Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, certainly. We've only been here. We're live.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're live. Everyone, welcome back to the House Committee on Gentleman Housing, and it is Thursday, April 2, and we have one more witness today, Chris Horror, President of the United Federation of Police, and we are hearing S89, which is an act related to survivor benefits. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself? Yes. Take it away.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: For clarification, my name is Christopher Horror, I'm the President of the Vermont Police Association. I do work for the United Federation.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All right, thank you for the correction.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Thank you. I'd like to just start off by saying thank you. I feel like this has been a whole lot of work has been put in by everybody and others other communities over the last three years now trying to get accomplished. The bill's come a long way. It's gotten better in my opinion. So I would say thank you. I was listening to some of the testimony earlier today and I don't have any written I'm not reading from anything, so I'm happy to field some devil's advocate, Grinch type questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, you heard it earlier.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Or anything along those lines. And I did hear H-two 70 mention peer support confidentiality and I want to say thank you. That's another bill that the BPA has been champing. And so this has been going on for so long that I think people have even forgotten the name of the first belt, which was H695. I think that was spearheaded by the Vermont Police Association's desire for this equity that we're talking about here. So one piece that I had heard was the mentioning of equity as it relates to what if we included people who don't get the federal death benefit. And just circling back to that, I don't believe that that would provide equity because if we look back at some previous testimony and we look at what other states did within New England as well, those individuals get the federal and the state death benefit. And we're currently the only state in New England that does not provide a law enforcement death benefit. There's been a lot of conversation around life insurance. When you look at those other states, I don't believe they view life insurance as double dipping. I do believe they look at that as a separate benefit that most all employees receive from their employer, both whether they accidentally die on or off the job. So that's a much broader benefit that addresses a larger vastly different or broader situations if you will. One thing my understanding is the concern of the double dipping of benefits which I can empathize with and I understand fully. And to my knowledge, the only benefit that I'm aware of that could be perceived as double dipping is again, we're talking about a bill with a very narrow scope. So you have to kind of look for things in a very narrow way. And I took a look at the state contracts that I'm familiar with and the only benefit that I've found that could be construed or looked at as this, it does fall under the life insurance section of their collective bargaining agreements, but it's very specifically refers to a special death benefit for line of duty deaths. So there is something, it's very small, it's not an exorbitant amount of money to my knowledge, but it only exists in three collective bargaining agreements that I'm aware of. And that's the Vermont State Troopers collective bargaining agreement, VSCA's department of corrections bargaining unit agreement, and then the supervisory unit collective bargaining agreement. And in that supervisor bargaining unit it only refers to state police and tenants and DOC supervisors. So when you look at police officers such as the sergeants of the Department of Liquor and Lottery, they're police officers but they don't receive that special theft. That's my understanding. That's how the contractual language reads. I'm happy to provide that information. I'm also happy to provide later with some written testimony on what other states' death benefits are. And that's pretty much all I have to share. I realize that I might be making it a little less clear, but I'm trying to help get this through because we're close, you know, so.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think first of all, yes, it'd be great if you provided what other states do, and also the life insurance policy that you referenced for the three collective bargaining units. Sure, absolutely. Okay, Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you for your patience. As I said to other folks who are involved, I was an original supporter, sponsor of the original bill and have been here during iterations. I appreciate your support. And it's good to have, I think that, as Chairman McHaly said, that information will

[Unidentified Committee Member]: be helpful, but

[Unidentified Committee Member]: yeah, things take time and hopefully figure it out this time. So thank you for coming in and your time today and advocating for our organization's members to, again, I stated earlier, people who show up for us every day should show up for them.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Thank you for that and my pleasure. There's been a lot of people involved in this and it'd be a long list to thank, you know, because you can think Higley, he was the original drafting sponsor. You can thank Senator Mihoski for addressing the gender equity, which I think is an issue. And I think one thing that I've come to realize even just this year is things change, Things evolve, right? Maybe the definition of first responders evolving, right? For sure. Back in 2015 when this bill was originally put

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: under the

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: past, was just EMTs, firefighters, and police. Police ultimately didn't make it. That was prior to Laura Sobel, right? So I commend everybody in the work and the development of this because it has grown to something better.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I've got a couple of questions. It says law enforcement officers who've been certified by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Can you tell us a little bit what that means? Sure. Who it

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: includes and who it doesn't include? Those decertify.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Yeah, I think that's probably the answer, those who are certified. So at least certified here in the state of Vermont.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it's an individual thing? In other words, it's a certification process?

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Yes, to become a police officer and work under the jurisdiction and authority of the state, you have to be certified through the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. And there's different levels of certification. There's level two, which is a lower certification, and then level three, which is the highest level of certification. And if doctor wants to come from Maine and work in Vermont, they have to waiver in and receive a certification through that council still. And

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: there are law enforcement officers that are local to the town, right? Repeat that, In other words, law enforcement officers, a lot of them are state employees. Some are not? Correct.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Well, the municipal ones The municipal ones. Correct.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, for example

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: The Essex Police Department, for example, are municipal employees, but they are certified under the criminal rights.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Even I think in my small town we had somebody certified.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Yes, there could be constables too. Constables, yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They're not state employees, so they would not get the state accidental death because they're not state employees.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Well, will even clarify that even a tiny bit further, and I would say that any state employee who isn't specifically defined under that language of their collective bargaining agreement wouldn't receive that benefit. So I use the Department of Liquor and Lottery sergeants, for example. They are in the supervisory unit of that contract, but how it's worded, the interpretation is that they wouldn't necessarily receive that, whereas the state police and tenants would. Because you're talking about

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a contractually based one. I was talking about the state accidental death benefit insurance. Everybody who But you have to be employee of the state, so none of the local

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: They would have their own, whether by municipal policy or by collective bargaining agreement. Other questions? Yes, Tom.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yep, just, is it possible for somebody to be certified by Vermont Criminal Justice and be working in the private security firm?

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Think that'll be more in like a moonlighting situation, maybe. Or they've retired or they're Your certifications can expire though, because if don't continue up with the training and stuff like that.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So if they're moonlighting, but currently in law enforcement, that's if something happens, they are not covered by this.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: I don't believe they would because if I recall and I don't have the language up in front of me and I really haven't done much of a comparison with previous versions we've worked on, But I believe there's language in the bill that refers to working under the scope of the department. So under the direction and scope of the department. So if someone was moonlighting as a security officer for a private entity, they're not under the direction of the department. I think the only situation that I could find out is in a municipal sense is if a private entity has contracted with the municipality and hired them to a school dance or a road pavement job or something else.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Another question.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes? I've got a couple of questions actually. Please go ahead. Okay. What does it take for LEO to become, I apologize if you've already answered this, become decertified by the

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: BCJC? It requires, there's a variety of different things. So you could become decertified because you haven't completed your training or maybe you've retired and your certification lapses. You would no longer maintain that certification. There's also the criminal justice council has the ability in the realm of policy violation or criminal violations and stuff like that to issue violations or strikes against your certification, then they could then go and decertify you. They've done that a couple times more recently than the public itself.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I had asked a question earlier and realized that you were a better person to ask about it. But can you talk a little bit about, I I know that I know your role. I do. But can you talk a little bit about the kind of evolving role of people representing the mental health profession, either as volunteers or as peer counselors, or there's all kinds of things in the criminal justice system, and particularly with LEOs. But as I was saying earlier, I served on the healthcare committee when Morning Fox started his role, I think, up in Williston, coordinating some of that stuff. It's really changed so much since then from being strictly Vermont State Police to spreading out among some local departments, some sheriff's departments, but not all. And so I the context is this bill. And I would like to make sure that we get the language such that as that continues to evolve or devolve, we don't know. As it continues to change, that we are making sure that we include that aspect

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Yeah, of think that's a great question and I kind of vaguely mentioned at the beginning that while I was listening to the testimony earlier today, I kind of had this feeling of like, all right well things change, right? Nothing's always stagnant and I thought that maybe the definition of law of first responders are is evolving. It's maybe getting bigger, which I think is not about it. We have now embedded social workers, we have different people. All us have been wearing all these hats and they don't necessarily have the answers or solutions and you know I do feel the majority do the best that they can with what they have and I think bringing in embedded social workers who are trained professionals and equipped with different types of emotional intelligence and different things to bring to the table. I think if we were looking to try to include those people, I think some language and I think I use my labor hat, try to like think how I would articulate those individuals and I'd call them support staff because it's a broader term and I believe there could be some language in another statute that we could potentially point to for those individuals. But I think those are the people that maybe you're referring to.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I'm not. I'm talking about, when we as a state or I'm talking about Or as a country or at whatever level. Sometimes we talk about having mental health professionals ride along with police officers to emergency scenarios where somebody's having a mental health crisis. Sometimes we talk about providing more training for law enforcement officers. And sometimes we talk about having mental health professionals riding along, whether they are peer support or whether they're a volunteer or professional, it varies. But these are people who are willing to go to the hottest spot. So they're not necessarily support staff. They're not necessarily people who are finding avenues for supports for an individual. They may actually be raising their hand to go straight to the artist's scenarios to try to do all of the things. But I just want to make sure that as that concept evolves, that it is somehow those individuals either And are looking out for others'

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: I think that's what I was trying to answer. Because there's all sorts of issues like who is their employer, how are they paid, and different questions like that. Very often I'm working with bargaining units, if you will, that include dispatchers which are also predominantly female job. And I think the way we refer to those individuals is as support staff, right? I wouldn't even necessarily say law enforcement professionals because that's a very niche group of, I'd probably more say emergency services personnel support staff. And I think if you define what that is, if that's someone who's working for the department or embedded in the department in responding to these similar calls as a team of teams approach, because law enforcement isn't maybe perfect for that role and situation. Having an embedded social worker or mental health professional is that team of teams. Of course, you're bringing the authority who may have certain trainings in safety and stuff like that and you have a mental health professional who has the knowledge and the training and the experience in handling whatever that individual's experience. So I think if you wanted to go in that approach as it relates to those individuals, emergency services support staff, and then just maybe trying to define it may be best. I think that's a good thing, kind of catching those individuals. It's like again, Laurel Souffe example. I've gone into houses with her. I've seen some of the not the greatest situations. I think her tragic passing was in a slightly more retaliatory, it was kind of after the fact. But it very, I used to say that that couldn't happen at someone's house or at someone's more personal space. Thank you.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I gather, oh, go ahead, Tom. I just want to clarify that I'm reading this correctly and you may have already answered this, my brain was going down its own rabbit hole. The line of duty death benefit is payable as I read it to any state certified law enforcement officer? Under 80 guard? Right, under this bill. So if they're state certified in the air law? Yes. Yes. Okay. That's what I wanted to.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Yep. And I don't believe the definition of law enforcement under S-eighty Mac has really changed dramatically from other iterations. So I think I do believe that language covers both state and municipal. Or county for that matter.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Along the same lines, if they are still in duty but decertified, they would not qualify?

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: Correct, because they're no longer certified by the Department of Justice Council.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Are the sheriff self certified? Yes. But

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to follow-up on Elizabeth's questions, so we're dealing with people who, for one reason or another, are riding along with an officer in the line of duty, and they could be psychiatric social workers, they could be mental health workers, they could be employed either by that police department, but they also could be employed by another state agency or by another local agency or they even could be employed by a nonprofit, right?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Or they could be volunteer. Or they could be volunteers.

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: And to dovetail off of that too, Burlington, Rutland, other larger municipalities have community resource employees who are non certified, know, wear in some situations I would imagine wear body armor because they're going to disorderly or intoxicated individuals. So those individuals aren't certified by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, do immerse themselves in that space where those dangerous situations could arise.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So are you suggesting that, can I just clarify? So are you suggesting even, so like here where it says that emergency personnel could include classified family services employees in DCF, you're saying that there are scenarios where people who are not part of, say, Howard, not part of, say,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: a capstone, there are people that just get in the car because they we such volunteers right now, but not in our whole system, just in some of our systems. And in some of our systems, we have people who volunteer, some are professionals, employed by the department. It varies And all over the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I

[Christopher Horror (President, Vermont Police Association)]: think that group of people that we were just talking about, I wasn't necessarily prepared to talk about them, but I'm happy to talk about them, is a much, much, much smaller group than any of the other groups that I have been added to the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: think that the one thought I have is that we might ask, we will see how we feel about a markup, but we might ask counsel sort of describe what we're thinking about and see what counsel comes up with.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm certainly up to that. So but I think that's the way we do it. In other words, we we kind of know, you know, it's like we know it when we see it, but let's see how he says it. Yep. Yep. Or she. Is there another, any other questions of our distinguished listeners? Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for I having appreciate it. Members of the committee, tomorrow morning is a little what happens? Tomorrow morning, we have the house floor, and I believe at

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: 09:15. I thought it was 08:45. 08:45,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we have a cox of the hole to discuss the education bill. I'm due at 09:00 in Economic Development Housing in general, and that's going to happen, by the way. One of the things that I encourage people, and of course, Gayle isn't with us, but Tom, we can't let go of bills just because we passed them. We have to follow them, which means the people who were reporting a bill, Tom, know, not with us, have to make sure, well, what's going on with them? And we have to be prepared to advocate, to follow, to answer questions, etcetera. The Senate generally suffers from less time than we have, not only because crossover is more than halfway through the session, which it is, but because they have two committees, not one. So consequently, for example, the Senate Economic Development and Housing and General Committee kind of are analog, well, it's actually both us and economic development combined into one, they just meet in the mornings. They literally all have some other committee that meets in the afternoon. So, they just have less time and they rely on this, and so everybody should watch bills that are going elsewhere, in your case seven seventy five, etcetera. There is a sort of somewhat counterintuitive, but typical process here, which happens. Here we are with, for example, 02:30, and two thirty, I'm not talking about, say, know, I'm talking about this sort of omnibus bill. We have to decide, are we gonna toss in there all of the stuff that we've already done and just put it in there in case the Senate doesn't get to our bills? You know, it's perfectly possible that a bill of ours could just die over there because they don't have time to get it and turn S30 into sort of like everything. And then we decide somehow, probably it's a combination of me and Alison Clarksons meeting and just deciding, okay, which one are we going to just let be the one and let the other just kinda lie? But that lies ahead, that lies But what doesn't lie ahead is that both S three twenty eight and S two thirty, we gotta get them out of here fairly quickly because, particularly S-three 20 eight's gotta go to both ways and means and appropriations. So, before it goes back to the Senate, and remember, when it goes to the Senate, they either say, oh, wonderful, or they say, can we talk? They either concur or they request a conference, etcetera. So that's what lies ahead. In terms of tomorrow, I interrupted myself. So we have we have the caucus as a whole, then we have house floor, and then we come back here, and we're gonna be hearing two witnesses on 03/28, which is the one that relates to common interest communities, and then we have lunch, and then we have markup of 03/28. The markup of 03/28 is when Cameron, we tell Cameron about stuff we wanna drop in there. So I will make a list of what everything I can think of and we'll talk to Cameron. What I would suggest, Marion, is that we also put markup of 89, just so that we can talk to, you know, we can talk about, we don't have to vote, we're not going to vote, I just want us to be able to instruct our council what to. Meanwhile, I just wanna say, one of the struggles with 328 is most of it is ours. It's about housing. No question. But two or three or two and a half sections really aren't ours. They really belong in Enfirama. And it's what they typically do, either because it refers to Act two fifty or Act 181, or which we may have opinions about, but really is in their jurisdiction. Or something we don't know anything about, like how do you define, as you remember, how do you define quote served by sewer and water? So, there are various ways we could sort of split the bill up. One of the typical ways is just we pass it out and then it goes to them, But since three twenty eight has to go through ways and means and appropriations, that's really risking that it'll just never get out of here in time. So, I talked to Representative Charlton, who's the chair over there, and she had an idea, I thought it was pretty good, which is, tell me the sections you think are mine, When you pass your bill, just cut them out. Take them out. I will take them and put them in three twenty five, which is kind of her omnibus bill. So I just sent

[Unidentified Committee Member]: her an

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: email telling her what I thought was hers and what was ours, and left it at that, and I will talk to you more about that in detail, but I'm just giving you a heads up. I haven't heard back from her as to the way that's gonna happen, but So I'm just trying to navigate sort of how we move these things along.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes? I was going to say, while you were saying that, I have always, since they were both passed, gotten those two bills mixed up because they are so closely related. And I wondered whether we could have a chance to talk about just about the relationship between each Absolutely.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think a good time to do that is tomorrow we have the markup of 03/28, why don't you put end committee discussion, and we'll just do that and we'll talk about 03/25 and what's in 03/28. I'm not saying that there are things in 03/25 that people hear, I mean, I know there are things in 03/25, some of you worry people care about, I know that. But I don't want to mess up jurisdiction of what committee does what. And my feeling is some people have passionate feelings about what's in 03/25, and they should go and pound on the door over there. But, so anyway, this is all an artifact of the way you do business here, which is that with more than one committee's involved, we don't do it at the same time, usually. Now, we have had a really good experience with this, if you remember, with our omnibus housing bill. We had possession of the bill, but we just said to House Economic Development, Mr. Marcotte, we disagreed, you're going to work on chips. And they did, they worked on it and worked on it and worked on it, so they just gave us the language and we plugged it in. So there are ways to skin the cat. Thoughts? Okay, tomorrow we will convene after the floor. Alright? Anything else before we adjourn?