Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: A March 26, a little after 9AM, and we are picking work back up on s two fifty five, an act relating to establishing a pilot law enforcement governance council in Windham County. Taking more testimony on this today, and we are going to start off with Terry Carzones, our state court. Administrator. How are you, Terry?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Terry Carzones, state court administrator. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on s two fifty five. I did contact Sheriff Mark Anderson regarding the bill in as much as its kind of connection with the judiciary. We enter into contracts in each county with sheriffs for courthouse security, and that's our primary connection with Sheriff Anderson. He explained that S-two 55 would have no impact on that separate sheriff's contract for courthouse security, so there isn't any kind of connection in that respect. He mentioned that this does involve assistant judges in terms of the county budget. That would be in their role as administrative officers versus judicial officers. So that, again, would really make no connection, so to speak bless you with the court. So I don't really take a position, nor does the judiciary, regarding the bill. I did listen to the testimony when different persons testified in Senate government operations. It certainly sounds like an interesting proposal, but I guess I wouldn't you know, take a position or opposition from the judiciary's perspective. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have for me.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any questions for Terry on that? Mean, I guess a non position position is pretty, like, direct, indirectly direct. Absolutely.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Just based on my understanding that it doesn't directly impact, the court and not affect the share of contracts, which we're very, very happy with the relationship with the Wyndham County Sheriff's Office in Wyndham County.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: Good. Alright.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. I guess, yes, that makes quick work of that witness. We have nothing else for you then right now if other things or questions pop up, because we're still just wrapping our head around this concept. Right? It's like crossover, money week, everybody's kind of got the tank topped off. But we wanted to start, poking at this one just to set the baseline of understanding.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Please don't hesitate if there are questions that come up. I'm right next door and I'm happy to come back or provide any other details or make any inquiries that I haven't addressed as well.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: All right. Yes,

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: that does help.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Thank you for the opportunity.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you, And then, we'll go to Zoom next for Lamoille Garnett. How are doing, sir, Assistant Judge, Windham County?

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: Morning. Morning.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Morning. Morning.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: My name is Lamoille Barnett. I am one of two assistant judges in Windham County and assistant judge and former legislator Carolyn Partridge sends her greetings this morning.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Hey, hi Carolyn.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: She's not here, right? She's just sending her greetings and asked me to to to send to the committee her support for s February. She's been on the bench now for about four years and has been a tremendous asset to Wyndham County, because of her experience in the legislature for, I think, like twenty three years. So I'm sure a number of you know her pretty well, although she has been gone for four years. So let me just start by saying and, introducing myself. As I said, my name is assistant judge Lamoille Barnett. I've been an assistant judge in Wyndon County for about fifteen years. Before that, I was a member of the Rockingham Select Board for about fifteen years, serving as the chair of that board for ten. So I have, quite a bit of experience in county government as well as municipal government. So for a number of years, I've been working with sheriff Anderson and before him, sheriff Keith Clark, on budgetary issues. Every year, we meet late summer, to develop the following year's budget. Sheriff Anderson, you know, brings forth his requirements and his needs. We talk about, you know, the upcoming year. About, I think, four years ago, we came to a crossroads. Sheriff Anderson was housed in Newfane, Vermont in the old traditional sheriff's department, which I don't know if, anybody there is familiar with with Newfane, Vermont, but, it's a very small town, very quaint. But the sheriff's department there was, was old and antiquated. And I, I give this example, if any of you remember the old show, the Andy Griffin show in the, in the, in the jail that they used to show on the And then that was pretty much the sheriff's department. So it really was not a building that was suitable for a modern law enforcement agency. And this opportunity came up, in Brattleboro for a modern, somewhat state of the art building. I mean, it it did have a little bit of age, but it was incredible upgrade from the one that we had in Newfane. So Sheriff Anderson and I mostly, Carolyn wasn't on board yet, worked to, secure that building, and that building, has worked out tremendously. It now houses the sheriff's department. DCF, has one floor there and as well as a a private tenant also. It has allowed us to, create revenue, for the building. It's it's not quite revenue neutral, but very, very productive. So Wyndham County has always had a tremendous working relationship with sheriff Anderson. We work close together. And I will just say that, you know, in attending my association meetings throughout the state, that is not always the case with every county and their sheriff. Some have a very standoffish relationship with their sheriff. And as I said, that is not the case in Wyndham County. We work closely together. The assistant judges are are extremely supportive of this bill. And, frankly, our current system of creating revenue for the sheriff really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you were to, equate it to a typical municipal police department, so how that would be funded was, the citizens would show up at town meeting. They would be presented with a budget, and they would approve that budget or or vote it down. And that budget would provide for all the things that the police department need, the building, the staff, the officers, the equipment. That's not the case with a county sheriff. With a county sheriff, we're only allowed to provide that sheriff basically with the building support staff, some equipment, you know, telephones, that type of stuff, but no no police equipment. And we cannot provide him with any deputies. We can't pay for any of that stuff. And so that that's really never made a lot of sense if if you look at, what the needs of a county are. And and and let's let's understand that for for most towns and counties in Vermont, they are not able they they don't have the population and the the resources to, create and maintain their own police force. They just don't. I mean, a lot of towns have populations of, you know, a thousand people with that. And so it's always been kind of my position as an assistant judge who is responsible for maintaining the county budget, that it always made more sense that the county should play a larger role in providing policing for its county if we indeed want to ensure the safety of our citizens. And I I I think there's capacity there for us to do that within this bill. So let me just speak briefly on the county budget and the process of how that's developed. As I said, each year we meet, typically it's with the sheriff, the county clerk, the county treasurer, and the two assistant judges start meeting in late summer to develop the next year's, county budget. County budgets are usually voted on near the last day in January. The new budget takes effect February 1 of every year. And in that budget, the sheriff's part, is is kinda like, well, in Wyndham County, I can tell you it's about half of our county budget. Currently, the Wyndham County budget is about a million dollars, which is what it's been pretty much for for most of my time on the bench, and we we try to keep it somewhere around there. An example, this year, it was pretty much equally split between the county and the sheriff. The county's portion goes to maintaining the county courthouse. We still maintain the old sheriff's department, although now, it is a museum, which is probably more appropriately what it should have been. And there's there's a a barn where we store, you know, the county snowplow and lawnmowers and those types of things. So that budget is developed every year. I don't think that the current system where we're asking the sheriff basically to go out and try to negotiate individually with every customer, is really the best the best process going forward. As I said, you wouldn't you wouldn't ask that of a municipal police department. And certainly, there's still going to be capacity for sheriffs to, negotiate contracts, with private companies. They they do a lot of work with, you know, construction companies for, projects on the interstate, you know, on in in Wyndham County, it's Route 5 and Route 30. And so they're usually all always involved in those in some type of traffic control. So there is still that capacity there. But to to expect individual towns to be basically treated like, you know, for profit entities where they're individually negotiating, with the sheriff for for contracts, I think is is kinda antiquated and not really efficient. It it makes sense to me that, as the bill lays out, if a committee of the towns is formed, they can sit down with the sheriff, and whoever is on the committee, they can all jointly negotiate what the level of services is gonna be and what that cost per per service is going to be. The county's authority in taxing is is pretty simple. We have the authority to tax the county's grand list individually by towns. I think there's approximately nine towns that have expressed interest in this bill. So I am anticipating what would happen is we would have to send them probably for this year. I'm not I'm not sure when everybody's thinking that if this passes, that it it would take effect, if it would take effect this year. I will say there is a bit of a disconnect between county budgets and town budgets. The county sends out their tax bill probably in May, and it's there's really no nothing in statute that requires a town to pay that tax at any certain time. Generally, most pay by somewhere around June, I think, is when their their fiscal year begins. Some pay half in June, then pay the other half sometime in the fall. So, a bit of a disconnect and timing of of, tax bills and fiscal years that we probably would have to look at. I I don't anticipate it being a big thing, but, you know, it it should be noted that that's something that will have to be addressed somewhere. The other thing is, you know, to get this off the ground, it's, you know, it's a bit of an increase in, county revenue. Obviously, the county has, borrowing authority in anticipation of taxes. We would rather not, do that if we can avoid it. So we probably would ask that somewhere in the bill, we'd be granted the authority to send out a supplemental tax bill to fill that shortfall, if you will. Not crucial. Not again, we always can borrow in anticipation of taxes, but if you do that, then you're incurring interest, which, just adds to the cost of the proposal. So I think in closing, I I would just like to speak to one thing. There's there's been some conversation within my association about other counties, either supportive or not supportive of, this. And I would just say that, you know, if there's other counties out there that don't support this, well, simply don't do it. I mean, I I don't think anybody's asking anybody to do something they don't wanna do. If you do want to do it, I would I would recommend that, for now, we just look at Wyndham County because, I mean, let's be honest, we don't know for sure whether this pose proposal will work or won't work. And I think if you look at, initially for the first year or two, we should use Wyndham County as an example of whether this really will, do what we think and streamline the revenue generating ability of the county. So, would just say, you know, let's just focus on Wyndham County for now, maybe bring other counties in if, you know, a year from now we realize that, yes, this is just working great, by all means. But for now, initially, to get off the ground, I I think we should just concentrate on Wyndham County. I I think that's pretty much all I have. Certainly, any questions?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. I think one of the ones that's been floating around is just like you're you just kinda touched on it. Right? Like, a year or two sort of is the beta test county. Right? But some of the questions have been like five years seems like a long time for a pilot.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: Well, yeah, I don't I don't really know what to say about that time. I I'm I'm thinking more of before another county jumps in and said, hey, Wyndham County really has something here that is working great. We wanna get on board. So that's why I'm saying, you know, you maybe hold off on that for just a little bit before before anybody thinks about going statewide. I mean, because this is this is quite a departure, as many of you probably know, you know, Stowe v. Lamoille, where expressly says that, counties cannot, do what we're proposing to do here, and that is spend money on policing. So it's it's a dramatic change in the way we've done things for, I think, since we've been a state, really.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Sure. No, no, I totally understand that. That was just something I, you know, I've been I've just heard that that footnote of timeline. Yeah. A curiosity more than anything else.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: I will say, you know, the county supporting this is is kinda contingent on that there not be a lot of changes. I mean, right now, it's a pretty minor lift for the county to just send out basically an updated tax bill. But, you know, if we're going to be if the county by that, I mean, the assistant judges and, you know, our clerical staff, if we're going to be asked to do a lot more like, you know, reviewing budgets and reviewing invoices and and those types of things. I mean, we're not we're not saying we can't do it. I'm just saying it's gonna it's going to add to, the county's cost, if you will. Right now, the existing sheriff's budget, we we oversee, you know, invoices and stuff related to the building that we own, but we do not oversee any invoices in regard to any of his policing. And so if we're gonna transfer that onto the county tax base, and, you know, oversight of, you know, policing budgets and policing invoices, comes along with that, then that means a lot more work for the county, which, you know, we're not saying we won't do or can't do, we're just saying it's not what we do now. And, you know, it it would it would change it would change what our relationship with the sheriff that we're we're currently not doing.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any questions from the table? No. Thank you for your time, sir. Feel free to hang out for the rest of the testimony if you wish.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Up next, lieutenant colonel. How are

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Vermont State Police, Deputy Director)]: you? Good morning. My name is Sean Long, lieutenant colonel with the state police. I'm the deputy director. I'm Actually, here on behalf of, colonel Matthew Birong. He couldn't make it today. So I have some notes prepared, I normally don't do. I'd rather talk. But he gave me some some guidance here. Bear with me. Sounds good.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. Bumpers. Bumpers, that's a bowling alley. Right? So,

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Vermont State Police, Deputy Director)]: you know, quick quick thing for BSP. So the initial statements, we support regionalized policing. We think it's a great idea. We're a full service state police. You know, we're not a highway department. We manage a huge amount of the calls that come into the state as well as a lot of the land. So the idea of regionalized policing is a is a good thing. The concerns that that current Birmingham VSP have with this bill are are twofold, one of which is accountability based, and the other one is replication. So the thing about the accountability is that in a in a situation like this, you have an elected official as the police executive. And that elected official doesn't have, the same position that a police a police chief would. So if a police chief, has an issue or misconduct or or needs to be relieved from duty, the the town manager or a police commissioner or a governance board says, you're done. And one of the concerns is and this has nothing to do with Mark Anderson. He's a phenomenal law enforcement, and I'm friends with him, I work well with him, is that if you try to replicate the areas we've seen issues in other areas where sheriffs maybe weren't working at the level that we wanted to. So this is one of the concerns is that in this particular pilot model, the elected official being the chief law enforcement officer could be problematic because the oversight doesn't allow that person to be removed from office as a leader. So that's the accountability portion. The other thing is replication. So understanding that this this may work really well in my new county. Sheriff Anderson is a, like I said, a great law enforcement leader. He has support. The idea is good. But can can it be replicated in Addison? Can it be replicated? And if Addison wants it and the sheriff doesn't, what do the people of Addison do? Can they hire a police chief? So this is one of our concerns is that while the concept is is is forward thinking, and it would it honestly would help the state police because it would put more law enforcement out there, helping us handle what we do. Those are the two big factors that we see as a problem beyond the pilot. So, that's all I have. Very short. Okay. Have questions.

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: That's really helpful.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. Yeah. I would ask. Yes.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Sure. Also a fan of Kasaisi to the point. Yeah. Thank you very much, any questions for our witness? Yes. Was that a hand? Okay. Rep Nugent and then Morgan.

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: I was just wondering if there's ways that you could see it working better.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Vermont State Police, Deputy Director)]: So, I think I think taking the same structure but having a law enforcement executive that's hired by a police commission or a governing body that can also be fired by punished things that, you know, would would be better because you'd have, there's no there's no elected official in there. That's that's how we see it from the state police point of view. So if you had a chief police, just like if you had a chief police of of a town and they were doing poorly, the town could remove them from being.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: You have something, Mark Morgan? Just, I do

[Rep. Michael Morgan (Member)]: it with most folks coming into this capacity. Thank you for what you do.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. You guys have

[Unidentified committee member]: a tough job out there and just always wanna acknowledge that

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Vermont State Police, Deputy Director)]: greatly appreciate it. We appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your support.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. I guess that's what we got for you, sir. Sheriff, how are you? Please join us.

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Jennifer Harlow and I'm the Sheriff of Orleans County and I'm here representing the Vermont Sheriff's Association as president. I was, I think I was asked to come and speak to you guys about this. I'm not at right now the current, sheriff's association. Sheriff Anderson has definitely kept us informed about what the bill is, where it has gone so far, now being in front of you guys. At this point, the Sheriff's Association does not, we do not, we have never voted to either, support it or oppose it at this time because it is a Windom County bill. So it's only involving Wyndham County and Sheriff Anderson at this time is not affecting any of the other counties throughout the state at this particular time. I will

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Opposition.

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: At this particular time, no. The other things come up and it does concern the rest of the shares, then we certainly will. I'll answer any questions that anybody has if I can.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Any Yes. Talk on my end. Hango. Thank you for being honest like that and saying that this is a local thing.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: We wanna let it stay local and see see where it goes keeping an open mind. Yes. I appreciate that.

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: Yeah. We're certainly curious about it to see where it goes for sure, sir. Thank you, representative. So I think that was where I was going with this is if you had any thoughts at all that you wanted to share with us on ways that this could be made better before it passes and gets enacted into law, that's what's gonna happen to it from a sheriff's point of view? So again, the association hasn't really discussed this part of it. But I feel that I've talked with enough of the sheriffs that we're certainly curious about where this goes and how it's going to work. And if it is something that could be better for the entire state and listening to other testimony as well is certainly curious. I feel that as it moves along, if that's what is going to happen here, that we'll be working and coming into certain areas to, if it needs to get better, if there's things that needs to change, then we'll certainly be a working partner with that. Thank you. Thank you, sorry, appreciate your support.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, we definitely, I mean, is one of the things that I see us taking more testimony and continuing to get a better understanding on it.

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: And I'm happy to come back if I need to answer more questions, that's no problem

[Sen. Becca White]: at all.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We see you here frequently. Yes.

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: Yes. Thank you folks very much. Really appreciate it. Of course.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, committee. Yeah. I just wanted to do a quick run through on this this morning with people. And Hi. Oh. You just turned your screen off.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Have senator White wanting to

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Are you wanting to

[Sheriff Jennifer Harlow (Orleans County; President, Vermont Sheriffs’ Association)]: just chime in? Works out there too.

[Sen. Becca White]: If it's appropriate.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, please feel free. We got a little time.

[Sen. Becca White]: Okay. So I just wanted to comment on a couple things that have been said. First of all, this is not an accountability bill. We've already, we've tried to stress that that there might be some suggestions for accountability that come out of it after the pilot, but this is not an accountability bill. And as the trooper said, the replicability of it in different counties might be an issue because they might not be capable of doing it. But this it doesn't have to be replicated. As Monty said, the this is Wyndham County. If other people want to try it, they're welcome to try it. If they don't want to, they don't have to. Other counties may have their own solutions. Think that. And then so it isn't it doesn't have to be replicated. I will comment on the, shortening the time of the pilot. I think that, the the way it was designed was that the council would be able to start functioning as soon as this passes. And they they would do things like the governance, the bylaws, the how they're gonna decide what coverage there is. And then they start working on a budget. There isn't even going to be any funding, any assessment in this for at least another year, year and a half. So if you shorten the time of the pilot, you won't have time to, look at what happens when you have select board changes and possibly sheriff changes. How do you create sustainability? So I think that that you you can't this is such a new concept. And so there are so many questions to answer that I would encourage you not to not to shorten the time of the pilot. It does seem like a long time, but it really isn't. We've been remember we've been working on this bill with the towns for four years and we're here right now. So to have a pilot of only a couple years doesn't make any sense to me. The other thing I would remind you that this is not even if this passes, it isn't going to go into the green books. This is session law only. So what happens is that at the end of the pilot. It will either be and then hooray for Wyndham County, the towns get what they want. And then it might go into set into the green books in a manner that's different than this because it will no longer be a pilot. There will be some parameters around it. And if it doesn't work, it just goes away because it's only session law. It will not go into the green book. So if it doesn't work at the end of the pilot, it's over. I just would remind you of those things and that it is voluntary and that if there's a town in Wyndham County that doesn't want to join, they don't join. It's entirely voluntary. So I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of those things because that's what I heard this morning. Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: You. Thank you very much, Senator. All right, committee. That is our slug of testimony for this morning until 10:30. When we're gonna hear an amendment from representative Sebelius on h 67, which ironically is an act relating to legislative operations and government accountability. So, keywords. Anyway, so I will take us offline until 10:30 when we will hear that. And yes. That's it. Nick, take us off.

[Assistant Judge Lamont “Monty” Barnett (Windham County)]: Oh,