Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Conor Casey (Member)]: He

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: didn't say the movie.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: He's not all

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: over that guy. Somebody asked me, Mr. Sweeney.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Say, you're too good.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: He is off.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: He's too good. Welcome back, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Thursday, March 12. We're shifting gears again. We are dealing with House Bill two ninety four. We have a new draft 1.1. And this is now in a form for the committee to really work through. I'll do a line by line as quickly as possible. This is a strike all to the underlying bill, and this would be the structure of it. And we have John to walk us through. So what I would recommend, please start at the beginning with section one, the intent section, and I would ask as well after maybe you do the broad explanation that we spend some time to let the committee read the language. Okay? Sounds good.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'll give

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you a minute to finish You your get the whole dish in front of me. Can't move that away from you.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning, John Gray, Office of Public Senate Counsel. I'm gonna feature I will go through the whole of the bill because it's now in the form of an amendment, but it's gonna look awfully familiar. And I will call out the changes I've made against the text from yesterday. It's not gonna be as easy to You'll have to rely on me to call out the changes. I don't have highlighting in this draft, in part because you may potentially vote on this, and also because I didn't wanna confuse our editing team with highlights throughout sections that they hadn't otherwise edited. So this is a strike all amendment to H two ninety four, which is an act relating to commissary and telecommunications prices in state correctional facilities and fair compensation for incarcerated labor. I'm pausing over just the title itself, at the end of the amendment, you're gonna see that we have language proposing to change the title of it is now a narrower bill. So let's start with section one on line eight of page one, intent language. This is all the same as you have seen before, but it is the intent of the general assembly to create conditions of incarceration that encourage the development and maintenance of the personal supports necessary for rehabilitation. So one is creating conditions of incarceration conducive to rehabilitation. Two, mitigate the disruptions to family and communications caused by incarceration by reducing communication barriers. So two is mitigating disruptions to connections. Three, divest the state from the for profit prison industry. And four, inform state correctional policy decision making with data, fiscal analysis, and agency. All the same intent language as the committee has previously accepted.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Time for the committee to process the information. Any questions on this, folks? Please read it. I know I'm a stickler.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It will help in the line.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if y'all are reading speeds or you have to let me know when I should go to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are you okay, exist? Questions? Okay.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: You have a sent.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep. Checks off, so let's keep going.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Section two. This was kind

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: of a core section that started the committee down this path. So this is evaluation of telecommunications services report on line 19. We have our due date on or before December first twenty twenty six. Department of Corrections shall provide to committees of jurisdiction, that's house corrections institutions and institutions, a written report evaluating options for and then this is gonna be

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: a change against the text used on yesterday. So evaluating options for providing no cost telecommunication services to persons incarcerated by the department. That is the change. Previously, this said inmates in state correctional facilities.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I have an edit from Haley via text.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, there was something Yeah. I got something here.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: She would prefer instead of persons incarcerated by the department, and I can understand this, persons in the department's custody. Because the department doesn't incarcerate Yeah,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's the custody

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the Department of Corrections.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to make that change. I had the same question while drafting it. It felt sort of aggressive in a way. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the persons in the department

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: In the person in the department's custody. The question that I had about that is I thought that yesterday the committee had rejected that and maybe I'm being too simplistic. I know that there was some concern that

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The concern was for the out of state beds. And when we were talking in state correctional facilities only limited it to those to our facilities in Vermont and not Mississippi.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. The thing I was thinking of yesterday that was rejected was like under it wasn't under the supervision of, but it was a broader phrase that would have brought in non incarcerated folks. So if DOC is comfortable with that, that makes all kinds of sense. That's an easy question.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, the terminology we use, it's under the custody.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Custody doesn't include field, right?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly what I was trying to, yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Person I don't know. I mean, that person's in the department's custody.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: As a report of the bill, this language Well, is important to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: yeah, you're right. So

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that is the concern that came up yesterday. But what I would offer is if DOC is comfortable with that language, and it's going to provide the report on the things that you want, sort of doesn't matter. Like, It may capture some things they're just not going to speak to in the report.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: It's clear there's no

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: one there. Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where's the definition of inmate? I know I saw this recently. The definition of inmate is in the definition section in 28 BSA. Yeah. The definition section in 28 BSA section three.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I got it. I think I don't have it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Inmate. Inmate means any person committed to the custody of the commissioner pursuant to the law and subsequently committed to a correctional facility. So it clarifies that it subsequently committed to a correctional facility. That's the definition of inmate.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: What if you just scrapped the by the department piece of that and left with an incarcerated?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Any incarcerated individual? Yeah.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think you run against the same thing, which is that it's understood what that means, but technically that would capture any one.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. Yeah. Could be under Right.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: They gotta provide

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: no cost telecommunication services to folks

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in Georgia. Yeah. Send this down to John so he can see how it's clarified in inmate. Because inmate pertains to everyone who's incarcerated, regardless if they're detainees or shoots. That's what inmate means.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, mean, so, know, Alright. If you could do to inmates in the department's custody. And I think that solves That's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the commission inmates.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. So it excludes field supervised individuals. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because inmates are already defined in titles 28, and it's committed to the custody of the commissioner and subsequently committed to a correctional facility.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Guess took this back in the right file. Because that was under the gender equity bill.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: In ways, I'm relieved to have had that conversation. Because when I wrote persons incarcerated by the department, I did feel as if DOC was the one undertaking particular action to Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Now we got another draft. Oh, goody.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's simple enough. Yeah. Particularly now that we have this already in the form of an amendment, and it would just be swapping out two words. So on page two, we still have much of the same analysis within the report. So it should, on line three, describe the current telecommunication service model, putting usage rates, costs, and contract terms under existing provider arrangements. Subdivision two, describe alternative options for providing telecommunication services, including for nonprofit providers or as a regulated public utility. Three, analyze the cost to the state of each alternative, including A, startup and transition costs, both with and without Wi Fi. B, ongoing operational and administrative costs, so that's comparing startup against ongoing costs. C, cost comparisons to the current model. D, impacts on department budgets. E, anticipated changes in service usage and volume, and then we do have an update to f, any anticipated benefits or savings, including reasonably ascertainable impacts on behavior, security, safety, that's as we saw yesterday, and an incarcerated person's ability to sustain support systems. So reasonably ascertainable impacts on an incarcerated person's ability to sustain support systems is kind of the new piece that you can see within this research segment. Well,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: let's think that one through on one, two, and three, folks. Conor? Can I

[Conor Casey (Member)]: just get more be a Troy question, the regulated public utility? I'm trying to think of what testimony we took or if there was another model that was based on or something.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Honestly, was not in my original conception. The chair brought this to me.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: And I like socialize and everything. Just don't know how it plays out exactly. Came

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: into my mind because we were listening to Was it California did this? One of them. The testimony we received from one of the nonprofit providers, they mentioned in other states and I think it was California it's regulated through their utilities commission. And I thought, well, I wonder if we do something like this, it is a public utility. And the PUC regulates this and sets rates.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yep. You still need a partner like a nonprofit partner level, right? Because I think it suggests everything, hardware and everything, is built into it with the public utility. I

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: thought it would I thought it benefited or warranted consideration within this sort of study before contemplating that should we also consider PUCs as a potential collaborator here?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And if you go to the next page, it's going to have a little bit on page three. The department will be consulting stakeholders. Of which one is the PUC?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, guess I So I don't know.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It might just be a mess in my head. I'm thinking like, getting a regulatory body is one thing. Actually providing the service is something else,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: right? I agree. Can it be a bothand here?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Describes alternative options for providing telecommunications services, including through a non through nonprofit providers as a regulated utility or a combination?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yes, something like that or, you know, and

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: or as regulated.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'll leave it up to the wordsmith, the legal person.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: But language as is does what you want. That's you're good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Don't suck it up.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It's my funeral on the floor folks. I'm calling a recess for you guys.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you're gonna get the egoire.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm gonna be annoyed. Just

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: saying to look at this.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, I can handle it.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's either a cheaper option or

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: objects, including nonprofit or as

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I guess there's a lot of room for improvement on the current system. We should be open to I know what my preference is here, but let's stay open here as potential regulated public utilities.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Just to make clear what I was saying, I think that your conceptual point you're making makes sense, that there's something different between providing a service through a particular entity and then treating it under a different definition.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But I also get

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: the sense the committee does want to explore both, and my point is just that the language does allow for exploration of both, not that your point about conceptual simplicity makes complete sense, but I just understand the committee to be law take both. I love it for the second time, the official opinion is it just doesn't matter. I'm afraid that I get that advice a lot. I'm with you,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: man. It's true. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: this is really making sure that we're providing those telecommunications services through a nonprofit provider or regulated utility. That only pertains to in state facilities. Correct? Not the out of state. So

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: maybe some helpful context for my, I hope not too blase attitude, is what you're doing is setting out sets of directives within a report, and DOC will respond to those directives. They're not cabined by the directives that you give them. As long as you have indicated the direction that they should go, they can tell you more, They can make distinctions within the points that you supply to them. So for instance, I think in part you're identifying, oh, you have this broad term, shouldn't it only apply to folks within the state? DOC can say that it only does apply to folks within the state as a regulated. So my point is you don't have to put everything into language that will be a logical consideration by the department in conducting it. You just need to make sure that if you want things considered, they are called out here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm looking at the email that Haley sent to us last night.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And she said that she also learned the tablet system is slightly different. It is in states. Exactly. There is a different provider as well as different costs. So I would recommend distinguishing both populations in the report.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly, and this is a good way to draw exactly what I'm saying is you don't have to say in the directives to the DOC, distinguish by these populations. What she is saying is in the report, we will distinguish between these populations, provided that you ask for coverage of both populations, which is the change that you made to the lead in language. So DOC has discretion as to how they carry out the report. You don't have to tell them every technical thing to do within the report.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So by using the language of persons incarcerated by the department, which is now gonna be inmate, that includes the out of state folks as well.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So that was what I presume she sent the email to try to I understood her to be saying DOC would want both of these populations included and rejected the current formulation, which was persons incarcerated by the department. So I think you have I'm normally asking the question, does the language capture it? Not is it 100 descriptive as to every detail that they should follow.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, Conor, are you okay with that regulated public utility?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. Sure. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're okay with one, two, and three? Mhmm.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yes. Yeah. Let's go to four. Oh, shush. It's okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I remember sitting in those chairs and being bored too.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Do you remember that?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm bored. Doesn't like boards. Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Warden?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Oh my god. That's the last thing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're dopey.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: In here. Dopey? Yes.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: That I am.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We got the seven dwarves here. Figure it out. Don't give him

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that information.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: He's a lawyer, screams.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I have to keep it confidential. That's true. Despite the fact that we're alive. So identify, I'm on line 16, identify implementation, operational and transition considerations for each alternative, including these are gonna be the same as you've seen before administrative, technological and contractual requirements, operational changes, implementation timeline, and any required statutory, regulatory or policy updates. So you would need to include those kinds of considerations for each alternative model considered.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are we okay with that, folks?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Second page, there are a few updates to the stakeholder engagement piece, is what we're on now. So page three, line one, this is subsection B. In conducting its evaluation of options for providing no cost telecommunication services, the Department of Corrections shall, when practicable, consult with the following stakeholders. We have a change in one. This previously was Department of Public Service. This has been changed to the Public Utility Commission per discussions yesterday. On line five, another change, but it's one that's not visible. We previously had a call out to the Office of the State Treasurer that has now been struck. So your stakeholders are one, Public Utility Commission, two, JFO, three, one or more nonprofit providers of corrections telecommunication services with operational experience, a new subdivision for CoreCivic, this was the concern related to the Mississippi inmates, Five representatives of families of incarcerated Vermonters or organizations representing families of incarcerated Vermonters. Six community based reentry service providers. Seven justice reform organizations. Eight, PRIN, and nine, any other stakeholders or subject matter experts identified by the commissioner as necessary for the evaluation. So this is your list of stakeholders to be consulted when practicable. And the updates from yesterday are we swapped out for public utility commission, where we previously had Department of Public Service, and we cut the state treasurer, and we added four Civic.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any other thoughts on the stakeholders? No.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: That's covered.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sound good?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: K. And then they get to report that to us.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Subsection c, same page. We're on line 16 now. Department of Corrections shall provide to the joint legislative justice oversight committee for the committee's analysis and input. And this is the same as yesterday. First draft on or before September 15 this year, and an updated draft with a full on or before November 15. And you'll recall that we heard or you guys heard department comfort with those deadlines. Well,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's it for the telecommunications. Any questions? We only have one change. Page This is the wage.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So we're jumping on page four to a new section section three. You saw much of this yesterday, but there are a few updates to these pieces. Some of it just stylistic, but some of it more substantive. So this is your wage impact evaluation report. Same due date beginning on line three on or before 12/01/2026. DOC shall provide to the committees of jurisdiction a written report evaluating the impacts of current wages for persons incarcerated by the department. I'll need to make that update to inmates in the department's custody. That one, collects and analyzes the current wage levels for inmates. That's the same as we discussed yesterday. Two, there is an update to this subdivision. Identifies the categories of labor performed by inmates that would otherwise be performed by the state, And estimates the cost to the state of providing the same services through state employees or contracted vendors, including wage and benefit costs. So I did make a call on how to do this. I think you were trying to The language yesterday was identify categories of labor performed by inmates, essentially for operational purposes of the department. There were some concerns that that might be too narrow. It would pick up things like custodial, janitorial, but it might not pick up, for instance, the license plate work. I tried to get Basically, if this is something the state would otherwise need to be doing and therefore would have to internalize the cost, let's say that that's the call out. So this is labor performed by inmates that would otherwise be performed by the state.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Works for me.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: 10? Three and four. The first thing to note is just that these were flipped, I'm just gonna talk about them individually as subdivisions because it's easier to think about them that way. So three on line 12 compares different wage impact scenarios and estimates the impact of wage adequacy improvements on outcomes for inmates, such as maintenance of family contacts, compliance with restitution and support obligations, reentry success, and participation in facility work programs. I'm gonna call out the two changes that I made here aside from flipping the subdivisions. One is for ease of reading. I reordered the clauses so that we didn't have compares different wage impact scenarios following a lengthy list. So that's been moved to the front of the sentence. The substantive change is that we've added in participation in facility work programs, the final clause of that subdivision, as one of the outcomes for inmates that should be measured for the impact of wage adequacy improvements. So how do wage adequacy improvements affect participation in facility work programs? That's a substitute. Four, this one's now easier to read, but it does reflect a condensed version of what you saw yesterday, which was measuring relationship between wage levels and participation, which is now what we've just addressed in sub three. So subdivision four assess the relationship between current wage levels and the ability of work program participants to purchase telecommunication services and commissary items. Like, a bit more readily

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: understanding Took out to meet the basic needs.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: We took out basic needs. Yep. Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's read one or make sure because this is Dreamforce new in a way. So this is what the department needs to gather for a report to us at the end of this year that will prepare the legislature for any work next session.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Shawn? I I have more probably a question for Troy because he's closer to this. But, Troy, on line 12, can you just explain to me what comparing different wage impact scenarios looks like? Because I don't understand that. Wage impact scenarios? Is that your is that what you're trying to wrestle with? Yeah. Like, what is what is what what is that?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What are we comparing?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. Like, what how when you show that to the to to us, like, what's that what's that? So the impact of wages in this case, wages in this case average 65¢ an hour. Right. What's the impact of that wage scenario? The impact of that wage scenario is it would take me thirteen hours of labor to maintain. So really simple stuff like that. Okay. Yeah. That's all. I just wanted some clarity

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: A on

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: different wage scenario could be getting paid what a state employee gets paid, and what would the impact of that be on my ability to fund a restitution fund or to continue my child support or to have money available to me upon release so that I can buy get into another fund. And that's enough for the people to understand that that's what we want.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that brings to light, I can envision DOC calling me in July and say, what do you mean by this? Compares differently to impact scenarios.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Well, I'm just thinking Because

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it may not be clear enough for them to interpret it the way that Troy interprets it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: You mean there could be, like, 10 to Shawn, or what do you

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Well, I'm just thinking about what what what Troy just said is crystal clear. Right. What wage impact scenarios, I I almost I almost would like I mean, maybe that they understand that, but I didn't understand that until you said that.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Like, is it just a prevailing wage scenario as opposed

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to Sure. Like different ones?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Well, yeah. Something that's just more clear. That's all. I'm looking for more clarity there. That's all. And I don't wanna like drive you crazy, but I, you know.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Too late. No, that's, I guess.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Kevin? And the opposite is where I'd come from on number four. I think number four is perfectly clear, and it's perfectly obvious. The relationship between current wages and the ability to participate in purchasing services, the more the wages go up, the easier it is to participate. That seems like an unnecessary question.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So to that one, I think what you would get from You're correct that someone could attempt to comply with this language by just writing one sentence. The more you get paid, the more ability you have to purchase things. I'm skeptical that that would be the response. I think it would be more how do different wage levels affect your ability to pay for it. So I could purchase x items in x quantities at these different wage levels. Like, that's the way that I think about four. To the points on three, one question I would have is if you had, if you cut compares different wage impact scenarios and you just had to the impact of wage adequacy improvements, would that get you the same information? Because I read those together, the different wage impact scenarios and estimating the impact. So one question is, would that get you the information you want? If it doesn't, would this alternative phrasing get you what you want, which is estimate the impact of different wage scenarios on outcomes for inmates such as maintenance of family contacts. But I read the first callouts in sub three together, and I think they kind of inform each other as to what the department's name has to do.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And I'd be wrong. Can I

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: just hold, Shawn?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: sorry. I mean, I knew what I meant anyway because I deal with economic stuff, but just like anything, a lot of other stuff, anybody can be obtuse. You said that's a legitimate concern that somebody might try to misconstrue or say, I don't know what it means. But it does have a definition. It has a legitimate definition that two seconds in any kind of search engine is

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: going to tell you

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: what it is. I can tell you one of the definitions that's analyzing contrast potential financial outcomes of different compensation strategies, or economic changes, this process, it goes into more detail, but it's there. It means what it means no matter what anybody wants to say. So if somebody does want

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: to be a deuce and say, hey, I don't

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: know what this means. It's not hard to say, hey, here's what it is. It's not a made up term, it's not a made up word. I realize that most people have never heard it, but the professionals in the realm should have heard it and we should just be able to be aware that it wasn't something that John made up yesterday or whatever. I mean, you could be creative enough to, but

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in this case you did.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I definitely appreciate that too. I think it goes back to some of my earlier points about how prescriptive you need to be in language. But I take the point, so I'm happy to do it over the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just want to make sure DOC understands what we're looking at with that, those four words compares different wage impact scenarios, five words. That's all I'm concerned. Many times we have put stuff for a study or in language, And then the following year, they come back or obsession, well, we need more clarity in terms of what you meant here. Mhmm.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So the the things I would offer on that front are we've had DOC in while this is being discussed and there hasn't. And they've been on the email chains with these drafts. So I've assumed a level of comfort. Maybe that's unfair of me to assume, but given that there were objections to other pieces of the draft, I took that to mean comfort with other parts of the draft. And in any event, we now have this lively discussion boarded someone wants to reference it and understand.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So to me, number three does make perfect sense. And I like it because we wanna see that if we double their wages, their outcome of being rehabilitated doubles. If we triple their wages, the outcome's even better. If they could project, I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: don't think they can.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But that's what number three says to me. But then I go to number four and I say, Well, that's obvious. The more you take, the easier it is to participate. So I'd scratch four and I love them if it's three.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think the issue with four is, and this was expressed here in the beginning, that folks are working for pennies. And then that goes towards their ability to pay for telephone use, telecommunication use, and commissary. And there's two issues there. Not everybody's working. So not everyone has the ability to pay for telecommunication services or commissary items, unless they have somebody on the outside that's putting money in their account. And number two, for those folks who are getting paid, the money they're getting paid is so minimal. And then if they do wanna have telephones commissaries, which is something above or what their basic needs are. They have some capacity, but it's so small.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you're paying for someone's staff, possibly. And what is the rate of return on those commissary items company? So that's all intertwined in the conversation we had here at the committee.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And that's what that language is to address. Kevin. And where I think gathering good, helpful information to make good decisions moving forward is important, so I'm willing to spend taxpayer money to gather this information and do these reports. I came here, I was voted in because people wanna see their taxes go down. And so, this study allows us to decide whether in fact making this investment is going to reduce their cost of living or not. So it may be that we cover the cost of 10 phone calls a month, but not all of their phone calls a month. So, this information, we can't make that assessment. I guess what I'm saying is I can't support the concept that we're just looking to prove that we should pay all communication. I am willing to look at the information to see whether it makes sense to pick up the cost for some of it. Because there's many programs that we could pay for that may help the rehabilitation of the inmates. Is just one option.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, just to be clear on this section, this is, while it is linked conceptually in a way to the telecommunications evaluation report, this is typically a wage impact evaluation. So you can think of this as you could have this as a standalone section in a separate bill effectively. And what I take this to be doing is getting in published form a record of what existing wage levels would translate into in an inmate's ability to purchase certain bills.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Correct. But in my mind, it's a vehicle to pursue picking up the tab on the taxpayer's bill, as opposed to the individuals who are incarcerated and having to pay for it. It's doing both. And I'm willing to look at the data, I'm willing to support looking at the data, but that's why we need to know the comparison as the wages go up or stay the same on the improvement on the outcome. That's the purpose in my mind of being able to support this kind of a bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And also just to remind folks, these are just report backs. This isn't putting anything in place for corrections that it gives the next legislative body and folks who are looking at this more information than we did, than we have, so that we can go forward to make a decision. We don't know what that decision will be. Right. And maybe to keep what we've currently got, or it may be something that we haven't even thought about. But the goal of this bill, both for the telecommunications piece, and then for this piece in terms of the wages, is to get data and information that we don't currently have so that we can go forward and make a solid decision, whatever that decision may be. We don't know what it will be.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's a more informed decision. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So just keep that in mind. That's what the goal of the bill is, is to get the data and get the information. Doesn't lock us into anything. Right. And it doesn't lock the future legislature into anything either. It gives them more information than we have right now. Shawn?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And and I apologize because I should

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: have just chat GPT because it explains it really clearly.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'm sorry about that. And I will I will

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: catch myself next time, hopefully. And and and Troy did explain

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a while. We're not gonna need you. It's a it's

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: a it it was definitely yeah. It's right there. I'm just not a big economic But just to be clear, I wasn't

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: saying it for you, I was saying that we have this backup, that we do have a definition. It's a legitimate question, but

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: nobody would have

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: given you the answer to

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: it if didn't ask it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: And to this point, we often have, we're dealing with technical subjects, we're dealing with things where none of them have professional experience, but we're assuming that the receivers of the information do have the professional experience to make sense of what we ask them to do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'll tell them to go to chat, whatever it's called.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Chat GPT.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: GPT. Tell them to go to Chat GPT now.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not going to condone them.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: AI? We're going to start with a lot of noise.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Already seen some learning AI related things. Absolutely. My job this session.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So where

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are anything else on one, two, three, and four? We alright with

[Conor Casey (Member)]: that? We're good. We're think I'm good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then the effective dates upon passage.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Effective date on passage. The thing I do wanna note is two little lines on page five. After passage, the title of the bill be amended to read an act relating to telecommunication services and wages in correctional facilities. So tighter title than the existing bill is introduced, which spoke to other pieces.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we've made two changes.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's the same change in two places.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The first one is on page two, lines one. Would say telecommunications to inmates? The language be there, John.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, to inmates in the department's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: custody. Inmates

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: In the department's custody.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm assuming you're putting that in right now? Yes. And then where was the second one

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that was stuck? That was on page four Okay. Line six.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what draft number would that be?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's gonna be 2.1.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's ready to poke this puppy

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: out? Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So I will entertain emotion. Would

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: you like me to just do it in, like, three minutes, and then I can pull it up? Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's 2.1.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 22.1.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. On for a second.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: What's on the menu? Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Give John a chance. Because the report of the bill is gonna need Does that even have to go back to editing?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not gonna send it to editing. It's something so small. Every bill that is some formal action is taken. Editing will see it again as it goes back through. For something this small, I would be wasting their time for me to send it right now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At least put it up there so we can see the language. I know people are anxious, but join you jets.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

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

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: What are anxious for?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Get the bill out.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Everyone want me to leave. That I wanted to hear enthusiasm for. Oh,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: it's a capital.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: John's looking forward to

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that. Really?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I have get one bill

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: from interest.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this will be up next Tuesday as well.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Tuesday. Alright.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So there's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there's no need for it to go to a probes or ways and means, I don't believe.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I guess you struck the word fee in there somewhere.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Just for a moment.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Have you heard anything from a probes?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's closed down. Let me see what you're doing,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: and then Bill's got a nice job.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they didn't change anything. They kept the and Trevor is the one reporting us. So you're gonna have to make sure you're here at 10:00 Tuesday morning. We're holding it to it.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I mean, Alice is. I'm not going

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: do it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm not doing hard work.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, but I know I have keys somewhere in there.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: John, today's date. Can

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you go to today's date on this? Because this is yesterday's date. Yes.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad you said that because I actually had an updated page. Oh, John. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'll give that another piece to chalk. Want Girl Scout cookies?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I will want Girl Scout cookies at some point.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I have purchased Girl Scout cookies three different times.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Make sure he finishes first.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Oh, I'll just get chocolate all the He works.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. No drafting. Cookie.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You have as much fun in other committees?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I probably don't.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm dealing with different issues. They're a little bit more pronounced. He's in institute. He's dealing with some issues that

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: are more volatile than what it is.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. There are certain things without naming them. You see people come out of the rooms, and they just look traumatized.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We look traumatized sometimes.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: We just look dopey.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gonna find some other seven dwarves. Gonna find out the names of all those seven dwarves. You can do that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You are always looking online. Let's find out what they are.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Sleepy, right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sleepy dopey.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Freaky.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What is it?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, Sneezy.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, Sneezy. That's cheesy.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'll be smashing. Yeah.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: It

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: sounds like cabaret.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So there is Sneezy, Bashful, Sweepy, Happy, Grumpy, Doc, and Dilpie.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Say that again. Oh, that's good.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Sneezy. Sounds

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: like Doc is the only

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: one that's I pray not to be grumpy.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. He was on YouTube. Has sneezed,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: but I don't want be grumpy.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Couldn't be I'm

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: cranky pants, so I could be grumpy.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: All free of mind.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is true.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Get started on that.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry. I shared the wrong the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: capitol bill would be a committee bill.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Pre tribes. Well, Jack's Alright. Alright. Alright, y'all. Here

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Here we go,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Liz. I got it. Okay, where we changed.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Two point Hopefully we have today's data up here. Excellent. On page two, we've got the update on lines one and two. In report evaluating options for providing no cost telecommunication services to inmates in the department's custody. That is the update. And on page, I think it's four, section three, lines, five, and six, written report evaluating the impacts of current wages for inmates in the department's custody. Same update, two instances.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I would entertain a motion to pass out draft 2.1 of page two ninety four favorably. So Joe has moved, and is there a second?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Didn't interrupt, but Mary always is quick.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The second one. Kevin? I'm good to go. Kevin. Joe and Kevin. That's been It's a been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? If not, please call the roll.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Casey? Yes. Representative

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk) — time-bound override]: Galfetti?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yes. Representative Greer?

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

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Gregoire? Yes. Representative Edrick? Yes. Representative Bruno? Yes. Senator Minier. Yes. Senator Morrissey. Yes. Sweeney. Yes. Representative Winter. Yes. And Chair Emmons.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Seven o. Good job. So, Conor, you're gonna report this? Yep. So you need to get the clean copy. And then you and and Tate will help you. You need to email it down to the clerk's office indicating you're the reporter of the bill

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Alright. Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And what the vote was.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: We can do it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I believe in you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you, John. Thanks, John.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Big help. Then next week

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Do I have to know early? Do I have to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: know early? Next week, we're gonna for John, we are going to Just the

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: correct date. Seven.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: K. That's correct. We're gonna be starting markup on the capital bill. We haven't done anything to scheduling yet, but it's just gonna be markup. So I don't know what your schedule is going to be like next week.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Go ahead and schedule me for whatever you can.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I live in here if you wanted to for a

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: while. Really?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh,

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I have a sense that others may want the same.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: A lot of bills will be out. Well, they won't be

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: The

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: way that we start, it's going to be of laborious at the beginning. But the way that we start, we'll just start at the top of the spreadsheet and just go through line by line. Scott usually is here because Scott does the spreadsheet thing. But as we start going through and start trying to figure out funny piece, we need to go back to the testimony that was done on that particular item. And then more questions will be asked, and then we'll have to schedule people in to come in and refine it, refine that testimony. So the first walkthrough was pretty high level, and then we'll get in deeper and deeper as we get through it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And the the form, as I'll bring it to you guys, will look like the governor's recommended. That's the starting place.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's gonna be amending our current bill.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it'd be great. But we don't wanna look at the language.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, you don't wanna look at the language yet?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, we do the spreadsheet first. But you need to have the language in place. We would probably get to that towards the end of the form, at the end of next week. So we do the money first.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So what I will plan on doing for my purposes is I'll just have a version that's in that form, not show it, listen to the discussions, and then I can update the draft as appropriate. And then when we get to the text, I can call out, this originates from GovRec, this came from discussions through markup, whatever it might be.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But sometimes we'll say, well, we should have language added to this. As we go through markup for the money and for certain items, we may say, well, we've gotta have language added to this. So that thing kicks in for the new draft. But we won't see that draft probably till the end of next week.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Are you still pushing for the debate?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm doing whatever. Okay. Doing whatever. It depends. I don't know what's going to happen on the floor next week. We're going be on the floor

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: at 01:00 next week. And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: at times, we have to pull the I hate to do this, but at times, we might have to pull the committee off the floor Mhmm. Depending what's up and depending to keep a quorum because sometimes some other committees have to be off the floor. So I just want us to really do our work as much as we can in the morning.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We'll see. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: anything else for John on this one? Thank you, John.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Jen. Don't know why this is not. Must

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: be the chocolate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gotta be the chocolate. So Michelle Charles is coming in at 11:30 to talk about recidivism. Is there anything that folks bring home and read 05:50? I really want to is there anything that's starting to come up to the top here for folks what you've read. I have a few questions here and there. Hillary is coming in with a new draft. I'm gonna bring it up to her with a new draft. I have some questions or clarification. Anything from other folks?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Folks wanna have, like, a half hour break?