Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, are back in Senate institutions. It is still Thursday, 03/19/2026. And we are looking at the miscellaneous judiciary bill S193. And we have Ledge Council and folks from DOC and folks from DMH here to help us understand what this is and decide if we want to sign on on individuals because we don't have possession of the bill and we're not going to vote on it as a commission.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you. Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel, good afternoon. As it was astutely pointed out last time we were here, Senate Health and Welfare did not have possession, so the members decided to sign on as individuals, and you'll see that changes online too. Most of this language you have already seen. The language you have not seen is on page two, subdivision six. Last time I was here, was a conversation about what twenty fourseven clinical care would look like. So, the language that was worked on this morning in consultation with DMH, and we did get an email back from the person who spoke to from Well Path about what was feasible, says that the forensic facility shall ensure that a registered nurse licensed pursuant to 26 VSA 28 or a physician licensed pursuant to 26 VSA 22 or 33 is available to provide care to transferred persons twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. So that is new since you've seen it. I think the other changes that I have highlighted are all changes that you have seen, but I'm happy to do a very high level walkthrough of the sections if you want a

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: refresher on what's in here.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Sure, as long as you're here. Sure. Well first, does anyone have questions? Because we know your time is limited.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, I'll stay with you guys. So, the first instance of amendment, there's a section four of the Senate Judiciary Report that talks a little bit about the forensic facility, that it will be locked in a secure facility. That subsection B in the report is being struck out and replaced with this new subsection D. And this has more parameters around the type of clinical care that will be provided at the forensic facility. So these are all items we've looked at previously, but

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: that is what is happening in that first instance of amendment. Okay, so that's at page one, about halfway down, 10.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yep. Okay. Second

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: instance of amendment starts page two, line 15. This is adding in a new section that wasn't previously in the Senate Judiciary Committee's report. It is an amendment to the previous section of law that we just looked at. It's amending it at a later date. That's why the sections are repeated twice. This is a requirement for an annual report from DOC, and there was a conversation about not needing to report on information before there had been time for a little bit of data to have occurred to be reported on. And so that is what is happening in the second instance of amendment, adding that annual reporting requirement. Next, third instance of amendment. Page three, line eight. This is a rule making section. While the Senate Judiciary Report did have language requiring rule making, It required emergency rulemaking and the bill itself took effect July. The conversations with DMH were that the forensic facility would not be utilized right away and that there needs to be time for the rule making process. So instead of going the route of emergency rules, this instead has permanent rules taking place. There's an eighteen month window for those permanent rules to happen, and the effective date of all the forensic facility court procedures that are in Senate Judiciary's report are bumped back from July '26 to January '28. So that is what is happening. And there's more specificity in this rule making language about clinical standards, quality assurance, clinical oversight. So that is what is happening. Page four, including language discussed in this committee, that the rules could potentially include requiring the provision of forensic facility services in a unit that is separate from other correctional populations. Fourth instance of amendment page four, line five. This is an interim report coming back on 10/01/2026. Lots of things being reported on on that date. Timeline of rulemaking, forensic facility planning. This is one that's probably the utmost interest to this committee, including the specific proposed location of the forensic facility, space considerations and design elements necessary to support the provision of therapeutic services and security at the proposed location and the timeline for any necessary fit up of the forensic facility. Also reporting on staffing considerations, anticipated timelines for the development of a forensic facility, including preliminary cost estimates and initial operations. And then we have adjusted our effective dates so that the rule making takes effect right away. The interim report takes effect right away. And then we have our tiered effective date for the remaining sections about the forensic facility court procedure, January '28. Annual report doesn't get added until July '29. So that's what's happening in our effective date section. And that's the whole amendment.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, so I have just a schedule question. So if things happen more quickly than we expect, because rules don't have to take ATF. So, do these effective dates allow for an expedited schedule? No. Okay. So, if we did want something to go sooner, would we amend the bill?

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You could amend it now or you could amend it later. You could change your effective dates now and have an earlier implementation time and if they aren't on, if the departments aren't on target to meet that, then you could bump out the effective date, or you could do the reverse, keep the further out effective dates, and if you hear back that everything's in place for the forensic facility to go live sooner, then you could move out the effective Yeah,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I don't wanna change this language because

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I mean, a question, could you change to breed on or before that? Not

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: in an effective date section.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I mean, some people, some committees add contingency language. I always caution against doing that quickly. Contingencies can work, but I think it has to be thoughtfully done so everybody is clear that the contingency is met and there's not a question, can this be interpreted this way or not? So I guess I like to slow down when we start talking about contingencies.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That is very good advice.

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

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: this is going to the house, so they can look at it too.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Going to the house, yeah. Great, there's that too, but also just, it sounded like they were going to be able to get this off going very quickly anyway. So we probably have a fiscal year before the COVID will have the report in October, so we could make the effective date earlier next year.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yes, that's, I

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: think By number

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: of months only, but.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And that makes more sense. I was, I'm always trying to make as many folks happy as possible, but that's not possible in all cases and we do have changes that we can do in the future if we need to. All right, any other questions? Any comments?

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Not too much, Counsel.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. So,

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: thank You're you very welcome. I'm going to go to the House floor. I have two bills. I will circle back and see if

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: you're still here when I Please. Want

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: to ask whether anybody wishes to sign on for this.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I think we want to hear from or we may want to hear from folks in the room.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I want to give that opportunity. I will. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: So,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: what do we like to hear from the commissioner? Thank you for being here, but you don't have to testify, but if you would like to.

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: Do you have any questions for us? Yeah.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Do you have them? Okay, then yes. Yeah. My

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: question is a simple, difficult answer.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yes. For the record, John Murad, Commissioner for the Department of Corrections. Thank you for being here.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: My pleasure, thank you. For coming, I was glad to see you. My question is, what's DOC's position on this minute?

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: DOC's position is, and I must say what I just said in appropriations. I have to confess, I don't know that I've seen the most up to date version of this bill. That said, I have been a part of it from its earliest phases, and have sat with judiciary and others in order to discuss it. Our position is that it is largely, as we envision it, it is largely what we currently do. The individuals this is designed to address are currently mostly in our custody, and that is specifically individuals who are accused of crimes that could result in life imprisonment, and for that, in Vermont, that is almost always murder, and are not competent to stand trial currently. Many individuals that meet that well, many is a relative term in Vermont. About a dozen individuals who meet that kind of definition, fewer than dozen, are in our custody. There have been, you know, over the past half decade, there have been several crimes that are that sort of have made, have risen to the level of media attention and have been very troubling, involving generally murder and often murderer family members, and often allegedly perpetrated by people who have mental health issues. Several of these individuals are not currently competent, and they are in our custody. We have them in our custody and are capable of continuing to keep them there. What this would do is it would give us additional resources, although not specifically spelled out in the bill, there would be a reasonable need for an increase in our WellPath healthcare provider contract in order to obtain the kinds of services that these individuals need, which is competency restoration, so that they can actually face a trial and ultimately receive the due process that every citizen, every person, excuse me, every person in The United States is entitled to. And so, we see this as a positive. We see this as the ability to do something that we don't really currently do. We certainly provide healthcare to anybody in our custody and care for everyone in our custody, but competency restoration is not something that we currently do. And it would also, I believe, provide a default assumption that once that kind of restoration effort is available, a person accused of a crime like this credibly would be in DOC's custody and not elsewhere. There have been instances in the past in which people have moved back and forth, owing to competency or lack thereof, sometimes out of DOC custody into environments that I, at least in my capacity as commissioner, do not believe are as safe as they could be for the sake of the community. And this, I think, would mean that the default would be DOC. Not in every single instance, there are always going to be exceptions, but default would be DOC where we would make efforts to restore competency. And in instances where competency cannot be restored owing to the fact that the issue of competency is not mental health but is something like a traumatic brain injury or a developmental delay that cannot be ameliorated through treatment or medication, we'll be able to understand those differently and better, thanks to this legislation as well, should it pass. You want a copy? Yeah, so I guess I'd like

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: to have DOC's sort of opinion after you've all been able to digest it. Specifically, couple of things are top of mind for me is one, just the effective date, pushing it out until January 1, if that's needed and if that's desirable from DOC's perspective. And the other is that a lot of the amendment I see is doing a lot, putting in statute what I had originally envisioned, I think the original bill had envisioned, being done with rulemaking first, emergency rulemaking and then permanent rulemaking. So DOC's sort of perspective on those two issues is what I could show up here, but I know you haven't seen it.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I'm not. Insofar as a deadline or a date of 01/01/2028, that would certainly be sufficient time for us to negotiate with WellPath in order to obtain these additional services. As I said, these are services they do, or maybe I didn't say it, I apologize, it was just an inappropriate reason because I may have said it there. These are services that WellPath does provide for other correctional institutional clients, and so we know that it can. In Vermont, as you all are probably aware, there's always the question of whether or we can get the kinds of people that we need, once, you know, but if that were the case, then we would be able to do so within that timeframe by January 2028. The next question is really one that I don't necessarily feel sort of qualified to answer. I think that is a legislative question, whether or not there's a preference for statute or rule. I will confess that I find it, and I've said this recently in House Committee, around the notion of whether or not statute becomes, colloquially, once it gets into the green books, it's there, and it's very difficult to move, and it tends to be a little bit less susceptible to modification when modifications become needed. And anything this new and this sort of something that represents a new step, my sense is that we're sometimes better off having it written in a place where we can make modifications more quickly and be a little bit more nimble. But again, I Yeah. Generally would defer that to your body.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: So am I hearing that you won't be able to give an opinion on that or that you might be able to give some more feedback on that? Because On the question of venom versus statute, sir? Yes. Just in terms of the I'm not necessarily seeing these additions to the statute being something that will make it less nimble, but I'm not in DOC's position. So I'd like to hear whether or not they would be constraining or if it's just something where, hey. This is probably what would naturally be.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah. I think I'd have to look at it a little bit more closely and consult, I don't know. Our legislative director is here and communications director the point, Haley Summer is here, who knows more than I, and to whom I often defer to these kinds of things, so.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Happy to add just a little bit of perspective.

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: For the record, Haley Summer, director of communications for DOC. We have not seen the most recent iteration of the bill, as I think there were some changes made in Senate Black and Robert this morning that were not drastic. Was just a few language changes. There was nothing that jumped out immediately as being very concerning from the most recent version of the bill that we've seen, but if you're looking for a more detailed explanation of why that is, we could certainly provide that at a later

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: are you finished?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: The committee's knowledge, we did have Welpak in to health and welfare and they did testify that they could basically provide whatever the services are that were requested, that every state has kind of different rules and that, so they're used to modifying their treatment program based on whatever the specific requirements are of that state. They have looked at the bill and they didn't, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't seem to indicate any issue in their being able to fulfill the requirements specifying.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So, a comment, I appreciate him being flexible, I would hope that they could even be a resource

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: for us. Certainly, more knowledge of privacy restoration services than DOC does, but yeah, to your point, Senator, they are used to building these programs around different statutes in each state, so they're willing to work with Vermont to do the same.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Someone urging us to keep this going. Oh, we'll get that as we go.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: That's kind of Carol from Bennington. Okay.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I will make one note about language that apparently has been added. On line 17 of page one, it mentions separating population by sex, and that is not the sole determination for how promontonacy has sex among a gender would be more appropriate. Oh. Or, some recognition of that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right, and you talked about that a lot actually in the house committee, but we haven't

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: talked Over about on that, that with regard to a separate, with regard to a different Right, deal,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I, well, the problem is changing this now, folks have signed off on it. You can see and we really want to get it going but if this is I think that's something that we could understand. I'm sorry for the house right right and this is something that house can work on. Okay. All right. Thank you for coming and reading quickly.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Know we're on

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: a different bill, but we did have a question about the previous bills.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Oh, should we spring everything on on

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: the commissioner as long as you've

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: got the

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: second on our seat?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Believe. This this would be an optional question. A bonus question. And then you get the orange or something.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: That constitute a bribe?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: No. No. It's in public. It's worth, like, 40¢. Okay. Go ahead.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: So previous bill we were looking at is the elimination of the fees that are charged for individuals on supervision once they are released or if they're on parole. And as we understand it, the original date was July '26, and it's been pushed out a year, and we were just looking for a little bit of info more information as to why because and Scott provided a little bit of information about how that fee is built into the budget. But on the other hand if I'm the parole officer and I know that this whole thing disappears in a very short period of time, am I really gonna spend my time trying to get people to pay that $15 a month? And so chances are, in reality, you're not gonna receive all of that money anyway because folk know, a, the program's disappearing, and b, your rural folk have a lot of things on their plate. Are they gonna chase after something that really is just gonna disappear in the first you know, in the long run. So we're just trying to understand why the date was pushed out, and we also understand you're spending more money than you're bringing in. So the thought being the sooner we eliminate something that's costing you as opposed to generating revenue would seem to make more sense. So I think that's where

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, it's H635 and we just received it. So, there's plenty of time for you to come back or Haley to be here and speak to us on that.

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: Yeah, I think we're planning to be here next week regardless. Will Deputy Commissioner Halbert

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: speak So, to the

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: if you have thoughts.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah, I would look into that. I don't know, I don't, I was unaware of the idea that it had been expected to end, and then that that was being pushed back. I know that we are, it is money that is calculated in our budget, and therefore it is not something that we are supportive of ending. And with regard to the effort or the cost versus savings, I mean, I think that once, you know, costs around what people do, the effort that a person makes as a component of their day when they are already in our employ are very difficult to really calculate. Yeah. Whereas revenue is revenue. Is it being uniformly collected? No, it is not. Is anyone going out with the sole purpose, example, a community corrections officer or a parole officer going out to do a home visit with the sole expectation of collecting these fees? No, they are not. So, there is, I think, a little bit of a disconnect between loss of real money in a budget, as we calculate, and then the punitive, sort of savings of of work for people who are already engaged in various kinds of work. But, nevertheless, we're not as DOC is not supportive of of losing this, we recognize, however, the interests that have been expressed around why to forgo it. I don't have an answer for you about the time difference between whether it was set to expire and then

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: that was pushed back or not.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I can get that for you.

[Haley Summer, Director of Communications, Vermont DOC]: I do have a little bit of context as that was a conversation that came up in committee. The bill, as it was originally drafted, had drafted an effective date of 07/01/2026 at the House Committee of Corrections and Institutions, which had jurisdiction over the bill actually identified this and wanted to push the date back further so that we wouldn't have to backfill our FY twenty six budget. It just provided the department a little bit more time to plan for the future budget cycle, as opposed to trying to identify funds that weren't there, particularly given that this isn't especially tight budget year.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: That's why I said she That's knows more than I helpful. Okay.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So we will still wait just a couple minutes for, Legis Council and, what we're going to do is let us decide individually if we're going to sign off. Okay. The amendment. But thank you very much for being here and you're welcome to stay long as you may.

[John Murad, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I appreciate that. Thank you. I like the new art that is in this space. Congratulations. Thank you, sir.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Alright. Appreciate that. Congratulations.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: So, I think

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we should adjourn it.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Is that good for everyone? Yep. And then we'll resume as soon as Katie comes. So,