 15.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Or so so I you gotta

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We could do it at our first we could do it at our first meeting. Or is that too soon?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Think we do July 15. Think we do July 15. I think that would be a problem. What meetings were you talking about?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Joint Justice Oversight. They meet six times, I have session. Got it, and you're on I'm chair.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Preferred work to yourself, what you're saying.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I'm just, no, I'm just wondering when we meet because when our first meeting, depending when we adjourn from the session, usually we'll have a meeting towards the June, Maybe August 1. Sometimes in the summer, it's

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: kind of weird. We may not meet

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in July or we may not meet in August. And that's what I'm just trying to figure out. And then to make to review it and to make any recommended updates, it's gonna take a few meetings after that to do that.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Adam, you're the chair. You can make the meetings. No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I can make meetings, but we may not have a. That's the problem. Let's let's keep August 1. I think that may have flexibility.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Great. Any questions or suggested changes to the section 10 search policy review language?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's a good way out of it, what we were doing yesterday.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Excellent. We will now return to page seven. So those are the search policy changes in this draft. Section five, this is the classification and housing section that we did not touch on in detail yesterday. But there were two recommendations made from yesterday's testimony. One was that POC testimony suggested that putting this in its own section made most sense. This is now in a new section, seven zero one titled Classification, Housing and Program Placement Determinations. The other change made here was to offer some alternatives to the rebuttable presumption language so that it was avoiding any questions about whether just implicated the burden of proof. So I will read through, because the committee hasn't read through the subsections A through D, but I'll flag that the decision other than comments from folks, the decision point will be on alternative language for how DOC is considering someone's requests. Other thing I'll flag, which I didn't earlier in the bill, but there's conversation yesterday about using the word views and asking for some different word. This draft uses requests. Seems to work somewhat well, but if there is if the committee would prefer perspective or thinks that something else is appropriate. We can make that change, but the draft uses request for. It also makes the change suggested by the general counsel that DOC would not accommodate a request as opposed to overrule a request. So the draft also uses the language of not accommodate when it's referring to DOC making a determination contrary to what an individual might request. Should have prefaced that upfront. Do want me to point out where She's to got

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the search files. Yeah. So I was trying

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to You'd like me to have up on my screen the section we're talking about?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was looking at this. I was trying to find what you were saying. Yep.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is page seven. Sorry. We are back to page seven.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was trying to work on the old draft, comparing it to the new draft and trying

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to comprehend what you were saying. Got it. Well, I clearly need to do a better job of situating ourselves. So yes, this is page seven, section five. A new is added to read. A new section seven zero one based on testimony yesterday that a new section was most logical to DOC. Subsection A, this is page seven, line six. The Department shall make classification and housing placement determinations for transgender, gender diverse and intersex inmates consistent with this section. Throughout this section, it specifies where things are applying to transgender, gender diverse and intersex inmates, again, based on testimony yesterday to avoid any confusion about provisions applying more broadly. So that change was made in A. Subsection B, during the initial intake process and in as private a setting as possible, the department shall ask each transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmate to specify the inmate's request as to housing placement. That is an example of where the draft now uses request instead of views.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Can I ask a quick question? Sure. They haven't necessarily identified themselves as transgender, diverse, or intersex yet at this point in the process.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this will come earlier in the statute. If we look back

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to Oh, right. Yep.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If we look back to Section 129 during initial intake, they will ask. There was some discussion. So the provision that I just talked about or that I just read B, on page seven, this could be a sub bullet in that earlier section about initial intake. But there was some subcommittee discussion that placing this all in a housing section would be easiest to understand and perhaps easiest to explain on the floor. So this is placed all within This a housing housing

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: after intake. Intake has already accommodated the assertation.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. I think when DOC is reading the statutory changes, they will have a list of things that they, I think, are already doing, but they will have a list of things for intake. And this will be on that list along with the initial items. There will already be asking the individual how they identify.

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

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, subsection C, the Department shall make classification and housing placement determinations for transgender, gender diverse or intersex inmates based on review by a multidisciplinary review panel. The multidisciplinary review panel shall be composed of individuals, including medical personnel, mental health professionals with experience in gender dysphoria or gender affirming care, and personnel who have received training aligned with nationally recognized standards for gender affirming care?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah, consistently. I mean, yes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Subsection D, the department shall consider sorry, this is page seven, line 19. And I am, in fact, helping us follow on the screen instead of being on another page. The department shall consider on an individualized basis whether a classification or housing placement would best support a transgender, gender diverse and intersex inmates' health and safety, and whether the placement would pose risks to safety or security. The Department may determine that a classification or housing placement would not best protect health or safety at that time, but may recommend discussing reassessment with the inmate after a specified period. That second sentence came from some subcommittee discussion that sometimes the conversation is ongoing, that for particular reasons, placement determining or accommodating the individual's request might not be appropriate for certain reasons at the time, but that the department would handle it by having ongoing conversations. So that second sentence on page eight, lines one through four, was intending to capture that sometimes it's an ongoing conversation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So how does this what we I can understand the intake process. Mhmm. So how does a, c, and d work with, pop at page six, we just talked about the nondiscrimination department decision not to accommodate a person not to accommodate an individual's classification housing placement. How does this play in with what we did at the top

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of page six B? A great question. On the top of page six, subsection B, that nondiscrimination provision applies more broadly than classification, housing, and program placement. It also applies to searches. So that's why it's in this early section saying the department cannot make any of these decisions based solely on anatomy and the other language that we included there. So this section on page seven is specific to how classification, housing and program placement determinations are made. This does not repeat what is in the nondiscrimination provision, but what is at the top of page six would still apply here because it's applying broadly here and to searches.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, they're working together. They're not counter. Exactly. Each other. They're working together.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Subsection A is just explaining how the section works. It's saying if you are making determinations, do so consistent with the section, what follows. B, what happens during initial intake? DOC asks each transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmate to specify the inmate's request as to housing placement. C, how does the department make these decisions based on review by a multidisciplinary review panel that shall consist of the listed individuals. And then D is, I guess, part two of how does the department make the decision? Maybe C is who makes the decision, the multidisciplinary review panel. And D is how is the department, that panel deciding what the placement is? So the department shall consider, this is page seven, line 19. The Department shall consider on an individualized basis whether a classification or housing placement would best support a transgender, gender diverse and intersex inmates' health and safety, and whether the placement would pose risks to safety or security. I'm realizing I already read this for you. Originally, what followed here was the rebuttable presumption. But based on testimony and discussion yesterday, that was not the clearest or most useful way to articulate the decision making. So on page eight, we have two pieces of language that we could consider that try to explain how the department should be making this determination. So on page eight, line six, the department shall give serious consideration to the inmate's classification or housing placement request. If the department finds that accommodating the inmate's request would pose an unreasonable risk to safety or security, the department may decide that it cannot accommodate the request. So that's still a way to capture the two parts we had in the rebuttable presumption, but without that framework. So that's option one. The second option was based on a suggestion from commissioner testimony that effectively the statute would describe the kinds of things that the department should consider. So this is line 12. In making classification and housing placement determinations, the department shall consider, A, the inmate's request as to housing placement, B, the inmate's health and safety, C, the safety and security of other inmates and that should say staff, that's on me, And d, facility operations. So I think you'd have to hear from DOC if they felt that either version of this language would result in something different in practice, but they are two different ways to describe, to tell DOC what kinds of things it should be thinking about and how it should be considering them. I think the first one uses serious consideration language that is used elsewhere in the bill. I think that is potentially a little bit stronger language than the second version of the language in terms of how it refers to the weight the department is giving to the inmate's request. The second version, the department is weighing all four of those things equally as written. Those are the things it's considering. It's weighing them equally. And in the first version, the department is giving serious consideration. So as written, I think more weight to the request by the inmate, but also considering all factors. Any questions about the two versions of the language? I think answering my question that I am curious if the department thinks it would do something different based on these two things, but I think as I was explaining it, there would be more weight to the inmate's request in the first version than as written in the second. So we combine both of them. Because what I'm wondering, we're gonna have to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: make policy decision here, folks, one or the other or combination. What I like about two is it sort of lays out what the department would consider, but it might be too limiting in what they consider. I don't know. They have it's an and, it's not an or. So they have to consider all a, b, c, and d. Folks pick that up. It says and at the end of line 16, which means DOC needs to consider a, b, c, and d, that one or the other. It was something different. So they have to consider all four factors. So you list something, which makes it really clear what they need to look at. But on the other hand, it does when you list something, you tend to limit.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: That's what I like about the first one, actually, like what Hillary is saying. I think that then and it's because it's written in a way that lets them incorporate more things into this decision.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the department needs to give serious consideration to the inmate's classification or housing placement request. And if that request poses an unreasonable risk, the safety and security may decide cannot accommodate it. So it's only on risk to safety and security to the facility or to the

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: inmates. The specific call out in the bottom section about the safety of other inmates, because that is implied in the first section, but not said, the specific call out of it in the second section of the the safety of the staff makes sense.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that could be incorporated in the first. There are ways. You've got to blend these.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Really have to blend both. That's fine.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Like the cleanness of the first one.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But yes, I would agree with having that prescription.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So other inmates and staff, safety and security of other inmates and staff specifically, is something we can pull into the first version. Is there anything else about this? The first version doesn't mention facility operations. I'm worried about something the commissioner mentioned. Is that also something that the committee would like to pull into the first version?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So facility operations. When when we were in COVID, you were locked out. The other piece that I'm wondering plays in, you shortened staff, you may lock down a unit. That's a facility operation. What other facility operations? You could be doing construction and you have to move away now. I'm just thinking, maybe I'm thinking out of the box, Josh, but

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah, no, I know. I'm trying to think how that plays out in practice, in particular around decisions for housing for Overcrowding? Well, no, I but that wouldn't be a reason to not place somebody in a facility when they belong there. I wouldn't I wouldn't keep a cisgender female in Springfield because Chittenden is crowded. That's not an option. And if we decide that that is the most appropriate place for a gender diverse or transgender person, I don't think I can use the fact that Chittenden's Croud as a reason not to do that. I think there are facility operation pieces that definitely come into play.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one thing to think about is that if we take the other inmates and staff language from the second version, including the first version, if it's just the first version, that doesn't limit the factors DOC can consider in making the overall placement decision. It's just saying that if DOC is going to not accommodate an inmate's request, the reasons it can do that are because it found there was an unreasonable risk to safety or security to other inmates and staff or of other inmates and staff. So it's really just describing the circumstances under which the department can not accommodate an inmate's request. It's not restricting DOC's decision making and what kind of factors it can consider generally. So I think the bill originally was trying to get at what the first is saying, like what does it mean to ask the department to consider an inmate's request? The second version was just coming out of testimony yesterday as another way to describe what the bill wants DOC to do in terms of decision making, how it wants DOC to make the decision. So in one, the department needs to give serious consideration

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to the inmate's request. The department then needs to find that accommodating that request would pose an unreasonable risk to the inmate's health and safety and to the safety and security of other inmates.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Four. Yeah. So

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you're merging B and C into one. Yeah.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the department can then decide it cannot accommodate. So it really limits the department to deny that accommodation based on the inmates' health and safety and the safety and secure or the safety and security of other inmates instead. It doesn't give you any other factors.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Say no?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To say no. Doesn't give you any other factors. Just say no.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think the question would be, are there times where DOC has other reasons to not accommodate a request? In which case

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would it be facility operations, though? I don't know. I just don't want to tie your hands behind your back and all of a sudden you get

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: a sideways appreciate that. I definitely appreciate that. I mean, safety and security risks That's pretty broad. That's pretty broad, and those are really the factors when we're having these conversations. Like, is it going to be safe for the person?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Is it going

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: be safe for the other people? We Those really are the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: keep the general risk to safety and security. Yeah. Can we also add inmates' health and security and the safety and security of other inmates and staff? That I think And wars between three different

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I think that gives us enough leeway to make the make appropriate decisions. Well, they'll be giving serious consideration to the the inmate request reviews.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So safety or security that's there now would cover facility operations. We keep too many notes going back and forth between people. That makes me nervous.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No, not.

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

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Absolutely. I like the combo of butter. I combo of

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: butter. I like human meals, especially.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: A little bit of one, little bit of two.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I like the rest of people because Chatt

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: was due in here at some point to talk about new language for recidivism. So moving forward, the next draft will reflect the Convocation Planner for Subsection D.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let me see if I miss.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On page eight, line 18, subdivision two, the Department shall base its classification and housing placement determinations on reliable objective evidence. The Department's determination regarding accommodating an inmate's classification or housing placement request shall not be based on assumptions or stereotypes about the risks at a particular correctional facility. So the bill, as introduced, had language about a factor at the facility. And I think this language was the suggestion to try to make that clear, capture the idea. This is what that factor language was getting at, but this is trying to state it in a way that could be more easily understood.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that was a DOC request, I believe, wasn't it?

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: think there

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: were some general questions about the factor language. This is handled.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I was going to say, echoing the commissioner who was here yesterday for searches, you essentially laid out that broad expectation in that one paragraph and then left the rest of it. Would that be an appropriate approach here for classification as well? The broad expectation of the committee or of the legislature is that if you show up in serious consideration, blah blah blah, but then leave the rest of that for policy very similar to what you did in searches.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the suggestion would be from subdivision to on?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Question for the committee, obviously, but how much and what about language do you need beyond what is in many of those sections? Then you have parity with the direction you view that's on searches.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So subsection E, just to hit the points that are in these other sections for the committee to discuss what it feels important to include or not. On page nine, subsection e is about the department providing a reason in writing why the department cannot accommodate a request. Subsection F is about placement out of state and that essentially the department shall consider the same shall perform the same decision making process as it would for in state and coordinate with any contracted facility. G is about reassessment. So the department would reassess housing placement in certain circumstances. Subsection H is as a PREA standard. There was some earlier DOC testimony about making sure that these sections were consistent with PREA. So H is a PREA standard, but now that there is a PREA section in the bill will be touched on elsewhere, but that is H. And I. So I think an I is something from the original bill that when the department is making bed assignment placement or programming decisions, it gives serious consideration inmates' perception of health and safety, including some specific options. So in terms of Josh's question, up to the committee to decide whether it feels it's important to include all of these details or not. From my perspective, I will just flag that the pieces that are potentially already covered in DOC policy or more policy oriented are subsection E, subsection G. I'm sorry. So this would be subsection I guess subsection E is not in policy. I'll leave that alone for now. Subsection G would be already covered in DOC policy and is more a procedural thing. H, similarly, is something already covered in PREA and DOC policy. I is something from the original bill that I don't think is specifically reflected in DOC policy. So certainly up to the committee whether to keep all of these or just to keep some of these. But to start off, I will just flag that I think at least G and H are reflected in policy as more procedural or smaller things. So in terms of consistency with the search approach, maybe those don't need to stay in statute. E, F, and I are potentially new statements or kind of broader statements to include. Or not. Again, the committee could choose to say that the sections, the subsections earlier cover the principle and that none of these are needed?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have a question. So

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: the first one too. Just What first one are you

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: The first one, back on page eight that we're talking about in this, right? Line 18, page two, I can't imagine how you even enforce that. It seems so silly that you're asking people, shall not be based on assumptions or stereotypes. Tell me how you're gonna do that. How are you gonna enforce that? We're asking them to put these people in the right place. Of course, they're gonna make assumptions. And there's a little I mean, I don't know. Anyway, I have a problem with that one. I just I would kill that altogether.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's subjective.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: It's super subjective. And it's like and how does how do you even begin to enforce that? So I have a problem.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So I wanna talk about how we got there Yeah. For this one. So this is a person identifies, I remember us talking about this, Josh. What are in? This one really came up in the reverse. So, a woman identifies as a trans man. I no longer want to be placed at CRCF. I want to be placed at, let's say, Northwest. And the department says, Woah, woah, woah. We don't think Northwest is a safe place for you. And that's based on assumptions and stereotypes, on the fact that we're about to place you into an all men's facility, and you identify as a trans man, but biologically. So this intends to protect those assumptions and stereotypes from weighing too heavily on the decision to accommodate, in this example, a trans man's request. Josh spent a lot of time with us talking about the iterative process in and around that. And it falls back on the individualized, which is still in here, situational basis, and how they get there. And I don't know, I want you to weigh in, because I don't know if I'm

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yeah, well, don't know you're saying, but I don't think that's in here.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I don't know how much of that is covered in sort of the language we worked on, one. Assumptions and judgments, I think, is a fuzzy one. If we're talking about assessing the risk to somebody's safety there, I can't make an assumption that because I'm putting somebody in a male facility, they're going to be raped. On the other hand, I am putting them in a facility with males to include folks who are convicted rapists. So there is certainly beyond just an assumption about assessing that danger, and I'm not sure, to your point, how I draw that line, and to what extent that's already covered in the factors that we're considering in discussing number one.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Right, I'm not opposed to helping you try to make that, but I'm assuming, and maybe

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I shouldn't be doing that,

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: that you are trying to someone in the safest situation they can be in. So I I just feel like this is this is, like I just feel this is gray. That's all. It's just not as clear as it needs to be. That's to me.

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And I'll just I am confident and I want to reiterate the gratitude I have for both Josh and Jen who are part of this process. And I am confident that Vermont is well ahead of the curve on this. That being stated, we are here. And I know that the department is in the process, for example, of creating a search policy. Great. And we've deferred to that. We've accommodated that. We are here because of testimony that indicates practice has not kept up with intent. That is what we have heard. So I'm not necessarily I'm cautious. I'm really cautious, if not resistant, to deferring to pending policy in this section around housing. I'm not negating the conversation we still need to have on point two, especially if it's unclear. But I don't necessarily want to defer to pending policy on this one.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: I just would hope there's a stronger way to say that that's all in a way that I probably because I'm a little dopey. I can't come up with that, but I know that

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And one might cover it. Right.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One is the affirmative version of it. One is describing affirmatively, here's how the department shall make the decision. If the department is following what we have described in one

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Why is that

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there? You can still have value in a specific prohibition, but I think that's something for the committee to weigh, that if there is this pretty specific direction about how the decision shall be made, how much work is the specific prohibition in Subdivision 2 doing. And I think folks have explained the kind of scenario it is intended to apply to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So can I kick back to page seven? See, this is my clarify this. Slide 14 says there'll be a review by a multidisciplinary review. That's for the classification and housing. So who is on this multidisciplinary review panel? Number one. And is it currently in place? Because we have listed out here who should be on the panel. And is that currently in place? They're the ones that really determine where a person is at. Is that multidisciplinary refusal panel already in place?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: There's in fact two. There's an initial review by the local team that includes the facility management, operations casework, as well as mental health and medical, and then they make a recommendation that goes to the central team, which also includes our health and wellness, our health wellness engagement division, both medical and mental health, as well as pre operations and classification. And then we review the local determination and make a decision. I would want to look specifically, sort of once the language is finalized around whether we need to provide additional training to those folks or bring anybody else onto those committees to make sure that we're meeting what's in here, but both those groups exist and function and are the ones who make those decisions.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, language on page seven, right, for C, line 12 through 18, looks like we're creating a new panel or are we not? Because it's saying the review panel shall be composed of individuals, including medical, mental health, with experience in gender dysphobia and gender affirming care and personnel who have received training. So are we setting up in this C a new review panel, or does that reflect your current panel?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I hope that is not the intent of C.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what I'm asking.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And even though you guys don't specify people with operational experience, we're going to add that to the panel. We're not required to, but I can't imagine us not wanting that there. You're saying specifically that you want the medical and mental health perspective so that those folks be knowledgeable about gender affirming care, it makes sense. You don't have to tell DOC to include operational people in operational decisions. You can, but we're going to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: if you have a couple layers of panels, do you really need, at the bottom of page eight, do you really need two?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We talked about this too, that those panels are already doing what

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: we meant to we met this morning. They reviewed two cases. Yeah. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Shawn and then James.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Well, Troy, getting at is, can we say on '18 just the first sentence? Can we just say the department shall base its classifications and housing placement determinations unreliable, objective, evidence. Done. How's that? And then not have that, because then the next line muddies it again.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And I think, to the chair's point, I think Section C from Stage seven is in place to create those reliable objective evidence based decisions.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: James? Well, that took one of my things away. And I agree with that. The second one is if Josh is concerned about whether or not we're making a new panel or if we're somehow going to make sure the wording acknowledges that they have panels that without creating something else. But if their panel exists and it follows this, then we're not really making a new one. We're just codifying that they have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But are they termed multidisciplinary? Oh, They are.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yes. We absolutely use that term.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the only thing that would be added are we adding anything? Because I'm not looking at the operation piece. Are we adding anything?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So for C, the way it's drafted, it doesn't say shall create or is created. But one way to clarify that the intention is to have the statute require that the department keep using the department's panels that it has is page seven, lines 12 through 13. The department shall make classification and housing placement terminations for transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmates based on review by the department's multidisciplinary review camps.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: That's cute. Those panels. I like that.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We would make it panels.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There are two. But it clarified.

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

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the multidisciplinary review panels shall be composed of individuals including, that means that it's not limited. It doesn't have to be just these people. That language is set up to be Including there. The word including. Including does a lot of work there. The panels have to have that representation, but could be composed of other individuals as well.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Josh So potentially also just say the panel shall include individuals with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think that shall be posted.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is more straightforward, but it gives me a little challenge with nouns following. That's fine. I don't

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: want to mess up your nouns.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're putting in review by the department's multidisciplinary review panel. Do we have one panel? We You have made it plural? Okay. That's what I wanted. I missed that.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I think

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I asked that question a minute ago.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. When we were drafting

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: local folks to look at it, and then we want a central level review.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. When we were drafting, we knew that there were two panels. I think this helps clarify that the composition requirement applies to both. The way that subsection D is drafted when it returns to the department was drafted like that to make sure that at both levels, both panels were using this criteria and making the decision in the same way. So that's why Subsection D and Subsection E, and in fact, the rest of this section, uses the department such that it's applying to both of the panels decision making. So I guess one question first on C. Any other edits? C or questions folks had about C?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: All right.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I heard the edit from the committee that on page eight, line 19, starting with the department's determination regarding, the next draft would take out that sentence. So that brings us to we have five subsections in this classification and housing section. We can keep walking through each of them. There was testimony about whether all of them are warranted or questioning whether all of them were warranted in light of the search policy approach. I think also some discussion of there being a reason to treat these two things differently. So I will just keep marching through subsection. So you're talking page nine. Yes, we are on page nine. Section E, F,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: H, and I. So what I picked up previously, G is in current DOC policy. Oh, really? I picked that up.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: H is not necessarily verbatim, but this is drawn from and input was provided consistent with. H

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is part of a PREA standard.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was in our original bill. And E and F came from where?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: E is also from the original bill introduced. F was added in subcommittee discussions because there was a question about when you read this whole section, it's not clear whether it covers individuals who are placed out of state. So ACT was a specific addition to confirm that the kinds of things the bill is directing DOC to consider in making these determinations apply to determinations in placing folks in facilities in Vermont and in determining whether an out of state placement is appropriate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So for E, it's explaining back to the inmate why they were denied. And then that goes into inmate records.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yes.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Say more about that.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yeah, more

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: about the industry.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Because that was like, yeah,

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: there was a lot

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: to that. That was at the tip

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: of the iceberg.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You were around, Mary. Inmate records in terms of when inmates have access to their records.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, we

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: were so

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: fucked up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. We did that. We did a lot of work on that one in 1718 when the department didn't wanna do it. You didn't wanna do it. You had your legal person in here at the time fighting us, and then we wanted to do rules and keep spinning to the table.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: We did we did end up doing a rule.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Finally, after we came back and told you we meant it. And then we finally did it. Three years worth, mister Galfetti.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: So do so are

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: we saying e and f and e and f are good then?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, the question is, do we want clarity? Do we want the department to, in writing, be very clear with the per with the person who's being denied why they were unable to accommodate the inmates classification or house replacement request?

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Do they do that now, Josh?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: The policy that goes into effect on Friday requires them a copy of it. We can currently make a written determination that has not always consistently gone back to the incarcerated individual, but we've added that as a specific requirement policy that's going to affect on Friday, Friday, and Sunday. That will go forward. Yes. I don't know that we use specific and articulable reason in our policy.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That was language from the bill as introduced. I would say that from a I'm not sure including both of them changes the requirement from saying specific. The idea is you can't have a one sentence vague, we decided it because safety. I think it's like that would not be permissible, whether or not this line said specific and articulable or just specific. But I think that's getting at there has to be a non generic reason. I'm not saying the bill should say that. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: even though they may have the policy, just kinda knowing how corrections can work with the public and with inmates, what they say to family members on the outside or legislators on the outside. This language would really clear up any ambiguity that we might hear from one side or the other.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: There's a benefit sometimes to having us put something, having a defined something in writing, because then when someone says, well, they did this and I have no idea why, or we have something, and welcome to, you know, with a release, we can share that information with folks or you were given a copy and I would like to see that copy if you're telling me DOC was inappropriate here. That's both sides. Yeah, I I don't have which is why we put in the policy that we were going to notify them anyway. The question is solely whether or not it also needs to be in statute. I believe there's a bunch of legislators in the room, so I can leave that in your capable hands.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: It's well done.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: On determining that it will not accommodate the request document and certify in writing, instead of saying a specific, a specific, if applicable reason Particular. Or whatever, just saying the reason, certify in writing, the reason the department is unable.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you have to do the specific reason? So I'll just offer something about there's the we have document through reason, document and certify in writing a specific and articulable reason. There is some work being done by specific or articulable. If you just say reason, then it could be the generic reason of because safety, one sentence. So there is some work being done as a matter of language by saying at least specific or articulable. Adjective for reason is doing some work. For document and certify in writing, I think that is three ways of saying document or in writing. Think

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: In writing.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sometimes you bang things over the head in statutory language for good reason. I think that I understand the key force here to be, it needs to be in writing, which is important.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: So kill and certify. Or just kill and certify.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think and certify. I think document in writing a specific reason the department would capture the substance there and

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Got you.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sold us. The goal is elegant only what you need. I will get there in ten years. You are here for the ride while I figure it out. But at least for this particular section, I think that is a straightforward way to capture the intent there.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Giver demand, certified, giver, and articulable. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what would it read? Ponzi So saying that it will not accommodate the request.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Document in writing a specific reason the department is unable to accommodate the inmate's classification or housing placement request. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Trouble. So

[Conor Casey (Member)]: No, no. So I'm just wondering, practically, how does that work? So like, I'm seeing a form reason for denial. And at one scene, I see like a bunch of checkboxes, right? Like safety and security check. Is that sufficient or

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: is it more? A little more credit than that.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It be like Crazy Eddie on this unit said he's going to beat up like any transgender person who comes with it?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: No, that would be a reason to move crazy Eddie. Yeah. You know, on based on an assessment of your criminal history of violence against women and substantiated case of sexual harassment during prior incarceration, for instance.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think specific requires more than a checkbox.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm good. I'm good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Let's move along here.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I want to That's get answers in not a subterranean stereotype.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You just take one of those while you were out. It's a niches.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I am semi ambivalent to this, but there is a difference between documenting and certifying. One is just saying something happened, one is saying it's true. They are different things.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that the intent is requiring So you could have a Josh, feel free to hop in here. You either have a DOC memo form. Certify would be saying you need to swear an affidavit about what happened, which it doesn't seem to me this is a decision. It's not a judicial review. We certify that this happened. We're making findings or we were there and we're saying we saw this happen. It's a way of capturing how the panel or panels made the decision, which I'm not sure what it would look like to certify that decision as opposed to documenting. So fair point that there's a difference.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: See I'm

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: advocating for keeping it. I just want the people, I guess, that are here, is that there is in fact a difference. If anybody didn't understand that, that there is a difference between the two.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In statutory language, generally, you're absolutely right. I think here, the suggestion is that there's no work being done by it, but great clarification.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: We do make a lot of really impactful decisions on people that we document, but not necessarily have an obligation to certify.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A great general point about language that in other bills where you see document or certify, that It's would make a

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a lead thing every day, I know I Great. Got to understand

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good to you guys. Working. Moving forward to subsection F. So this is page nine, line eight. The department shall consider on a regularized basis whether placement at a contracted facility, including outside the state, would best support a transgender, gender diverse or intersex inmates' health and safety, and whether the placement would pose risks to safety or security. So that's the same language that we have earlier in the bill that applies to facilities here. And it's saying placement at a contracted facility, including outside the state, which I understand to be placement at a contracted facility outside the state. But that is a way of just covering bases. Can I stop you there?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Replacement at a contracted facility, including outside the state. So are there any contracted facilities in the state that a person could go to?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Not.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we're talking inmates. We're not talking offenders.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah. In terms of secure settings, other than actually Red Clover would be, that's a contracted facility. With DOC? It's DCF, but we do place DOC, juveniles who have been placed in our care may be placed at Red Clover through an agreement that we have with DCF where that's appropriate. So that would be a contracted in same facility. If we had a 17 year old that was transgender, then this would require that we assess whether or not that's appropriate and coordinate with that contracted facility. I will say, I think A might require us to do it anyway. I don't have an objection to F. I think A makes us do it anyway, but again, that really leads to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: guys whether or not that you want that additional level of clarity, but I don't have an objection to F.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the other piece that I'm seeing, contracted facility, including out of state, That is more than contract with CoreCivic. Is that our interstate contact as well?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I would believe it to include interstate contact. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And is that our intent? What determines a person going through the interstate compact?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Do we have much latitude? We have latitude and we don't use our interstate compact and intergovernmental agreement with the Fed. We don't use those a lot, but it is usually related to somebody who either due to behaviors really unsafe in our system or is, if the chair were to get arrested, you've worked in corrections related issues for one hundred years. We might determine that it was, not one hundred, I think that's We might determine that it wasn't appropriate to house you adjourn it because of your extended familiarity with the system. If I were to get arrested, I'm quite sure they would not want to incarcerate me in Vermont. So those sorts of circumstances, we don't use it for egregious crimes as much as we used to, but that would be an option. If Colorado had a case where their corrections chief of security was shot by a recently released incarcerated individual, that's somebody that we might not want to continue to house in the Vermont system, if something like that, God forbid, were to happen here. So those sorts of circumstances, but if that person happened to be transgender or gender diverse, then we would want to, we'd be required to make sure that wherever we're putting them is appropriate and looks at that factor.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And this paragraph gives you that flexibility, but also gives you that service.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: We have to consider it, but again, many times we're looking at this, we're already looking at some risks to safety and security given the person. So how does one weigh the other? It also, the other option, it hasn't been an option up to this point, but if somebody had a really great program that was working really well for gender diverse folks in a system somewhere, and willing to take folks and we had somebody who wanted to go there, we could certainly examine that under this. With or without this, we could examine that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One option, given some of the conversation around exactly what this would cover separate from what comes before, one option for line nine is to say whether placement at a facility outside the state would best support a transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmates. Because at this point, it's clear that contracted facility inside the state is covered elsewhere. And to be clear about contract versus compact, placement at a facility outside the state.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That's nice.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does that work, Josh? Okay. First time I

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have heard that today. I'm

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: done that today. Plum's lever is good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think I've I've actually have worn

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: either of them, so I just wanna

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I wanna

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: take the lever. The new framed fluffy.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: It was

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the seven dwarfs. We had sleepy. We had dopey.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Had We got sleepy.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, we got sleepy and dopey. I can't remember the numbers.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Well, Terry, I think the capital bill dollars were just resting in your account, right? Hopefully, we don't see those charges.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: With an eye on time, I want to keep moving just to make sure that can cover at least the rest of this section. So subsection G, this is page nine, line 14. This is something that is not not verbatim taken from current policy, but it is certainly consistent with it's taken from generally DOC policy. The department shall reassess an inmate's housing and placement at any time if the inmate requests a reassessment or raises concerns about the inmate's health or safety. Or two, the inmate engages in misconduct, including conduct that poses a safety risk to the inmate or to other.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Don't think it hurts to have it in this. I think it's probably Because

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there will be reassessments at times,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and you need some clarity. Okay, that's detailed. The next one's in PREA. That's the status. Subsection H. So page 10, line one. The Department shall not place a transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmate in segregation housing solely based on the inmate's gender identity or status.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So with it already being in PREA, is this needed or is it with the allowance of suspenders?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: If you already have language restricting or specifying whether the department can use federation housing as well. I think we're already prohibited, but again, up to the committee whether you want extra belt spenders on that. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, we're very clear on SIG what it can be used for. Yes, you are. We're very clear on that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The bill itself also,

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I think

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The bill has the PREA standards in them now as well or has the PREA language. So I think there's another part of the bill where

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: this section. Coach?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Committee is not correct.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Yes. Yes. I was in the original bill. Yes. So this is

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: slightly it's consistent with, but slightly different than the grounds covered before for individualized basis and the kinds of decisions. This is bed assignment placement or programming decisions. So a little bit more granular than classification and housing. Same overall criteria. So this first part one is consistent with what we said before about classification and housing or the bill says before. The department shall consider on an individualized basis whether a bed assignment placement or programming decision would best support a transgender, gender diverse or intersex inmates health and safety and whether that assignment placement or programming decision would pose risks to safety or security. This next bit to the Department shall give the inmate's perception of health and safety serious consideration in making bed assignment placement and programming decisions, including A, housing the inmate with another inmate to best support safety and security, and B, if there is an articulable risk to the inmate, removing the risk where possible or otherwise alleviating the risk. That's an and, not a or. Yep. Because it including means in making any of these decisions, the department shall consider these options. It will it won't necessarily be choosing or implementing both of these options.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: They will both be there.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's kind of a more granular but still placement related part that was in the bill as introduced.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The department needs to give the inmate's perception of health and safety serious consideration. So the inmate perceives that they are at risk health wise or safety risk. And the department needs to take that into consideration when they're making a bed assignment placement and program decisions. So what is the difference between bed assignment and placement?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Josh? I was hoping you would tell me. Mean what facility they're at, what unit they're at, things like that. I'm more worried about I-one, which seems like this weird Venn diagram with all that language we worked on above, whereas two adds more specificity that's a little bit different.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In that, in one placement is kind of the overlap, if that makes sense.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: And the standards is a little bit different. If there's a language, it's slightly different.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Seems like that's all covered elsewhere. Am I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, 2B is very specific to This is the Crazy Eddie scenario, right? 2B is saying, we're gonna get rid of Crazy Eddie. We're not gonna place you somewhere else because Crazy Eddie lives there. Removing the risk. So

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: one option is Okay, keeping

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: so I'm crazy.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One option in, feeding the substance and removing the overlap potentially, if subsection I doesn't have subsection one, it just has subsection two, like, that would be subdivision two. So subsection I would say the department shall give the inmate's perception of health and safety serious consideration in making I guess let's leave housing placement in there for now. But in making that assignment, housing placement and programming decisions, including passing the inmate with another inmate to best support safety and security, and B, if there is an articulable risk to the inmate, removing the risk where possible or otherwise alleviating

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: the risk. Right. Another thing I came up with, a, is this person gets me. I get along with this person. This person is a safe person, an ally. That's why a isn't there.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Right. I just think I, one, just got covered by putting housing in front of placement on two. Right? Isn't that what you're doing? Where you

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: keep Well, I think it's that two is the real meat of it. Two is the specific thing we're trying to add.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Do we do with one?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Get rid of it.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Need the specific language that we're talking about, transgender, gender diverse, and intersex people in this? We can carry that

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: into Yeah, you need to get You're merging. Yes, merging again. No, great point.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Humble potter number two.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So how would the two, who would now be the new one, how would that read? It would

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just be I, because now there are not two subdivisions. It would say, the department shall give A, transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmates perception of health and safety, serious consideration in making bed assignment, housing placement, and programming decisions, including A. And then A and B would read as they are.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is it A and B or one and two now?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. It would be one and two. One and two. Yeah.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Story, because I get done.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Change that tomorrow.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Just get when you've been here all these years, like,

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: the Hendrix's been here. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, you'll get better. Every year, you folks will get better. It would be scary.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So 03/23, the sections that remain, just to give us a little road map. The PREA section should be very quick to run through because it is just discussed this morning. So I will just quickly say that if you look at page 10, line 19 line 18, this removes the conditional finance language. I'm forgetting exactly the words that were in it previously. But it just says, not subject to available appropriation. But the Department of Corrections shall adopt and comply. Main Yes. Change. It puts back in the 44 standards or 44 references to the standards.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We agreed to that this morning, just to put in statute.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I heard.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On page 13, line 11, this date is highlighted because I think we're hoping that DOC will indicate the date when they submit the federal report so that this matches up. So highlighted for now. When do you submit that federal report?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I do not know. I can find out, but I do not know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just curious, do you do it at the end of the year? Do you do it

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: My guess is it probably aligns with the federal fiscal year, which ends October?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: October, yeah, the September. That feels right, but I'm going to text Jen.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Yeah.

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

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: I mean, would make sense. Most reporting requirements of the Fed plan with their fiscal year. Yeah. Of course, doesn't line up with anything else. And she's not watching.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Contact a friend.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So answer pending on the date. The other new addition here, and this is, I think, subject to DOC feedback or any other preferred language. But on line 13, I understood the committee discussing this morning that you wanted some more language about what is in the report to identify that it is whatever you give to the feds, put in the report that comes to us. So for now, on lines 13 through 16, it is commissioner of corrections shall submit a report to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions that provides the same information that the department reports to federal authorities pursuant to the Prison Rape Elimination Act for USC, all those sections. So we didn't want we were more specific in other drafts. We're saying for now, just do what you're doing for Priya. Then

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there's language that we're gonna review this. Correct.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one other change that was made after testimony yesterday was on line 18. This is page 13, line 18, adopt policies, not rules. But then, yes, the other review built in, if we scroll down to this is page 15, lines 14 through 19. And what page are you at? This is page 15. 15. Okay. Yep. Highlight. So this adds, in session law, section 11, prison rape elimination standards and reporting on or before 12/17/2028, the Department of Corrections shall submit a report to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions. The report shall identify any changes in the standards or reporting requirements under the Prison Rape Elimination Act as may be amended. So this, I understood the committee wanted two years. I'm pretty sure I intended to write December 15 and not seventeenth, which looks odd to me in this moment. But anyway, the December. Oh, there should be 2027. The one suggestion to say December instead of January is that it would clearly fall before a bill request date for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a long form. You could always do

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it short form, but that's just one option. The idea is this might generate a suggestion for legislation. But I think that could be 12/15/2027. So it's not a sunset. So a sunset would suggest that the committee doesn't intend for anything to go forward after that date, that there's kind of a revisiting whether this should be there at all. And I understood the committee to want looking at whether there should be updates. And maybe there won't be updates warranted, in which case a sunset didn't feel quite right. But that is alternative. A sunset is another way to indicate, hey, future legislature, you need to come back and look at this. We could do a sunset in combination with something else. But this is a way for DOC to flag, hey, look, our PREA requirements changed. We're now reporting different information to the feds. Maybe this means you want to change what you ask for from us or not. It's still a way to trigger a I

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: would prefer that at the sunset because I don't think in my thirty years here we've ever seen a sunset go by. So this review is building, then we can go from it, the others can go from it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I hate to do this, but You're going to. I'm going to because I don't, I'm looking at this. So on page 13, bottom of 13, we have section seven, law enforcement powers of correctional officers. What are we doing there?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So very quickly, don't be scared by these sections. These are sections more for me than for anyone else. Because we are changing the definitions in Title 28, including some of the numbering of existing definitions, these three sections are making sure that where in other parts of Title 28 we are cross referencing the exact number of a definition, that that is correct. So that's what I flagged yesterday of if the definitions are going to look like what they look like, there are a couple of changes to other sections and statutes that cross reference them that we have to update to be accurate. On page 13, section seven, the key changes, key tiny change is on page 14, line three. It's referring to the existing definition of correctional officer, but with the added definitions from the bill that will in fact be at subdivisions three fifteen and not pre 10. So it makes that one small change. Similarly, in section eight, so scrolling to page 14, this is lines eighteen and nineteen. Supervising officer is now Subdivision 314 and correctional officer is now Subdivision 315 because of the way the definitions are reordered. We try to keep the definitions and definitions sections somewhat alphabetical, which is why there is that reordering. Finally, Section nine is that same issue and a reminder that there are other provisions that have to do with segregation of inmates. But page 15, line five, segregation is now defined at Subdivision 317. So those are those three sections. They are just conforming sections to keep the statutes correct. They are non substantive. But if the definition section is going to stay as is, then we should make these as well. And that, in fact, is the entire draft. We're now at page 15, section 12, effective date. This act shall take effect on 07/01/2026. So I have direction from the committee on an extra draft, which I can prepare. I may not be in the room, but I will follow testimony on the medical care section tomorrow morning and we'll await the committee's direction on how we might proceed on. That's up to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we confirm Doctor. Eulager tomorrow morning at 08:30. Yeah. And then what will we do at 10:00? That was the?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: 2 forty four.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a telecom. It was potential vote. And then did we get I know I talked to Matt Valerio. I don't know if he's available even for fifteen minutes, ten or fifteen minutes. I just want the person's rights office to weigh in in terms of what they're seeing in their world, folks, maybe housing issues based on their gender identification, if they're coming in with anything on that. And also if they're seeing anything with Priya.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Haven't heard anything.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it would be Matt coming in. He's gonna check with some of his folks. So if you could check with Matt and says follow-up to the conversation we had with the chair today, is there a time tomorrow that he could zoom in or just give us ten or fifteen minutes worth?

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's all we really need. Because he said, yeah, they get a lot and they work it through.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I think we need to give Hillary a round of applause.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hillary, you did a great job. Thanks, Jill. So we're gonna get a new draft tomorrow. Mary suggested folks bring home the bill. At least I know we made some changes, but at least read what we got so you get that under your belt. Because if you don't do it now, we're gonna do it tomorrow. And it's gonna be an hour and a half worth of breathing quietly, or an hour at least. Because we need to be very clear what this bill says. Every word makes a difference. We as members need to understand this to help Gina on the floor. So I'm sure there's gonna be quite a few questions, and we need to be very clear in our answers. So ways and means today took up the driver license. Any word that they voted out?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: They they yes. They they they found it favorable, de minimis, and it's gonna be on the notice calendar tomorrow.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Up on Friday. Do you know who's reporting it for them?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Betty. Right. Okay.

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Betty gets us.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How's your report going?

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Doesn't exist, but it will tomorrow morning. It better.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I'll admit to you.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Oh, it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it will. For us. I'll help you with I'll read it over. I'll help you with it. Okay?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It'll be memorable.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then the parole board bill, is that still an approach to,

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Say that again. Is the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: parole board bill still on approach? Do you know?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes, ma'am. They did not take a vote as of yesterday. They've done some No. We're looking May

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: to do

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: a That's a minor. That's a minor. So

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: my understanding is that they might be waiting from either a recommendation from this committee about where the money is coming from or not. I haven't heard that. I don't want to let it get lost in the shot.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I haven't heard that. Somebody's gotta reach out. I know Trevor's worked it through, and he was clear where the money was coming from.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: But we also

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And it could be worth clarifying whether they are waiting to take a vote on further communication from you.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: The their billboard. Schedules.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What time is it? 09:45 tomorrow.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the approves?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So maybe that's their clarity that they Great. Maybe that's their clarity that

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: they want.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would they have a sister committee vote on that?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yep.

[Joshua Rutherford (Facilities Division Deputy Director, VT DOC)]: Okay. I

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: will go down with your thought.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. I think we're done for today. Okay. And we missed Michelle talking about recidivism. I wanna get her in. Yeah. Because they're working on that Yeah. In Martin's committee. So I really want us to be aware of that that. Okay. Thank you, folks. It was a small yesterday and today. We're doing good. We're getting there. Yes. So let's go up a few two.