Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Here we are in ways and means. It's still Wednesday at 10:35. We are swapping our agenda around a little bit. We're gonna do h six fifty seven before we do H-nine 37 because the Senate has inconveniently scheduled their floor time. So Apologies. Shouldn't certainly not you, Katie. Thank you for being here, and I'd love to hear about the bell.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're welcome. Katie Macon, Office of Legislative Counsel. Let me share my screen. Okay. So this is H-six 57. We've been referring to it as a miscellaneous DCF bill, or a DCF omnibus bill, I shouldn't say, miscellaneous. But there are elements in this bill related to reach up, children's social security benefits, creating a path that can accompany youth to access different services without parental consent. There are provisions about transporting a child that is in DCF custody and what that transport should look like. There are provisions about seclusion and restraint protocols for children in DCF custody. There is a working group. Forget the title at this point. But in response to the DCF pregnancy calendar and working with different entities to create a path forward. So those are the many elements. And I guess I'll

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: just jump in. We can do pretty high level on most of the sections. Okay.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: John Gray, I think, is still scheduled. No. And he drafted sections two and three of the bill, so I will happily let him describe those to you. Section one of the bill pertains to Reach Up. Currently, Reach Up has a $9,000 asset limit, with exceptions for IRAs, for one and VHIP accounts. So this proposal is to remove the asset limit so that families participating in Reach Up could continue to build their assets potentially for a down payment or on a house or a security deposit on an apartment, whatever. But the concept behind this is to allow low income families receiving reach up to be able to develop their assets. And then there's just an affirmative sentence that says, The department shall not impose an asset limit for the purpose of initial and continuing eligibility for the Reach Up program. So it's not just that it's being struck through and leaving the decision up to the department as affirmative statement. Sections two and three are Social Security benefits for youth and foster care. So those are the two sections that I will skip over for now and leave to Dawn. Next, we have a series of sections that are specific to unaccompanied youth. This first section really sort of lays out the concept, and then the remaining sections are kind of corresponding sections. Homeless children and youth means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, including children and youth sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship and similar reason children and youth living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations children and youth living in emergency or transitional shelters, children and youth abandoned in hospitals, children and youth living in a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed ordinarily for regular sleeping, accommodation for human beings, children and youth living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned You don't need to

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: read it.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, I'm sorry. I wanted you have a sense of who we're talking about. Needless to say, children who are not accompanied by a parent or guardian. So this section allows for an unaccompanied youth to obtain a certificate, and that certificate can be used to obtain different services without parental consent. So they can get this certificate if they're found by a school district, homeless liaison, or another appropriate person to be an unaccompanied youth, or that they're believed to be an unaccompanied youth by the director of an emergency shelter program, the director of a runaway homeless youth program, continuum of care lead agency, chief justice, chief juvenile defender designee, Vermont Network Against Domestic or Sexual Violence. So those are all the entities that could provide this certification. And then with the proof of certification, Elevate Youth Services from my coalition of runaway homeless Services is to develop a standardized form that should be used for this purpose. The front of the form includes all the circumstances the youth can use the form for, the date the youth was certified, confirmation from the certifying individual that they completed a human trafficking training. This section of statute is reproduced on the back of the form so that when the youth is using the form, the person receiving it has some reference of what this form is and why they're receiving

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Subdivision two lists all the services or benefits that the youth could obtain without parental consent. And ways and means, this is the reason why we have this bill. Okay.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So they could apply at no charge for a non driver identification card, a learner's permit, or an operator's license or an operator's privilege card. They could obtain a vital event certificate at no charge. Top of page eight. They can consent to care by a healthcare professional licensed or certified in Vermont. Don't think that's probably the provision you're most interested in. They could enter into a contract for housing or obtain admission to a shelter or transitional housing. They could obtain employment pursuant to the provisions in current law, purchase an automobile or obtain an automobile liability policy that meets the requirements of Title 23. They could apply for a student loan, obtain admission to high school or postsecondary school and participate in school activities, including extracurricular activities and field trips. Open an account of a state or federally chartered bank or credit union and receive services for victims of domestic or sexual violence as appropriate. I heard you say they can buy a car and then get insurance for the car and find apartment. Can they get other insurance policies like life insurance and insurance for personal property in there? That's not discussed in this section. No. There's nothing in this language that specifically authorizes that they could get that type of insurance. This language is limited to the car insurance.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Well,

[James Masland (Member)]: I'm not.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So if that is a change that you're interested in making, I recommend you talk to the Human Services Committee about an amendment. Talk to the committee about

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: there are places where they're able to obtain a license without a fee, and that is where our very limited jurisdiction over this bill is. Really, really important issue, and I've worked with a lot of youth who had absolutely no way of getting consent or even contact from adults in their lives, parents. And I think this is like a huge, wonderful, beautiful step forward I for just don't want to mess with the bill without the Human Services Committee because they might have made that decision very strategically. I don't know. It's outside of our zone, yes.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Katie, maybe you mentioned this initially, again, when you're talking to youth, what's the age now that we're talking about to be able to receive all these? Let

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: me define that. We just say an individual, we don't define an age. We just say children are unique.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Guess I'm confused on that. Don't see how there's not an age requirement, I don't see how you can allow them to get a license or apply for dental and medical health care.

[James Masland (Member)]: Would

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Again, I haven't had the time to look this all over either, but again if it's a youth under the age of 18, I would think still there would have to be some agency individual or something that would help them through any of these requirements that you've just laid out here.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So, Katie, can you help me understand sort of deeper in DCF law? At some age, an unaccompanied child would be assigned a foster parent who would have these legal rights. And then at some point, that sort of stopped happening, and that's mostly the zone of youth, the age range of youth we're talking about?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I'm hesitant to specifically answer the question with an age range, because I just don't feel like I have that at my fingertips. But there were conversations of late teens, 18, 19, 20 taking advantage of this, but there is not an age range specific to this section that I'm seeing.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think the younger youth that you're thinking about, those would be in states custody, and the foster parent would have sort of these legal abilities. It's that there's an age when you tend to not be put in foster care anymore and also don't necessarily have these legal resources.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: But again, specifically, I don't see that in here where it talks about those age groups have to be within custody or

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think that's other places in statute where maybe

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we could learn more about

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I can ask some clarifying questions. Thanks. President Masland.

[James Masland (Member)]: Good. Mark Higley's question is essentially good, but the list of things in the bill are worthwhile things that I would like to avail ourselves in the legislature to do. So thank you.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Yes. I think section five on page

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 11.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if that is a controlling age for youths.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Well, can you give me a line number please?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: First, the cost. It's only about cost of copies. Don't know. So this is specific to vital event certificates. So it wouldn't be controlling on the section that we're looking at.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Does anyone else have any questions on section four? Representative Holcombe. My understanding is, don't

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we have separate statute around the legal age of emancipation being PT? And so I think you're talking, there's a lot of that stuff you actually can't get to your 21. So my guess is that this is the gap is the share of same between.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Let's find out. Yeah.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will get you an answer. Thank you, tons. Section five. Okay. So all of the following sections relate back to this unaccompanied youth provision. These are corresponding changes that were necessary to make in specific statutes to allow the unaccompanied youth with the certificate to obtain a service under those sections. So first is the vital event certificates. And this subsection B says that the state registrars shall waive a fee for certified copies of a vital event certificates issued to, and then we're adding to the list unaccompanied youth with the certificate. Similar idea in the section six, non driver identification card. The lead in language, where are we, that the commissioner shall require payment of a $29 fee at the time of application for an identification card, except that an initial non driver identification card shall be issued at no charge to an unaccompanied youth who has obtained a certificate. License and privilege cards, similar concept. Page 14. Unaccompanied youth who has obtained a certificate shall be provided with an operator's license or privilege card at no fee. No additional fee shall be due for a motorcycle endorsement for an unaccompanied youth. Section eight is the learner's permit. There is an exception of no fee charged for unaccompanied youth who has obtained a certificate. The fee there is $24 Let's see, page 15. The fee for the examination is $11 That's the learner's permit. No fee for the youth with the certificate. Motorcycle learner's permit and unaccompanied youth who has obtained a certificate. And an existing law, individual under 23 years of age in the carrying custody of DCF, after attaining 14 years of age, shall not be charged a fee for the renewal of a motorcycle learner's permit. Page 16, D2. This is a $24 fee to the commissioner for each learner's permit or a duplicate or renewal, and this waives the fee for the unaccompanied youth with the certificate. So those are all the fee sections related to unaccompanied youth. Do you want me to go through Okay. There is a section on the transportation of children in terms of what is meant by secure transport and different types of restraint for transport. We have some modified existing language. We have some language about contracts for transportation have to meet the requirements or include the requirements of this section. Transportation with non contracted law enforcement shall only be authorized in emergency situation or by court order. This requires the commissioner to provide educational materials complying with this section that outline the legal requirements for secure transport. E, secure transport shall only be used if the department determines it's necessary to prevent risk of harm. F, we have existing language and then language that soft mechanical restraints are the first option for restraint and other mechanical restraints are not utilized as a substitute if the soft restraints are deemed adequate. In G, it Keep going. Okay. Talked about documentation, use of waste shackles, supervisory review by the department, annual reporting on secure transports, Annual report from the Department on States Attorneys and Sheriffs. Section 10 is a report pertaining to restraint in the transportation of children, all policy and not fees. Section 11 is a use of force policy asking the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to do a formal review to determine whether its use of force policy should include an appendix to adequately address the transportation by law enforcement of children 18 that aligns with public policy considerations established in this bill. Changing topics slightly, section 12 is a restraint and seclusion section that is separate and apart from transport related restraint concerns. So we have definitions of what restraint, child means, prone restraint, seclusion, strip search, least restrictive, soft restraint, secure residential program. And then indeed, there's this language that the department shall not use or authorize the use of prone restraints, mechanical restraints, chemical restraints, or strip searches on a child. There are some exceptions, but they are limited and towards the bottom of this section. Seclusion or physical restraint shall not be used for punishment or disciplinary purposes. This dictates that if a staff member shall use the less restrictive interventions, the less restrictive would not stop an imminent danger. There is sort of a list of considerations that the staff member has to go through prior to using different types of restraints. There are some timelines for how long restraint seclusion should last and what the proper oversight and approval should be for going beyond those time limits. I don't know how detailed you want. There's some language about documentation Okay. So I will just move through this. Section 13 amends a section we were just looking at at a different time period. So it's tiered effective dates of the same section. Section 14 is a report on children in correctional facilities in terms of the use of seclusion and restraint means for reducing physical and psychological trauma.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do we have a

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: place where we're sending these children?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Much of what is contemplated here are residential placements when the child is in DCF custody, and there's a definition of a secure residential placement. So those are sort of the settings that are being envisioned here. We do occasionally have children in our regular business.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, we used to have disability and then we're looking for something new apparently.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I was just curious whether

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we have a plan for where these kids have gone.

[James Masland (Member)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it would be helpful given the questions around the table to have a brief update from the policy committee a little bit more about this if we have time, and I think what's in the bill is fine, good, But there are a number of us here who would like to know more than they do. Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay,

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is section 14 is the report. Section 15 is, I think likewise, a report on extending This is a written report in consultation with the judicial branch about recommendations for court oversight processes that meet federal requirements to allow access to federal funds to support certain youth. Section 16 is the working group I referenced initially. This is the prenatal engagement and family support working group. The working group examines DCF's current practice of using a pregnancy calendar to monitor and track certain pregnant individuals and provide recommendations to alternatives. You have a list of members, powers and duties of this group. A report is due by November. Some language about setup of the committee itself or the working group of interest for this committee is that an allowance for not more than five meetings with per diem and reimbursement expenses taken from DCF for those five meetings for individuals who are not participating in their professional capacity. And then we have the effective date section. So that is the end of the bill. I will get more information about ages for that section four and how would be the best way to communicate that to you, assuming I'm not going to pop back in quickly and easily and email to you. You can send it to me and Sorcha.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay. Perfect. If I visit Sorcha, we'll Okay. I will do that. Thank Thank you very much, Katie. You're welcome.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Dawn, hi. Perfect.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Can you show us the sections of six fifty

[Mark Higley (Member)]: seven? Yep.

[James Masland (Member)]: So again? Alright.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Office of benefit of counsel. I'll screen share two sections of this bill with you.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Good. Okay. Social

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Security benefits for youth in foster care. Just for orientation, the problem that these sections are trying to solve is that currently DCF, or folks who are in foster care, is designated in certain instances to be the representative payee for certain children that are receiving Social Security benefits. So both survivors' benefits, retirement disability, survivors benefits under title two of the Social Security Act and also supplemental security income. So when the department is representative payee, they have certain obligations as to how they can use that money. As I understand that the current practice is that they dedicate those funds to reimbursing the cost of foster care. And what these sections would do is essentially mandate that the funds not be used in the person's sense to reimburse for foster care, but to be either conserved for the child in a trust account or applied to certain unmet needs. So for instance, if the child was gonna attend a particular class and that was in their best interest, the department would use the money for those purposes. So instead of diverting the funds to DCF reimbursement, they now are used exclusively for unmet needs or conserving a person dialed upon exit precaution here. So section two is amending an existing definition section to pick up a few core concepts for this. So one is qualified ABLE accounts. These are tax advantaged accounts that are available to folks with qualifying disabilities. This is the kind of trust account that would be used for a child receiving supplemental security income, and they get certain tax advantages from using that. That's why that's included here. We've just talked about representative payee, that's who the SSA appoints to manage the Social Security benefits for a child. And then I call out The text calls out a few different kinds of benefits. So RSDI benefits, that's your classic social security benefits, title two retirement survivors disability insurance. You know what the Social Security Act is, but there's the citation. Social Security benefits would encompass both a child's RSDI and SSI benefits, and then your SSI benefits are that supplemental security income. That's under a different title of the Social Security Act. The actual provisions themselves are on page four. In the first sentence under subsection A, DCF is prohibited from using any portion of a child's Social Security benefits to offset the state's costs for the child's maintenance, except as required to maintain their eligibility for SSI benefits and to avoid a violation of federal asset or resource limitations. So if you think about it in switching to a new practice where you wouldn't be diverting, one effect might be then a trust account rises, and then if there are asset limitations, it would actually kick the child out of that benefit, because they would have crossed the threshold to the resources. So, this section is saying you can't use benefits to offset the state's costs, but if it's to their advantage, basically, if you can stop them from violating a federal asset limitation to preserve their receipt of those benefits, in that case, you can.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[James Masland (Member)]: There a So, the state's the trustee, or who exactly is the trustee?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will come to that in a little bit, but DCF in conjunction with the treasurer's department would be setting up the trust accounts. So, the idea, I think, is that the treasurer's office would hold the trust accounts, but all of the administrative pieces would be dealt with through DCF. Think that's

[James Masland (Member)]: There'll be a trust document through this trust treasurer's department or something like that to have one. I don't mean to be micromanaging.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, no, you're good, and you'll see when we come to the directives for DCF and the Treasury's department that there are things like annual reporting on use of funds Thank the you.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Is there

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: a federal requirement that DCF is the one who handles any There of

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is no requirement that DCF be the representative payee, which is I think part of your question. There's kind of a priority list of would be appointed as a representative payee or a child. But if you think about what's on that list, it's relatives, friends who are capable of providing that kind of care. Talking about a child that's in foster care who may be far down the priority list at which case DCF is serving as representative payee. And they do currently serve as representative payee for a number of children. So at that point, they do have the obligation to manage, but they are required to manage the child's benefits at that point.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'm gonna was wondering.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just so I Versus the treasurer. Does the federal government say it has to be DCF versus

[James Masland (Member)]: the treasurer?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's been DCF for

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: a long time. I don't think I care.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It doesn't have to be DCF, but- We

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: have so much to do. And I just want to offer again, this is outside of our committee's jurisdiction, and we have about every week. And I have a great update for the committee, which is that Anne Donahue is the reporter on the bill. So everyone who has very good questions about a very interesting piece of state government and child protection. Can talk to Anne Donahue, please. Thank you.

[James Masland (Member)]: So John, can the child access these funds like safe for an allowance?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't think it In the instance where you have a representative payee, and this may be a bit beyond my expertise in this area, it is the representative payee's duty to manage in the best interest of the child. So conceivably that could be within the representative payee's determination. But I think in this instance, what's being contemplated is that there's no reimbursement for standard care. It's only beyond the maintenance of the child's needs that the Social Security benefits are being used and they're being applied to, for instance, unmet needs, which could be going to particular classes, or I think the real target of the bill is to be conserved in account for those in which case, if they're in the trust account, they're not accessible to to the the child. But in any instance, there's the representative payee's obligation. The reason that they're designated representative payee is that the child is deemed incapable as a child of managing the funds.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So, Madam Chair, John, my understanding is, so currently, some of that money that comes into the foster care job is used for foster care costs?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly right.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So again, I think that's where we should come into play is how much is the state possibly gonna lose in that regard, correct?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And we are going to hear from Nolan in one minute. So that is actually more of sort of an appropriations decision than a revenue decision. It's basically like, how are we spending the money that's already coming in? It's really just that tiny fee waiver thing that we're Why we're all so deeply curious about this. Genuinely very important area of statute and

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: protection. Happy to talk less rather than more. Subsection b, this is saying that the upon request of the child or the required of the department as representative payee may use those benefits for unmet needs beyond that, but the state is obligated, required or agrees to pay. Those you can think of the state as now being required to internalize those costs, but they could apply these social security benefits to those unmet needs that are not required obligations of the state, and that would be things like going to classes that the child requires to go to. Subsection C, these are the set of directives I was noting before, incapacity, interruption of payee, and with the assistance of the treasurer, DCF shall establish a trust account for the child, which in the instance of the child who is receiving SSI benefits would be that qualified ABLE account. Additionally, they would need to monitor federal asset or resource limitations to ensure that you don't breach those thresholds and deny the child access to those benefits. Three, you need to DCF must ensure that the child's best interests are served by using those benefits for the child's unmet needs or conserving the child's benefits in a way that avoids violating those resource limitations that affect the child's ability to receive the benefits. And then four, appeal any denied application for SSI benefits submitted on behalf of a child. As you can imagine, some children don't come in currently under SSI, and so the department may apply on their behalf. This is saying that DCF would need to appeal any denied applications to ensure that you're maximizing the amount of benefits that children are receiving. And then lastly, this was the point noted earlier, provide an annual accounting of the use application or conservation of those benefits, including any payments made for unmet needs under subsection B, and that would go to the child, their parent guardian or counsel, the family division of the Superior Court, and the office of the child, youth, and family advocate. It's the full of my sections trying to solve the problem that I set out at the CERT.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Another question for the doc. Thank you, John.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hey, guys.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Colin, it's your turn.

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I haven't had a chance to zoom in yet. This will take longer than my testimony.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Do you want to say that then?

[James Masland (Member)]: It's

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: not a testament how long, it's a how short I'll be.

[James Masland (Member)]: Alright, in theory, that holds true. Alright, for the record, no

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: one hang on joint physical office. Well, this note.

[James Masland (Member)]: Hi.

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Again, for the record, I'll only want to join fiscal office. I think, I believe the reason that this is in your committee is because there are several sections that waive fees. My fiscal note flags sections seven and eight, which is, waives the motor vehicle and motorcycle license learner's permits. Also section five would waive the fees. Again, this is for the children that are defined as unaccompanied. Section five is not on my fiscal note, but would waive the $10 fee for things such as vital records. And then I believe the there's another wood fee that's waived on page 12, dollars 29 for ID cards. Anyway, throughout the bill, there's several pieces that didn't flag those that waived fees. The point is that the fee waived for these would be very de minimis. I tried to do a back of the envelope of how many unaccompanied kids might be allowed to have their fees waived for their driver's license or for their learner's permits. And if the number is quite small, we're talking maybe between 1 and $4,000 annually, tops. And again, if that much. So I think that all these fee waivers, that's $39 for your learner's permit or $49.10 dollars for some of these others. The point is that fee waiving for this small, very small population would be very infamous and no budget impact.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can you tell us a little bit more about how the social security money

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: could talk about No, no, no, no. I'm not an expert on how SSI works, but the bill, I think John talked about this, would waive So the way it works now is that this department uses, this is my understanding how it works, they use the money that's from SSI to cover the cost of care for those used in custodies, and this bill would not allow the department to do that. So you'll see in the first page of section three on my fiscal note, the estimate would be about $700,000 So they say that because the department assumes that as I don't know you would call it a revenue source, but they assume it as part of their costs for doing business. So by eliminating a section, there would then be a hole in their budget of $700,000 that they'd have to make up.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Did the committee discuss, or were you asking, calculating a higher asset test? I

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: was not asked and I wasn't in the room for that part of the discussion.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I know it's $9,000 now, we have asset tests for different programs, whether it's now payment assistance programs, that kind of stuff. Just wondering, alright, so they didn't think about that. Continue

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to encourage everyone on the committee to talk to Antonika about the many sections of the vote.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any other questions from

[James Masland (Member)]: your mom?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you, Nolan.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're Zoom joining as well.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Do folks want to have those conversations before we vote on the bill? Or

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are folks content with having those conversations after we vote? Because it's more about Before. Okay. Great. Okay.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We're going to schedule in five minutes for the vote. So if anyone thinks they're going to need more than five minutes for the vote, please do let me insource

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a note sooner rather than That could

[Mark Higley (Member)]: be this afternoon, tomorrow.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, maybe just right at 01:00. Well, I won't be here. Oh, well, perfect. Then you don't need to talk. I'm just kidding. I think we could do it You're think about that for four minutes.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And we're gonna move on to whatever bill you're here for. The 09:30 7. You're not even over there. You're over here. Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Morning, How are you?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks for your

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: patience with our shuffle lunch.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not at all. That time of year, it's very common. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Counsel here to talk with the committee about H937, I believe it is, yes, which is the annual Pardon me? I like that way to put it. I fell off the Zoom.

[James Masland (Member)]: All right.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So, as this is the annual judiciary miscellaneous bill, it contains a wide variety of different discrete provisions related to a lot of different subjects in the judiciary arena. I think what this committee is interested in is probably pretty narrow. So, my first question is what is the committee's preference as far as what you'd like to hear about? Do want me to just sort of A focus in

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: high level overview section by section and then really Training on what So assessment for

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: purposes of the high level section by section, do you like to have bill on the screen? Would that be helpful or just

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: That's nice. Everyone else think that's nice?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Behind me, hopefully. All right, so let's do a high level, and there's a lot here. And as the committee knows by now, when I'm going through a lot, tend to speak quick. So please feel free to jump in, slow me down.

[James Masland (Member)]: Ask me

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to be more clear. Section one, actually, the first couple of sections deal with something that's currently in Vermont. You see there's lot of underlying language here, but it's not new. It's just being moved here from another location. All this language exists in another place in statute. It has to do with the Prophets of Crime subchapter that currently is in the Center for Crime Victims Compensation Board chapter. You may have heard of years ago, this is Vermont's version of what used to be known as the Son of Sam. And that's what this is. That's about prevents a criminal offender from being able to profit off their criminal behavior, and it provides the crime victim with a way, or the attorney general, with a way to bring an action to recover those profits. Let's say, for example, a person who was convicted of homicide then tries to write a book about the homicide and make money off it. It's sort of your stereotypical example. But all this does right now, this chapter is located in the Center for Crime I'm sorry, the Victims Compensation Board chapter. Both the Center for Crime Victim Services and the Attorney General agreed. That doesn't really make sense. It should be over in the Attorney General section of statute, because they're the ones who enforce it. So you see at the very beginning there, that's where it's moved to, Chapter seven Attorney General. But that's all this is, it's relocating a bunch of statute from one place to another. That's section one. That brings us to section two, which has to do with the existing offense of a minor, and you'll see line nine pick someone 12 years of age or older or 21. And that 12 year minimum is important, because that's how old someone to be before someone can be charged with a juvenile Someone younger than that cannot, but they could be subject to a child in need of supervision provision with DCF, but they can't be charged with a juvenile offense. So under current law, a person either tries to show a fake ID or they're possessing alcohol when they shouldn't, a person who's underage, you have all these lists of offenses that they're not supposed to be doing right there. And the penalties is what this section refers to, because under the current law, they get referred to the diversion program and then the YSAP, which is the Youth Sentence Awareness Safety Program. And right now, if they don't comply with the program like they're supposed to, they then get hit with a civil penalty, as well as a license suspension. And under current law, there's an automatic reinstatement of their license after the period of suspension ends for one of these offenses, and that's E there, that's operating a motor vehicle, where you have any amount of alcohol in your system, not just DUI, but anything, point zero two or above, that's anything above like comp and so. But for some reason that automatic reinstatement is not in the law for these other offenses that I was mentioning, possessing, using a false ID to buy alcohol, possessing cannabis in an amount of less than one ounce, consuming alcohol, those sorts of things. This was requested by the diversion program in the AG's office. They thought it was probably just an oversight that this automatic reinstatement language wasn't also in the provision for these offenses. And I'm sort of going into this piece in a little bit more detail, because this is actually, I think, the piece that We'll circle back to it, but I think this is where your interest lies.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I do think it is, and I wonder if, Chris, you could tell me about the fiscal.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: My colleague Logan posted a very brief fiscal note. And I would say verbally that this is the reason why the bill came to house waits and means. And the reason is that with the automatic reinstatement of the suspended licenses, these individuals would no longer be required to pay a $96 reinstatement fee to DMV. That $96 reinstatement fee goes into the transportation fund. Logan talked to DMV to see how many violations would fall under this. We expect this would be a really de minimis impact to the T shirt of about $8,000 before that record. So that's in the context of $3.20 plus million dollar.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's the case for Windham.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks, Chris. Any questions for Chris? Great, back to you, R.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So section three of the bill, you'll see the 12 years of age or older. This has to do with minor who's doing tobacco related offenses. This was brought to us by the judiciary who noticed that that twelve year minimum threshold, which remember we just saw exists in these civil alcohol offenses right there, line nine, existing law. For some reason, it was not a part of the civil tobacco offenses for people under age 21. And it should be because, as I mentioned, that's the minimum age for juvenile offenses. So that's just technically adding the 12 years of age or older piece, which is already in the alcohol statutes. That's that section. Does it again on line 15. Section four, dissemination of electronic case records. This is a house bill that the House district committee took testimony on separately. There was unanimous consent. And, basically, what current law permits the sorry, prohibits the court from allowing Internet access to criminal case records. You'll see that's lines one and two. This is dated probably twenty five years ago, I believe it or not. I actually remember that when that was passed. I started working here, there was a very different perception, as you might imagine, about the internet and how certain records can't be put on the Internet because it will just lead to people kind of trolling and that sort of thing. And so times have changed, and it has, certainly. But now, as it happens, people can get these records at any time, and rather than make them go to the courthouse and look at them, their proposal was to just repeal that provision. But you see, they require the court, fines, nine, and ten, to set forth some rules as to how this public access would be provided. So, that's that piece. The section five, this has to do with a, the gist of it is, in a nutshell, generally speaking, the statute of limitations for an action to renew a judgment. So if you get a judgment in the civil division and superior courts, you have eight years in which to renew it. Say the person does pay, you wanna bring in, I wanna renew it, you got eight years. There's a specific language here that has to do with specifically judgments in the family division that are related to family division action. So there's a specific procedure that's proposed for renewal of judgment statutes of limitations. This eight year limitation is gonna be specific for the family division because the court and litigants in the family division came forward and said that eight year length of time doesn't work. We need some specific rules. So that's what that's about. I'm shocked. This pure technical section six, so you see line 17, we don't have district courts anymore since judicial restructuring in 2009 or so. So, they're all superior courts, so it's a technical change. Another technical change, section seven, this language exists elsewhere in statute about the foreclosure actions, appeals and foreclosure actions required for permission. When the mortgage foreclosure chapter was rewritten and relocated years ago, that's the same language that's existed there, but we forgot, when I say we forgot, I mean, probably me, because I work at the mill, to repeal it here. So it's just technical piece to make those two things consistent. Sections eight and nine are connected here. These both have to do with stalking. Stalking is both a criminal offense, and it can also be the subject of a civil order against stalking, like a relief from abuse order. A person could go to court and get an order. Stalking, generally, you'll see line 11 there, in order to prove stalking, you have to show two or more acts over a period of time, however short. Evidently, there's been a couple of court decisions that construed that language to mean that the two acts had to occur on separate calendar days. So, proposals to clarify that that's not the case. These two acts that constitute stalking don't have to be on separate calendar days, as long as they're two separate acts. And that's the exact same thing. Section nine, same change. You see line 12, Am I going too fast or not fast enough?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think you're going at just the right speed. I need to go down to appropriations to report a bill. Bill, you all are welcome to vote on this without me.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is this okay though? Yeah, go ahead. All right,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: the reporters from the youth bill are ideally going to be here at 11:45.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: At section 10, see purely technical. It was an incorrect use of the word. Section should be sub chapter. Section, yes, so we caught those. Some of these things we catch in our office too over the summer. Something I'll put in my folder for the miscellaneous bill. Law enforcement agency, right now, under current law, when there's an initial contact between the crime victim and an LEA, there's this list of information that the agency is supposed to provide to the victim, and the Center for Crime Victim Services actually has a form they provide to law enforcement agencies, and they use that form when they give it to victims. So the proposal was to add another piece of information that actually is already in that form that the law enforcement agency uses, and it's given to them by CCBS. So it's just basically conforming statute to practice, because it's already in the form, and this is information about the victim's right to know if the defendant is at a correctional facility, where the defendant is, if they're released. And DOC has this offender locator website so that crime victims can use that to find out where their offender was, and they also can register for this automated notification system when the defendant is released. So this just provides the victim with information about how to find that stuff, basically. Section, as you see, this is just repealing. Remember I mentioned how the profits from crime stuff was being moved from the compensation board to the AG. So here you see, we saw where it was reenacted, section one, here it's being repealed, because it was being moved to that first section, which we saw. Speaking of the Victims Compensation Board, this is a board that exists award compensation to crime victims and their dependents to five members. You'll see right now at line twelve, one of the members is a physician licensed to practice in the state. According to the board and the Center for Crime Victim Services, that's been found to be a little too restrictive. So they want to expand it a little bit. So any healthcare provider who's licensed, could be a nurse practitioner or somebody of that nature could also be the healthcare representative on the board. Section 14, again, you see line four, just removing from VCB their authority to deal with profits from crime, because we moved that to the AG, remember?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is something that Alice Probst was looking at this morning, another sort of number. I think it's of interest, but maybe not to the committee's jurisdictions, certainly, but Chris would know that better than I do. The story here is that a number of years ago, the restitution unit in the restitution department, what they do is they are able to provide crime victims with restitution when they suffer a loss as a result of the crime. And so, they have this special fund. And not only do they provide, the court is required to order restitution in every one of these criminal cases, or at least state why there's not. So, after the case, generally speaking, that's when they find out how much the restitution is, and the restitution unit has some lawyers and collection people. They can go after the offender, try and get it. They also have the ability, the unit, through just restitution special fund, to advance a crime victim some money. So before the conviction even happens, they can advance them some money if they can document that they've had some of these losses so that they have some money to kind of tide them over until the final conviction happens. A number of years back, that advance is capped. It capped for a number of years at $10,000 a number of years ago. The $10,000 cap was reduced to five. But this is just purely technical. As I said, this was already done. But every place in statute where the 10 is supposed to be changed to five, we missed a few. So that's what this

[James Masland (Member)]: is doing, that. Chris, does this have anything to do with the fiscal report?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Chris, we've got fiscal. This has no fiscal impact. And this, as Eric said, this is literally just aligning the existing statute to existing practice. Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You'll see a number of places where this change is made. There's another one by page 18, line six, Section 16, here's another example. These are all the notice of the profits of crime statutes being moved to the AG. Remember, they're repealed here because they were reenacted in section one of the bill. There's another one, section 17, moved to the Attorney General's Office Chapter. Another example of the 10,000 to 5,000, line sixteen and seventeen in the restitution chapter. Free trial risk assessments, this was requested by the court diversion program. And the proposal here is that under current law, generally speaking, the records of somebody who goes through the pretrial risk assessment program are kept confidential. And you see that right there, that's line six and seven on that page. But then turning to page 22, then they're required to be kept, you see line 11, under current law, for three years before they could be discarded. But the general length of time that records are kept under the public record law is actually two years. Rather just conforming that to the general two year length that records are retained under the public records law. Section 20 repeals all the statutes related to Sven Thripp guardianships, which is a quite old type of guardianship that is still on the book, but it's not used anymore. A guardianship is a personal quote from the existing statute because it's actually interesting. A spendthrift guardianship is a guardianship for a person who, quote, who is liable to be put under guardianship on account of excessive drinking, gambling, idleness, or debauchery. So that statute is not used anymore, as you might guess. And so the The probate judges, the Association of Probate Judges and Probate Rules Committee in the Supreme Court asked for this change. If we don't use this anymore, we should really just appeal the whole chapter. So that's what that is. This

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: this is one.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, right, there we go. So line 12, ever since anybody remembers what's known as the day is a day law that was passed. One of the things that's trying no longer Always, when days are used in statute or court rule to refer to days, it counts every day, and doesn't make exceptions for weekends and holidays and that sort of thing. And when the court did that, one of things they did was they also switched to using multiples of seven days. So any time they refer to a court something that has to be done within a certain period of time with respect to a court, they go to multiples of seven, but they missed one. So, you see that by twelve, that's going from 15 to 14 with a multiple of seven. This, also requested by the court, section 23, under the current law, these child custody determinations, they're made, a certified copy of them has to be sent to the court administrator, who has to file it as a foreign judgment. That is also outdated. Right now, judgments are just put in the electronic filing system at the court. Everybody has access to it, so this is just old language that we're not sending these things by certified mail anymore, certified copies. They're all just filed in the court's internal system. This is just a cross track, both the court and the diversion program. As for this change, you see it's just an incorrect cross reference, two of them, lines five and six. Same thing, these are connected, the next section, exact same incorrect reference. This was a request from the Vermont Bar Association and the Real Property section of the bar. In the big picture, this one, see a lot of heavy legalese in that section. The gist of that is that there was a Vermont Supreme Court decision in January in Hirshan v. Avedoza Mills. The gist of that was that when property is transferred to two people who own it jointly together, That can happen. There's a number of different ways in which property can be owned jointly. And the Vermont Supreme Court had this decision where they said, Well, if it's We're gonna interpret language and deeds and transfer documents that generally mean that property is transferred in this one type of joint possession that's called a tenancy income. And everybody in the buyer association said, That has never been interpreted that way. It's actually been interpreted to mean that when property is transferred to more than one person, and it uses this particular language, it actually creates this other type of joint ownership known as a joint tenancy. So this corrects that and says, hey, if you use that language, you create this property interest as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. That means that and that's a joint tenancy. That means that, say, two people own property together and one person dies, then all the property goes to the other person. That's called the right of survivorship. Tenancy in common, let's say two people own property together, one person dies, the other person doesn't get it. It goes to that person's heirs. Could be their kids, could be their maybe they wanted to leave their share in the property. Say two people own a camp together, I have to know that because my wife and her brother own this camp together, and they own a tenancy in common. They don't want, when one person passes away, the other person to get it, they want that person's kids to be able to have their share. And you can do that however you want. It's up to you to decide how you wanna do it. But the court had said, hey, when we see this language, we're gonna interpret that to mean it's a tenancy in common, which means it has to go to your heirs, as opposed to going to the other joint owner when one person dies. Our association seems to be unanimously agreed. That's not the way we read that language. So, goes back to the way it has been read. I'm not a property lawyer, so I don't

[James Masland (Member)]: know for sure, but everyone

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: seemed to be unanimous in that respect. And section 27 is related to that. It's just saying that's basically applies retroactively. So whenever you create an estate, so let's say that transaction happened three years ago, because ordinarily, laws only apply prospectively unless you say otherwise. So you see line 18, this says otherwise, notwithstanding one BSA section two fourteen. That's the section of law that says laws generally apply prospectively going forward. Legislature can make an exception to that, but you have to be explicit about it. So that's what that does, makes an exception. Notwithstanding that, this applies retroactively whenever you created the deed, unless somebody has already started a lawsuit on it, and then whatever law is at that time. That one. Section 28 is also a technical correction, notice by actually a member of the bar who pointed this out to me. Deeds aren't required to be sealed and witnessed anymore.

[James Masland (Member)]: So, that language is struck.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is an interesting one. And you're not required to be what anymore? Sealed or witnessed. Oh, thank you. Yep, absolutely. This is an interesting, also old statute on the books. You see that anyone who finds a money or a good value of $3 or more or takes up a stray beast, the owner, which is not known, that have, within six days, have to post notice in two public places in the town where the property was found. Evidently, this was brought to the attention of Representative Oliver by the sergeant at arms, and Capitol Police, who are finding, like, every time we find a water bottle, we're thinking we have to post notice that we found a water bottle because it's more than $3 in value. So they decided to make it $50 and that way not cover small people of the property that are left.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: It covers about every new water bottle then.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I know. Exactly. That's a is their the pricing. Yep.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then section 30?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 30,

[James Masland (Member)]: let's see, what was that one?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, this is another example you've seen, line four. This is the judiciary uses multiples of seven now whenever referring to procedures that have to be done with respect to the court. So, this has been done since today is the day at law a number of years ago, but we missed this one. So, thank you for question. Taking

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a kind of random question about that. The earlier one was fifteen days, which I would have assumed was three weeks before, and it got lowered to fourteen days. Correct. And that was a conscious choice, to lower it to fourteen days, two weeks from three weeks.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: From fifteen to fourteen days, Kevin.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But if it was fifteen business days, you're lowering it fourteen. Days, you're lowering it from three weeks to two weeks, whereas this one is ten days, that's becoming fourteen days. Interestingly,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's under the previous approach. If it was above ten days, it was not business days. It was calendar days. Okay. So that fifteen would have been it was ten or I know it's weird. That's why they decided, rather than try and keep track of all that, let's just do day as a day, because the ten day thing was the threshold. If it was above ten, it wasn't business day anymore, it was calendar. So it was only a one day difference to bump down to fourteen. Thank you, Eric.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yes. Does anyone need to know anything else about this piece of legislation?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, this is a comment. Oh, great.

[James Masland (Member)]: Thank you for establishing the uniformity that we

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to help.

[James Masland (Member)]: In France, we could say they'd say every week is every eight days, every two weeks, every fifteen days, just the way they they speak there. But we're in The USA here, and I'm glad they have some uniformity that we we do. Right?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Any other thoughts or questions for Eric?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you, Eric. Sure. Does anyone need anything?

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: All good.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Chittenden, no more questions right now?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: No, you may move on with your life. Thanks.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right, thank you all. And any other questions do come up, just let me know.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you. Yep.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I would only want to ask JFO to again reiterate there is essentially no fiscal impacts.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure, Chris, with joint fiscal, the only fiscal impact is de minimis and it is in the order of economic policy on those $4,160 Lexington and State fees in section two so it's a very very tiny percentage of.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Hearing that, Madam Chair, I would move to find H-nine 37 favorable.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All set. Thank you. Representative Kimbell moves that

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: we find H-nine 37 favorable. Representative Holcombe seconds. Any discussion? Being none, the clicker

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: can please call the roll. Representative Branagan is absent. I'll vote yes. Is Representative Burkhardt? Representative Higley?

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Representative Holcombe? Yes. Representative Kimbell? Yes.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Representative Matland? Yes. Representative Ode? Yes. Representative Page?

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Representative Waszazak? Yes. Canfield?

[Nolan Langfeld (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And Representative Kornheiser? Yes. We have voted the bill favorable, ten-one. Thank you. Representing. Representing.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If you'd like me to. It's

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: not gonna be in the next

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: two don't think it'll be in the next

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: few days then.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Let's do an

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: appropriation. Appropriations heard it described.

[James Masland (Member)]: They were waiting. They were planning

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: to vote a native stand.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, no representative page on that one.

[James Masland (Member)]: Thank you.

[Katie Macon (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Representative Ode, can you report this? Yes. Thank you. And

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I noticed that Chris made a very clear differentiation between no impact and a de minimis impact. I would like to remind the committee of those words to give the same. Thank you. And we're gonna take a brief pause in our recording while we