Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Tucker Jones (General Counsel, Vermont DPS)]: You're alive. You're just younger.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon and welcome to the Senate Government Operations Committee meeting of Wednesday, January 14. We're going to start things off today with a bunch of folks from the Department of Public Safety, including our commissioner, Jennifer Morrison. But I understand Mike DeRosier has time constraints and would request that we talk to him immediately. Mike is the director of the division of commerce. And, uh- Hi,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Mike. Okay,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I will-

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: Good afternoon.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Read, if that's okay. Pull up a quick slide deck, if I may. Sure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There we go.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: See if that works. Probably a bit of a delay, I would imagine.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Share. There we go. Okay. And I will go to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: slideshow. Okay, so

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: my name is Jennifer Morrison. I'm the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. We're going to give you a brief overview, reminder, refresher about what's inside our circus tense. But we're going to kinda go a little bit out of order to accommodate director Droshier's schedule. So this on this screen, you will see that there's seven divisions. However, the tan one, Criminal Justice Services, is actually two divisions

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: that are shoved together under

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: the banner of Criminal Justice Services, and that is a budgeting construct, but they are extremely different and distinct functions. But the first one we're gonna talk about is in red, which is sort of ironic for fire safety. And that division is led by director, Michael Duboischer. And you can on this slide, which I'm happy to leave behind when we go, it breaks down the different units or components of the division. And he is going to talk briefly about one of our legislative prior about his division and then on the next slide, which I'll advance to and then go back, about the thing that's highlighted. One of our priorities this year is firmly in his wheelhouse, and it's best that if you have questions that he'd be here to to answer them. But first, I'm gonna turn it back to you, director Drosher, to give a quick overview of the division, and then we'll flip to our legislative priorities. You're on mute, Mike.

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: Yep. Thank you, commissioner, for, letting me go first. I appreciate it, and thank you for the committee for allowing us to be here today. As you can see, we're responsible for plumbing and electrical licensing, the enforcement of building codes, permitting. We have about 12 different professions at the top of my head that we regulate by either licensing or certification or through registration. I have the hazmat response team, the fire academy down in Pittsburgh. We train all career and volunteer firefighters across the state. We also have the urban search and rescue team, and they specialize in swift water rescue, trench rescue, structural collapse. And here in Vermont, one of their main priorities is swift water rescue due to our flooding occurrences. I also have the fire investigation unit where we partner with the state police, and we also have the public education branch. And one of the areas here that I could discuss is rental housing, but we also have a lot of activity on energy efficiency. We have some discussions. In fact, I testify tomorrow on short term rental. So those are the big things, short term rental energy efficiency, and rental housing. As far as priorities in 2026, kind of connected to the rental housing safety code enforcement is the ability to try to figure out how to add some tools to our toolbox to increase our code enforcement capacity mainly because we have a lot of situations where we either have absentee landlords or we have buildings that are in just such poor condition that were struggling to find a pathway to either have the buildings repaired or to take some other type of enforcement action to secure safety of the of the residents and the general public at large in some circumstances. Since 01/01/2024, we have received about close to 900 rental housing complaints. This rental housing health and safety program is is complaint based only. We're not out doing proactive inspections. And as a result of that, we've done about 1,500 rental housing health and safety inspections as a result of those roughly 800 complaints. More than happy to answer any more questions, but, you know, I think the the commissioner certainly has been working with communities and so forth to try to link resources to communities in in this area of rental housing, right? Where, you know, whether it's drug houses that are near school buildings or buildings that are being occupied by squatters, and there's no rent being swept between owners and the people residing in them. So we have a lot of challenges in the rental housing safety code enforcement arena.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Mike, are you open for questions now? Sure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's Alison.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: The 900 rental housing complaints, how many have you been able to respond to? All of them. All of them.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: Just remind this committee

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: that we expanded that his department that we inspect we added four or five inspectors two or three years ago.

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: We added four inspectors. The legislation that was passed allotted us five positions. But currently, we have four positions, full time positions that are completely allocated just, to keep up with the rental housing safety complaints.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: I hate to ask,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: but I'm gonna press because this administration's famous for its vacancy savings budgeting. Are you are you in in a pipeline to fill that fifth position?

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: No. Not not at this point. And and to be honest and transparent with the committee, we we have kept up with these complaints. But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay. And then my next

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Three to three to four for

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: I'm sorry. Three or 4% of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: complaints include the short term rentals?

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: We receive very, very few complaints on short term rentals.

[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center, DPS)]: Okay. Very few.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Good, I guess. Yeah.

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: So most of them are either they're one and two long term rentals, multifamily apartment buildings. That's where most of the complaints are. We we are not seeing complaints generated on our short term rentals.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So, Mike, I'll be happy to know that we have in this room a bill about dilapidated properties and the ability of towns to actually proactively address them and either so that may help a little bit on your challenge of the it it isn't helpful on the non resident landowner or building owner, which is a problem, I know.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: We would welcome more tools in the toolbox related to not just residences, but commercial buildings that have fallen into a state of disrepair and posed a public safety hazard. I'm taking the panel racetrack. Sorry to give you PTSD, Tucker. And other places that have become a public safety hazard and we have limited tools to compel compliance.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Do you not have the ability to condemn them and have them then destroyed? That

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: would be a question for my attorney.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Do we not have the ability to condemn them?

[Tucker Jones (General Counsel, Vermont DPS)]: Yeah, for the Tucker Jones Department of Public Safety, for the fire code violations, there is that authority under the commissioner's findings and orders.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So Mike could condemn the bill to get the vote? For fire code violations,

[Tucker Jones (General Counsel, Vermont DPS)]: what we're running into is that the rental housing safety code doesn't have that same set of enforcement mechanisms. So, there is an opportunity for a fine, but the enforcement authority pretty much ends there. And sometimes, you know, regardless of whether the fine's paid or not, there's an outstanding safety issue that we're essentially aware of and walking away from, but really still needs. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Asked to have it addressed and it has been ignored, it sounds like.

[Tucker Jones (General Counsel, Vermont DPS)]: And then we can issue a fine for not addressing it. Right. But then they may or may not pay that fine, but then we're still left with the unaddressed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So you're hoping that we could align those two and or?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes, and broaden the tools to shorten the timeline that it takes to get to a place of final disposition of these cases. Frequently, we have property owners who don't wanna be found and would not accept service of of documents, etcetera. There there's a We're happy to come back and talk about this topic more frequently. But do you have something drafted at?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We do have more questions.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Do have more, Mike? No.

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: I was just add the technically under chapter one seventy two is the rental housing health and safety code, and the additional enforcement mechanisms or tools are in chapter one seventy three.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Senator Vyhovsky.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. I have two questions. One of them, I think I know the answer to. I'm just my brain is a little mushy at this point, and so I just wanted to refresh my memory in that. You are in charge of elevators. Yes? Yes.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: Sorry. Subject. Oh. Okay.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And my signature's on. Different issue.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I promised you I'd I noted that today, actually.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: You did? Yeah, did you?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I didn't mean to bring up a sort of subject. Didn't I have a couple of constituents who have some elevator concerns in their rental housing, and I wasn't sure who the right alright. Well, you'll you'll get an

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: email from me. Absolutely. My

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: other question is so do you have any sense of what percentage of our Vermont firefighters are career versus volunteer?

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: Yeah. We have about 250 roughly, say, career firefighters and somewhere in the ballpark of 4,500 volunteers. So off the top of my head, I don't know the percentage, but I'm You

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: don't have to do the math. Yeah. I won't make you do that. I can't do it.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: That's about 5%, I guess. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's it's a small number. It's tiny.

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: But certainly much higher volunteer volunteers. Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Michael. Unless there's other questions from the committee, I think you're off the hook and can move on to your next event, wherever that is.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Mike, it's good to hear your voice. We're not seeing you, but it's good to hear your voice.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: You can see it. It's

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: nice to see all of you too.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. But it's too tiny for my old eyes.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Talk to you later, Mike. Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thanks, Michael. Thank you.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Bye. Yes. I mean, Droshovsky is a very, very long time director, which is what what you typically are finding at public safety people. There's not a lot of turnover. We will be losing the colonel this year in 2026, but he's a unicorn in ten and a half, eleven years as the colonel. That's almost unheard of in the nation for a head of the state police agency to stay that long. Matt's retiring. Matt's retiring.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Matt's too young to retire.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: He's getting a sentinel birthday that makes it possible but not required. But twenty nine years is a long time.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. And a great job.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes. But we have to focus on his We have a lot to talk to. Offline. Yes. Our newest director is Lisa Mylot, who is the director of the new division of animal welfare, which we will get to momentarily. And of course, Tucker introduced himself. He is our general counsel. Rosemary retired late last year, and we're in the process of hiring our assistant general counsel, and we have a really excellent candidate that we're just trying to finalize all the hiring process for. So generally speaking, the public safety team is a very experienced and long tenured team, but we do have some real superstar that we're adding to our lineup. And that takes me to director Eric Foran from the Vermont Emergency Management division, and he will explain the different pieces of the division, and we can talk about anything that that strikes your fancy there. So go ahead, Eric.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Thanks, Commissioner. Thanks, everyone, for having me in to give a quick synopsis of what we do over here. So as you can see, we're broken down into seven sections. The first being the engagement section. That is the section that directly does outreach to municipalities to support them both before, during, and after events through training, exercise, plan writing. That is, as you recall, a couple of years ago, you added a few regional coordinators. That that is the section that they're in. So we are now up to six regional coordinators. So still a a large number of towns that each one has to, cover, but significantly less, than before. Operations and logistics, they're in charge of keeping us keeping the lights on, basically making sure that we're ready to roll at any time to open the operations center, the emergency operations center, making sure that our vehicles are in check, making sure that we have the technology and the software that we need to run

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: operations here.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Planning is the section that does forward looking planning, reaches out to other state agencies to ensure that all of our statewide plans are interconnected and making sure that we're covering all the bases that are needed to ensure that we have

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a good response to a event like the twenty three or '24 or '25.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Can you lean forward, the microphone's better when you're closer? Sure.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Recovery section is a newer section that we broke apart from mitigation a few years ago. Recovery is the section that will deal with after the event. So think of the local municipalities that had infrastructure damage during a flood. They have to work with FEMA through us to get those infrastructure entities fixed back up to spec to ensure that they have adequate road coverage. So our recovery section takes care of that. Then the mitigation section is the even more forward looking, hopefully trying to create projects that mitigate the rest of us out of a job. Idea is that we become more flood resilient, we do not receive as much damage during the floods that we know that we're gonna have or the wind events that we know we're gonna have. So that section is taking care of those larger projects. Those are the seven daytime sections that we have, the emergency operations center, which once an event happens like the twenty three floods or, for example, non disasters like the eclipse or other logistical projects like a prisoner transfer or the drought project that happened over the summer, the emergency operations center will escalate its posture to ensure that we are able to coordinate efforts across the state agencies as well as support the local municipalities and all the VEM staff will be the first entities that are into that emergency operations center. So they're the first line of staff into that center. And the center is seeing more functionality over the last couple of years, more, I don't want to say activations because we're always activated, we're always monitoring, but more escalation of our posture based on events. You'll get things like, for example, the ice event that we had a couple of weeks ago, we were activated to an enhanced level to make sure that we monitored and coordinated efforts across the state entity for that. Or, like I mentioned, a prison transfer, we're assisting with the accountability courts in Burlington. So a lot of projects work through the emergency operations center, as well as those large, very upfront floods that have happened, as well as the wind events that occurred during the winter and spring.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Lean forward. P. M. Request.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yeah. Your microphone's not help not doing real well. If you lean forward, it's better. But can I just clarify? It's five sections. Right? You you said seven, but it's five.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: I did say seven sections. Sorry. Five. Yeah. I didn't add two.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There are two more surprises, Jen. He didn't say that.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Was shocking. I love finding things out. Good. Testimony.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: I meant that we do the work of seven sections. No. Five sections. Yeah.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Right. I I meant to say that myself.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Yes, so just to finish up some of the things that we cover is listed there. Training and exercise for the state, both the state agencies, but as well as municipalities, just to ensure that we're ready for the next event. We have a lot of municipal outreach and support for the towns as well as the agencies across the state. Mitigation projects are always in flux and then, you know, disaster recovery. The the flood only takes a couple days but recovering from it, as we all know, takes a couple years. So, those things that as the news cameras leave, all those things are continuing through the operations center and through VM's daytime staff.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Hey, Rick, I think we have a question from our newest member, Senator Morley. No, just for Eric, also the commissioner. I work with a municipality and there's going be a ton of money running through VEM during some of these disasters from FEMA and so forth. I've partnered with FEMA and VEM and Kim Karanecki. I just can't tell you how helpful VEM is in helping the local municipalities. Work with the portal, ask questions, get advice, and it's absolutely critical that you folks are there and my hat's off to VEM and public safety, so thank you very much.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well thank you. We take great pride not just in VEM, but in the partnership they share with the division of finance and administration because that's the team that makes the flow of the money happen, and we've had a really fast turnaround. We've been focusing on a thirty day or under turnaround time from the time federal funds come in to us to get it through the processes internally and out the door to the municipalities that need it most. So I can tell you that the flooding of twenty twenty three, flooding of twenty twenty four, and even the twenty twenty five, July tenth, which is a terrible day. It's just awful. It's a terrible day. We continue to learn from each of those experiences, but the catastrophic flooding in '23 certainly helped us up our game for '24 and '25 and things moved more quickly.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: It seems like the smaller projects are easy. It's the million dollars of over projects, is that the kind of goes into a black box at FEMA and I think Christy Knowles desk, and there seems to be a struggle. You don't

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: We're in a new era with our relationship with FEMA, and what that final shape will be is yet to be determined.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So I'm just giving you my own personal experiences. Senator Brooks.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So Eric, have been working with this committee for three years really, ever since those 20 '3, and I'm just curious if you have been advocating for in your budget expanding and maintaining the permanent and making permanent our flood resilient communities fund that we all worked on together. How is any any support from your department on encouraging the continuation of that and putting that into base funding?

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: We are encouraging basically the extension of that through ANR. ANR is the lead agency on that. So we are working with Secretary Moore to try to ensure that there is the capacity to continue that very efficient and effective fund, specifically as it relates to we're seeing more and more harder to pass criteria for FEMA, so that fund allows us to help more Vermonters than the FEMA funding does. We're just trying to extend that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Exactly. With the with the failures of FEMA at the moment, this fund becomes ever more important, particularly for our municipalities. Sarah Bighovsky?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We have worked together a lot in

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: the last couple of years, and I'm wondering if you can speak a

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: little bit to how it has improved having these extra positions, and just how some of the work we've done together has actually played out on the ground, and if there's more that we could do to support the important work that you are doing.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Yeah, thank you. As I mentioned, there was three, two and a half positions that came out of this committee, I think it was two years ago now. So we took the three regional coordinators that were covering the entire state. So you're talking about 100 or so towns each down to about 50 or 60 towns each. So just that in and of itself allows the regional coordinators to be much more supportive directly to the towns. So after that occurred, we had the capacity to go into the towns, work hand in hand with them on their local emergency management plans, which they were, you know, trying to do on their own. So we were able to give them support for that. We've been able to give them support on exercise. We've been able to give them more support on trainings. We've been working through the regional emergency management communities, which we've also helped facilitate the the voting rights for. So we've right sized them, And that's been a great entity for us to to reach out to them, but also for the EMDs of each town to get together and help each other. During a during a disaster, we want the town to ask the next town over for help first, because that's the quickest response, and then we come in and backstop that so that those entities have all started to line up. And then we have our emergency management conference each year, which we get a good turnout from the EMDs. So we've seen a lot of progress. There's still a lot of room forward. You know, obviously what we see is that, like everyone, the EMDs have a lot of hats they're wearing. So that becomes a perpetual issue, and we want to make sure that we're at the, you know, one of the first hats they put on. But that's always a a fight that we have, and they're doing a great job of trying to support us, and we're supporting them through the initiatives that you've given us. So we appreciate that.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And to be fair in the response and fulsome into the question of is there more you can do for us? You obviously know that we're in the position of not knowing what the governor's recommended at this point, and we can't advocate in a silo for something that's not in the governor's budget. So we're not in a position of today to have any conversations about more additional needs next week. That's fair.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We could put one in.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: This is kind of a follow-up question, but it's also a little bit off. But as we sort of

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I know that the the 07/10/2025 disaster declaration was declined, and I'm wondering what the financial impact of that has been or what the next steps are, if there are net steps to Sure.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: We did file an appeal for that. Yeah. And it might be in that place that You were with the black box. Black box on someone's desk. We have not heard a response. So unlike the obligation for states, we are time limited in our ability to file for a disaster declaration. We're also time limited in our ability to file an appeal if it's denied. The federal government has no such fine limitations to respond to us. So we'll know when we know. As to the financial burden, that's information Eric would be better at, at getting down to brass tacks up.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Specifically with Sir, if we you kinda help take what wound up being act 57. It was a house bill. Three ninety seven, as I recall. And then it helped us put it back together again. So it's now about 5 months plus. Is it working? Are there things that came out of it that surprised you? Just kinda get a general reaction about it.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: No, there's certainly no surprises because as

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you mentioned, I've spent a lot of time

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: in Seneca Falls, I can't down there

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: and listen to what's going on and try to help them as

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: best I can to give my input and direction and suggestions. So I'm thankful that you took a lot of them and kind of came out with a bill that made a lot of sense. Think we implemented everything on the timeline that was required. And so I think it went well and I'm looking forward to this year.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Can I just get an answer to the question, Eric, about the financial burden of the declining of that?

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: So specifically as it relates to the July, it was five towns, roughly $1,800,000

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Okay. And

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Sutton being the largest. Sutton was 1.2. The rest were

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: Couple 100,000.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Got it. And that's the total burden or the burden to just the state? Because I know some of that burden ends up being on homeowner reserve.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: So that's a very good question. So that does not include any state highways. So federal highway, FHWA roads, that's a different entity that would be under secretary Flynn. It doesn't include any damage to homes because there wasn't a large enough disaster to have an individual assistance declaration because there was five homes and roughly on the back of an envelope, it has to be a couple 100. That's coming

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: out of 25. Plugged. Plugged is 25. So very localized flooding. Oh,

[Corey Chase (Director, Radio Technology Services, DPS)]: that's right.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management, DPS)]: 25 was very localized. It was five towns. So that 1,800,000 is just the image to repair in place the infrastructure for those five towns, so bridges and roads. It doesn't incorporate during a normal process. If we had an approval for it, FEMA would come up, look at the damage, see the 1,800,000 to replace, but then also Vermont has the codes and standards, which is usually upgrade and replace, so it's usually a little bit more expensive. So the 1,800,000.0 is really the cheaper number. It most likely would have been higher had there been an approval.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for Eric? Okay.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thanks, Eric.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thank you very much.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Great job. You can stay and hang out and, right. We're such good company.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: He was here all the time.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I know. He basically lived here.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: He's a great resource. So the next division that I wanted to talk about is the Vermont Crime Information Center. That is one of the two that's nestled under criminal justice services with the radio technology shop. Again, that's a archaic budgeting construct, somewhere along the way, we need to unfold that and get those two separated. But that is led by director Jeffrey Wallin, a very, very long tenured and experienced director. I can't tell if Jeff's on. Do you know if Jeff's on?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I am Doctor.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Oh, hi Jeff. There's Jeff. Sorry, I just can't see my screen. So you probably have talked with Jeff Wallin quite a few times. But Jeff, do you want to give the thousand foot view overview of what you do in your division?

[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center, DPS)]: Absolutely, Commissioner, thank you. And for the record, my name is Jeffrey Waland and I am the director of the Vermont Crime Information Center. VCIC, which is the acronym we typically use for the Vermont Crime Information Center, is a number of different business lines that deals with criminal justice information in some shape, form or fashion. And some of those business lines are very interrelated and others are very independent. But primarily our different sections and those really correlate to our business lines. First is our fingerprint section, which handles processing of fingerprints for both criminal and non criminal justice purposes. So think a teacher or childcare worker licensing. Our record check section, which works hand in hand with the fingerprint section to bring that document in and to send that document out. Our criminal history section, so that's essentially our criminal history database. So that's what generates essentially your rap sheet, what folks think of as a criminal history record, that's typically a rap sheet. We have our Vermont sex offender registry, which is handled within BCIC as well. And that's a little bit unusual in that it is not just an entity that provides data to others, but actually takes action. The sex offender registry tracks and registers and makes information available to law enforcement agencies and the public on individuals registering with the SOR. And lastly, we have our audit and training section. That essentially works hand in hand with our federal partners on a number of information sharing programs such as the National Crime Information Center, which is your wants, warrants, and missing persons. So that's how if a vehicle is stolen in Tennessee and it turns up here in Vermont, we know that it was stolen in Tennessee and who is looking for it down there. NIBRS data, that's our crime statistics, our national crime statistics program. So how things such as crime in The US and other sorts of data collections are pulled together. And those units also do a lot of training. So they not only audit, but they do training. So they work with individuals to know how to properly enter those and also working with agencies when they have a question such as if someone drives down the road and smashes five mailboxes, is that one incident with five victims or is that five different incidents with one victim and how to handle that sort of information. And as you can see here, the subject matters such as national fingerprint checks, once warrants missing persons. We do work with our federal partners, for example, on firearm check inquiries. We also process expungements and ceilings issued by the court and together with our national partners to pull together a national crime statistics. So that in a nutshell are the different business lines and functions that DCIC undertakes here at DPS.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Questions?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Or you might get off pretty I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: know. As soon as you said it, Cherco. But this is maybe a question that is not actually for you. So where do the forensics labs, the questions, I know that there's been questions about, should we have a new forensics lab?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I have a new forensics lab.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yes, so what's that? There was a bill, no, to add to an additional one though.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Oh, my apologies. What's going on with that? Know.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, I'm going to see. Doctor. Percy comes on. Maybe she knows something. Are you at a forensic facility? Yes. Okay, so forensic lab is for examination of evidence, whether that's biological material, tool prints, ballistics. A forensic facility is to hold people who are declared incompetent but are also being charged with crimes and to hopefully get them the therapeutic help they need to restore competency quickly as possible. So forensic facilities about humans, the forensic lab, which is part of DPF Yeah. Is about evidence that comes in Yeah. Related to crimes. But we don't Wow. We're not that

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: because that is so helpful. Multiple people tell me that we need a new forensics facility, and I've been picturing this.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: No. But

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: how beautiful whatnot. Hey. 1044.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Listen. But but you can come tour at any time. You will actually find it fascinating. It I find it fascinating, I've done it many times. If we can get the HVAC straightened out, you can definitely come.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think that would be an Atlanta committee build drive.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: You should. You should come see the whole headquarters, Jim. I mean, there's lots to see at 4 H. R. State Drive. And you, Deputy Commissioner Batesy and I are the best cooks in state government, and I have evidence of that. Not packaged, let me know.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I hope the evidence isn't in the front.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: No, it's not. You'd be

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: in great game of the staff.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: There you go. The other part of that criminal justice services on the screen that you saw is the radio technology services, and that's led by director Corey Chase. Very different business lines. And I know Corey's on. So Corey, do you wanna give the thumbnail sketch of your division, please?

[Corey Chase (Director, Radio Technology Services, DPS)]: Certainly, thank you for the introduction. So, technology services has two primary functions. First of all, we maintain the networks that are used by multiple agencies across the state, including the tower sites. We operate a network that's something like the cellular network that is used by the public. We maintain the network that's used by what we call LMR, land mobile radio, the the dragnet walkie talkies that the police and other first responders use. It's important to say that this LMR service, it it remains the primary purpose or the primary method of communication by first responders, even though most first responders these days have a cell phone. The LMR radio is the primary method for communication between them and also with dispatch. So I said that we have two primary services. One is maintaining the network. The second is we maintain the portable radios used by the state of Vermont agencies. So, that includes here at DPS, the Vermont State Police, but we also maintain the radios and the network for the agency of transportation, and the agency of natural resources. So maintaining our network is complicated. We have a private, highly secure, highly reliable network. Our network touches approximately 40 towers around the state. And our network is not reliant on the public network, the network used by, for instance, the cell phone carriers or the telephone companies. Our network is designed to be reliable and to be survivable in case of disasters. It primarily relies on microwave connections. So that's the large circular dishes that are up and installed on these towers that point one tower and connect to the other. These networks are used, not only for state police and the state other agencies, but they're also various components, in many ways, our networks support many others first responders from other agencies. And the dispatch centers that the state police maintains in Williston and Westminster are important for providing dispatch, not only for our services, but for other agencies as well. To sum up the purpose of an LMR network, have, state police has the two PSAPs, one in Westminster and the other in Williston. The call takers there have a seat for a particular area. And when they push the button to talk, my division makes sure that when they talk that they're able to transmit from that dispatch console, center to the appropriate part of the state, and the first responders are able to pick up that signal. One other thing that my division does, we maintain the telephone system here at the Department of Public Safety. Throughout state enterprise, our colleagues at the Agency of Digital Services manage the telephone systems. But our system is currently quite intertwined with the service at the dispatch centers, and we maintain, this the telephone services here at at our department separately from ADS. With that, I'll, I'll answer any questions you might have.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Did you have a question, senator Morley? It was back years ago dealing with the PSAPs. Yes. And They are. Well, I think some of say yes, no about them, but they used to Yes.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: We have a twin. We used to have it up in Derby, of course. And we all used to use them at the EMS level, so fire department, EMS department, all that stuff. Are all of the EMS departments now often using?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: No. We have we support about eighty first responder agencies that are not state agencies in between the two PSAPs, and they currently don't pay anything for our service. This is all part of a whole another line of that versus a problem that maybe we won't have time to talk about today.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So nothing really has changed.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, Public Safety Communications Task Force, which was came out of this committee when Ruth Hardy was at the helm of that effort

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: in the big bill

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: of '23, I think it was, established a task force to examine the existing state of dispatching throughout the state, but also to chart a path forward that is interoperable, more resilient, has failed, planned failover, and theoretically shrinks the number of dispatch centers that we have. So there are six PSAPs, which are different from dispatch centers in the state, two of which the state runs. That's where nine one one calls go, is to a PSAP. There are 37 entities that dispatch in the state. So that is a very, very long topic that would eat up all of our time that I'm sure we're gonna be hearing about in some of my remarks here about legislative priorities. I'll be speaking a little bit more to the recommendations from the task force. I'd be delighted. I'll make sure

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: you have like a snap topic.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Just don't be driving because I don't want to be the cause of you driving off the road. Thank you. You have any other questions for Cory? No. Okay. And now we're on to the Vermont Forensic Laboratory. If you like CSI, this Doctor. Is your

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Conti, are you on? I

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: might have inadvertently told some of my directors they didn't need to be on and then at like 12:45, I said, no. You do have to be on. So it's possible that she's not here. So the Vermont Forensic Laboratory is the end of our building. It's slightly it looks like it was added on because it was. I was gonna say it wasn't because it was. And the Vermont Forensic Laboratory is led by Doctor. Trish Conti. She has been the director far longer than I've been at public safety, which is now five and a half, six years. So it's broken down into various sections. The chemistry section, obviously, analyzes these drugs. They work on clandestine labs. They they work in the field of chemistry. Likewise, the biology section deals with serology examination of sexual assault kits. They support the kind of nurse examiners who do the same kits at the hospital, the sexual assault nurse examiner kits. They work with the DNA, etcetera. And then toxicology, of course, is for detecting or confirming, comparing drivers or And either under the influence of alcohol or they also are the hub for the drug recognition Expert Program, which is police officers out in the field who have very advanced training in detecting impairment other than through alcohol. They have a physical comparison section, which again, like if you're at a burglary scene and there's pry marks or there's late prints that are gathered or the shell casings found at a scene, all of that goes through to the physical comparison unit and they have various ways of ruling in or out suspects involved or weaponry or tools that were were were not used in that crime. They have a quality section, which is their audits and accreditation. They have been accredited through their their accrediting body consistently and with glowing remarks for as long as I can remember. And then the last piece of the puzzle is they have an evidence area where local police agencies, state police officers from all over the state bring evidence to the lab because it needs to be examined in some way. So it's like the intake that's the door into the lab. And so there's a section there that preserves it appropriately, packages it appropriately, routes it to the right unit for their processes and also for storage. Sometimes we end up storing evidence for longer than we think we should. But that's the Notch, the Vermont Friendship Lab and it's all about those components.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Questions, Katie? Alright,

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: now people think I'm lying when I say that administration and finance is the heart of DPS and all we do, none of the divisions could function if admin and finance did not do their job so well. Director Rick Hallenbeck is not available today. He is also an extremely long tenured director at DPS, And he leads a top shelf team that is broken down into accounting, budgeting, grant management, which includes all of the FEMA and other federal funds. I mean, have bureau, BGA funds, and DOJ funds. There's well, we used to do back in the day. Well, we used to have we used to have these funds to worry about crafting. And so that unit handles a wide variety of grant funding sources, and they work closely with subrecipient communities and tries to alleviate the burden on local communities to whatever degree we can to to be the the the pastors. They have a procurement office, deals with contracting, putting things out for RFP, etcetera, audit and payroll office. And relative to the grant management office, this note about federal grant programs is that we manage at any given time dozens up to 31 federal grant programs through ARPA, DOJ, FEMA, and a bunch of other acronyms that I'm sorry. I couldn't probably tell you what they mean. But in state fiscal year '24, we disbursed 114,000,000 and 95,000,000 of that was disaster grant funding alone. So it's a very busy shop.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Clarkson? Jim, what do you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: anticipate being given the federal cuts in all those granting areas? What do you anticipate in terms

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: of loss of revenue to your department?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I think I'm supposed to be directing those comments to Secretary Clark, the central accounting of that. They're keeping a central record at the agency of administration. I can tell you that we're in a bit of an inflection point because some of the grant streams that we rely on very heavily have been cut starting five years ago. So a 10% cut to what was that amount then and then 10% more and 10% more. So level funded, level funded, and then 10%, and then 12% puts us in a space where far fewer things can be paid for out of that particular funding stream that historically we relied on. We're we're we're still in the final phases of working out with the administration what some of those particular pain points will be this year, this session. So, maybe we can talk more about it in a week or two. But there will be pain and choices to be made.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, And then surprisingly, DOJ and a lot grant and and some really good ones that affected our state's attorney's offices in addition to your office, the state police, a bunch. Mhmm.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yeah. It's the whole federal government. Even just the shutdown of a few weeks created a month long backlog in moving certain grant programs along. So it's been challenging. Okay. Any more questions about admin and finance? Nope. Alright. Now, the moment you've all been waiting for, I would really like to introduce to you Director Lisa Mylot. She comes to us as a she'll tell you a little bit about herself. As you know, we inherited the Division of Animal Welfare through a legislative action in 2024, and we hired Lisa in January or February '25. She came to us in May because she had to finish a semester where she was as a professor of law in Georgia. So she came to us in May, and she has completed the tasks assigned to her through that enabling piece of legislation. And I'm gonna move out of this chair and let you talk a little bit, because I bet they have more questions for you than they do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you, committee, for having me here. Welcome.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: So, as the Commissioner said, I'm Lisa Milet. I'm the Director of Animal Welfare, and I came here from the University of Georgia School of Law, where I was the Andy and Zach Stanton Distinguished Professor of Canine Welfare Law, which is, I think is funny for two reasons. One is canine welfare law is not some established body of law. It's something that I decided I was interested in and I pursued it. I built it at the Stanton Foundation Endowed Chair to recognize it. Annie and Zach Stanton, the best part of this one I didn't mention the other lady I spoke to, they are dogs. The chair itself is named I have two dogs. But my students and I worked with jurisdictions around Georgia to improve animal welfare while I was there. We worked on programs, practices, and ordinances to try and improve the lives of the animals as well as the people caring for them. I have a big focus on community support and figuring out how the most vulnerable people who have animals in their lives can keep those animals responsibly. I also worked in my home jurisdiction of Athens Clarke County on cruelty cases. The county did not really do much in terms of prosecuting cruelty and I became motivated to learn how to do that. Initially, my students and I were actually primary investigators for cruelty cases in the jurisdictions until we were able to get motivation from outside law enforcement to take over that role. But then we continued to help on prosecution and defense. And then I worked on state legislation there as well. And I was not looking for a job when this job got posted, but I think that you all did a marvelous job of looking, taking a hard look at what was needed up here, but then also thinking creatively about the building block for that H. Six twenty six, which was the initial legislation, I feel like people put so much work into that, it gave me a great structure for thinking about what could happen up here, as well as the unification report that EPS had produced in the prior year to explain why a position was needed. As Commissioner Morrison said, I'm in the final bit of that 10% of any project that takes 90% of the time. That's where I added my comprehensive plan in that it is written, it's thought through, it's discussed, and it is now in the looking at all the little details and making sure they all work. Hopefully you will have that in the next few days, the next week. I'm happy to answer questions about what I've been working on. I can't really get into the comprehensive plan right now just because we are awaiting final comments on it, but what can I tell

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you? Senator Kluck?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: V SNP. Tell us what's happening with V SNP. Because Just go all set.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: So, V SNP, for those of you who don't know, is the Vermont Spain Neuter Incentive Program, which is a spay and neuter program for dogs and cats owned by low income Vermonters. A

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: program. Very

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: I believe it's a $4 surcharge per dog license fee that pays for the program. And it is administered by DCF actually. I haven't spoken with them about the program and whether or not they are interested in continuing to oversee it and they were in discussions and had not committed to anything with me I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: think there are many of us who'd love to see it actually, but all animal welfare and all reside with you and increase the rate so that it actually pays for itself because it's not currently paying for itself. But we have many constituents who are I believe it's run out of money. I mean, there are some questions about its survival and I think it's important. I guess I would just like to say for Windsor District, we feel it's an important program which needs to be funded and maybe its rates need to be increased to support it, but then it's our constituents view it as

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: a very important program. I agree that I think it's a very important program. I actually started a nonprofit in Athens and the core part of that was starting a spayed new earth program for low income folks in my area because that did not exist previously. So that is a passion project of mine. Is ultimately I want DCF to weigh in on what their intentions are for it, but I would like to say that there are programs that can be set up in addition to V SNP as well that would make it more effective. V SNP itself is a voucher program where people apply to get a voucher that they then take to their vet and use to get the surgery. I think there's a $25 copay that goes with it, they pay towards it. That's one way of spreading the benefit widely among the people. For actual highest effectiveness for spay neuter, you want targeted approaches. You want to get up to a seventy percent spay neuter rate in breeding populations. So that's not sprinkling it around the state, that's going to an area where you're seeing overproduction. It might be where there are a lot of outdoor cats. It might be a more rural place where dogs roam at large instead of going out to get unintentionally pregnant. Things like that where you target and you go in and instead of doing this voucher program, you take resources there and you have a long massive stay event. And so there's grants available for things like that that I'd be very interested in tapping into to the extent that's something that they have an interest in me pursuing. So there are options outside of Vsnip that would work in parallel with it and make it more effective, even if Vsnip stays at DCF as a benefit for low income families. Well,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: A lot of the locals have animal control officers. There's ordinance, local ordinances, leash laws, all kinds of stuff like that. You're kind of smiling already, so I'm a little nervous, I guess. Do you work with them? Do you supersede them? How does that all work?

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: In general, the way it works here, and it's actually pretty common in other places as well, to the extent it's a local ordinance, it's locally enforced. It is not a law enforcement thing. These are not state level crimes. Division of Animal Welfare right now there's a big question. The Division of Animal Welfare has no authority. I'm the only employee in the division and we have no resources. So there's that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But you have you. That's a resource.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: That's a big resource. Well, have administration and finance, which appears to

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: be the heartbeat. Oh my gosh. And Dick is awesome. So, he's a huge help already. Still a good resource. Yes, I do. Just nothing on paper. Animal control and ordinances generally operate outside the sphere of state control, outside the state authority. They deal with dog bites, they deal with whatever their local rules are, and at least in terms of coming up with a plan for animal welfare, I was very focused, based on the specific mandate in 06/26 on how are we going to deal with enforcing state law, not local. I think they work together in many ways and I actually think animal control officers can be wonderful subject matter experts sworn law enforcement officers, but they operate slightly separate. And one of the

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: purposes of her position is to pull together the disparate patchwork of resources to address animal issues of a wide variety and not just make us better at responding to these types of incidents, but also make it easier and more streamlined for people to report and know that their report is going to the right place. Because in every community, there's might be zero resources and you're casting about looking who to report the malnourished baby goats to. Or in some communities, there's a robust animal control system that also has law enforcement local law enforcement there that can assist them. But it's it's just all over the state. It's really patchwork y right now, and that's one of her goals first is to start organizing things.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator White, did you have a question?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yes. I did. I wanted to ask a little bit more in-depth about Basement, but I think we could perhaps talk about it in a different forum as well.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Else have questions? I'm in Ram. We do have an animal control officer. And I was going to ask you earlier, is it overwhelming for you to get all the animal control people calling you and saying, Hey, I got a complaint about this. I had two of them last week. Are you able to sort of handle it right now? Just sort of intaking information knowing there's nothing you could do about what they're complaining about?

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: So, you're right, there's nothing I can do. I can provide advice, I can discuss options with them and maybe connect them with resources that I know about in the state, but for the most part, I can't do anything. I don't think it's overwhelming. It's been a learning experience, certainly. Enough differences between animal welfare is a lot alike no matter where you are, but then the state laws and the way the various municipalities interact with the state level differ quite a bit. Georgia has a very different approach in a lot of ways than up here. In Georgia, about two thirds of the counties have and there's 159 counties, so they take a very different model in terms of local governance. About two thirds of the counties have municipal shelters, that really changes the way you think about things because you have a holding facility locally for a lot of cases, and that just changes the approach to a lot. So learning all of that has taken That's what I spend a lot of my time on, is just learning how things operate up here because they're just different than what I've

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: been doing for eighteen years. And I think it's important to note, Chittenden, that nobody's reporting to her right now. She does not intake information. She has spent the first seven, eight months on learning the landscape, meeting stakeholders, and writing this report that's been through many drafting phases. Okay. We're not at a point where she is the hub for anything yet. Okay. But I think that's where we what we wanna do is figure out, okay. And now in year two, what are we going to be how what improvements can we make given the constraints that we face?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Tanya

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Vyhovsky. Thanks for being here. I'm recognizing that you started in May, and I don't know, May, May, and we're now in January, so it's six or seven months. Does that feel like it's been enough time to get the lay of the land and start making a plan for? And I recognize that legislative report is gonna be delivered next week probably because we told you that's when we wanted it and not necessarily because it was enough time for you to get the comprehensive lay of what I mean.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: I think it gave me sufficient time to get the basic lay of the land, but there's still work that will need to be done to figure out how to get from where we are today to the place we might want to be in the future. That interim work still needs to be done to some extent because I have not been here long enough and I just don't have those ties that are necessary together. I actually think that having a report due at

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: this point is fine. I want guidance.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: I want you all, I want the governor's office, I want the guidance of, okay, here's, I've laid out a menu of options. This is what you all want me to pursue. Okay. And so I think this is- So is a good

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: sort of interim checkpoint to figure out where we go from here.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: Yeah, because I don't want to get too far down any road and then have it not be what will be most helpful. I think I don't want to be in my own head to function. This is helpful to get it out of the world and get feedback. And if we're

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: gonna build a future preferred state, we wanna do it incrementally so that we work out the bugs at each level.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And as she grows in her relationships and knowledge of how it works and the different nuances around the state, then we want we see this as an iterative process and that we can't possibly, build the perfect system in one go. Well,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: we're one man of big deal. We were long overdue in creating

[Michael Desrochers (Director, Division of Fire Safety, Vermont DPS)]: this position.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: My point here looks like we made the right choice. Thank you very much for your-

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I think we're done. And we might be done whether we're done or not, but I think we're done. Oh, the state police. How could I forget? He

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: said he's unavailable today. As

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: you know, the Vermont State Police is broken into three major divisions, the field force division, the criminal division, and the support services division. There's I mean, I could talk a lot about the state police. It's half of our people in the Department of Public Safety. But I will also say it's been a really fantastic year. Things that have been happening have been good. The trends and recruitment are turning the corner slowly but surely. Things feel like they're going in a positive direction. And if you would like more information, I can expound or we could talk again.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Similar to Clarkson.

[Lisa Mylott (Director, Division of Animal Welfare, Vermont DPS)]: So Matt, I know, had quite a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: few vacancies. We still do. How are we doing on that? Are we selling them? Or are we doing on retention?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: We're doing it last. On vacancies. Last year, in 2025, was the first year in five years that we have hired more people than we've lost through attrition or retirement. So we're now in year two and the numbers look good. They're not as we have 14 that just started the January training class. We also graduated 14 out of the June basic training. They are just finishing their post basic. Not June, sorry. It started in August. They finished in Christmas time. They are just finishing their post basic training. So we have 14 that just came out of the academy and 14 going in. So that's 28. The reality is we still have, depending on how you count noses, we still have 45 to 52 vacancies out of the percentages change, and I don't wanna fool you with percentages because last year when I spoke to you, we had 324 positions of trooper positions. We have civilianized 12 of those. So the number of vacancies we have goes down. It makes it sound like we're doing better than we are. But we've taken positions like the head of the technology investigations unit, our technology support, and that used to be somebody who was a police officer and is now a civilian, whole case investigator, used to be a detective, and now it's a civilian who, at the time they get ready to file an affidavit, they enlist the help of a detective. There's 12 physicians that because we have had such a struggle hiring police officers that we have civilianized in the last year and a half to two years. So but yes, we still have a high number of vacancies, but not as many as two years ago and not as many as last

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And we understand that the colonel's retiring, so please pass along our thanks for his service. I don't know if he's headed to a warmer climb or

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: don't think his plans are clear yet. Have until August. Yeah, we have until August. So, we've got time. We've been doing succession planning for the last more than a year. We've already planned. No, we haven't gotten to that yet. But I will definitely get on that. Very much. I will. You already heard about our division of fire safety priorities. We obviously wanna finish what we started in the twenty twenty fifth at the safety omnibus bill. Lots of great progress in our estimation was made last session. We still have some concerns around, some issues in juvenile justice that Chair Lalonde, I believe, is gonna start on the house side for discussion. And I believe we're still gonna, hear some some lessons learned out of the Burlington Accountability Court that might find their way into drafted legislation. And then there are some other components of that bill, of that omnibus bill that were really firmly in the AHS portfolio. So I mean, they're not in my wheelhouse to pursue. You will be seeing a report. There is a legislative preview that was circulated in November 2025 from the Public Communications Task Force. That was a abbreviated sort of executive overview of the work of the task force and some of the recommendations. You will see a much more detailed report within the next two to three weeks. In the last six months, I handed over the co chair of that task force to Dan Batesy, my deputy commissioner, as an intentional move so that as we get to the place of making recommendations, it is conceivable that DPS will not agree with other members of the task force. Right? And so DPS has a co chair position out of seven positions there. So I intentionally took myself out as co chair to go up to the balcony and be able to evaluate the work coming out of the task force from the perspective of, does this work for DPS? Is this in the best interest from my balcony? So Dan will be Dan and Bartoneo will be the ones with more detail on that in the coming weeks. And then, there's a lot of other people's priorities that we're aware of. We've already heard several of them. So we anticipate that we will be called to testify in numerous other committees, but we will handle those as they come. As the governor likes to say, we will call balls and strikes after we evaluate the proposals. And so we think we'll probably gonna be around the state house quite a bit, but we don't come with a whole pile of asks this year other than what we've just discussed.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And we'll all find out together on Tuesday, we'll have the governor's recommends.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I will be on the edge of my seat. Great evening to hear about it. And

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I suppose we continue for another year as a debark. As what?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yes. I think yeah.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes. Happy to chat offline.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Happy to continue that conversation. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Commissioner, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We appreciate it.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Oh, thank you. It's my pleasure to serve. Mean, we seriously have such a great team at DPS. It makes my job easy ish. You

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: ready? That's a so sick of your job. Okay. Let me suggest we move quickly to the next topic so we can maybe take a break between And the middle and your Jen, we're going to have Senator Watts come in as well. I learned at a Chairs meeting with Legislative Council that if you have a sponsor and they could do literally a five minute, here's why I did what I did thing and then put Legislative Council on, it seemed to work better. So you're welcome to sit up there with her if you like.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm fine. So sorry. Have Jen, do I get two walks or something? In one day.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Saint Louis? Folks that don't know this, Jennifer Carvey

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: from Ledge Saint Louis.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And this is Bill S-one 164 that we're talk about relating to health benefits for members of the General Assembly. And Senator Watson had introduced this early in the session,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: you have I'll Christian walk us jump on Becca.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And then I guess Sophie and Tanya will walk us through S-two 29, which has many of the same elements, maybe not the provisions, they're in, but at least a similar topic It

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: fully contains the entirety of 01/1964. Oh. And then some.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So it's a little more expensive. Okay. I

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: did text some girl Watson. Okay. I think she

[Tucker Jones (General Counsel, Vermont DPS)]: was just across the hall having a conversation. Yeah.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I ran into her as I was stepping out and thought that the overview of her not mistakenly seemed like might take longer than seven minutes. I

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: think if we'd started with it, it probably would've.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to walk through the bill if you would like and then you can hear if Sure. It's

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah, that's

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've certainly done it both ways. And are you putting the language up on the screen committee or we have it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: on our desk? I don't think we have it. Is it on our desk? No. Quickly join your Zoom. May I ask? Recycle Yes.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And for the record, I'm Jen Curry from the Office of Legislative Council.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And this is 229.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is +1 64.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thank you, Henry. It's fun to hear on this. It started when John was serving before Jen. I'm a suggestor.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: you didn't serve.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was on preparations. I remember coming in to see. Oh, Very nice to hear. That's what I'm

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Uh-oh.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, we are looking at S164. I'll hear from the sponsor shortly, but this is an act relating to health benefits for members of the general assembly. For those of you who were on this committee a few years ago, this is language that was in S-thirty nine, which also dealt with legislator compensation. This was part of the

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: bill that was vetoed, so

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it did not become law.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Like, you wanna you wanna go out and ask them to buy it, or do

[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center, DPS)]: you want me to? You're a senior.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, yeah. Like, they care.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I remember Senators years used to get Oh, yeah. About noise in the hallways and

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Thank you, Senator Clarkson.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is amending a provision of Title III on group insurance for state employees. So this is where the state employee health insurance provisions live. And this would add legislators in under the definition of employee legal purposes of the state employee's health insurance plan. It cleans up some language, so a lot of what is happening here on this page too is not substantive. Although it is taking out the employees, shall not include members of the general assembly. It does take that out, but it also sort of flips some language around that is currently a little bit harder to read. Under existing law says the term employees shall not include members of the general assembly as such, and any person who's providing services on a retainer or fee basis, members of boards or commissions, or persons other than employees of various entities. So we took that out and instead said employees does include people who work there and members of the general assembly. So the term employees includes members, affirmatively, of the Vermont Historical Society. We skipped the Vermont Film Corporation, which no longer exists. The State Employees Credit Union, State Employees Association, just moving the people from lives 10 through 12, the affirmative down here, the Vermont Council on Arts. And any elected or appointed official who is actively engaged in and devoting substantially full time the conduct of the business of official public office. So that non underlying language is existing law. Then we affirmatively say, also including members of the general assembly, which we talk about in more detail below. Does that answer your question?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Vermont Same Place Credit Union, it's not like East Rise Credit Union.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is certainly their branding. I don't know that under our statutes they still are. Don't It's still the same thing now. I don't know. It's a good question. Don't know if that means updating

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: or not.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: 100%.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, that may be something that could, you know, if you proceed with some version of this, we may wanna reach out, maybe starting with the Department of Financial Regulation, which is a credit union, to understand what optimal purpose.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Thank you. Yeah, that's a good question.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, so then we skip down to where we're adding this new language, and it says, and this is language that is used in this section, so that's why it says specifically for purposes of group hospital surgical medical expense insurance. Any employee, so that's health insurance. Any employee assistance program offered to state employees and any flexible spending account program offered to state employees for healthcare or independent care expenses or both, both of which are offered to state employees. The term employees includes members of the general assembly. Then it makes one conforming change around striking the Vermont Film Corporation as far as who pays what premiums for that group and then adds new language saying members of the General Assembly shall be required to pay the same portion of the premium for their health insurance as is required of employees of the executive branch, which I believe is still eightytwenty. So 20% employee, 80% employer. And the actor take effect in January, so the next plan year, and apply to coverage beginning on and after that date.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Questions for Jess, strictly on what's on the paper? Not your opinion of it or anything therein. Okay. I do have questions, but I'm gonna wait for Senator Loughton.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: And I

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: do wanna flag one thing that came up a couple of years ago, is really an issue that came up more in the House Government Operations Committee, but around whether there is a financial disincentive for if it makes things worse for you all, members of the General Assembly, because of what is available through the exchange with financial assistance. And at that time, were sort of winners and losers depending on what income level and family composition size you were looking at. That was also in the era of the enhanced federal subsidies, which at least currently are no longer in effect. And premiums have gone up significantly. But maybe if you start working on this, it may be worth just asking the office of the healthcare advocate to come back in as they have done enough time and give you some scenarios of what this would look like for a few different types Given of what's happened

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: with the ACA, this becomes even more desirable.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Likely, yes. But I think you'll want to understand. Don't have coverage. Whether it. And partly that's because having the availability of employer sponsored coverage can, which has designated you as employees, make you can make it difficult for anyone to get an exchange plan when I help connect plan with subsidies because you are deemed to have an offer of employer sponsored coverage. So that's sort of why it made sense to look into are there winners and losers and are there people for whom this would foreclose more affordable health coverage. As I said, I agree that today, given the absence of the enhanced subsidies and the significant increases in Vermont premiums, this seems less likely to be the case, but you may just want to get some confirmation. Mary Doskey. Once upon a time, there existed a program through the Vermont Health Connect that would help subsidize employer sponsored plans. And I know this because I used it. Out of college, my plan was deemed, my portion of my premium was Oh, was done on affordable. And so does that still exist? Yes. If your employer sponsored plan exceeds, and I'm not sure what the currently maybe 9.8% of household income, so it's, I think there was some undoing of the fix to the family glitch so that it may still look at the affordability of a single plan, even if you're a family, and your household income. If it is more than, if it is over that threshold of something around 9.8%, then yes, you are eligible to purchase as an individual and receive subsidies for which you are income eligible, even though you have an offer of employer sponsored insurance. Cause it's sort of due to the not a real offer if it's above the threshold they've set.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thanks, Jen. Yeah.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Watson, thank you for coming in and joining us.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes, thank you, thank you for

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: having me. Thank you for taking up this bill.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Can I jump in? Sure. Okay, so,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: goodness, healthcare. So, you may recall that, and maybe Legislative Council mentioned this, but a couple of years ago in 2023, we did have a bill about legislator compensation, etcetera, which was s 39. So Out this committee. Out of this committee. And I'm sure as as she mentioned, this just samples the part of that bill that had to do with making legislators eligible for the health insurance as with other state employees. And I know that there's probably a lot of issues around health care that are related to this bill, but I think that the reason to do this bill is actually for democracy. And this is because when I was going on the campaign trail a couple times, a couple iterations ago, I I heard from people on

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: the campaign trail, I would love to run

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: Mhmm. But I cannot because I can't afford to lose my health care. It is genuinely a barrier for people to run. And in addition, it is also a factor that I know people are considering who are already here as they consider whether or not they can continue to serve and they can continue to run. In fact, just after I introduced this, or had this introduced in general, I received an email, and with your permission, I would love to read this email that I received from a house rep from Representative Krasnow. And so I'm sharing

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: it with This is a subject Dear, dear.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: Yes. I'm so sharing it with permission. But she

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: said, dear Senator Watson, I'm a bit of

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: a nerd and make a

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: point of reading every bill introduced to bill chambers.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: When I came across your health insurance bill for the General Assembly,

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I was generally moved nearly six years with gratitude. As a younger, unmarried legislator, I currently rely on Medicaid. The cost of health

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: insurance otherwise would effectively make it more expensive

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: for me to work than not creating a difficult benefits cliff when we are not in session. Truthfully, without a solution like the one you proposed, I may not be able to continue serving due to health coverage constraints. I've spoken to several legislative colleagues, as well as pro tem, during our drive to a conference last year about my situation. It would be a true game changer for people like me, making it possible to serve and remain in the legislature without risking access to healthcare. Thank you for your comfort, your courage, and loveable.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Problem. Yeah. This

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: would be helpful for, I think, it would be very meaningful, I think, for quite a few members of both the House and the Senate. And I would also offer that, at least in the conversations that I've had with people in the public, I it it's as far as those conversations went, it felt like it had some bipartisan purchase, which was interesting to me, you know, especially, I guess I would say there's a lot of surprise that people had when it became clear that as legislators, do not receive healthcare as a part of our benefits. I think people don't know that. And I think it's We tell a lot more after S 39. Yeah, I think it's something that people assume that we do have, and we don't.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: So thank you again for taking this up.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Question. Senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you, chair Collamore. Okay. Have two questions. The first is when we did s 39, we

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: got a

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: big fiscal note. We got a ton of information because at least what I heard from constituents as the main face of s 39 at certain points was a lot of support for the health care piece. But then that was the biggest ticket item of the things that we were asking for. So it felt a little bit I'm wondering if you have any information on what the fiscal note might be for this or if you requested one or if maybe we can request one because the numbers unfortunately in s 39, it was the most expensive part of the bill, which the cost seemed to be what made people most annoyed about it. Wasn't that we should or shouldn't get health insurance, but the cost of it at that time.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: So that's a great question.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I did not request a fiscal note on this,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: but I do, I mean, as a former member of this committee, I recall

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: that fiscal note and so I'm

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: remembering what you're Yeah, referring I'll look

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: up S 39 to see if I can get an exact number

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: or whatever it was generally. You know, I think as I was considering asking for this, I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Sponsor, S.164)]: was making the assumption that the values would be

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: similar, and that may not be true given Yeah. Today's environment. But I I'm not sure.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: And then my other question was and it it's come up a few times with the senator to my left, her bill with the commission and potentially creating like a different structure of how we decide these benefits. I'm wondering, do you think that the spirit of your bill would be fulfilled if we had a separate process for setting those types of benefits in salary? Do Or you think this is something that we should do? Like, do you see some cohesion with those two concepts and support for potentially going in that direction?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I would say at this point, I'm very open handed about how that gets decided. Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Are you guys with questions? And we're gonna go over Senator Vyhovsky's bill now, which from what I understand mirrors yours, but expands on.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: It includes everything in your bill. Amazing.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: With that in mind, let's take a ten minute break and the other legislative council person will hopefully join us at that point and we can walk through what is S-two 29.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So that's a different journey.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. It's Sophie Sedat. It's Sophie.