Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Good afternoon. This is Senate Institutions and today is still Wednesday, 02/18/2026. And we have Department of Corrections updates. We have the Interim Commissioner with us, chief of operations, deputy director of professional standards and recruitment and retention coordinator. And let us introduce

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: ourselves to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: you because I don't know everybody yet and then you can introduce yourselves when you're ready to present. So, I'm Mike Harrison. I'm senator from the Windham District.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair, Bennington District)]: And Robert Plunkett, Bennington District.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: Joe Major, Windsor District. Russ Ingalls, Essex District. John Benson, Orange District.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So thank you for being here.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is John Murad. I am the Interim Commissioner for the Vermont Department of Corrections. And thank you as well. Good afternoon.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: My name is Travis Denton. I am the chief of operations for the Vermont Department Corrections. That's great.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: And are you new in that?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: I am new in that, because it's not in the department. I'm old to the department. Okay. Started in '97 and wore the uniform for about fifteen years and did all manner of different jobs along the way, but I've been in this role since November.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Okay.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: So I feel very new in this role, so hopefully you'll create me on the curve.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: Of course. We tricked him into taking it, and we are incredibly lucky that he did, and just a real wealth of knowledge, and an innovative and outside the box thinker, so I'm really grateful for the fact that Chief Denton took this role.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Thank you. Thank you So as I think I'm leading off if we're ready to

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: look at the beginning of the slides.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yep, and they're up there.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Okay, so let me make sure I'm in the same spot. So as you can see, a lot of this is self evident. This is just, you know, departments made up of people, these are our people, and we've broken down over a couple different glances. One that I particularly am drawn to is our staff age demographics, and, you know, we have a very diverse from a generational aspect team, right? And we can leverage those differences, I think, that multigenerational team. But we also have broken down by race and by gender as well.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So before you go forward, please, I just can't read it from here, so I want to get it on my

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: laptop. One thing I would note too is that this dashboard is publicly available on our website, so we can also send you the link so you can add it up too. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah, now I can find it. It just will take me a minute.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: So, this is the PowerPoint here, this is actually the website?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: No, it's PowerPoint. This is the PowerPoint.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: That's screenshot, though.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah, it's just like, there's a lot of stuff in the, down the right bottom.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: I mean, I could read

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: through that for you if

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: that would be helpful. Sure. Yeah, so, this is for all work locations. A vast majority of DOC staff do identify as white. For facility and field locations, the majority of DOC staff are male. For Central Office and other, just over half of the staff

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: are

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: female. For Central Office and other locations, almost half of DOC staff are part of the Gen X generation, with the remaining half being largely made up of the Millennium generation. Crowd Gen X are here. Okay. Held by my squinting eyes. For field locations, almost half the DOC staff are part of the millennial generation, followed by a majority of Gen X. And similarly, for facility locations, the majority of staff are millennials, followed by Gen X and Gen Z generations.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: All right, so and how is that versus the folks who are incarcerated? Are the demographics similar?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: That's a great question. Not one that I have my fingertip on that data for, but I'm sure we could get that.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: We do have that data available. It's also usually publicly available on our website. We're having some issues right now, but we can certainly do a comparison if that would be helpful.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: I just, I mean, I would think that would be helpful for you to know that. And I do have it now, so

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: I'm good.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Okay, great. Good, because I was squinting my eyes. Ready to move forward? No, still. Okay, good. So again, great slides, thanks Haley. These are self evident as well. What this paints a picture of is our vacancy trade over the last, around six years. So you'll see the high point there. That is the kind of the peak of COVID running into the post COVID endemic operations that kind of if to gear back up to corrections, if you will, for a period of time there. Department of Corrections and Correctional Officers really became the Department of COVID Management and we were junior epidemiologists. There was a wealth of staff who had been in our department for brand new for two years and maybe had never even done a normal supervising or recreation period, you know, because of the way operations were then. That represents the peak of our staffing woes. But one thing that we've noted before in other instances over the years is what COVID did and what that trend did is make us acute of a bit of a boiling of the frog that was happening. Actual staffing crisis was really starting before even 2019, I want to say it was 2015, when we were really, we just didn't feel it because you kind of make small adjustments as you go and you don't always see, you don't feel from a statewide, maybe in your site you're doing better than the other site. The huge pressures of COVID, the amount of people that left, the reduced operations, handled those vacancies, the reopening of operations, were like, Oh, that, ouch. And we've been kind of responding to that. You'll hear more later from our folks at OPSC about the efforts of improvement and retention to turn that train around, which as of this, I think this is a patch back record as of December, stat wide 12.2, that's, you know, kind of striking distance to the old headache, which was a good headache as it turns out, but by far better than where we were.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: And what's your goal?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Zero, of course. Can we get better than zero? I don't know. I think our goal would be fully staffed facilities where mandatory overtime was sought instead of, and not a painful, it's hard to put that in a number, it's a different number Staff in every who are well rested and want to show up for work and do the job, and that is, you know, everything that we do runs on our staff, so everything we can do to make it a well run facility really relies on those places being staffed and supporting those folks.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: That's a good definition.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: More staff equals more programming, and it equals the ability to move people within the facilities more easily, so that you can take them from one place where they're, say, in their cell block, in their actual cells, to locations like classrooms or to the library. It allows them, the people who are in our custody, to be able to be a little bit more free within the custody as well. So it really is something that we look for.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: The only thing I would add to, not to belabor the point too much, but from a staff wellness and from a retention standpoint, the better staff we are. When I joined the state many years ago, it was like my dad, but it was like, you got good benefits, you're going to get some days off. We, the better we are with staffing, the more we can continue to be that employer of preference and really support our staff to have a good work life balance. This next vacancy trend focused on the uniform staff, facility staff rather, which is primarily uniform staff. The reason why we pulled that out from all of the rest of the data is, just to be frank, the facilities are where the vacancy in a facility is a different beast, if you will. If you have a vacancy at a probation pool office or you go to a central office, first, there's not usually that many of them. Second, you have plenty of applicants and they're sought after. And third, those are not really typically the 20 fourseven parts of our operation. A facility vacancy is a pillar style vacancy. And many of those posts, we just can't go without. So when it's a 20 fourseven post that has, there's a vacancy, there's a different pain point and a different, I think, severity and importance put on those vacancies. And we wanted to be transparent and be able to show that these are the, this is the tough work. It's honorable work, it is, but it is tough work. And so for the folks that are doing that, they are feeling a greater, if they see 12%, currently we're at 15.5 of those rates, which is still, you might see from the trend line there, we were as high as thirty percent vacancies during the in in this area at the height of COVID. So again, not as low as we were for the old pre COVID problem that we didn't know was a problem, but we're on our way. That's not to say that

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: we don't have work to do. Our facility at Northern, for example, is almost where we were, where the entire department was at its worst. Northern is close to that right now. So this is an aggregate picture. We have specific facilities that are doing better, and some of them are unfortunately not doing as well. Yes.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: You've just answered this a little bit, because you mentioned that this is 15, in the facilities, 15 for everybody, but you mentioned uniform. So what are the different sort of positions that they can give you a quick rundown there at all? Like a difference in percentage. I think we just heard a little bit of that. Very small percentage within the facilities of non uniform staff. They would represent folks like caseworkers, staff, their facility management team, the superintendents and superintendent. Other support people like volunteer service coordinators or recreation coordinators. And those numbers of those staff are pretty much the same. If you're in a small facility like Marble Valley, you're going to have about the same number of admin, about the same number as the management team. Or Northern, maybe a few extras of those, but very close. The number of uniform staffers based on the facility layout, what it takes to have a 20 fourseven operation that has this many units designed in this many areas, how many different floats, how many different shifts, and then, of course, the lead replacement in order to, you know, to and and those are for the way it was built. What we also now have, which is underneath this vacancy problem, is a new world and new pressures on corrections when it comes to things like our population is sicker than they've ever been. We have more hospital ER trips, more hospitalizations, more in trying to improve the healthcare that we have. That means more doctor's appointments. We have a sicker population that comes to us right in the door. First day, first hour, it's maybe the first time they've talked to a medical person in years and they're getting some of their chronic illnesses or substance use issues dealt with for the first time. So whenever we send out an ambulance, for example, that's the same amount of staffing as it takes to open a unit for that day. Sometimes two units for that day. We have to put two people on that. These buildings and these staffing allocations were never kind of built for that. That wasn't how it was back then. It's how it is now. And it kind of emerged during COVID. I don't have a great reason why COVID was the big change, but that's when really started to notice this uptick. For that number, do you have a breakdown by a physician and also by a facility? Not with me, I mean certainly we do that. We have allocations for each facility by facility and by rank. We have CO1 rank, CO2 rank, shift supervisor rank, our uniform staff, and of course there's what we call the SOS or our part, it's the Chief of Security locally, which is a security operations supervisor that is a kind of a it's an administrative position, but it's the highest ranked uniform staff in our facility. You mentioned their ranks in CO1, higher or lower than C o one would it would be your your initial rank, and then c o two would would be maybe similar to a lieutenant or a sergeant or sergeant. And then the strict supervisor would be, like, a would definitely be, like, a lieutenant. No. And then the SOS would be, like, a captain. We don't have that breakdown here. I don't have that within by rank, but it certainly wouldn't be a huge lift for us to get that back to this committee, I think.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Okay, yes, please. Okay.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Moving on to this moment, there any other questions? Great. All right, more graphs. This one also, pretty self explanatory. Turnover, it happens. This job is our job. We don't hide It takes it is rewarding. It's been a great job for me in my life, and I know many people who feel the same way. It's not for everybody, but what we'd like to see is this that this trend is going in, while small, is going in the right area here in 2025. Again, you see a spike in 2022, and you see it kind of as high as it is now, it came even a little higher in the years before COVID. So it was again, we were less aware of like the staffing problem then, and our approach was completely different. Again, something you're going to hear about from our friends at OPSC because we've really formalized our recruitment and retention efforts, professionalized it. Had we had those type of efforts back in like say 2015, those were because it's really a factoid little story for me, I started in 1997. There was no wellness. There was no peer support. I had to go back to my shift with, you know, blood on my sleeve and OC spray dried on the side of my face. You know, it a different era, and it's a better era. I'm sorry.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: What sprayed on the side?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Oh, pepper spray. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know, and I'm not saying that was every day, but those are what, I, there's, it's a tough job. And there's situational slow drip trauma just like any of these tough jobs. And other than, you know, if you had, if you're lucky enough to have a good mentor that you met along the way, kind of that person that took you under the wing, that was about all the help you got when I started. So what we do now as a profession is leaps and bounds above what we used to do. And it really is in service to keeping these turnover numbers down.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So do you have a sense of what happened in 2024? Because there's that was a jump on the other slide too.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: That's a that's a

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: big year. I can tell you I'm so busy. I have a hard time remembering what I did yesterday. So I will tell you anecdotally, you know, that was another that was a challenging year. These these trends are never a straight line. Mhmm. There's fits and starts to all of the different staffing problems as we try to work our way through it and implement different, whether it was implementation of different SOPs to relieve staffing through scheduling or the or if there was positive attrition by we had to create what we think was a real fix to many of problems in our system with our centralized operations division, but that did pull from initially from the facilities, so that may have been a kind of a slight kind of dip in our, in some of that turnover.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So do you do exit interviews?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: We do offer exit interviews, of course, they're not mandatory. We do try to chase them down, offer them, and inquire about those. And again, I think that's something that Tanya and Irshad could talk about more in length when they're here. Great. This is an interesting slide, and you'll find me nestled in there in the 159 category of twenty years up, but I'm in the first one. As it turns out, we're close in age, so, you know, this is indicative of the people and what they look like as much as their time in this profession. I think what this is evidence of is again, what we're really good at is recruitment. We've gotten awesome at it. And again, through the efforts of strategic efforts of forming these facility staff experienced supervisors and having the opposite professional standards and Compliance really spearhead some of our approaches to this, we're bringing in a lot of people and then we're doing our best to keep them, right? And that's the thing, is can we keep you past, you know, past the academy three months? Can we keep you three months to five months? Can we get you into that twelve month and up category? The longer we get people, the more they start everybody's got a different sweet spot of when this job is right for you, right? I had money at home. I was a single dad, I was, you know, like I had my own motivators to get me to go and show up when it was hard and drive through the snow and all that. People have different motivators, but by the time you get to that first year, you've got them three raises just through time, and then the other thing that we're seeing in this less than five year category that was just never happened when I was an officer, you can raise that CO2, that next rank, in eighteen months, and that happens. You can make that shift supervisor in two years, and that happens. I was I was competing I was from an era where if you retired as a CO two or a shift supervisor, that was a career well spent. Like, you were lucky to get off a third shift, you know, after seven years or get a weekend weekend, like every weekend off was a tough that was that was the promise. That we had so much more opportunity for advancement and growth for newer staff than we ever did before. And I I think that's a part of that less than five year number kind of staying in there. And I also think the dip out of those other numbers in COVID, lost a bit, right? We lost a lot of really good staff, talented staff, who had been doing real, you know, corrections. And they're at that five to ten year mark. And it was just, it was a hard time to be a correctional officer. And they just said, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not so close to retirement that I want to stick it out through this. And I'm not so far up in the pay scale that I can't maybe replace this job. With COVID and those operations getting back to normal, it's just going to take time to live with this again. I think we're working on this. I think that's it for me. And so, happy to give up my seat for what he's got to be like, yeah.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: We had a recent academy graduation on Friday, so we are moving through with new recruits at All Stimulus, and one of the things that I said to them at that point was the fact that there are a lot of people that can do this work, right? You have to be a special kind of person. You have to be courageous, and you have to be compassionate, and you have to be careful. And it is we're really lucky to get the folks that we do. Our challenge right now is maintaining them and keeping them. We want that, you know, half of our people have more than five years. We would really love it if it were, if that ratio were a little bit different. So we are doing what we can, and I think that we'll learn a lot about the successes that we've had with the recruitment part. Okay. Cool.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: All right, so if y'all just say your name and your condition before you get your That's my big station. I'm Tom McBarber, I'm the Deputy Director of our Office of Professional Standards and Compliance and I oversee the recruitment of the retention team, includes peer support and also our Community College of Vermont Collaborate Collaborate Collaborate Collaborate Collaborate.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, as a coordinator and a supervisor, manage the team and help, you know, in background investigations, get these folks to the facilities, you know, looking to hire.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Proceed to Danny's. So, just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of background about what we do. We have myself, Steve, who is our interim supervisor. He has three coordinators who work for him, recruitment and retention coordinators. We have one peer support coordinator and we currently have one CCD liaison who helps staff with their community college connection, that's what I've written down. So, what we do is we support our facilities, our field, and our central office staff as far as recruitment goes, and retention. We help facilitate the postings of our jobs, keep up with what that is. V and D, where we post jobs, Indeed, Handshake, we have a collaborative relationship with partner labor, their job links. We also have a partnership with Prime, which is the National Guard. We also use targeted publications when we have a specific position that might be, currently we're now looking for a, I forgot the name of it.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Executive Director of Policy and Strategic Conditions.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Which is not something that, you know, it's a unique position, so we kind of go outside. We have posted on places like the National Institution of Corrections or the Associate Women's Executive Corrections, all over nationwide, so we can kind of get that nationwide to bring in some applicants other than just a regular Indeed. So, we're able to still contact us and say, Hey, we've got this position we want post, and we'll do kind of leg work on where to get that done and help them sort date that.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: That position was Isaac Daniels role.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Okay. I'm sure if anybody knew that.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: We do need it. Yes. Hailey is filling in it right now and it's awesome at that. Great job. Definitely, Isaac was great.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: I to, I was referred to it as Isaac's position, trying get another habit, but a lot of things.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So, mentioned the CCV. Yes. So, it grant, is something ending?

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Yes, and we'll get to that, but we do have, had a three year grant with CCV which provided free community college classes to our staff and their dependent family members, which has been a phenomenal tool for us as far as recruitment and retention because it provides staff with two classes a semester, free, includes everything, and they get the support from our collaborative staff that we have, and a lot of folks, lot of staff would take advantage of that and their family members, their dependents. But the grant is ending, unfortunately, for staff, and so that's something that we're working on messaging because it ends in August. Are you advocating for

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: it to continue? Oh, we've been advocating.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, we have been working with CCB as well, because it's a great collaboration. They actually, they also do some teaching and instructing at our academy during the cadets go through a six week academy and CCB has partnered with us, which when they leave that academy, they get six college credits. That will remain in place, that's not part of the grant, but that relationship is gonna continue, which is great, because it's also a recruitment tool, say, hey, you're gonna get five credits once you

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: leave that six week academy. President Juby and Senator Sanders really invested in this program. Yes. And so we're incredibly grateful for their partnership. But I do think that it is right now, it seems as if there is more potential for new grants based on our incarcerated population than for our staff. And I I I wish that weren't so, but I think it's it's a little bit easier to say, hey. Let's do this very important and good thing for incarcerated people than it is to get momentum to say, let's do some great things also for those who have custody and care and watch over those incarcerated people. I'm hopeful that we can find new options for that. I know that that president Judy's team is looking into that. I believe the senator's team is as well, but that's currently where we stand. I think we're confident that the ability to continue the program inside the facilities will be, we'll find a way to do that, or our partners will find a way to do that. How do we maintain that for our staff? Right, right, and we were,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: a few of us were in Southern about a year ago, think, and we heard about that program and I had the impression that it

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: was

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: staff and incarcerated people.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Yes, it is.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Because that seems like the best.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: They're not together, they don't take the classes together.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Oh, we'll

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: see. So what this allows is staff members and their dependents to take CCB classes wherever they're offered, whether that's online or whether that's in facilities, but they take their classes in the outside world as it were, And the people in our custody take classes with instructors who come into the facilities or electronically in the facilities, but mostly in person and do Okay, that

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: thank you. So, has been a great benefit to staff and it's been a really great recruiting tool when we're out there looking if it's something we can say, hey, look, we've got this. So, we're working on messaging that and how we can offer some alternative options to that benefit.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair, Bennington District)]: Just thanks because I let's talk to the commissioner Elizabeth. I'm working with Bennington College to possibly do something with them. They do something with New York. So, we may be able to spend the incarcerated, maybe expand it to a local alcohol launch and be observing that.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: That'd be wonderful. We do have a partnership with Springfield College that offers a certain amount per staff member, and so we're also trying to promote that as well just because we don't want staff to feel like they're losing that CCB benefit. So we're working with our partner CCB, the financial aid folks, how can we, even though you might be in a degree program, it's going away, cost is now gonna be on you, so we're trying to message this and provide some other options for staff because we know that that is a real benefit to retaining staff. So each facility has a facility staff experienced supervisor and that person is tasked with specifically handling their hiring and managing those cadets in the first interviews, things like that, when they first came in the door. This has been established.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: They've been here for a few years now, but officially it's been roughly two years.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: And so that has really helped us because that gives each facility a point person that my team can collaborate with directly and say, what do you need, what can we do for you? We go to facilities, we support them with their recruiting efforts. And that gives someone in each facility, that's our main job, is to focus on recruitment, retention, dealing with those first, that first six months when that person is hired. We know we've got to maintain them for six months and that gives that one person that can really help to make that connection and hey, something going on, what can I help you with kind of thing?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: So that's been really helpful.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: That includes social media presence as well. The FCS, for example, at Northwest, our facility in Swanton, does a really terrific job. Many of them do. I don't even I'm just singling him out at this moment. But there's a really terrific job of of posting photographs and and for example, you know, a photograph of the recruits who were specific to Northwest graduated on Friday and social media posts about that, social media posts about good work that's done within the facilities, volunteer efforts, etcetera. So these roles are not only important for the recruiting, they're important for the retention in creating an internal narrative of solidarity and a sense that the department cares about good deeds and good work, but also an external narrative for the sense of saying, hey, our people, don't just sit and guard, there's other things that they do.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Okay, thank you. So that kind of touched on the social media piece, that, you know, we have tried to change with the new generation that we are hiring in social media, things like YouTube, things like that, we're trying to get into those things to help with recruiting. It also helps nationwide because obviously you've got folks all over on social media, so it does limit us to local advertising or recruiting. We've also been connected with a lot of local schools and tech centers to delivering some of our education to them. We've even been to the Linden Institute. We've done some of our ACT instruction, modified version to staff there, which they really appreciated. There's been some talk about following up with students. So, we're really, in the community level, is trying to get corrections out there to establish those relationships, entice younger folks for employment if it's something that they're looking for to get our name out there. So, we do collaborate with one of our local tech centers and schools, which has been great. Let's see. Our vision and mission is promoted through our college and university partnerships. The career paths present internship opportunities and recruiting staff. We do have quite a few interns from Norwich to UBM. We get a variety of kinds of flows, but that is definitely something that we encourage folks, and we do have a connection with colleges too. We can add any number of interns at any time, from our central office to our sites, whichever their interest is.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Could you have, just one second, medical interns? Just because I know.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Medical does have internships through Vermont State University, typically for like, JNN, I used to ask volunteer service coordinator past, we would have a lot of medical students that were there, and they would do almost like They didn't really consider it internship. It was almost like a little bit of a reassignment, and then go work out of there and get a feel for medical profession in the correctional facility. Then go through all the same contractor volunteer training to make sure that they're security trained and emergency awareness and things like that. I don't know if it's everywhere that does that. I think it's typically for areas that have colleges and schools that specialize in the medical profession, so like you'd be at Boston University and things like that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Thank you. Senator?

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: Do we know the success rate from intern to staff?

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: I don't have that data, I'm sure.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Great question. Mean, anecdotally, I can tell you that I'd be surprised if in this room we didn't have so many, but I've worked with folks in every office, the PNP offices especially. I have a great connection with the colleges and with their local law enforcement and their local PDs. And a lot of those criminal justice or social work interns will gravitate towards those areas. And so, you know, I can or at the top of my head, the current manager of Middlebury PMP started as an intern. And then she became an intern supervisor of an intern. So we've got generational interns that turn into correctional officers or into other correction staff. It does happen.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: The criminal justice programs in a lot of the schools, I was in the Berry office, had Norwich because they had criminal justice program, and so we do get a lot of interest in the criminal justice programs for insurance. It's good.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Great.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Well, let's see, our career fairs and community events, this is something that we try to, of course we have six facilities around the state, and we really try to be a presence out in the community to any school, college that is running a career fair. We have a connection with Steve, has a connection with, and he'll say, hey, we've got one coming up. We'll run a table. We let the local facilities know if they want to set up a table for their facility. Well, we'll be a way to run the table so we can, we may not get a lot of applicants out of that, but it's our name out there, it's our face out there. We have peer support come, we have our college folks come and stand with us just to say, we offer a lot, it's not just a correctional career, but look at everything else that we do offer. There is so much opportunity and there's so much more, it's unique to get that message out, so that's what my team worked really hard to do. In fact, a lot of Franklin Foods, you may have heard recently in the news, and Eisenberg is closing down, so that's one of the things where we will look at that community partner and say, hey, and he just spoke to that today, I think, and say, hey, what can we do for you? You know, we have this opportunity, we can set

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: up a career fair,

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: you know, what does your human resources look like? We know you're gonna be like awesome folks. We were in New York a year or two ago when they had a correctional facility closed. Say, hey, what can we do for you? Are there local facilities that people might wanna travel to? So, we're definitely trying to make that connection and keep our eye on what's going on around us so we can help our current residents if they're looking for work

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and to, like folks have.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: We do

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: have a number of staff come from New York Corrections to Vermont during that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: From New York?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: From New York, yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah. And then New Hampshire has a lot of jails, actually. Pretty big jails.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Yep. And we've received some of their staff conversely for whatever the reason is. They relocated and have family here, So, we've done a lot of communicating, more so in the Grafton County area, kind of close to St. John's there and stuff like that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We've

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: also had some conversations about across the board with Canada, if not with a little bit of different, you know, working through that program is a little bit different to try to get those folks working over here, but that's definitely something we're exploring, just sort of heading back to Florida, just because, you know, now that we've got 5,000 people a year moving to Vermont that's looking for work, we're really trying to utilize what we have here and what

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we can to get to work with folks.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: We do a lot, again, the community thing is huge for us. We try to partner a lot. Have you ever heard of trunk or treats? A lot of communities have hot opener trunk. They'll have Halloween, we'll open a trunk and display Vermont Department of Fractions and hand out candy and get our name out there. Do it a

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: lot in

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: communities, anytime there's one, we'll be like, hey, let's get a team out there and hand out candy to the kids, and it gets us some more exposure. Yeah, that's, again, public image. The local Department of Labor is huge. We've even done, I think Steve has done boots on the ground up at Newport, walking door to door, meeting with their Department of Labor, handing out flyers, what can we do, how can we collaborate, trying to fill some of those vacancies just to make sure that people know we're there. And again, we have a contract with WCIS. You may have seen our corrections minutes before, so we also use that as well. For the development opportunities, we also work with our academy as far as training goals, working on professional development series including our core strengths, excellence in supervision, emotional intelligence, performance management, interviews, and evaluation training. This is all working towards retention and working towards growth, development, and improving our staff and giving them something to look forward to. There's lot of opportunity in our department, and so the more we can develop staff and also benefits our incarcerated, the more trained and developed staff that we have, I think the better it is for our incarcerated. So, we have a lot of opportunity within our Office of Professional Standards and Compliance, which includes our training component, and we've worked to develop these programs, which is a lot of interest in some staff. Again, we have our post secondary education, the CCB grants, which we've talked about already. We have the Springfield College, which I mentioned. We also have a mentorship program in place now where you can call me off and say, hey, I'm looking for a mentor and I match with the right person, what they're looking for, give them a support person, someone they talk to, work through things with, and really help with that professional growth as well. That's been a very popular program. That's really grown. We started out with just women, actually. Just a women's mentorship program. Corrections is a tough place for women, and so we started out with women and we just expanded it because we found so much interest in it. Not only does it help the staff, the mentees, but it also is an opportunity for girls to mentor as well. So, I've had a lot of interest from both sides. We have a women's leadership initiative that we've established, which is a group of women leaders that we brought together, and we've been through some trainings, we're now working on bringing on the next level of women leaders and providing support, mentorship, coaching, which has been really well received and a lot of department staff. It is also a great retention and recruitment tool. So, just providing that support for women. It is a tough career and there are not a lot of women, especially in facilities. So, this has been a great opportunity for us to help support women. Training development programs, subject matter experts into all training topics. I don't know if you wanna don't Not that I don't.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: That's just really just getting all the interested people, current people recertifying trainers and instructors for all the core competencies to thousand things that are just wellness things like traumatic stress management and things like that, making sure that people who have the lived experience in the facilities, who are senior staff members, people, the mentors, people, younger staff, the generation staff can look up to, are the ones kind of leading the trainings and continuing that knowledge transfer from each, you know, off to generation to the next.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: There's lot of our team that are trainers, that they've all been through the training. So, you'll see the recruitment or retention coordinators at the academy presenting a training or going to facilities. We're not just recruitment coordinators, we're actually part of the training process too. So, that helps too. Oh, they're just recruiting, but they're also part of that team. And they also do a lot of overtime in the facilities too, just keeps them connected.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: And the whole team came from the facilities. Yeah. So all of us. One person on

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: the team I even hired at

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: the facility I was at when I was a supervisor, so it just kind of that, it's an hour transfer. Promoting the profession and being those leaders and those mentors, even unofficially, knowing that these new staff members need a little bit more support coming into hectic and chaotic environment, and being that stability for them to say, Well, maybe I want to keep doing this, or maybe I don't want to keep doing this, but at least I had a fair chance at

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: I would just support what these guys are saying about that trainer opportunity, because historically, that's been the thing that I think in those early stages of your career when the promotions aren't there, but you still have that energy and you want to keep building your career, and maybe you don't have the background, the resume, you can build that resume within your job and becoming a trainer that goes and helps at the academy was such a great first step to identify emerging leaders, to develop as an emerging leader, to get outside of the block, to get outside of your normal role. It was always a good recharge. It's been historically, I think one of the strongest retention tools of really good quality staff in those first couple of years, because you maybe didn't have the time yet to get that to qualify for that next rank. But you sure as heck could be a really good trainer and go help out the academy, and that's what kind of set you on your course. It sets many of us, myself included, on our course, starting off as those trainers of these core competencies.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: It definitely helps with the retained staff, it helps with the self esteem and the confidence and the oh, I'm a go, I'm a get called for this if I can try that. And it keeps up their learning, their work constantly learning. Measuring retention, we talked a little bit earlier about exit surveys. We do do exit surveys. Anyone who gives their notice, they're immediately sent a notice and request to do an exit interview. Again, it's not mandatory. We can't make them, so it really relies on their responding to us, then they have an option whether they want to talk to HR or whether they want to talk to someone on my team, male, female, they have their option who they want to talk to to get their feedback so we can take that information back.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Do you get that many of them?

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: It depends. I think depending on why they left, some are, you know, I don't know, I don't think we have these data on how many compared to how many leave and how many opts into

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: I'm not if they

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: might have it, but I'm not sure.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, it's somewhere on the dashboard, but it's definitely not as the number isn't as high as the number We

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: would like to see more.

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: Right. And and that's and I think that's just they if they left for whatever reason that they left, then they're leaving so they're leaving behind them, And it's not something that they want to revisit or really have any interest in continuing to follow through.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: So we get some, you know, and just that's how we learn and grow is by So hearing we really try to encourage and if we see that someone was leaving and they didn't get that, then we are like, hey, you need to make sure that they get the exit interview because they need an option, an opportunity to respond if they want to so we can take that information of our child.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: It's confidential, right?

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Yes. And people who

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: have followed through with it were, you know, they said that they were skeptical and they were happy that they went through with it.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Okay. So, Public Wellness, again, we talked a little bit about our peer support team. I have the peer support coordinator who works for our division. She foresees peer support members, which are actual staff around the state. They have full time jobs, they're also a member of the peer support team. They respond to, there's an incident, whether it's assault, staff assault, or death, whether it be incarcerated or a staff, or any type of incident that someone might say, might want to get your support here because we could really use the support. They are overseen by a clinician who trains them in specific training, so they do have that support and we also have that clinician available or staff to do it. And that's been really well received. They, excuse me, they do a little piece at the academy for the cadets to introduce the program. The members are so dedicated and they're so into supporting their staff that each facility has members and they're always doing something in support of staff. We just had a hot cocoa bar set up by the members and it's all on their own. They put a car in this team, but like I said, they have full time jobs. So, this is just sort of a side gig that they do in support of their fellow staff. That's really been well received and helpful to staff. Again, we have the clinician. We do wellness challenges that's managed by OPFC. We try to get staff talking about health and wellness because again, healthy staff means we're helping the incarcerated and better for our system. We have a family support group that is run by families. We just kinda like, if they need anything from us, because we try to stay out of it, but it consists of members of our employees' families that help support each other. They have a Q and A with DOC leadership. At each graduation, they set up some time aside if family or cadets have questions they want to talk to leadership about is where everyone is there, Travis and the commissioner, they have an opportunity there to ask questions if they want to, so that's been helpful. We have a reward and recognition committee that each year they put on a big lunch and they recognize staff or anything from a heroic event, we've had people pull over on the side of the road and help save, you know, change a tire or things like that, and we do recognize staff or those kinds of things, whichever it may be. So we have recognition of that, we have recognition of twenty years, thirty years of service. Anything that falls under that team, they certainly recognize that because that's also another part of retention. We appreciate our staff for what they do. Wellness related trainings, trauma stress management, suicide prevention, CPR, all those things that we offer staff to, again, help with their retention family know that this is a tough job and providing the support to that wellness of staff is gonna be a benefit to not only us and their coworkers, but also the incarcerated. Implementing wellness specialists. This is something that I've been working on for about two years now, building a program for having a wellness specialist that has a complicated nut. That would be able to go into facilities, go into field staff, and just provide that emotional support of a K9. So, we've built that program and we're just waiting on next steps to hopefully implement that one day because we feel like that would be for staff, not be incarcerated. We want to make sure the staff aren't feeling like the incarcerated might be getting something that they're not or having the opportunity to, this is for staff. So, we've created that program and as we said, we're just waiting on next steps to decide that because it is a position and the canine is, you you've got to get the dog in the train and then all those things that go with that. So, that's something we're really excited about, hoping that we can join our team in the future. And then we have a Staff Wellness Committee, which is, it started out to be Commissioners' Wellness under Doctor. Demos. That committee is still working and active, and again, it's a separate place where staff can go and they can do things for staff. They were working on wellness rooms and facilities for staff, a chill out chair, things like that. So, they're run by a team of staff members. Nice. Anything else, Dennis? Any questions?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Looks like we're good. Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thanks for your work. Yeah. Alright.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: After the record, my name is Haley Summer. I'm the director of communications for DOC. I'm here to speak very, very high level about our health services contract. So I don't know the extent of information that you're hoping to hear, but hopefully I can answer most of your questions and then whatever I don't have available to me right now, we can certainly follow-up on. So we're going to start with some population statistics just on the health of our population so that you have an idea as to the folks that we're providing care to. Around ninety five percent of the population is receiving medication. The average number of medications per individual is around five, so quite a high number. And forty two percent of our population is receiving psychotropic medications, with fifty six percent of our population receiving medication for opioid use disorder. In terms of the health trends, seventy seven percent of our population is diagnosed with a chronic illness. Seven fifty six emergency department visits were facilitated last year in 2025, and around twelve percent of our population is considered geriatric.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: What do you consider chronic illness?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Anything like someone who has hypertension, diabetes, things of that. Spear

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: asthma? Okay.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Fifty six

[Steve (Interim Supervisor, Recruitment & Retention, Vermont DOC)]: abuse disorder?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yes.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: The other thing I would add with regards to the geriatric population is that in incarcerated correctional facility, the age to be considered geriatric is 55, is ten years younger than you can. Age for someone to be considered geriatric in the community, so that number is 65, and that's just because of the infrastructure of the correctional facilities really does age individuals. It's not easy to be in such a concrete and hard space every day for a significant number of years. Yes. That's notable. And the geriatric population has increased pretty significantly since the early 2000s, so we do have a unit at Southern State Correctional Facility that houses most of the population with really complex medical needs or that are considered geriatric and need some extra assistance. So for our healthcare contract, we contract with the company WellPath to provide comprehensive health services in our correctional facilities. The contract began 07/01/2023, and it's a three year contract. So it is entering nearly the end of the contract period. There is the opportunity for two optional, I believe, one year extensions. And the way that the contract was structured, it was set using the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare Standards, as well as Vermont Standards and the Vermont Community of Care that we consider for individuals who are living in our communities and not correctional facilities. We also partner with other departments and the agency of human services when you're developing the contract with WellPath.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So how are you determining how well WellPath is doing its job?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, that's a good question. There are various performance measures that are actually outlined in the contract, which is a public document, so we can certainly send it to you. We use those measures to tell how well that they're doing, and if they do not meet those measures, there are also provisions that speak to what the consequences may

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: be in those cases. So have you had a situation where they weren't doing the thing were supposed to be?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Not that met a level of like, consequences under the contract. So, one of the ways in which we would be able to hold them accountable for not meeting that level of care is by withholding payments, which we have not had to do for that reason.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Okay. So, the contract, so are you looking at re upping the contract or extending the contract? I mean, you need to do that pretty soon. Yes. You're gonna do it.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: I don't know that I can speak to the contract process with, while it's still underway, but DOC has not released an RFP for a new health contract.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah. So that's, that's something that I think we should learn more about because it's, I hear different things. I hear concerns, but then I also hear people who are satisfied. So I'd be interested to know how the department is determining that because it is a very expensive contract as you know.

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: It is. It's also a very narrow market within our sort of, our purchasing power,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: based

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: on our size and scale, puts us in a different position than any other places with regard to looking at other options.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Okay, yeah. And I know that this body tube is also considered.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: Can you be specific by that, as far as a narrow market?

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: I mean that there are not a ton of companies that provide this kind of healthcare in the marketplace that also will be looking at a place of our scope and scale. We don't know how many there are. As Katie mentioned, there is no current RFP out there, but WellPath is the sort of successor to a previous company that no longer exists, and they have in many ways been good partners for us. Do we want to make certain that we are keeping them honest and also getting what we need from them? Absolutely, we do. And as with any partnerships, there are things that we think are really going well and things that we would like to hold. But that's what I what I meant with regard to my statement, senator, was the notion of of our size puts us in a in a different place than, an entity like, golly, California, absolute opposite of the scale as far as what it could

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: or could not control for bids. And I would suspect it will have bids

[John Murad (Interim Commissioner, Vermont DOC)]: in multi states. Yes. Yes. I

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: know that this body has also had conversations around what it would look like to potentially bring the healthcare in house, so have it state run. There are a few states that do this, it's not entirely common. The last time that we ran the fiscal analysis, which was around two years ago, we found that it would cost around three times as much to provide the healthcare in house, nevertheless hiring staff to do so. We've also had conversations with UVM around potentially partnering with them and that was not an option. So, there are very little options for this type of care.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So they've reduced their fees.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: Not that much.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah. And the other thing I would note too is that the contract covers essentially everything up to a hospital level care of, medical care. So, there's a clinic, there's an infirmary level care, as well as mental health services, medications, dental, and then on-site and off-site specialty visits.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So dental, right, I have heard a few problems with dental, because dental's only in certain facilities, right?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, well, have them speak to this better than I can, but I know that they had some really significant challenges hiring dentists for correctional facilities, and so essentially they were using a regional model where dentists would either be kind of split between two facilities or at times individuals were being transferred to a different facility for their dental appointments.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah, that's what I heard about, and it wasn't helpful. It wasn't good.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: We do have data on the dental backlogs, which I think we provided to you in the fall after a joint justice oversight committee came. We could certainly provide that information if it would be helpful as the backlog has decreased significantly since we were able to bring some more folks on board.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: An update of the information.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah. Is

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: what you're saying? Not the previous

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, think the data we provided was maybe in September, October, so we could certainly update it and And provide it then the other thing I wanted to touch upon, as it is a really significant lift for our team and a really significant initiative that we have going on, is the eleven fifteen waiver, so the Medicaid Reentry Project. Essentially, what this means is that for individuals who who are incarcerated, they're eligible to have their Medicaid turned on ninety days before That the planned release is one piece of the program. And then the second piece of the program is receiving comprehensive reentry services from the Vermont Chronic Care Initiative, which is an initiative under the Agency of Human Services.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So, is proceeding. You are? Yeah,

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: sorry. The waiver went live on January 1, so we're still in the very early stages of implementing it and getting the first few folks re enrolled in Medicaid. And we've

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: been working really closely with the

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Vermont Chronic Care Initiative to get this online. It's been a lot of little bumps as we learn new things, particularly with the technological side of the program, but it did launch January 1. And then, some of the benefit services under the Medicaid Reentry Project is the Vermont Medicaid Reentry Program, which is facilitated by the Vermont Chronic Care Initiatives. We'll have peer support services beginning in 2027. So those are not online yet. And then the medications to include medication for opioid use disorder are supplied when someone is being released, and then kind of care coordination when they're released into the community that's facilitated through the Vermont Chronic Care Initiative.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Any questions? On that?

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: That is it that we have for the healthcare side, but happy to answer any questions that you do have. I

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: just want to say it's important that if the department wants to or is intending to continue well path that there be a really evident reason to do that. I think that's important to our constituents and to me personally and probably and for those someone with the committee, maybe all of the time.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: I was just on the same vein. Mean, well, that may be the best option, but I just want to make sure that we're exploring, and I'm sure you are. I mean, don't want to give the notion that I don't think that is happening, but, you know, I've been maybe even thinking outside the box, whatever that is. But I just wanna make sure that we are exploring all avenues, and we just and the only reason I'm saying it like this is because our time is is very short to the exploration of oil pads, so I you know, just seeing that for the first time, I am like chair, and have a big concern.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: I will say that our relationship with WellPath has been overwhelmingly positive, and they are very receptive to feedback and open to new initiatives set forth by the department or the administration. And I don't know that WellPath has ever been in front of this committee, but I would certainly invite you to bring in some representatives. I think you would be surprised with the quality of care and

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: the thought that has gone into it. And I guess that's the other thing, not only the quality of care, which is vitally important during this time, but the expense of, as many of you know, Vermont has the most expensive health care in the country, and that's concerning on a lot of different levels, and it's adding to the expense of our constituents, not only from an education standpoint, but from we have to take care of, our incarcerated as well. So I just wanna make sure that we're providing quality care as well as best financially that we possibly can. And well, yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm not saying that I know, but I just want to make sure that we've explored every option that we possibly can. You've mentioned, know, UVM because Springfield Hospital some states in my district, is there a possibility of a cooperative like that or different cooperative, I don't know, but just, the unfortunate part about it is we have a short window to find that.

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, that's fair. I think you'd be surprised, sometimes it's challenging finding individuals who are willing to work with a

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: population of this nature. I absolutely, and I'm sure that's the dental problem that you have as well, so I absolutely understand that, and once again, I don't want to do seagull management. If you don't know a seagull management, you swoop in, you shit on it, you swoop out, and I don't want to do that, you know. That's not what we want to do, you know. You are making the sausage, and so we we rely on you.

[Travis Denton (Chief of Operations, Vermont DOC)]: We definitely wanna keep seagulls away.

[Tom McBarber (Deputy Director, Office of Professional Standards & Compliance, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

[Sen. Joseph “Joe” Major (Member, Windsor District)]: That's true. We rely on we rely on you to give us the information and the best information that you have, and you're the authority, so we will, more often than not, do what you say, but we just need the information.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Yeah, and we have other resources, the PRINT survey is very helpful, and so we can look at that too. Yeah,

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: there's also a patient satisfaction survey that the DOC's health services team administers every year. The results are made public on our website. I don't know what year that we're currently at in terms of what results have been made public, but that information is available. Okay. And it's a good time for patient satisfaction with their medical care. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: So that would be helpful if you can send that and then send us a trend too, please, if you have what it was five years ago. The surveys

[Haley Summer (Director of Communications, Vermont DOC)]: I think were implemented first in either 2023 or 2024. So, we've only been doing them for a short period. Okay. It'll be a short line. Yes. Hopefully it'll be a short line. But, you know, this was a very high level overview and we could certainly get some folks in for our health services teams. I would also recommend bringing in WellPath if this is a concern with the committee and you're interested in hearing hearing more information from folks who are on the ground.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Windham District)]: Okay, thank you, appreciate that. All right, this has been very helpful. Any other questions? Thank you all for being here.