Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Now we are live.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And welcome, folks. This the SAS Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Thursday, April 16. We have with us Jack McCullough, who is with Vermont Legal Aid Mental Health Law Project and former mayor Mount Hillier. Welcome, Jack. And if you could identify yourself for the record, please write in on S-one 193.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee. I'm Jack McCullough, I'm the Director of the Mental Health Law Project of Vermont Legal Aid, and in that capacity we represent everybody in the state of Vermont who is facing any kind of involuntary psychiatric treatment, either hospitalization, involuntary medication, or other psychiatric treatment in the community. As of a few years ago, we are also doing, cases in the criminal division for defendants who have been found incompetent to stand trial or, not guilty by reason of insanity. And, I should start out by apologizing for the confusion of being here, we went through many possible dates for me to be here and so I'm glad we were able to connect.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Feel free to come back too if you miss things or wanna follow-up.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you. What I wanna say in general we don't think that this is a bill that is either necessary or helpful to the mental health system or to the safety of the general public. It's important to note that all across the state, in hospitals or living in the community, there are people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness and have been determined that as a result of the mental illness they pose a danger either to themselves or others. And that is true of everybody who is receiving involuntary psychiatric treatment in Vermont. There's essentially, up until this point, there's really no difference between, among the range of people who are receiving involuntary psychiatric treatment between people who got there by way of, the civil process set forth in title 18 or the criminal process as set forth in title 13. In both cases, it requires a showing that the person has a psychiatric has a mental illness and, as defined in statute, the same definition in both chapters. And as a result of the mental illness, they pose a danger to themselves or others. And that is, for someone who's hospitalized, that comes about because there's a judicial determination. Eventually, there is eventually a judicial determination that the person poses a danger and that the only way for that person to not pose a danger to themselves or others is if they are involuntarily hospitalized. We represent people in those cases. We make the arguments that we can make that the person may not be diagnosed correctly or may not pose the danger that someone else thinks they pose, but ultimately there's a judicial determination by clear and convincing evidence that the person is poses a danger, and they would pose a danger unless they were detained in hospital or someplace else. Similarly, everyone who's on an order of non hospitalization is there because it's been determined that they have a mental illness and that the constraints that are imposed on them in the order of non hospitalization, what we call an ONH, are necessary to keep them from continuing to be a danger to themselves or others. And those conditions generally include continuing to accept outpatient psychiatric treatment, go to their appointments with their providers, go to accept the medications that are prescribed for them, in some cases, reside in a particular location, including either a group home, their own apartment sometimes, or the one locked residential facility in the state, River Valley Therapeutic Community Residence. And so all those conditions are the same, and what can happen, the treatment that people receive once they've been committed, either through the criminal process or the civil process, is essentially the same. They receive treatment that's been determined as medically necessary, psychiatrically necessary to address the symptoms of their psychiatric diagnosis. Up until this point, I've represented a number of people who've been found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity and being found incompetent is much, much more common. But I've represented a number of people who've initially been found incompetent and received treatment, long term psychiatric treatment, sometimes for a number of years and eventually been found by the result of their psychiatric treatment, been found competent to competent to stand trial. And if once they're found competent to stand trial, then they're able to proceed through the criminal process, go to trial, either be found guilty or not guilty. If they're found guilty, be sentenced, sometimes enter into a plea agreement. All of those things are able to happen under the system as it's designed now. Some of the specific objections we have to this bill are questions as much as anything. But but so so to summarize that part of my testimony, we do not need this bill to achieve the legitimate public safety interests that this bill is intended to, advance. Some of the questions we have include, what are the competency restoration services the bill talks about? It's not really defined in the statute. How is it different from the treatment that people receive, now? And where's the evidence that it is effective or more effective than what people are getting now? What's the evidence that we even have the ability to provide competency restoration services? And where is the evidence that it can only be provided in a locked facility? Where is the facility gonna be? How much is it is it gonna cost? And why is it determined in bill that the Department of Corrections is the appropriate agency to provide these services? Because for everything I've heard and everything I've observed is that there are serious issues with psychiatric treatment that is provided at Corrections.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Would you please repeat that last sentence? All you've heard is what?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That there are serious concerns about the psychiatric care that people, or the treatment that people who have psychiatric needs get in corrections.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Correct.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah, I wish it were not the case, but I have one client that I'm representing now, or I'm not representing right now, but we do see clients who come into our caseload who are being held in corrections, pending the criminal processes. They get to the point where their psychiatric illness acts up so much that they can't be, safely treated in corrections, they wind up getting sent to a psychiatric hospital for that, get treated in the psychiatric hospital, get returned to corrections, sometimes they bounce back to the hospital again. It's not a great way to run a railroad. Throughout the bill, there are points where somebody, the court or the Department of Corrections or somebody is supposed to determine whether there's a likelihood that at some point in the future, the defendant will be able to be restored to competency. I don't know how they're supposed to make this determination and what the evidence is that it's possible to make that determination. We have a bunch of concerns relating to due process that I I raised in in judiciary. I don't think I necessarily need them raise need to raise them with you unless you're unless you're interested in having me do so. But those are the sort of a high level description of the concerns that we have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have a few here.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, thank you for being here. I want to dig a little deeper into your statement, your testimony that is getting at that there's no indication that this has to happen in a locked facility. The competency restoration has to happen in a locked facility. And I'm not disagreeing with you, the the statement we're gonna hear from the folks who do disagree with you is that that may be true, but we're talking about somebody who, if not receiving treatment for a mental illness, has been credibly charged with a crime that would result if found guilty in a life sentence. So can you tease that out for me at all? For that small number of cases, right, where we still have to evaluate and provide treatment for potential competency restoration inside or outside of a locked facility. What are your thoughts on doing that for somebody who has been credibly charged with life sentence violation?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah, I think it really depends on the evaluation of the danger that the person poses at that moment. Someone that you described would likely be committed to a psychiatric hospital and be held there in a locked facility under the current circumstances, but I do represent people who have been treated to the point where they can be safely treated outside of any locked facility in the hospital, but that's an individual determination based on their condition, how much they've improved, what their behavior is in the facility. If they get to the point where their competency is restored, then they would be in a position of having the court evaluate whether they're entitled to bail or conditions.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But the competency restoration in and of itself is first. Your testimony is that that shouldn't happen regardless of level of offense that they've been charged with. The competency restoration is a separate and initial process.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah. It depends on, as I said, the level of danger they pose at a Right.

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

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yep. Okay.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: In those situations in your experience where an individual competency was restored, were, I guess, have there been any who have not been convicted of the crime that they were charged for?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think so, but I'm not sure. And I'm kind of hedging because once they're back in the criminal system, I wouldn't be representing them. But I know that some of the people who had those charges up in Chittenden County wound up going to trial or pleading and being convicted of something. Whether it was the original charge or something else, I don't know. I can think of another guy that I represented on and off for a period of years who might have been found competent to stand trial but then died of a heart attack or something before he went to trial. So there's a range.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I hear there's a range, okay, thank you.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So other than that, just don't know. I hate to give you an answer that I'm not sure of.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Understand.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: guess I need to ask one more question. Sure. I hear your clear recommendation that this is an unnecessary law and in the absence of this, the status quo will continue. Is the status quo better than what this law would attempt to do?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I would say yes. It occurred to me that there's one thing that I didn't mention that I should, which is that I hear from the supporters of this bill that they think this is there's this might apply only to six people a year. And I'm very concerned that that there's no magic wand that's gonna get those six people confident within a year. And so they're gonna still be there at the end of the year, and we're gonna see another six people. And we're gonna there's gonna be an endless increase in the number of people in this initially, or this system that's supposed to be very limited. As far as, whether it's better than the current system goes, I don't really think it is. I try to keep my comments brief but I can't help but say that if we wanna do anything to improve the mental health system in Vermont, the most important thing we could do is put a lot more money into the community system so that people have housing, people have services, so they're not even getting to the point where they're susceptible of committing crimes, major or minor. And most of the people found incompetent are charged with pretty minor crimes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is there a gap in our system currently in terms of competency restoration? Regardless of this bill. Is there a gap right now?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Well, I don't know whether you call it a gap or not. It's certainly true that our mental health system as it's designed today is not designed for competency restoration. That's just not the purpose of the involuntary mental health system. So this would be adding something that isn't in the system today.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm just wondering, this bill of course puts everything under corrections. But if we were looking at really developing from scratch or restoration, competency restoration policy and program, in your mind what would that look like? Have you contemplated that at all?

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Not a lot. I think that if we're gonna design a system to provide some kind of psychiatric treatment for people, I would probably be looking to mental health rather than corrections. But that's probably the extent that I've spent thinking about that question.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's helpful. Other questions? Thank you, Jack. I don't know if you have any final words you wanna say.

[Jack McCullough (Director, Mental Health Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I don't, I'm good. I'm heading out of town for a few days tomorrow, but, I'm always, happy to be at your disposal if you'd like to hear from me again. For Yeah,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: doing the thank you for quickly adjusting your schedule. Thanks Jeff. Thank welcome.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Good morning folks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'd like to spend some time as a committee just talking about how we move forward with the bill, what concerns, flagging things so we can start figuring out how we move forward. You wanna take a break before we do it? Or do you wanna keep working?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I want to keep working. I think we'll keep them working too.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I just took a walk before this. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a tough one, folks. It's a tough one.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I mean, on one hand, you you see that they need something and that, you know, I it seems like some people care enough to make it work in the Department of Corrections. But then on the other hand, people are like, Jack and stuff are coming in here and saying that it shouldn't be in a correctional facility or atmosphere. So it's really hard to, you know, then, you know, and I think that that's kind of where it starts, and we can look at this bill all day long, but it really is two thoughts here that one, it should be in a facility that is based on recovery and getting competency and, you know, just is it, you gotta ask yourself, do you really see that happening in these cells that we've seen, you know, is it really gonna happen there? But I mean, that's something that I just said. What I think I heard yesterday was in the absence of this kind of legislation, WellPath can't provide the additional services that they could provide,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: period. Now, whether we want them doing it, whether we wanna spend that money, whether this the best, those are all the questions. But I'm hearing that this bill could enhance the currently broken or inadequate system by

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: allowing

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: WellPath to provide more services. Sir?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: On that, I'm more convinced after yesterday's conversations with both DMH and WellPath that there has to be a clean wall between those who provide treatment toward competency restoration and those who provide the evaluation of whether or not competency restoration is So to

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I just want to put that out there.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I want to back up though and talk just a little more. I want to do some sort of how we got here consideration. And I would encourage us all to realize that we are a moment in time, right? At any given biennium, the people who are around these desks that make these decisions changes. And some people have been here throughout many terms and have a lot of the history here. But how we got here is important because we are suddenly being asked to address an issue that has been neglected probably at least in the short history since Irene shut down the mental facility. That was 2011, right? Yeah. And when that happened, and our mental health services dispersed from Waterbury, for whatever reason, the people who make these decisions decided not to focus on the absence of a forensics facility. That fell to the bottom of the list.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It wasn't even more.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. Right?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We're at fifteen years, so seven plus biennials of people sitting around these tables not asking the question, what about a forensics facility? Fourteen years, fifteen years of a governor saying, we are not going to invest in a forensics facility. And here we are. The 11 of us now sit at these same chairs and have been tasked with fixing that disregard. And I worry that we are looking at the lazy slash cheap slash easy band aid fix. And I don't think that makes good policy because fifteen years from now, people are going to say, how did they make that decision? Or why did they make that decision? And I think it's a point that Conor has made a number of times. We are in this moment of time, regardless of how much disregard precedes us, where we have an opportunity to do this correctly. I am profoundly worried about opening this door that currently gives the keys to that door to the DOC to be at the helm of decisions that should not be made in corrective, in a correctional context. That's my worry. We are at a point in time. And what precedes us has brought us here, what follows us will be our legacy. And I think we have an opportunity here to make a really important decision.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Who do you think has the keys now that you're worried about us getting them to do We

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: don't have a forensic facility right now. That's not the answer. That is absolutely the answer. Everybody has told us that. We do not have a

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: forensic Who responsible? If it's not DOC now, who is now? Where does the buck stop now for the people that need help now? If it's not DOC, which department is responsible?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's being handed back and forth. That's what's happening on So nobody is. I think that's a fair statement. Okay.

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: Well, in some instances, just got people on the street who are

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: in danger. Right, right. That's what We've got the gap. We've got the cracks.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's the gap. Yeah. Okay. I'm not in a profound moment, but I would agree with most of what Troy The one thing I will say is that the issue has come up many, many times, and I know in my time it has certainly been their time, Mary and Alice's time. And I can't speak to exactly why things fell apart. I know from what I was involved in, why things fell apart, with certain people really being opposed and the right people at the right time. And I'm not saying I agree with any of those, but like a lot of stuff, it's not that people ignored it, it's that they couldn't agree. Or again, sometimes it is the right person saying, I don't want it, and everybody goes, well, that's the person. But we are in a moment. You know, things I tell people all the time, just put a speck in the timeline, but it's our time. I do worry about doing it the wrong way. I worry about if we, I think there's a general consensus, maybe I'm wrong that people don't really like the way it's laid out here, that if we do codify it, then that means, okay, we can wash our hands and not move to what we believe or many of us believe is a better system. But then at the same time, this is where the two sides of things come in all the time, is believing that adding at least policy that allows and dictates the provisions for treatment are important, but the other thing is, because we don't do that now, and they don't seem like they're allowed to and whatever, the other part is, the part that we really, really, really, really, really agree on is that whether it's WellPath or somebody else, whatever the contractor is providing the services, the treatment, I think there should be a very strict wall between them and who determines competency. So I agree 100% on that part. Mean, I agree 95% on the other stuff, but 100%

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: on that part.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And that has nothing to do with WellPath or anybody else. I just personally think that's better practice no matter what. It could be just a person on the street. Don't think you grade your own test, so to speak. Okay, our ambulance done.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: All else?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Just a question to the chair, which is, what do you view as our committee's role in this sort of going to straw how we feel about this bill? Mean, what you know?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we do have quite a few sections in there that pertain directly to branches. And that really is our focus. How do we navigate that piece? How do we navigate the facility if they're gonna put up in the correctional facility. How do we navigate that? What what would I'm gonna kinda backpack into George's testimony is do we first look at a feasibility study? Do we do it in corrections begin with and do a feasibility study and that comes back to us. What's in the bill beginning July year, there's rulemaking. The DOC consultation with DMH and Dale to start implementing it within a period of weeks. We wanna begin rulemaking immediately before we know what the structure is even gonna be. And what Charlie said in terms of the COVID-nineteen, we haven't dealt with the victims within that either. And that has to be dealt. So we're putting the cart before the horse by allowing rulemaking to go forward before we know what the structure is.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And then so the follow-up is then, to the degree that our daily work is DOC and what they're gonna do about it, we've heard from the commissioner what he will or won't do about it, or at least what his intentions are.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And do we feel secure in that?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, this is the worst

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: of that because it's not an individual person thing, don't think, because multiple commissioners have kind of had the same interpretation that seems a lot more gray than what we feel we're looking at that seems a lot more black point. It's concrete, like the bill says X. They're like, I don't really think it means that.

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

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: it kind of does, like for the separated unit and slots, blah, blah, blah. But now I think we can put them in general population. I don't think that's what this bill says. Maybe I'm the one that's wrong. Maybe all of us are.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, to the degree that there's wiggle room, I think you heard which way we're

[Conor Casey (Member)]: gonna wiggle. Right. But I

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: just don't, I don't see this as having written wiggle room. So maybe, like I said, I could be the very, the dumb one or the woman's reading it wrong. But I'm concerned that it's not about personalities, that if two people can read the same thing and have two different conclusions, either one of them is just really wrong or it's just really badly written, which I don't necessarily think that's the case. But I'm just saying, it's concerning to me that there could be different interpretations already. Right. And we're never going to get that far. So if there is a considered, if different interpretations, then we have to look and say, okay, well, even though we think it's clear, we need to do something to make it more clear, at the very least.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's where language could, if we do this, language could be drafted. It's very, very clear that you would say that a forensic facility would be a separate unit. Folks would not be in general population. It would be separate unit, one in Chittenden and one in another facility. That's how you could tailor language. The other thing that has popped in my mind that you could do also that they wouldn't be able to go forward with doing anything within a correctional facility or DOC or a forensic facility until it lets us let your signs off.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Which is that important.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Put that in as well.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, I guess for a last stop on the same line of comment and inquiry then. I mean, we've had experience with this department before and the notion of micromanaging or what your lane is. I wonder how that would play out. And I guess I can't presume, but

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not just the department. It's providing services to the minors who are not competent to stand trial or have been deemed by the court not guilty by reasonable salary. So, that's what we're looking out for, as well as public safety. I mean, what I've picked up from the committee over the last week and a half, we've been working on this. People really want a safe and secure place, place folks who are currently not competent to stand trial or for the one or two folks over the years who have been deemed, you know, not guilty by resenting insanity. I've picked up that people really wanna take care of those folks. But what is the appropriate side? And under whose jurisdiction? That's the issue. It's not the issue of really taking care of the folks. It's under whose jurisdiction? What does a facility, how does it operate? What does it look like? Kevin.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I don't wanna sound harsh, but if the individuals have committed felony

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We don't know that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I understand. Hear me out. Hear me out. If they've committed the felony, no matter what the reason or conditions were, the law says that under these two conditions, we're not going to call them guilty. Not going to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not the competency, John.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Competency and insanity. Not competent to stand trial, even though we know they did that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's not the No, don't

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: know, Kevin. That's an important core function here. They are innocent until proven guilty. We can't prove them guilty because they can't go to court. So they are innocent.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: They are not understand the illegal procedure. They're innocent until proven guilty. I don't. That's where I'm going. What Kevin's

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: story is, let's pretend all of us see Joe kill somebody right now. So we know that he did it. So just put that, like take out the legal aspect. Joe, he's trying to make an argument about you know that it happened. Right. Move on. Work from there.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Now, under those circumstances, currently, they are

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: very listener after

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: the Proven guilt.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: He's thinking about it.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Until that changes, we're going to have a gap in what to do with them. So, we either continue doing what we're doing, or we put money into a different way of handling them. And where does that line up with the eight sixty children that need adequate schools? Where does that line up? I mean, there's a whole long list. And so, from a realistic standpoint, we have to have a priority on where are we going to spend huge amounts of money. Otherwise, we're just gonna keep chasing our tails. And I know we can't solve that, but that's what we're trying to do right now is to figure out whether we should promote something that we can't afford right now.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Are there choices being made about what we can afford and what we cannot? And I'm not willing to make a second class citizen to avoid the questions about proper level of taxation. I understand that. I'm not sure.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we're in a committee conversation in terms of where should we go with the bill, what are items that we should look at, what type of language change did we do, and just the general struggle that we're all in with putting this under corrections. I think that is the purpose of putting it under corrections. That's the issue. That's where we are, which is open conversations.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That's like a

[Conor Casey (Member)]: pretty chill conversation.

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Do want to explore more the concept that was presented by ACLU this morning about flip flopping here. Let's do study. And I am not one to create another study. We did it with telecom. And have the feasibility, the who question, who should house this question, let's do that study and report before we hand the keys to whoever has decided to be at the helm. And I would much prefer that that study be conducted by somebody outside of the agency of human services. So an objective sort of I don't know if this is I don't know who this is. I don't know if this is state governments, if this is Prime Research does this. I don't know who does that. But somebody outside of the Agency of Human Services makes a determination about what is best practices for states in our scenario.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Until we understand what size the rock is that we've gotta find, which sounds like it's judiciary, I. E. Page 11, lines 10 through 12, the 13, until we understand that, we don't we don't have enough definition to do what we need to do. Until we fully understand what the federal constitution tells us we must do with these people, we can't make any real decisions. Designed and operated for recovery. We all agree with that. Community based residential treatment. What does that mean? According to the federal law, which has some bearing unless Vermont sues the federal system and says you're wrong because we can't agree on what the words are. The federal law is what we need to understand first. And that's not in our committee. That's what I've been told.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Saying it's not for our committee. Can hear that. We can take testimony on that. But if it's not, but to really understand how it plays out is judiciary for the younger states and a lot of them that we do because they live it day to day in that committee just like they don't understand the Catholic church. Oh, is it? So at the same time, don't understand a lot about the minutiae of corrections. So, you know, we can hear about the constitutionality of it. It would be our legal counsel that would lay near. We can do that. And we can also check-in with the house judiciary and see where they are. What do you mean? It's constant.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I barely know myself. Sorry to be late to the party here. Had an amendment in education. Throwing a few bombs over the land. So I think we had the right model last biennium, right? A plan came to this committee that Envision did sort of attach to the current psychiatric hospital, where I think the experience and expertise does lie to care for this population here. What we've done is, I think, almost dishonest. We're telling the public for public safety, we're going to have a new facility, but it's not a new facility. We may as well scratch the word facility out of the bloody bill. It's not a facility. It is status quo with hiring a couple more staffers. And that's not progress to me. I think we have a snapshot of time to get this right. And we're on a path that's going to put us in jeopardy of lawsuits. And it might save money. But at the end of the day, are people's constitutional rights. And I'm not willing to nickel and dime that. This is a core pillar of our democracy, right, we're talking about. And we need to do it right. And I totally agree for public safety, we need to close this loophole. We need some facility. But this isn't it. And I just cannot get behind any bill. I cannot vote for a bill that has this under the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections. I'm okay with maybe a model where there's a facility on the campus of a correctional facility for the safety that we're talking about. But as far as the practitioners, I spent ten years representing correctional officers and psych techs. It is not the same job. And if you're going to restore competency, you need the right people doing the job. And it's a 20 fourseven process. It's not calling in a doctor to do an hour session here or there. It's dealing with these people 20 fourseven because that's where their needs are. So, I've heard witnesses on this bill give completely different answers. In the supposed AHS structure where everybody's at the table talking to each other, it doesn't seem like they've talked about this too much, you know? So I'm really uncomfortable with the bill as written. I'll vote against it as written. And I think we need to find out another process or another structure for it to even be close to like passing the straight face test. That's where I'm at.

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

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: I I would still suggest looking into the feasibility of of some kind of interstate contact.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: We talked about that the other day, and that's the stepping stone I would want us to look into to see if in that so that we can do this right.

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: One scenario maybe, you know, you if if that's a possibility, you do that, and then then you can actually look at what something in state might be like. Because what they can't be on the street. This loophole can't exist. And if you just study it and do nothing, you know, you're you're leaving time bombs out in in public. That's not good. I wouldn't wanna be sitting here next year when some something awful happened somewhere because we took no action. But the proposed action isn't particularly tasteful in many respects.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: My MST, I don't know if you can talk, I know that there has been studies done in the past about a facility, forensic facility. Have you been able to find anything? I haven't found

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: specific studies. I found mentions of it from past reports from DOC and AHS, but not. It's basically a study for response.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything from DOC would have been long my friend. Yeah, and how long ago, what context were those?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Is 2018 in accordance with FQ-two 100. Actually a 2021 report from Act 200, 2018, Vermont's Institutions for Mental Disease. Sorry, I dates. And then there were a few reports from that in subsequent years.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Seems like there was something fairly well, we also did something fairly recently where we were gonna convert those beds in Middlesex. We wasn't there something? No. No. And that's not Middlesex. It's pure residential.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Agree with that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Two years ago, you were up in human services at that point. And we were gonna convert a few of those beds. Was there further work that was gonna be done on that?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I think it died because of the whole issue we heard yesterday, which was that they couldn't figure out how or didn't want to have them divided appropriately not to affect development? Okay, that's the issue. That's the relation.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That is the issue.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: This says that there is a forensic working group, which we already know about, four member from 2023, and that's just genetic. But Act 89, it says they had Is this something I'm going ask? Yeah, So nine men, that's what we were

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: just saying. I'm assuming

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: coming out of this Act 89, but the soon thing that really shows up is experiment study. And then what we're doing now, so that's really historically,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in the old school, was

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: paperwork, work, writing, correctional disability, that's that I guess related to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes, forensic facility may share the state hospital.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, everything goes back to S89. Everything really gets listed, so. And again,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the issue was Medicaid. I meant to ask the Commissioner of Mental Health where our waiver was for the Medicaid waiver. Because we have a waiver for a state hospital, because it's over sixteen deaths. We have a waiver to get Medicaid. These are my thoughts for us. We need something. We need a facility that's based on recovery. The question is, does that happen or can that happen in corrections? Well, that doesn't provide now and the bill would allow them to provide services. We need a clean wall of separation between treatment and evaluation. We need a policy for treatment. Let's do the feasibility study first in terms of who is housed and where before we hand over the keys. We do a feasibility study, we do it outside of the agency services. We need to understand the constitutionality. We've attached a facility to the state hospital. We looked at that before. Do we design a model for a facility built, a forensic building to be operated by mental health folks, not DOC, but on the DOC campus? And do we look for the feasibility of an interstate compact as a steppingstone? That's what I've heard.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That sounds like a very reasonable wrap up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, but I don't know where we go.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: How do we whittle down those questions to get to?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What if we if we did look at a feasibility study that, hey, that has to happen first, folks, before we jump off the cliff here. And if we did do that, we have folks from agency of human services as well as stakeholders like, you can have ACIP or the SCA. People leave. Folks that represent the whole amount of folks going to Sure. All health folks. Do we put together a task force that covers most of the basis to come back with a recommendation in June? I'm just putting thoughts on the table to see if we can. Because I think we all have concerns. You know I hand the keys over to a commissioner of corrections to have custody. All of us. All our agreement come about that one. There's some real issues there, which we haven't even we didn't call those issues out.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I would say I agree with that, except if there's a risk to the public with doing nothing while we're doing this study, then I think that's a factor we need to factor in there because we certainly want to do the right thing for the five or six individuals. But I'll be frank, those who are being offended, the victims, in my opinion, need to be at least equally overrepresented, if not higher, because that's what the job of the government is, is to protect and serve. And if we're not protecting, then we're not doing the most basic thing that the government is supposed to do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, a forensic facility does not become, in corrections does not come effective until January. We automatically can't take care of it or anything. Right. Okay.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Conor. I guess a question of the stakeholder group, right? Because I kind of like the idea. At the same time, every testimony I've heard has been pretty rigid. Well,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's been part of it.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: And do we think that the parties coming together can move each other? I don't know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Or is it an outside group? Totally. Mean, I would

[Conor Casey (Member)]: say one thing, like one person I'd love to hear testimony from is a neutral psychologist who performs competency exams, who isn't connected to the state or anybody else who could just say, what are the best practices?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That should be pretty health care services. Somebody

[Conor Casey (Member)]: from out of state. Yeah, maybe somebody from out of state, I don't know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: In the state that does this. Somebody in this profession there. Because it

[Conor Casey (Member)]: feels like everybody who comes either works for somebody or has some skin in the game, you know, that they're They don't

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: want skin in game.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Or they don't, yeah.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: When we heard yesterday from other testimony, everyone says they're collaborating. I don't really see it happening.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, they're collaborating, but they all agree DMC has to do

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: it. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's where they're collaborating. Okay, so

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: that's the only avenue they see as feasible.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah, we can make decisions. Right.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And we can make commitments, but we're already balking at what maybe everybody would see as a highest priority to fix our education system and we're not comfortable looking at $50,000,000 worth of bonding.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, the way the bill is structured, we do July 1, start the rulemaking process. Be led by the Department of Corrections. And, it would be, if you want go to page 14, it would be to implement the provisions of sections one, three and four. So, section one is who goes into a forensic facility and that's where you can get shared. Three is your make sure before I go there. You're fine. Have to do your restoration. Yeah, but that you're not guilty by reason of insanity. And then who doesn't feel that confidence?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is there a time frame by which we're supposed to be doing something? Who, us? Yeah, no, I don't mean that to be snotty. Truly, for this bill. Next

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: week or so. It's got to coordinate with them working on their amendments. And Martin was hoping to have more things tied up by tomorrow, but it's not going work. We just don't have the time because we're tied up today and tomorrow. So there'd be more work next week but we get those two committees starting to get involved. Human services committee didn't wanna get involved until judiciary came out with their first amendment. They're coming out today.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But they should have all been working on their section of So what? What's going

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, and

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: so the chair guessed where I was going. And, yeah, I mean, I just looked at their agendas this week. Health care had zero testimony and human services has one piece of testimony on this bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're not focused on it.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I would love to stay in my lane, but it's hard to stay out of that.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well, again, there's an important piece, and there was a history of us getting to the end line at the end of the session, and it'll just either die or we'll put some half baked plan into place that won't be beneficial to any.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Now that Martin has some language, I'm assuming it's being presented to their this morning I can reach out to Mark and Theresa and ask for a meeting of the four chairs to now really start doubling down for now that there's no language. We have to. We can do that. Walk around the floor today plenty of time we got to work on this folks. So, rule making. Right now the way the structure of the bill is by July 1 the DOC is going to start working on promulgating rules and it is for folks the definition of folks who are coming into the department who would go into a forensic facility for competency restoration. It would be for folks who are coming into a forensic facility were not guilty by reason of insanity. And it would go into what the structure of the forensic facility would look like.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Clinically appropriate standards.

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: What

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: page are you on? Page 14, line eight.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: All right, eight through That's to be determined, but it's going to be the rules that are going to determine. The rules are going to determine how the whole structure is

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: No, set understand that. What I'm saying is So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: going through a rulemaking is a very complicated, long process. So, the way the bill was structured, July 1, the Commissioner of Corrections will consult with Department of Health, Mental Health, and Dale. And it would be the Department of Corrections would adopt these rules.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I'm not ready to hand over the rulemaking to these places and to these entities until we hear that's an appropriate group of entities to be making these rules. This is the ACLU point that was made just this morning.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, that's one part of the bill

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: that we've been working on.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Now, for the rules process, there's a lot of folks have not seen this play out. Sometimes your rules, the rules carry out the intent of law. Your rules is when the rubber hits the road in terms of how services are delivered. So, what the bill also contemplates is they're gonna start developing the rules. And in October, DOC in collaboration with those other departments would submit a written report to us, Human Services Committee, and Judiciary Committee, and our colleagues, the same colleagues in the Senate. And it would contain the draft rules. And then they have a list of other things that that report should address. It doesn't say if we weigh in on this, we can't act, these committees can't act on behalf of the legislature when we're out of session. Kind of maybe give some thoughts back. There's no legal action that we can take when we're out of session. So you could kind of weigh in and say, well, we don't want this, we want to look at this, but then there's no longer check back. So the rules process is department or agency will draft up some rules and it goes out for public comment. And that can be a period of three months, four months. Receive all the public comments, they can change the rules based on the public comments and keep the rules, they can work through that. And then they'll come out with draft rules that is then presented to LCAR, legislative committee on administrators for approval.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And as the makeup of LCAR, which I would question, would they have the background knowledge on this to be able to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it will be a different LCAR. Right. Because it'll be a different legislative

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: See. Next year because it's gonna take a year to a year and a half to final date rules. It doesn't happen in matter of two months. It happens. It takes a good year. It takes a good year to final date rules. Right? So, and those rules don't go into effect generally approved by the legislative committee on administrative rules. So that's the way the bill is structured. Then the thinking is that come January 1, the rules will be in place, and then the facility can fix it. That's the structure.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It just takes a while

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to load. No. It for some reason, when I click on committees, it and then you can't go anywhere. It doesn't do anything.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Because I think it's loading.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, it just stays put. Doesn't do anything.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: The same thing I

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: have to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: turn the whole thing off and reboot it.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Same thing happens on my phone.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's really it just

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: access to communities on my phone. It doesn't do it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was just trying to figure out who's not out.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. Call it out.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Didn't even get to her.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: You're the only young one here fix this shit.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was upstairs to fix it.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's a joint committee, right?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: just out of curiosity, so it's Trevor as chair, Seth Baumgart as vice, Higley, Bodie, Sapkowitz, Beck, Bunkett, the Weeks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So some of those folks will stay, some will not. And they meet every other week of session, even during the session there's a lot. They meet Thursdays every other week. So when a department or agency is ready to submit the rules to health care, the chairs of those respective committees that put in that language receive a copy of those rules and the chairs need to report back to legislative council. Are the rules hearing out the intent of legislation? Are they ambitious or do they go beyond what talking to the legislatures are requiring and they reject, submit that back to council and then that gets submitted to LFAR in terms of how those committees wait. A lot of times chairs don't even respond to this. Some do. Some don't. I've been in situations where the rules go beyond the intent. It's a law.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Is there another oh, sorry, Jill. Is there another way instead of doing rules or have somehow having the committee together to present something back to the legislature, because if we can all come on the same page as to what we're looking at, or hopefully looking at, I think our intent is never really looked at after it goes into the rules, because it's this other group that's made it, then Elkhart that probably has no understanding of all the different pieces of this puzzle, and then they can make the decision what they want. And that may not have been the intent. So is there a piece in here anywhere that we can have where something comes back to whoever the legislature is next year for a review before these rules get put into solid place? It may not be where any of us want to be.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, the way it's drafted right now, there will be an interim report October 1 to our committees. This committee, judiciary, human services, and then health and welfare, judiciary, institutions. But we could weigh in, but it doesn't mean that

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But it doesn't mean anything.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So another alternative that could happen is in addition to our standing committees getting the interim report. Joint justice oversight meets six times once a month. And you could ask those folks whoever are promulgating putting together the rules to come before joint oversight at each meeting and ask joint oversight committee to make a recommendation to the next legislative session. So let me read who's on Justice Oversight. It's gonna work. Yeah. That's what I have to do. I have to turn it on. So there is senator Lawrence. We can get them off. Senator Harrison and Senator Plunkett institutions. Senator Hashim judiciary and Senator Norris judiciary committee and appropriations committee. On the House side, Representative Luneau, judiciary, Representative Trevor Spoer, probes, representative Wood, Human Services. We have a new member, representative Taylor, who replaces Chopper. Chopper.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And you're the chair. Didn't you didn't name it. Will you be the chair this summer? Yeah. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, it switches biennials. Next biennium will be the summer. So that's who's on justice oversight. So you've got some of the committees who are currently working on this represented there. And we can make recommendations, we can't act. The only committee that can make it, to do any action on session is join fiscal committee or the emergency. That's it. But justice oversight can make recommendations of January to the respective committees. No. We're not ready to go forward with this. This needs to change. Yes. We are ready to go forward with this. I'm just putting options on the tooth.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Oh, I just want another avenue that we just aren't punk kicking this to the rules committee that could come up with an even worse than what we're looking at.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But it's not

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: for me. That's what I'm saying. And Shawn, we're sorry for your eyes interrupting you.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: No. No. No. It's my mine might be a silly thing. I I I'm just looking for some perspective here. So these people were in Waterbury in 2011.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. I'm not so sure about that. I they might have been. I know Elizabeth was there. She may have been held enough. Think these

[Brian Minier (Member)]: When you say that woman's name, there was someone

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: who She killed

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: killed in our community. Yeah. Energizing fast. She's That still

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: was in the early eighties.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay. So let's say for now, so 2011, and I'm just trying to get some perspective here because I'm new at this. Why wasn't something done then? Why wasn't there a why wasn't this

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think we had the number. That's why I was getting that. She was not guilty by reason of insanity.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: But you had other people who were

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I don't know if that we had a stronger community system at that time. Not so sure how many people were held at the state hospital that were incompetent to stand trial. I mean, they would go there if it's a hospital order. But then afterwards, once they receive competency, they would take the next step, which could be a detainee in a a facility because they have a charge. And if they would restore competency while they were at the state hospital, they would go back into corrections as a detainee until they could stand trial.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So there was a little

[Brian Minier (Member)]: more of a system then when they had the Waterbury facility.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: We're not sure.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, we're not

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: not sure. Of that. And also, I don't think there was a number of folks that were starting to seek. And I think what we're gonna start seeing, what I'm kinda hearing, picking up, we're gonna start seeing a lot of folks coming in because their brains are getting fried. Oh, yeah. Those substitutes there. Absolutely. That's that's already starting to I'm just

[Brian Minier (Member)]: trying to understand why this is happening now, and we're you know? But at the same time, there hasn't been a forensics place since then.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm not sure there really was back then.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So, Rutland, like

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Unless Just trying to get them. Unless they could do it, Wendell lost the certification. We lost certification. When was that? 2008? Twenty year old

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: tree loss? When did you say 2008 or 2009?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We lost Medicaid certification. And I think it was due to a lot of inappropriate, facility was not appropriate.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I think there was staffing stuff.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, lost certification by CMS, which meant we lost Medicaid coverage, it was all on our nickel. Which back then, maybe you could house these folks because you aren't gonna lose Medicaid.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. I don't know if

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that was connected, but we were decertified. Remember that day?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Move was to privatize and move this Fletcher Allen.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, wow, Okay, gotcha.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I'm just trying

[Brian Minier (Member)]: to what got us.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, 2005. That was 2005.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well, there was a number.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, Monty. Okay.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That's a few that are connecting.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: But what what Jack said today to me, I picked up also was that he's really seeing a lot of this now because it's societal, that these people don't have support, that they're that they don't have a home or some place to be at. So they're they're being pushed into, like, homeless ness or whatever and making bad decisions, and decisions are getting worse, and they're taking drugs. And so I'm just trying to get the I'm trying

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to get

[Brian Minier (Member)]: where I'm trying to understand this whole mess that we're dealing

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: with right now.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: And not just the bill, but why we're writing this bill. Well, I mean, go through a few

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Times, you're gonna see, like, the seventies, for example, drugs skyrocket. And a lot of the reasons you see a higher incarceration rates from the 90s into the mid 2000s that we're trying to figure out now are from laws that went into effect in the 80s, early 90s based on that. So it's a cycle, everything in life is a cycle, right? But when Alice mentioned, people being messed up with drugs, that's 100% true that there's that's being a problem. But the thing that was just closed, there's so much science behind what that's doing to people's brains. So we have to be prepared for that, too. People and I don't

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: just mean that the people are little

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: bit intellectually lazy. It's making people go batty. There's some real mental health problems.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not mental health. It's a brain dumping.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: You're right, folks. It means damage. Right. There's some damage. However we want to word it. I don't know how to write it. But the problem is these are really big problems. And I'm not saying this skyrocketing or that all a sudden we'll have 100 people tomorrow or anything like that. But it's important to keep complex. Didn't have this. Right. We didn't have And that's what I'm trying to understand.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But Thank you, ma'am.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: But I guess but the other thing too is that does it mean then that we should just be shooting to build a new forensics facility? Is that the right answer? The right answer is what New Hampshire is doing. New Hampshire is opening up a new 26 bed facility, right? And that's the right thing to do and let mental health take care of it. Is that not

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not all mental health. TBI is not done.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay. So there's so many layers to this.

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So it's not all mental

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: health. Gotcha.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It affects your

[Joseph “Joe” Luneau (Member)]: problem, but it's

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

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay, well, you.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I just wanna reiterate that back to the bill, I'm not convinced that we've got the right people writing the rules.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, yeah. I mean, that's why I'm trying to bring everything back. We can change some of the structure if we want. That's what I'm trying to say. Do you do a feasibility study? Do you do that before you give them authority to go through the rulemaking process. I'm I'm just looking at There's there's gotta be

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a stopgap if we start this before it gets to rules because I'm just afraid, like you just said, and I was referring to that. I'm not sure if we've got the right people.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: The people on the train are writing the rules, and I'm not convinced the train should be set free.

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So there was conversation if we do do looking at the feasibility of this before put anything in place, come back, whatever, to have an outside group. Would NCOC do something? So would council state governments do something for this? I don't know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Prime research group?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Think prime research group, they've done more data. Yeah. I don't think they would lay enough.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And one other piece of this, because it always comes up to be the dead all stopped all of this, is the Medicaid piece. Where does it, what pieces does it affect so that as we're dealing with that, because financially, that's a huge question in this. And so that has to be part of this discussion.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Are you interested in an outside group doing it? I think the question is who's the client? Is it the legislature or AHS or a department? And how does that operate then, you know?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: But I get you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I can have a conversation with the speaker, because they've done this in other, and much counsel. I mean, if people are interested in pursuing that, they can do some legwork. Conversations. Your

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: description of the two committees was very helpful to me. What's the committee that you chair in the summertime? Joint Justice.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: One more time. Joint Justice OGIS. Just Joint Justice OGIS. Mean, if folks are interested in seeing if we have an outside entity, then we do a feasibility study. Is that something that we're interested in?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah. Yes, because I think if we have the same groups together, we're going to keep kicking this can down the road or not, or feel extremely uncomfortable of who thinks they're running it or collaborating together.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That means finding money. Know, I wonder if we could find any cash.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Do we have do we have the ability to do that now to go

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: back to the capital bill?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We got plenty of time. It can

[Brian Minier (Member)]: But how much money are you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We don't know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: No cap. Listen to the master, Young.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: And that's just one section, right? We've got some other sections here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I can pursue if folks are in terms of feasibility study, which I think people are, independent. Maybe there could be something through NCSL or council of state governments. And have discussions with the speaker that they're aware of more opportunities.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I know

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: some fiscal office may be aware.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But again, we don't want to study just to say we're having a study that ends up doing

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, we have to be very

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: got clear. List of questions already that we would like to see the Well, study group

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: put, come I'm putting.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: No, I understand, but I mean, you've got your handwritten list of questions.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's what hopefully the study group would answer before we start recommending spending money making rules.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So then the next piece is I'm wanting to the the forensic facility definition.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: What page?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm just kinda wondering, do we want to lay out a structure that if we do have a forensic facility,

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: regardless

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of where it sounds, or who is in lay out what it should look like and ask white women in BGS, talk to them. There are feedback on it because nobody has spoken to me, Jasmine. Well,

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: said to me the other day, with all the buildings that the state owns, why isn't there some and I said,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think Joe's right.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Interesting. Do you remember at the state hospital replacement? There was a group, do you remember the few truths committee, right? I

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: loved it.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: And their charge was develop a set of principles that would sort of guide the conversation. Mostly agreed on.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank God for Irene, because we'd still be talking

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I about

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: mean, we looked at so many configurations for that. And I'll tell you what Irene was happening that day, and I was seeing Waterbury flying. I said, good. We're trying to get rid of this hospital and get off the dime. Because that was in I became chair here 'five, and that was the first thing we did.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I took the role of interim VSEA ED the day after Irene won a fifth of state government of Soda Water. Bad job.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We had been working from 'five to 'eleven with the whole disconfiguration of how do we replace the same hospital. That's when we got into the IND, because the thinking was having it run privately and fled around, but we were concerned it was within the thirty five mile radius and we wouldn't get Medicaid. And then they wanted to fill this pure residential next door to Waterbury Hospital and the neighbors were there.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Oh, great.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then we had a change in governor. The government would have stopped it. She was probably good because it was little flooded. Thank you for describing. When we lost the state hospital, the focus wasn't the forensic, the focus was how are we going to move forward? We've got folks who are involuntarily in the hospital setting and we haven't got anything. We quickly were putting something together.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Is a state employee, I think under mental health, who specializes in CMS that we've had in before. Would it be worth bringing an expert on the CMS Medicaid funding just to see if there were different scenarios like mental health running a unit or something in a correctional Does that count towards the beds of the Vermont Psychiatric Hospital? Just so we even know what we're doing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't

[Conor Casey (Member)]: count towards correction. Yeah. Right. Right. So.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Will do

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: some digging. That's why I said.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, I'm thinking I'm spacing on her name.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would mostly be the Medicaid policy. Would it be Diva? It

[Conor Casey (Member)]: was Diva, wasn't it? It would be Diva.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Medicaid policy is referred to Diva to AHS, so I think that would be the best. Like AHS or Diva? AHS Medicaid policy. So it'd be with the agency. It'd be under the secretary's office. Medicaid policy is best. Yeah. So it's not DIVA anymore?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So that's why we said we have to make the piece of the Medicaid and eleven

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: fifteen waivers being administered by DEMA. Yes, DEMA implements Medicaid payments and they work on that. It's just a very small Medicaid policy office. So, you could find out something, can you work with

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: team So,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are people I'm not taking a quarter of care because we have someone coming in quarter after eleven. So, would folks be interested on page ten, eleven, to keep some of that language in terms of what a forensic facility going forward really should look like, knowing there's not gonna be corrections. But kind of wordsmith that language a little bit. Just putting facts on the table.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Definitely needs some tweaking.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Needs a lot of tweaking. Just trying to think with you know? Is that something that folks would be Yes.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm just trying to think of scheduling.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. I wanna take a break because we're scheduled for the after the for the record eleven. Yeah. We scheduled scheduled.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What's