Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: To the House of Judiciary Committee this Tuesday afternoon, February tenth, and we're starting our joyful ride through the budget components. I was gonna say slog, but that would

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: have been inappropriate since we

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: got our appropriations person here. We're going to start with Trevor explaining, representing SQUIRREL, kind of explaining what is expected of us and what in particular we should look at or whatever else you wanna share. You know, with

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: us from the jokes would be fine. I'm just wondering if appropriations get together off the record and and do role play, just go no. We'll be part of that session.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah. Exactly.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: We good? Yes. Over to you. Reverend Thomas Burdittenden from house appropriations. I was asked to come and speak to, I guess, the budget, because you have scheduled various components of the criminal justice system this week. I didn't come prepared to tell you what it is that you're supposed to be doing in this committee in terms of giving us information. You already have that from our chair, I believe. So I thought I might just speak to do a little recap on your budget adjustment, which is in Senate right now. I'm not expecting much in the way of changes, but you never know. And then talk a little bit about the issue of reversions and carry forward so you understand that a little bit. And then talk about maybe some of the highlights of the budget presentations that we've had, or some of my thoughts about, well, I think some of the issues, which may not be some of the same issues that you have, but I welcome any questions as I'm speaking. I do have a hard stop. Have a meeting. I have to be at 01:30, so hopefully that'll be enough time. So anyway, speaking with the, just as review on the budget adjustment, which as I said, was Senate approves right now. There wasn't a lot there. She had some about a half million dollars for security services, and that issue will carry over into my conversation about the FY27. And then we had some miscellaneous costs related mostly to transport deputies and the state's attorneys. Again, these were items that were in the gov wreck, and it's not something we added to that. We just said, Fine, we think that's appropriate. And also, you're familiar with the Chittenden County pilot project docket that just finished last Friday, I understand. And there was an appropriation, one time appropriations made for judiciary and state's attorneys to help cover their costs related to that. One thing that's out of the purview of this committee, the question I had, and I haven't gotten a response that was, what kinds of wraparound services we provided. And this might be the kind of question you might ask when they're in here. We're doing a joint here in I believe tomorrow. Yes, yep. About that. But they are getting information together for me, and also what the cost was related to that, because there was no ask in the government budget adjustment to cover or backfill what I think were costs related to providing those services. Think about the Howard Centers and organizations like that that probably provide those services. The other thing in the budget adjustment was the big increase in the health services contract, World Path with DOC. There's been a huge increase in the census and correctional facilities, both the men's facilities and also the women's facilities. My last report on the women's facility is that we're overcapacity, and we're pretty much there with most of the men's facilities right now. In budget adjustment, they've done an increase of about 3, almost $3,500,000 as an amendment to the contract. You also see an increase in the budget for FY27 related to the same issue. And because of the sensitive intercorrectional facilities, we've had a big uptick in out of state placements too, with about 30 individuals, and that's to the tune of about, probably a little bit about 3 or 400,000 of BAA. That's probably gonna double in the budget.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: So we know that

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: some of the census is due to the feds using some of our spaces. Does the income from that offset these additional costs that we're paying for sending people out of state?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I don't know the details of the contracts, but they renegotiated and negotiated higher prices to people come and fall. That's not the reason for our problem in the E program.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: No, I just wondered though, if

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: that money does get applied. I sense it's that it And does,

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I don't know if you know this, but the superintendents in the DOC system have the right of refusal, given the fact that we're at this place right now. So if the Feds come to them and say, We need to place somebody, they don't have room for them all, and we need to keep available service, they can say no.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: Got one other question. Yes. When we repealed the repeal to allow the facilities to take in public inebriates, at that time, the corrections commissioner had said space wasn't an issue, but I'm now wondering if that is contributing to consensus issues and the cost. I know

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: if we answered that question. We need to ask DOC about that.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I don't know what the numbers are related to that issue.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: What I wanted to speak to is just briefly about reversions and carry forward, just so you understand what's happening and what happens in this particular area and understand it. At the end of the fiscal year, in June, every department agency has to go through a closeout of their budget, and money falls to the bottom, okay, and it's across various areas, what have you. And they have to account for that, and they have to speak to fund of the finance and management, and a couple of things can happen. They can be allowed to carry that money forward and it can be used in two different ways. One, to help offset the pay act, payroll side of things. The other thing is that they can continue to use it, for instance, the court diversion program had almost $200,000 carried forward for the court diversion program. That's because they hadn't received and processed all the invoices at twenty five. So that's a straightforward answer to that question. If finance and management feels that they don't need that money, or there's another reason why, they might just revert the money back to the general fund. And as you know, in January, we got downgrades in our forecast, revenue forecasts. They were minor, small, but they still were downgrades. And so we had to adjust for FY '26 and also for FY '27. And a lot of that came from carry forwards in that column, where finance and management went back in and said, well, we're gonna take that carry forward and move it to reversion for the general fund to balance the downgrades in both '26 and they did the same thing in '27, so you're aware of that. When I'm looking at things that are in your purview, I just spoke to court diversion, state's attorneys, they had almost $800,000 worth of carryfor. And so that's the kind of question you might wanna speak to them about. They haven't been in our committee yet. I've only spoken to them briefly about their budget, so I don't know the answer to that question. Anyway, and then there's some information here around victim's compensation and things like that. But anyway, nothing that's really significant in the area of carry forward. It's something that we do look at in our committee to determine the kinds of things we do in terms of the budget.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Yes, that's question. So if I'm following that, so there's the carry forward. So who makes the decision if it stays going forward or if it gets reverted back into the general fund?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Each department agency knows what their carry forward is, with what that number is filed in line, they break it out and make a They make their own recommendation to finance management. Say, We don't need this, which is unusual. I know, wouldn't say,

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: because I've had the competition. But

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: we do wanna, perhaps, and there

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: may be some latitude, and they could put it somewhere else. So it generally has to be for the same general idea, because when we appropriate, what are we appropriate for? Can't move it too far. But finance and management can, in fact, say, we agree 100%, we agree 80%, we're take some of it, do that. So that's how the process works.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: And then do you ultimately in appropriations see that carry forward, regardless of what finance and management say, you can say we're pulling that?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: We generally won't touch the carry forward, but we have, if you remember a few years back, there was a reversion of 600,000, I believe, in the DOC, practitioner services line. And I don't know if your chair remembers the conversation, we decided to pull that money and use that for the Turning Point recovery program that at that time was being self funded by Turning Point for recovery services in, I think it was Marble Valley. So at that time, we wanted have DOC fund that program directly, and also expand that. So we actually grabbed that money and reappropriated it for something like that.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: That was an assault We

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: don't do that often, but we have the authority to do that.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Sorry, one other question with it. Is it a flag when you see that a line item has a significant carryforward, and they're also asking for new money in their budget? Okay, this is how.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: That's why it was only about three or four years ago that we realized the report was actually there. We could actually look at it in detail. It's been very useful. Good, thank you. Some of these agencies and departments have a lot of money that they cared for. As far as the 'twenty seven budget, I'll just walk through the different areas and just highlight a few things. The attorney general's office court diversion, as we all know, the pre charge program is new, getting off the ground. Their budget is now 1,200,000.0 in FY27, which is what it was in the FY26 budget, well, fighting for it. And it's in effect now in FY26. The only thing that's changing about that, and I think you guys are very familiar with the program, is that just still keeping the four programs funded in Chittenden County in FY26, but they're changing that for FY27. There's two counties, I believe, that are not being currently funded, and I don't know the details of that, but I know they're working to probably create capacity, you might guess, moving forward, but the idea is going into FY27 that they will fully fund all the programs. And as you know, they hired an assisted poor diversion person who's in charge of the pre charge program. I have a matter of fact.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah, she's been in here. She's the ground running from what we understand. I have a real basic question. So I have the fiscal year 2027 governor's recommended budget. Where do I find that about the pre charge? Where would I look in in this document to find? Document do you have? Someone that has sections a, a, v, e, etcetera. You'd really have to drill down to find it.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Well, you can If you really wanna do some research on anything on the budget, okay? Go to the joint fiscal office website, and there'll be a dropdown menu on the left side and drop it down, you'll see appropriations and budgets. And you pick the '27 budget, and you'll look for the governor's budget book, okay? That's all the information you would ever wanna know about the budget, okay? And then it breaks out folders and it breaks out, you can go down and look at the detail. I could not tell you exactly where you need to go. I need to actually look at it. Right. Or it

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: is.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Right, okay. Lot of the information we've typically gotten from agencies and departments, and you probably get the same information as what they call the ups and downs, numbers changes to the budget, And we don't find that that useful. So that's why we're asking departments and agencies to do a deeper dive into the budget and not just tell us what the ups and the downs are, if I remember what's going on within the programs itself. Is there a specific question regarding this? Well, no, it's just, well,

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I mean, my question kind of comes from the email that I did get from

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: the Chair of

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Appropriations and highlighted some sections to look at. And, you know, I've looked through here and some of them, frankly, I don't think have anything to do with this committee, like the $500,000 for new radio equipment for state police. That's not really us. And just wanna make sure I'm not missing something, but I guess that's why we have people from all these different stakeholders coming in to talk to us. We can I think you either ask them the question, but if you wanna do the research, I just mentioned, that's the way

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: to go really dig deep? But that's pages and pages of budget information.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah, no, I'll press the individuals to show me where it

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: is and when they come in. Also, they've got the other thing there. They're cutting over a new case management system, the AG's office. That was a $2,000,000 project that they started, and they've got an ask in this new budget for operational costs going forward. Once they cut it over, which I think is in the next three or four months, that'll start to hit. So those are the two key things. A lot of these budgets, fairly level of funding from last year to this year. It's a real change different in the last three or four years with all the federal money that's been flowing through the system. Although the governor, of course, gave budget instructions to the departments and agencies, 3% increase, we all know that healthcare costs and other things like that are certainly north of that. Most departments have been coming in at four, five, six, seven, even 8% over last year's budget. It depends on the budget. Judiciary, just so you're aware of it, they had 26 limited service positions that we had given them a few years ago, and they're asking to make that permanent classified, so they're going to make this ask of this committee also. I've spoken to finance management about that. Ongoing positions being funded. They're not slated to change or go away. A lot of times when limited service positions are added to budgets, there's an end date to them. Typically they're attached to federal funding. That's a fairly typical way to do that. This is a little different. It was more of a response to what we're seeing in the criminal justice system overall, such as the backlog, and it's not going away anytime soon. So, they'll be talking to you about that. And again, we'll be looking for recommendations from this committee about how we pursue a number of these different items. Another thing that, as I mentioned before, judiciary and the BAA had a big increase in their costs and their additional monies needed for court security, sheriffs, deputies, and they've been paying about $57 an hour for security services across the board, and they've been put in a position where they're pretty much going to have to go to about $75 an hour because state government is sort of the going rate. Districts had a lower rate. You know probably something about this. And that's putting a lot of pressure on the system. It's not in the governor's recommend, but it does amount to about $2,000,000 a year, which is a big number. So your committee and ours, we'll have to think about that before we go with that. See what else? And then they're asking for some trainers some things like that because of turnover issues, but finding new positions in this year's budget is, I think, somewhat challenging. Leave it at that. Any questions about any of us?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah, can

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: I just follow-up on that? Because I feel like some of our testimony that we've already heard is folks asking for due positions and that's my kind of thought too, is like, that's not going to work out really well. We would need to have a very solid argument of why, if that came out as a priority for us.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Yeah, and you'll see asked from the state's attorneys here too for positions. So that's gonna be challenging this year. I know that in my conversations with finance and management, I mean, there's the position pool where there's open positions in the pool. Finance and management has been somewhat amenable to going into the pool to create new positions, but not create wholly new positions. But they will get a of What's that? You say holding the positions? Yeah, sometimes. What happens if a position, I understand that if an agency or department has a position, it doesn't get filled, it just sits there, and they can pull it back out of the department agency, but it still exists as a position, and it just drops into the pool as one position. Rather than expand the number of positions in state government, they would rather have you go into the pool to do that. It doesn't change the numbers, the dollars.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: So can you enlighten us at all about, because we've only had testimony so far from one group, but in terms of the vacancy savings that people are being asked to take on, especially if they don't have vacant positions.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Yeah, and you'll get a lot of agencies, departments come in and say, Well, we can't do that kind of thing, right? It's too much. And then that could be true at a point in time, right? And that's exactly what finance and management does. They do a point in time, They look at the system and say, State's attorneys, you have four vacant positions on 10/01/2025.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Full census. So they figure

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: out what that is, and that's your vacancy. Now it could be that two months later, if you fill that full support position, COVID ends up in your question, you're in a bind. You may have to cut positions to meet the vacancy savings, and or we have to make a decision to fund that difference.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: And what about the agency that it's the opposite? They didn't have vacancy savings on October 1, so they got the full boatload, but now they come in and they have six people leave. Do you shift it? They wouldn't come to us and tell us that. We'd try to have them. In terms of the other question that I'm wondering, again, we've only heard from one group this year, but I know that people are given their allotment for what they're paying for overhead and what they're paying for the administrative charges. And my recollection from past years is that those are based on two things, like a square footage formula for part of it and Free for space. And then an FTE, how many FTEs for another part, like the HR allocation, etcetera?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: You're talking about a number of different things, right? Mean, those charges could be fee for space, which is the real estate, It could be digital services, the department to do that. And we've been working with them to agency digital services. They've been sort of trying to back bill a year later, so we're trying to get them on the current billing cycle. So it actually doubled up last year, this last year. There also are embedded folks in departments and agencies, and that could be an IT person, it could be an AG person, whereas when you've got a big agency like the Agency of Immigrant Services, sometimes they have attorneys that work in there to help them with that work. And so those kinds of things get built across departments and agencies.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: And somebody in appropriations is looking at how those allocations are being made. That's not part of what you're asking us to do. Because again, our first witness was saying everybody says something, come in and they're like, We don't have any control over this. This is the charge that we're given. The part that we have control over is this. But at times, there are people that have questioned

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: how much it's gone up or why it's gone up and they're not told anything about it.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: By the way, I would say if it's not policy related, if you leave it with us,

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: that's pretty

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: close to what we gave you. Can

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: I go back I'm to still stuck on your point that although the governor asked for no more than 3% increase over FY '26? Most of what you said, most departments are coming in between 48% over. How should we think about this the asks, I guess, in a a slightly higher level, like what's average or normal if the governor sets an unrealistic goal and citizens and departments can't meet it, what gets funded? How should we think about it and what we recommend?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I'm not gonna have a good answer for that because each department's agency's gonna be different. They may have different initiatives going on, right? Circumstances they need to address. But yes, the administration is not being realistic out of the gate.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Like we just go, well, everyone's gonna come in somewhere around five over

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: or something, like, do you think?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I don't know that you need to get into that piece of it. Would focus on the programming and things like that. Talk to them if you see vacancy savings, would ask questions about what's behind that, what's the story behind those positions and things Thanks. Like

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: States attorneys,

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Let me talk a little bit about the accountability docket, some fishery folks just talked to. We just finished that up, as I mentioned to you, you might want to try to figure out what's happening with the wraparound services around that. On the face of it, it feels like it's been successful in terms of reducing backlog. I think one of the questions that you could be asking, and I see judiciary is, and these are numbers that we can see, right? We can say this is what happened with all cases. I'd be very curious a year out where we are with those same individuals in terms of looking at at least one aspect of the effectiveness of what we just did. And we need to determine, because I don't know the answer to this question, who's collecting that data and who's gonna be able to report back on that data so we can have a sense of what's going on. And it's not clear to me, at least the conversations I've had at this point, that that's been addressed. The judiciary could address that. The other question too is, I don't know if I mentioned this, but in the budget adjustment, when the administration was making an adjustment to the downgrades, they ended up actually having some money left over after they moved stuff and recovered it, which they weren't anticipating. And so part of that, they took $500,000 and dropped it and asked us to put it into budget adjustment, which we did, 500,000 for accountability courts to expand something like accountability dockets statewide for those areas that wanna do that. So I think there's a question about whether there's appropriate use of that money, whether there's different ways to use that money. I just need to leave it there at this point in time, since there are a number of questions across our criminal justice system. I'm not saying it's not something we should do, but something we should talk about. One of the things you'll get from state's attorneys is, rather than come back and say, We need more assistant state's attorneys, prosecutors, they're gonna make a pitch to add administrative support staff with the idea that that would help stabilize so that they don't ask for attorneys as less expensive way to address situations we have on our backlogs and what have you. I'm just gonna jump along here. Defendant General's office, no real changes there. One of the things you might wanna think about this committee is asking about is training, money for training within this area. Apparently last year we put one time money in or something like that, which I think was a mistake. We wanted to address that. It's not a big number. It's something maybe you keep on your radar when it's in the air. We talked about DOC, out of state bed increase, that's another 800,000. We have another $5,300,000 increase up because of the health services contract. It is what it is, unfortunately. Issue about pretrial supervision, and maybe we'll get more into that. I think there's some concerns about utilization around that. There's 200,000 added to the FY27 budget, which is added to the base, which brings them up to about 1,200,000,000, goes from five positions to seven positions. But it seems like what I'm hearing that it's not really being utilized a lot. I think it seems to make sense, the program, but maybe this committee can dig a little deeper into that. We can either increase utilization of it, otherwise do we need all those folks and budget?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: You mentioned an $800,000 savings in the budget adjustment. I didn't quite catch what you were referring to, and I don't know which department it was either. Savings? Not savings. Don't know what the right.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: It was carry forward. For state's attorney?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Oh, state's attorneys. Yeah. You said we should ask about that.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Yeah, we would ask about that.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: It was an $800,000

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: It was a little under $800,000 The NACE finance and management and also state's attorneys supposed to make a decision to split it between paying down pay act and use it, but I didn't get into it with my finance.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Alright, well we know where to find you if we have further questions.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I can come back and fill in some more. You guys can always catch me in the hall.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Alright, appreciate it. Thank you. It's a good start for us to okay, consider where the money is, where it's going over. So we will ask judge Zonie and Terry Carcone to join us for judge, you got that language?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I just want to speak

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: to This

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: other team?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: I'm I'm good right here. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. My pleasure. It's Hari Corso, I'm the State Board Administrator. And I did submit, we submitted, my Miranda, and slides that I had copies of if that would be helpful if people would like. People can Yeah. Have Sure.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I'm

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: sorry I would have come a little bit sooner if I know representative Swal was going to be talking about different budget components. I didn't know if he did he cover anything regarding the judiciary? Just a little bit. Just Security. Oh, security. Okay. Having to do maybe with the increase in the share of rates? Yes. Okay. And

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: then a

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: couple of times. Okay.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Alright. I'm more than happy to address that. Thought for purposes of this committee, would focus in on those aspects of our proposed judiciary budget for FY 'twenty seven that has to do with operations and programs in the courts. Otherwise, I wanted to just explain in terms of our proposed budget vis a vis the governors recommend. They're actually very similar. I heard the figure 3%, which is the goal. But the governor's recommend actually included a 4.2 increase in our fiscal year 'twenty six budget. And our proposed budget represented a 5.6% increase. So it was a little over $1,000,000 apart in terms of the governor's recommend versus our budget. So I just wanted to kind of highlight that. In the beginning, we very much appreciate the governor's support of the judiciary and just wanted to mention that at the beginning. And then what I thought I would do is go through what are several new laws in our budget. The total price for it is a little over $600,000 It's a modest amount, but I just wanted to explain why they would be critical to us and why we've included it in our budget request. And on the memo, it's just on the second page. But I guess to backtrack a little bit, our budget request is 82,954,799. And our fiscal year '24, fiscal year twenty six appropriation was $78,499.04 56. So again, it's about a 5% increase over last year's appropriation. The new costs that we're seeking, the first one has to do with adding a help desk analyst to our we now have two help desk analysts that field about 12,000 help desk requests per year, coming not just from judiciary staff, but also judges, for example, court users, pro se litigants, it's the whole gamut. We have one number, and you can also email, but we feel it's very important to have a live person meeting the help desk, especially in terms of when you might have a court going on and some kind of glitch happen. We want to be able to have immediate access so that there can be an immediate resolution. And the reason why we're asking for an additional help desk analyst, looking at kind of what the recommended standards are in the practices that each help desk analyst is typically responsible for 2,000 calls a year. We have two handling 6,000 or 12,000 calls a year. Looking at the numbers and looking at how the calls that come in are then sent out to different areas that help with them. The numbers of a minimum of one additional help desk analyst would just be basically needed for us to keep somewhat abreast of the calls that come in. Again, to us, it's very important that somebody be able to get immediate resolution, especially if it's a court operation that's involved. So that's the first request that we're making is that there be an additional help desk analyst to basically handle the volume of calls based on industry standards and even coming in less than industry standards. Those coming in lawyers mainly? It can come from court staff. It can come from judges. It's basically one IT help desk for anybody using the courts. It could be pro se litigants, could be attorneys, whoever is having challenges regarding. And then as the calls come in, they may get routed out there. For example, if it's an e filing question, it can be routed out there. But if it's strictly tech, using something to do with the remote hearings, to do with tech at the courts, it varies considerably. But they're the immediate triage when somebody needs help. It's basically an IT help desk that we have everywhere on the website, you know, on the notices of hearings. So it's the go to number for that kind of help. Then we're requesting in terms of training, we do an annual survey and a focus of the survey responses is always the desire for training, sufficient training. We've had a very high amount of turnover, which I don't think is unusual in the workforce today, close to 30%. And what how training is provided to judicial assistance, in particular, judicial assistance are what we call docket clerks, the people basically at the courthouses physically in the courtrooms or at the counters or meeting the phones. The training is provided by other people locally in that courthouse, whether it's a court operations manager or somebody else who's versed in the docket. So when the training is provided, it means that that person who's providing the training is taking time away from their normal work. We all have the emphasis and the desire to help with the backlog. And we feel like we've made good progress and steady progress. But when we have kind of so much time needed to be dedicated to training, it takes away from doing the normal work. And one solution that we thought would be helpful to address is to have a statewide training position for one for the criminal division. That's where we have the highest number of JAs, one for the family division, one for combined civil and probate divisions. Usually the civil and probate divisions are in one courthouse. And looking at the numbers of staff that kind of equates out to half the number of those and one for juvenile and mental health, which is a very unique docket. You have a lot of similarities among criminal, civil, probate, etc. But juvenile mental health are very specific, especially because of all the guidelines I have to read from the time lines. Our thought that with a statewide position, for example, in the criminal docket, whenever there's a new criminal judicial system that's on anywhere in the state, this person could be their basic trainer, whether remotely or in person, depending upon the location, the circumstances, to make sure to provide them with the best practices with standard, correct, efficient training, which doesn't then take away from the local person who would otherwise having to be providing that training. Because of our remote teaching capacities now, they could train however many, you know, remotely come on at a time. The other advantage to having somebody dedicated to that docket would be we have manuals for each of the dockets also that are continually in need of updating whether there's new rules, new statutes, best practices, changes in e filing and the case management processes. They would also be tasked with updating the manuals to make sure that the manuals in each of those documents are up to date. Right now, we kind of do that wherever we can when we get a chance. The last way that we feel that they could be utilized is whenever there's a need for if there's a court that short staffed, whether because because of attrition, somebody is leaving the position has been posted, hasn't been filled yet, If somebody is on a medical leave or an extended leave of some of the time, these positions could also be used to fill in or need. So we feel that there'd be no waste of time at all for this kind of position. And we just feel it would be so helpful to right now, address a reality where there's so much training that's needed and people being taken away from their regular positions to do the training that this would address that situation.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I just have a quick question on this one particularly. Are the processes by county in each of the different courts similar enough that you could have a statewide person trained? Yes.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: And that's actually one big advantage when we did the restructuring in the unified courts. There were variations with county. Today, it's supposed to be consistent. Why we have

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: an example.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Right? Well, that's why we have a standard practices committee. So then if an attorney sees that, hey, it's being done differently here than here, they notify the standard practices committee, we look at it and then make sure if there's discrepancies or variations that they at least that's how it's supposed to work. That reminds me, did inquire Marsha Shells, who's the director of Technology Services Center. She's also annoyed by the screen. We have to pick up the vehicle that has a car. She checked with Tyler Technologies. Apparently, that's something that's done nationwide. But we're getting a new public portal, the research public portal. And she's inquired whether or we can't change that. And they're looking into that to see if we can. And she said you're not the only one that's raised that as something that really would be helpful.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: So I appreciate you. Thank you.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Martian is on it.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So would these individuals also help on putting together or coordinating the judge trainings, or is it just for other personnel or for the courts?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: It would be for the court personnel. If there's a new judge that comes on, Judge Zome has actually organized a very robust onboarding. Is it one month or two months?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: More on the ongoing training that's provided to judges.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, ongoing training. Well, there's We have all right, judge.

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: We have regularly planned trainings throughout the year, judicial college. We have other training days that we set aside. We have judicial summits and summits with stakeholders, youth summit, things like that.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: But these individuals here would not be involved with that? No. Okay. And would they help with training of the CALs as well? GALs? Yeah, the GALs. GALs. GALs. GALs.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Not right.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: You can barely read straight right now. That's what you like

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: to hear

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: the chair say. Oh, we're looking at your budget. Apologize, but I

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: love your comments.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: GALs. The GALs have actually very Guardians ad apologize. Go ahead.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: No, no. The Guardians ad actually, there's a very specific training protocol for the Guardians ad litem. From the minute when they apply. And I think it's four times a year that they have concentrated guardian ad litem training. We actually have 20 new guardians ad litem who went through the last round of trainings. And then actually, there's different components of that. But these would be separate. Think for operations, I mean, it could well be that they could assist with that. But usually the guardians have training regarding what's unique to their positions versus training in the court operations and case management, e filing, depending upon a criminal. I mean, their training has to do with very specific codes. There's very specific processes for the criminal normal case progression. So it would be geared to what's specific to that docket. And I kind of envision that these positions come about, that the people that would apply for them would be experienced people in that docket, maybe somebody who has several more years until retirement, is kind of a way to really take advantage of the expertise that they've gained over their careers and make sure that the new people coming on are getting kind of the best training possible. That's how I kind of envision it if the positions are realized. So

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: which of the dockets are the most complicated for bringing new clerks up to speed and new staff up to speed?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: I would say criminal, especially in the courtroom, because you have such rapid fire happening between arraignments, the days where we held however many dozens of clients. We want to make sure the conditions are done. I think criminal and foreign migration, but I would also say juvenile in terms of just in terms of the complex complexity of the docket and all of the different moving parts that you have to keep control of.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Do you have more turnover in one or more of those dockets than others?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: I would say criminal, we've had the most turnover in hand. It is very demanding, especially in the courtroom. And also keeping in mind, for example, you're in a criminal, you know, child sexual assault trial, same thing, the juvenile docket. There's a lot of, I guess, trauma associated with the work that's done. So I think that makes it also more demanding for the docket. So that's for the request behind those positions. And then the next request isn't for a position, but rather for monies for a contract. This has to do with the Mental Health and the Torts Commission. And this is work, actually, Representative LaLonde, you're very familiar with. This has to do with the mental health and the courts project director whose position has been grant funded to date. But similar to other grants that have not been the solicitations have not come out for them. The money ends in September. And the type of grant is a state crisis intervention program grant, a skip grant. And it may well be that it comes out, but it hasn't yet. And we don't want to lose the momentum that we have with this position who's been very involved with all the Sequential Intercept Model workshops that have taken place with the statewide summits, with all the work, including the work with the accountability court, if you will, which involves providers coming to the courthouses. So the project director has been very involved in facilitating that. I think if you have questions about the accountability for it, Judge Zuni is going to talk about how it's being kind of implemented in other counties. But it always will involve that critical component of connecting providers at the courthouses. This is part of the work that he does. So we're asking for the money as a contract, not as a position to cover it. And if we get the grant, we will apply for it and assume we will get it, but it just hasn't come out. So we wanted to make sure that, again, we don't lose the momentum that's been so successful with the Mental Health and Reports Commission and the summits and all the work that's being done now, especially as we move the accountability courts, if you will, to the different counties. Karen, may I

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: good one. Yeah. Go ahead.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Continue to look through this. I'm curious if how these pieces are listed. Are they in order of your prioritization at all? Ultimately, what we're gonna be doing is making recommendations of things. I think it'd be helpful to know. We're not saying yes to everything. Like, what is your order of things? And is that how they're listed in here? Or

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: We didn't list them that way. Should you provide a prior to Well, probably with that, the the the priority would be the last one, which actually has no money attached with it just because of it. And I think it has to do with in fiscal year twenty four, we were appropriated 26 positions. It came out of the the funding came out of the general fund, which would normally be permanent positions. But the way it was termed in the statute, we called them limited service positions. And when we inquired, we were told this was kind of at the end of that session. It came out kind of quickly. We were also thrilled to get the positions. Then we inquired about limited service positions, and we were told, well, consider them kind of extended limited service because the limited service positions for the pandemic airlines were like two to three years. And they said, no, consider these more than that, like four to five years. And then you'll need to come back before that period of time ends to have them converted to permanent positions. And last year, the state's attorneys and sheriffs, which in the same exact statute, received nine positions same way, funded in the general fund. It's part of our base funding, but they were called limited service. Last year, the state's attorneys and sheriffs came and requested that they be converted to permanent, and they were. So it was suggested to come this year to ask for the same treatment. So when you ask what has priority, to me, that would be because we have 10 judicial assistants, a database administrator, our two help desk analysts whom I was talking about. They're part of that category. And then 11 secondurity officers, which have become even more important now that they're using more and more share of personnel or the ability to provide courthouse security through the sheriff's department. So those would be the most critical. Again, there's no dollar figure. There's no cost because they're already part of our PACE funding. But that would be absolutely essential because if we lost these people and when we have now two years left, people start looking when they figure this is not temporary. So these positions are in the current budget proposal.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Yes. But you're looking for the language to make them permanent positions so you don't have to revisit this next year.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Right. That's answer to your question.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: But then what are the other I just feel like this is gonna be a really hard budget year. And so knowing what people's priorities are is gonna help to do it too.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Right. Well, I think it's hard. I feel like I'm King Solomon or something. I need a baby. But if it comes to that, I would say perhaps instead of the four judicial assistants, spread those among the help desk. I really do think the help desk because we don't want to be in a position where people are having to wait or they get a busy signal or there's no answer to the help desk because we take pride on providing very prompt customer service. We're not able to. We're struggling with the two with an additional one. We feel that would be put us on good footing unless the numbers increase from 12,000 to whatever. But they've been kind of level at the 12,000. So that's why we feel this position. And then again, it's hard to say not knowing about the grant situation, but we would hate to lose this momentum that is going. So I guess if you were to ask me, I would

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: say, well, maybe instead of four, do two and then spread it out that way. If you're looking to say, how can we cut it? I just like those are the situations that we're going be dealing with. And so I appreciate getting the kind of full array, but the reality is probably going to be, well, we can't do that and do a little bit of this.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, I appreciate very much the conduit you all in. You're getting all kinds of very legitimate reasonable requests And trying to figure out how to best accommodate cannot be easy.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: The other thing oh, sorry. So I know these grants have been amazing.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: And there were other expenses too that the grant was covered. Yes. Right. For example, when we have the summit, it covers the travel expenses for people that are coming to the summit. And in the admin, Linda Richard is the person who's been working as a temporary employee to do kind of the administrative support for that

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: commission. I am more familiar with the drug treatments, once having been involved in a zillion years ago with one of those grants. And I feel like it also helped people providers of direct service to be there. And I don't know if that exists anymore or if that's getting lost because

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, we have the way the drug treatment courts are funded. Greg Mosey is the chief of finance administration. He's on the call as well that makes sure. But my understanding is those were good with those for the next two or three years because we had applied for them before kind of the changing. So

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: it doesn't pay for mental health providers to be To skip grant?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I guess something like that.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah, no. No, this was strictly suggested because nationwide, there's a recognition that there's so many mentally ill people that are court involved. Every state was basically directed to develop a commission to look at this. The skip grant was recommended, and that's what we applied for.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: And with the accountability court, I

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: know the day that I sat in, there were a bunch of providers there, which was fantastic. Was that those providers came or were providers on contract?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: A lot of them came because of the subregional workshops that basically brought everybody together to make sure that nobody, you know, that we're all kind of collaborating and not having redundant. And that's something that the project director organized and coordinated. Yeah. So I think that's how it, you know, one of the positive results, you know, to try to make sure that we're making it as efficient as possible. So we're hope, you know, we hope and they have not said no, it's not going to pay for me, but we just haven't had the solicitation with the money's his his funding running out in September. We thought, well, we'll just request the contract payment. And I don't know how it works. In all honesty, if the skip grant comes out in the summer, we would fight for it. And then I don't know if we can then just give back the money if we don't need it after all. But we would do that.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: I'm sure they would. I mean, we

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: can find somewhere to spend.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, we'll give it back or let you guys know. Oh, it came through after all. The other part of it you get to match. What's that?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: It says grants require a match, and that might be the money you need to get the federal grant.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, if they do. Yeah. But I guess what we would do is just make sure joint fiscal bills, whatever it is that comes about. You don't trust me. And the last part has to do with it's actually a pass through, so it doesn't come to the judiciary. But if it might have been representative Spoer alluded to it, the sheriffs are looking for an increase in the rate that they're paid. We enter into a contract with them to provide courthouse security. And they're asking quite a quite an increase. But apparently, the amount that they're requesting $75 an hour is what they get from the executive branch already. So they've been getting from us $57 an hour, and they're requesting the increase. There was included in the materials, I'm sorry I didn't bring a copy for everybody here, but a memo that the sheriff's did. It's with your materials online that spells out how they arrived at it. But in essence, that's what we get paid from the executive branch. We feel it's only fair to get paid. Otherwise, they're not able to report into their calculations, meet their expenses. So we, on behalf of them, are requesting that as a pass through. The monies would go to them if given. Is that the

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I was looking for that increase.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: The 1,900,000,000 increase above

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yes. The currently Yes. Budget? Yes.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: And and are the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs also advocating for that? Or is this really just through this is what we're gonna hear about this month?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Well, I

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: think because the judiciary panel, we're paying them $57 an hour. And so I think it's coming through this channel because otherwise, they're satisfied, it sounds like, with the $75 an hour from the executive branch. And I don't honestly know if it's something separate from the legislative branch if they do anything.

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I don't believe that you're gonna see Department of State stories and sheriffs coming in. I think they view it as our bill that we have to pay.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So so is that in the budget, the governor's recommend, or is it the 1,900,000,000.0 in addition to what's in the governor's?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: The governor did not include in his recommended $75 an hour rate. Governor voted the low the lesser rate.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So has this been already contracted for?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Or is this what they're seeking? The contracts come into play July 1. So right now, the the contracts that are in effect through July 1 are at the $57 per hour rate. And what happened last year, just so you're aware, when we put in further monies for it, we put it in at $53 an hour, which was a slight increase over the previous year. But then when it came time to negotiate the contracts, they came in at $57 an hour and we weren't able to get the service for less. So we had to go to the Budget Adjustment Act for that difference of $4 an hour.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: And so they're asking for $75 an hour at this point. Or to be able to utilize for the next round of contracts. And those negotiations are between you folks and the sheriffs. I'm just trying to understand that. So if we decide, well, no, that's an awfully big raise, we wanna give them $65 I mean, is something that we're in the position to do?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, Greg Mosley, and I don't know-

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I think Greg is on.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah, is he able to respond? He's the one that negotiates with the sheriff, so he might be the Greg, can you hear us?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yes.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So does it help your negotiation if we say we're not gonna give any more than $65 an hour?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah, because I can only bring that amount to the table to talk to them about. What will happen is some sheriffs might say that they could do that, but then other sheriffs might opt out of the contract. So what has happened this past year, Terry mentioned that we went up to $57 an hour, which were required a budget adjustment request. And even given that, increase from last year, we lost five deputies across about three different counties, usually precipitated by a retirement or a turnover of some kind in the sheriff then reporting they can't recruit a new person to work court security. So we started in July with 40 deputies across our courthouses, we're down about 35 at the moment. So even going up to 57 an hour has caused a decrease in that service.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah, I guess I'm just you know, if appropriation says no, what what's what's the upside? It sounds like you may you may or may not be able to cover your security needs with the the shares. Yes. I mean, it's hard to say for definitively that you wouldn't, but sounds like that's kind of what's blowing in the wind. It's that you vote unless the governor was.

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: I would presume that we would lose some number of deputies. I can't really predict how many. I do think some sheriff, some counties will sign a contract for that. Some will opt out. And what we've been doing is using staff security in replacement of deputies, which is it works in some cases, but we do want that armed law enforcement officer in the building somewhere. So if if they have like six deputies in in a big courthouse, we could deal with three deputies and three security. But we wouldn't want to go down to zero. So it's it's all kind of a negotiation and we can try and deal with that and the recruitment issues that the sheriffs have been having.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: What happens if you're unable to have the security there in particular court days?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: So that has actually occurred up in Orleans County, the Civil Building that we had a contract with the Orleans Sheriff for deputies. They're down to less than one deputy now because of turnover. And so what we've done is we've kept the Civil Building closed on most days, except when when we need to use that courtroom, in which case we have staff go up from other areas and staff that building. So one of our courthouses is open only part time. Right. And so is it safe to say if you didn't get all those contracts that there'd be fewer court days? There would be fewer court days. The smaller buildings would probably have locked doors on some number of days based on the court schedule and the security schedule.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: And the other thing I think I'm hearing is that the contract with the executive branch, assuming with chair of your deputy, is 75. So there also maybe just a need for a statewide amount regardless of branch. Like, that's the issue for me. That's that's the service is the service. So I just yeah. I don't understand why there would be a difference just because you're serving one branch over the other.

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: So that's that's their argument that they were saying that we should have a statewide you know, a state rate that I don't know a lot about the work that they do for the executive branch. I can tell you a little bit about the work that you do for us, that's within the courthouse itself underneath one roof, one property. They they might go around outside and and patrol the parking lots or sidewalks, but there's no vehicle necessary. So there's certainly no vehicle costs associated with with our service where I think what they do with the executive branch is a lot of transports, mental health transports. And I I don't know a lot more. Some of it may be event related where they just need an officer for three hours at night for an event. For us, it's full time work Monday to Friday.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: And I

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: feel like it creates competition within the system because why wouldn't sheriffs want to sign up for the $75 an hour contract versus the lower one? So

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: we've had that situation. And in fact, some of the road contracts, the construction work is even higher than $75 an hour. And we've you know, during the summer months, it's even harder to get deputies.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yes. So so there are other there are other share of deputy contracts besides the executive contract and judiciary contracts?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah. They they usually have contracts with local towns, high schools doing sporting events, whatever. But

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: with with state agencies?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, I think they have one primary contract with the executive branch for all of the executive branch work. There's transports, which are actually state employees, so that's a little bit different. And then there's a court contract with the judiciary.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. So there's not any other rate out there for any other work that sheriffs are doing for the state?

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Not that not that I'm aware of.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. And are they state employees?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: No. They're sheriff. They're sheriff employees. So they are

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Transfer deputy? Yeah. Those transport deputies are

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: state employees.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: Otherwise, it's county. County. It's funny. Okay.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: So, I don't know if you know this or we'll need to ask the Department of State Attorneys and Sheriffs. But does the $75 go directly to the each individual, or is, like, 15% overhead that's going to the sheriff's department and etcetera, etcetera.

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, so that's the contracted rate that we pay the sheriff's department. And how much they pay their deputies is really up to them. So that includes the hourly rate for the deputy plus whatever overhead they might have.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. That's interesting. Would it be possible for us to kinda get a sense for what the executive branch contract is? Seems so. Yeah.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I'm not sure who would reach out. Okay,

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: go ahead Greg.

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: I was just going to suggest I work with Bill McSalis from BGS and he works with the sheriffs. He might either manage that contract or know who does.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. Alright. I appreciate that. So the people in here are gonna give me a hard time for my memory, but I don't remember if I had you introduce yourself and say what your role Sorry,

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: Terry did mention me at the very top, but I didn't do it when I came on. My name is Greg Mosley. I'm the Chief of Finance and Administration for the Vermont judiciary.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So everybody should applaud my memory that I didn't remember that I forgot to do that. Alright. So I'm getting more questions. Yeah. Go ahead and go back to Not on sheriff's deputies, but and this may be getting more granular than we're supposed to get. I don't know. So we're looking, kind of to Karen's point, trying to figure out where we have movable pieces with all of these different budget requests.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Would

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: two judicial systems dedicated to training, one for criminal, civil and probate and one for family, juvenile and mental health, be something that could be workable? Or is this kind of like, no, that's too much work. That's not going to be effective. We really need all four or not at all.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, well, I guess that would probably depend upon something that would be difficult to predict, and that is how much turnover it would be. We made these requests on the basis of the turnover for the last three years, basically. But I mean, from my perspective, however many positions, even if it's one, it was like it would be great compared to now when we really produce the criminal docket, especially just because that's where we've had the most turnover. That would be helpful to have. I don't know. In all honesty, would be just trying to picture that a rare individual would be have the kind of thorough background that I envisioned for this position in all these dockets. So that would be one thing as well, because we'd want to have the person training to be thoroughly familiar with best practices. And there are different dockets and different codes, different processes, different case flow. So we would be grateful for whatever we could get. And we would then figure out, Okay, what would be the best use of this position? Indeed, it would be to be able to combine more than one civil probate. The civil and probate docket, we probably do mostly criminal. There's many more similarities than that than versus criminal than even versus family. We would figure it out to utilize whatever we would be very grateful to get and figure it out, the best use of it. Great.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Thank you. And one more Yeah. Yeah. No. Go ahead.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Not only because we were educated by Trevor with this. So did you have any carryforward this budget cycle? And if so, where was it designated? Right. We know that.

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: So at the end of the year, we actually did not have carryforward. We had some projects that were at or over budget. And so we ended up using all of our carryforward at the end of this past year. In previous years, we have had some carry forwards usually ranging between like a half and 1% or 2% somewhere in there of our total budget.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Right. I thought didn't we have to use the carry forward for the increase

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: in health insurance? I thought that was for

[Greg Mosley (Chief of Finance and Administration, Vermont Judiciary)]: That was that was part of it. Yes. That and the remote hearing replacement project. We We were covering the cost of putting in new equipment for the remote hearings.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: We have to transition from Webex to Zoom for remote hearings because Webex is no longer supporting platform. So that was why we had an increase in the IT budget beyond what was anticipated. Yeah, so, carryforward, we've used it for whatever kind of comes up that wasn't expected in Washington, the increase in health insurance that wasn't covered. That's what we use that for. Thanks.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: A couple additional questions. So the mental health and course project director, definitely you're gonna wanna know a little bit more. It doesn't have to be now. It'll be tomorrow, perhaps during the discussion of the pre v docket pilot, of how that position helped there and going forward, what you anticipate how that person would be helping them. So that's just a plant a seed for tomorrow. But as far as the $88,000 that sounds like that's one time money. Right. It's also kind of contingent on whether you get the grant. Is that the kind of thing that come next December you could be seeking in the BAA or no?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, what's that?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: You'd run out of money.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Well, if they have carryover to cover it, yeah, they'd have Well, think we really

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: our hope, anyway, is that there would be a skip grant solicitation, And then we would, know, you're not, maybe you know more than we

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: do. No, I don't.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: At least the people we've been, some grants they've said, no, we're discontinued. We're not going to. They haven't said that for that. But you're right. We're going to have to, at some point, determine whether or not there is alternate funding or not. And if not, then perhaps then seek a position. But we figured if there is grant funding that would be preferable to you all just because then it would be.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Less than less. They'll figure that out, Don, so you can present it. My last question is, what all did you do to deeply look into what cuts you can come and propose this? And are there any cuts that Because I know that that's, at least when I talk to any of the appropriations people, they say, if they're coming with any new initiatives, ask them what they are looking to cut or the savings.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Right, yeah. Well, I guess on the slides, just so you know and Greg could speak to this better than me. The judicial budget, it shows the breakdown of what it is. 72% of our budget is salaries and fringe. And I honestly really We're usually struggling to keep our heads above water. We have been very grateful for the additional positions that have been given us, which enables us to really operate without, you know, feeling like we're jumping off a ledge. But it's not as if anybody can say, Oh yeah, I've got tons of free time or I'm all caught up. It's not that kind of a situation to be able to say, oh, we can put some positions here and be able to meet our obligations and try to address the backlog and maintain a reasonable level of operations. I mean, I would imagine you see it in the courts. Everybody is really working as hard as they can to keep everything afloat. I mean, between judges, court staff, personnel, we have for example, if there's attrition, we always look at that position to say, Okay, should this continue here? Or could this be used to help assess what we need here? When we do that analysis but Greg would be familiar, too. We kind of have every position accounted for. I personally am not familiar with the position to say, oh, that's extra. Oh, that's kind of a cushion. But I also understand the predictor of what you're under. And I mean, we will continually see if there is ways. The whole thing about, Oh, electronic filing or electronic case management, that'll free things up. It just has not worked out. Whatever, even if you were to say, Oh, it's making some things easier, okay, you don't have to box up the paper files anymore. You have it takes longer. Mean, I forget, I think it was Senator McCormick said as a teacher, it took him after the automation forty five minutes to do what it used to take him, fifteen minutes to do in the paper world. So we haven't seen that there's a savings of time. And in terms of positions, we've needed more IT people to be able to handle that, all the new technology that now we're completely reliant on. We're relying on the e filing, we're relying on remote hearings. And it's good things, but it just hasn't resulted in time savings or personnel savings. I appreciate that.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: I just wanna ask the question. It's actually the $500,000 for the accountability court. That's from the BAA though, right? And that's now in the Senate. I understand you all don't need that for that purpose. What's the status of what's going on with the discussions on that?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, I'll let judge Zuni respond. I was gonna say the monies for the pilot docket in Chittenden that came to the judiciary were for the retired judge. They set up a separate courtroom. And so it was the courtroom operator and the security for that separate courtroom. The other counties are not in a position to have a separate courtroom or to man a separate courtroom. I'll let you be able to So

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: to the extent that the monies were if the debt was accrued, if you will, by the judiciary, my understanding is we will be getting reimbursed into the monies that we spent on the three b project. Additional monies would be still available because what we're looking to do is try to roll out the project throughout the state. Each county, as we all know, is different and has unique challenges and unique benefits to being in those counties. So what we're going to be doing, we visited with all the judges. We had a meeting last week with stakeholders to determine how are we going to look at this going forward and okay, what will work, let's say, in Rutland County or Washington County or some other counties? The monies that would be available would be monies that would be used to pay for what we saw worked and that was having additional transports, be able to bring people to port, having the availability of resources, whether it's from AHS or other resources who are there to be able to do what was referred to, you'll hear about this tomorrow, the warm handoff. Also having the ability to make sure that if we need to backfill judge positions, maybe bring in a retired judge and that would be an extra cause at different times. And so, the one thing that people have asked is, well, have you decided who gets what? And the short answer is no, because we don't know what it actually looks like as the final plan yet. But I'm confident that when we all sit down and say, okay, in this county, what do we need to make it work? When we look at that, that we'll say, okay, here's how much it will cost to each of us to come up with what the plan would be and how much the money would be.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: So is that where that $500,000 it's in the BAA, there's not an impact on the request, this budget request for fiscal year twenty seven.

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: With the judiciary? Yeah. No, because it would be extra monies that we currently would not be spending. We would not be spending money on extra transports. We would not be spending money on retired judges to backfill. If we have, for instance, let's use Rutland for an example. If we have Rutland and we're pulling one of the judges in Rutland County to handle a pilot docket for X amount of days per week, the question is what docket are they coming from? And if they're coming from a docket, how do we make sure that docket is also maintained? So, can I bring in a retired judge to work there? Can I bring a judge in from another county to work there? But what if we're also doing another pilot in another county? And so, the ability to move pieces on the chessboard sometimes require us to get another piece and bring it in, which is to retire judge. So those types of monies would be necessary.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: But I'm just saying, so where is that money? Is that in the BAA that's being considered in the Senate or is this future money that you may have to come back next December to backfill? I'm just trying to make sure I understand.

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: My understanding was that it was in the governor's recommend for the '27.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, the 500,000, I think, is in the BAA. Did representatives say that?

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Yeah. No. That's what I understood. There's also money There's also money in the recommended

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: You can't let you use that. Thought, yes.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. And how how much is that for fiscal year '27? Do you know? Or where I can I find

[Judge Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: made the mistake? I thought the 500 was also gonna be coming up for '27, not just the VA.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Well, if you can double check that, that would be great. Okay, other questions? Not at the moment at least. Maybe we'll have more tomorrow when we get into it. All right, so we'll take a break. So Christopher, are you online? Is Christopher Burdittenden online?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (House Appropriations)]: I don't know if I see him.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: He's on there with me.

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Oh, okay. Christopher, are you with us? Oh, no, well, it's not Christopher. We have somebody else who's gonna talk to us.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: He is going to be signing on. I just signed on early, but

[Chair Martin LaLonde]: Okay. Alright. So so we're we're running a little behind, so we'll probably be about twenty minutes from now. Okay. It's when we'll