SmartTranscript of House Government Operations-2025-01-30-9:45AM

[Chair Matthew Birong ]: Good morning, folks. Government operations for veterinary affairs. This is Thursday, January thirtieth. For the next hour or so, we are continuing introductions with departments and agencies versus this committee, and we have the folks from the Department of Public Safety here. Pretty robust list of, faces to say hello to and get to know, and we appear to have a blend of remote and in person. So, yay, hybrid meetings. Look at that. And with that, commissioner, how would you like to start with the lineup? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: How about if Dan and I come up and somebody has a PowerPoint? Is the do you have a PowerPoint? Exactly. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yeah. Do you wanna have it on the screen? It doesn't matter to me. Screen. Alright. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: And if we're in chair perfect. Good morning. For the record, my name is Jennifer Morrison. I'm the commissioner of public safety. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And I'm Dan Vazia. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: I'm the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety. Cool. And, I guess we'll do like a quick around the horn with [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: a speed of light. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Okay. Representative Abarro, chair of the committee. I represent Addis three, six municipalities in Northwest Addis County. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Representative Lisa Hango, Franklin five on the northwest border with Canada, four communities. [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: Representative Sandy Pinsonal, I am from Dorset and I represent Bennington, Rutland. So in Rutland County, I have Danby and Mount Tabor and in Bennington County, I have Peruvian, Brogan Dorsett. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: And, I'm Michael Morgan, more for Dan, who's that is my constituent. She's a Richard Morrison is. He's in my district. He's a so I represent Howard, New York Bureau, Grand Isle, Fat Bureau, Alamo, and West Corner of Oak. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Let's see. Albert Burton, North Corner of Pearl. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: Neil Coffin, Windsor District two for Cavendish Wethersfield in Baltimore. Pleased to meet you. [Representative Chea Waters Evans ]: Pete Newchamp. South Burlington. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Good morning. I'm Shane Waters Evans from Charlotte, and I also represent part of Hinesburg. I know somebody on line. Yes. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: You're when you represent Representative Boynton, are you there? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I am here. Hi, representative Lucy Boyden, Lamoille three, Cambridge and Waterville. Well, we have a short PowerPoint to orient you to the Department of Public Safety. We'll leave plenty of time for questions. And, of course, our subject matter experts are here to answer questions that are technical or specifically related to their divisions. So if you can go to the next slide, please. So the Department of Public Safety is currently divided into eight divisions. You will only see seven on paper because there is one called Criminal Justice Services that, smooshes together radio technology and the Vermont Crime Information Center. It's a budgeting construct and the the two don't belong together, but it's it's a hangover from long time yesteryear. You'll see that the commissioner's office has, some help. We have an executive assistant that I share with the colonel, miss Karen Carr, who does most of the scheduling, and that should be probably have as your primary, point of contact. We have our legal counsel, our general counsel, Rosemary Grettkowski, is right there with a beautiful scarf on, and our associate general counsel is right here on Tucker Jones. And they have a lot of expertise, and they have to know a lot of things about wide and deep related to what goes on inside DPS. We have a public record section, of course, that handles all our public requests for public records. We are ably assisted by a principal assistant who is miss Heather McLaughlin. She is on our end joining us remotely. And our director of policy development, Mandy Wooster, you will see a lot of involvement. She sort of organizes us all to come and prevent the various policy position that we have in the different, committees that we that we work with. And I can't read the one in the middle. That's right. That's all. And internal affairs. So by statute, the office of internal affairs for the Vermont State Police reports to outside of the chain of command of the state police directly to my office. So at the top level, you'll see the office of the commissioner. And underneath, you'll see the various different departments. We can start all the way on the right. We're finalizing the hiring process of the director of the division of animal welfare that we were so kind of gifted by, I believe, a lot of you, last year. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: I do recall those conversations. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I would say we all know we have a an absolute rock star who we can't tell you about yet because she has not completed the final week background checks and all of that, but we have an an offer of employment on the table and a background investigation is in progress. She is an absolute rock star. So we're excited to introduce you to her when it comes to fruition. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: You're encouraged by it? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Yes. You would have been amazed at the applications and the qualifications of the people. But Dan can say more about that if you wanna just give him a quick [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: We had thirty six applications interviewed twelve, and they ran the gamut from veterinarians to lawyers to politicians to you name it. It was perhaps the the most populated selection process we've had in a very long time for division director. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So a [Chair Matthew Birong ]: lot of enthusiasm. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Okay. Well, morning, mom, on that exciting news. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And also I'm sorry. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Go ahead. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Also a very robust process that joined a lot of different stakeholders, welfare stakeholders, you know, united across the board to come and help us and and make their input heard. So, again, we're really happy with it. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: One moment. We have a hand up here. Representative [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: this division developed after the incident in Mount Tabor? No. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I mean, there's a lot of precursor incidents that that had to But that'll probably sent it over the time. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: I mean, there was a it was a component of the conversation as we're looking at the as to why. Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: One of the reps was on the original bill. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Ended up being legislations here. Yeah. Yep. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So then we have the, Vermont Forensic Laboratory, the only, a credit the only forensic laboratory in the state, but a fully accredited one that is led by doctor Trish Conti who's sitting over there next to Rosemary. And they have four sections, toxicology, biology, and which includes serology and DNA evidence, the drug chemistry section, and then the physical comparison unit that deals with, like, tool marks and latent prints and other tangible pieces of the forensic laboratory. Our director of administration, Rich Rick Hallenbeck, is here. He is ably assisted by a top notch team that handles everything from budget and accounts payable and procurement and contracts, but they handle so many grants. We we are the home of all the FEMA money. We are the home of so many federal grants that we serve as a pass forward to. And, it seems really does an outstanding job and keeps he keeps all the rest of us organized on the finances and and keeps us afloat. So you'll probably interact with him on the BAA and other other matters as well. The DPS is the home of Vermont Emergency Management. It's gotten a lot of, airtime in the news recently. The scope of responsibilities continues to grow as climate change impacts, our region. Director Eric Florand is the director of VEM, and they have five sections, the sorry. Six sections, the recovery section, mitigation, planning, operations and logistics, and engagement. And then the state emergency operation center isn't isn't a section the way the others are section, but it is we VEM operates the state emergency operation center, and that is operating twenty four seven, three sixty five. It is always staffed with a watch officer, but there's various levels of activation that if we anticipate an event or an event is occurring, based on the size and magnitude of event, we can scale up or scale down the state emergency operation center. We also are home to the division of fire safety, which is led by director Michael de Roescher. There is a lot going on in fire safety. It's shocking to me how much there is tucked in there. So it's not just running the fire academy, which, of course, is a big important piece of this. But there's also a promulgation of codes, issuing licenses, buildings, permits, all sorts of things that have have come to us over the years. We more most recently, we became involved in the inspection of rental housing units, etcetera. I know there's an ongoing discussion about short term rental inspections, energy efficiency inspections. So far, that's not in our wheelhouse, but those are all conversations swirling in the atmosphere. There's a central office at, headquarters in Waterbury, and then there are four regional offices in Barrie, Rutland, Springfield, and Williston. And also inside fire safety is the urban search and rescue team, which it has a component of the swift water rescue operation, but they also have structural collapse, shoring, where they shore up properties to make it safe for the responders to kill in and either retrieve bodies or rescue people, and the hazmat team. Those are teams tucked in there also within our headquarters unit is the fire and explosive investigation unit, which is copopulated by us and the Vermont State Police, fire safety and state police. So there's just an awful lot of stuff going on inside fire safety, and and they they have a big book of work. I mentioned criminal justice services. It's really two distinct shops. One is the Vermont Crown Information Center led by Jeff Wallen, and his team is responsible for accurate records of people's involvements and arrests, crime statistics, submitting information to the feds for our crime data, ensuring that all of our information systems that people are allowed to query are running properly and that people are exercising appropriate precautions to keep criminal justice information confidential, etcetera. So that's the Vermont Crime Information Center. They also are responsible for, doing all the fingerprint supported background checks for people whose license requires it, working with vulnerable populations, nurses. I think there's no physical therapists who are subject to that fingerprint supported background checks. So they have a lot of work to do to match potential matches on the record to make sure that they're returning the right information to a potential employer. And our radio technology shop is run by Corey Chase, who is sitting right there in the middle. And that is a a shop that runs a land mobile radio network throughout the entire state that involves towers on mountain tops and repeaters and all sorts of hardware technology that allows us to use radios in our our vehicles, including the agency of transportation, the wardens, the state police, etcetera, and also to carry portable radios on your belt to be able to communicate when you're away from your vehicle, etcetera. It's a very technical area that I'll just leave it there. And then we have the Vermont State Police. And with us today is the lieutenant colonel, Jim Whitcomb. Colonel Birmingham is traveling on his way to a a meeting right now. And that is divided into three divisions, the criminal division, which, of course, handles all the criminal investigations, the major crime unit, which handles all officer involved shootings and homicide cases and other serious bodily injury cases. And then all the the various different special investigations units such as technology investigation, sex crimes investigations, etcetera, drugs, drug investigation. The field force division are typically the the troopers that you see in uniform and marked units who are assigned to ships, and they are divided into troop a and troop b. And in each troop, there are five field stations or barracks around the state. And then, of course, there's a variety of different special operations within the ports like the crash reconstruction unit, the the drone team that gets up and takes aerial measurements and stuff, not just at crashes, but at crime scenes as well, and a variety of other special operations that that come within those units. Inside the Vermont State Police, there are fourteen special teams. So you can be a detective or a trooper and still be assigned to a special team. And when you get activated, of course, your your responsibilities either go on hold, or somebody has to be backfilled to cover your shift while you go out and be part of the tactical services unit or the underwater recovery team or the, bombs and explosives unit, whatever whatever your special teams, are. And then there's the support services division, which includes everything from, you know, working with budgets and grants and policy development and accreditation. The Vermont State Police are an internationally accredited law enforcement agency, and we're quite proud of that. That's been I think this was our second media cred, so we've been accredited three times now by the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies. There's also fleet services, our public information team, and, of course, the lifeline for all of that is our emergency communicators that we work inside the two public safety answering points, which are not just nine one one call takers, but they are also dispatchers of many, many, many first responder agencies. So all of that comprises six hundred and five full time people and two hundred part time people inside the Department of Public Safety. And I guess I'll pause there to say, how can what questions can I answer? Oh, you know, we probably should just click through the slides. I've probably said what's on all the files. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yeah. Yeah. I know that slide. Yeah. Yeah. That's See that part? Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Right there. So on what you can go to fire safety. I think folks have a handle on. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Let's see if we can [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: police out. So it's also the home of plumbing and electrical licensing. Interestingly, if you don't see my signature in an elevator, you probably shouldn't be in it because it's been inspected. It's not inspection [Chair Matthew Birong ]: is not [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: great. So, you know, again, it's sort of one of those quirky, very interesting things like, that's in fire safety too. Alright. Building codes and permitting, As I said, there's a numerous different trades represented. We talked about the fire academy down in Pittsburgh where we train both career and volunteer firefighters. We have a hazmat team, urban search and rescue, fire investigation unit, and they have a robust public education unit, of course, stop, drop, and roll from from our past, teaching people about the importance of carbon monoxide and fire detect smoke detectors, but not just that, but, like, putting them in the right place. So there's a a lot of public outreach and education that happens not just with our unit, but with our council in general. You don't you don't say that fire too. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Representative Trooper has a you [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: tell us more about the hazmat team and [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: how many personnel? Sure. Director Durocher, would you like to talk about the hazmat team? [Director Michael Desrochers ]: Sure. I'm proud to speak about the hazmat team. Thank you to the committee for allowing us to talk a little bit about what we do. The team, we have one full time chief, and we're in the process now of hiring another second full time position, which will do a lot of our tier two reporting and some of our planning. We try to work with a lot of our local fire departments. We offer a lot of free training to our first responders. It consists of about twenty five team members. These team members are all the the diversity of them is overwhelming. We have a doctor on the team, a chemist. They all have, for the most part, either state or civilian full time jobs. But when the team is activated, all these subject matter experts combined to form this HAZMAT team to support local incident commanders, which are typically your, local fire chiefs. So we don't go in and take over scenes. We activate, when the incident commander request our assistance because their local resources cannot mitigate the particular situation that arises. We do a lot of spill response. We do a lot of unknowns. We do mercury response to mercury spills. Propane leak seems to be a a pretty standard response where we actually stop the propane leak. So we take an offensive posture to mitigating those types of hazards. So we do quite a few calls every year, maybe up around two hundred. We do a lot of phone consult type mitigation incidences as well. So we can offer technical assistance over the phone, in certain circumstances. But, we're proud of our our team. It's actually been a, like, a national model. There's other states that try to resemble what our hazmat team does, but they operate twenty four seven, three sixty five. More than happy to answer any any other questions. [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: Do you, Michael, have do you guys become incident command when you show up to see, or does it does it remain the chief of the [Director Michael Desrochers ]: We typically would not become the incident commander. We're there for a support role to assist. There there have been circumstances where if you have a real rural fire departments where they might not have the expertise in setting up an incident command system, we would we would help them set up this incident command system on-site to make sure that it's not the coordination of resources on the ground are being used effectively, but we don't go in there with any intent on taking over the scene. We work more or less like just a support team to the incident commander. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So I would point out that the twenty five hazmat employees, they're part time employees. They're in that two hundred that I mentioned. There's ninety urban search and rescue part time employees who come from all walks of life. It's exactly the same model, where we have one full time employee who is the unit chief for the urban search and rescue team, and every other person who's in those boats blocking people out of trees and out of their homes is basically a volunteer who's getting paid a part time wage to train and activate in emergencies from whatever their day job is. So we have some part time communicators as well. So some a lot sometimes people like, why you have two hundred part time employees? Because exactly this model. Any other questions for director of [Chair Matthew Birong ]: service? [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Said, Hoover. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Well, you mentioned Mercury specifically. That's not a very common metal these days. Where do you run into that? [Director Michael Desrochers ]: Well, believe it or not, in labs, some of the some of the schools we've run into it with, some of the old thermometer technology. It's usually not a complicated, incident to to handle, but mercury is extremely dangerous, and you don't wanna be inhaling the vapor. So we we typically get involved and offer technical assistance. We work in sync with the health department on these calls. And I don't wanna exaggerate the number of Mercury calls. Right? We don't have very many of them. I just wanted to that is one type of call that as an example that we would get involved with and, additionally, things like meth labs, white powder incidences where we have the technology to identify unknown materials. So a whole wide range of incidences we get involved with. But it's not a it's not a frequent incident that we respond to. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Yeah. It's comforting to know the truck boys aren't dealing with it. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Yeah. Representative Hooper from Randolph, do you have a question? [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: How many incidents per year spills versus unknowns and such? [Director Michael Desrochers ]: I don't know off the top of my head, but I I can get that information because we categorize these. So with that information, it's readily available. I [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: can also submit the annual fire safety report. Right? Mike doesn't have a lot of it aggregated together in that report. [Director Michael Desrochers ]: Yes. It does. And and you can go online to our home page at Vermont Fire Safety, and you can pull up our annual report of the state fire marshal. And and that gives a pretty good breakdown of all our calls. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: But we'll be glad to get it to you as well. [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: Thank you. And and does it seem to you that twenty five is enough members in the as my team is that satisfactory? [Director Michael Desrochers ]: Yeah. We so so far so good. Right? I I don't think we're restricted to the twenty five. That's what we've been operating under. And, of course, we look at we have a lot of case history on where our responses are geographically associated with. And and then we have our command vehicles. We have three command vehicles. They're all strategically placed throughout the state so that we can reduce our response time. So right now, we can effectively respond. It doesn't mean that there are times during the year where maybe we're down a couple people, but we're always actively recruiting for team members. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Alright. Can you go to the next slide, please? Emergency management is another place that I am still continuing to learn, particularly as it intersects with FEMA in the wake of major disasters. It is a very complicated space, but we have been trial by fire and learning a lot in the last two summers. And I think I mentioned all of the different sections. You mentioned school safety. Oh, I didn't mention school safety center. Right. So Vermont Emergency Management is the home to the Vermont School Safety Center, which is a a project of the Department of Public Safety and the Agency of Education. And we are very hopeful that we will be dedicating more resource to that in coming years so that we can try and take school safety to a more consistent level and a more consistent posture throughout the state and, obviously, try to avert and mitigate as as many threats to our school environments as possible. So morning, I'm on that. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: If I could, I'd just add that public safety in that relationship represents the boots on the ground side of it, the operational side of it. The agency of education and by the way, we work with terrific partnership with that group. But, they focus most on implementation and policy and procedures where we handle a great deal of the, hey. We've got a kid that's, you know, got a real problem here, and do a lot of the operational type response. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So the school safety center is meant to bridge the policy and behavioral threat assessment side that the AOE is really in their wheelhouse with the response side. And like I said, we we look forward to making more robust moves in that space in the coming year or two. Can you go to the next slide? And the Vermont Crime Information Center. Jeff, did I miss anything in my description of VCIC? [Director Jeffrey Wallin ]: Believe so, commissioner. Probably the one area that does pop out from time to time is it also includes the Vermont sex offender registry that's managed by VCIC as well. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Okay. Thank you. That's why we have slides with a lot of detail that I forgot to have somebody scroll through. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: You're doing outstanding work for memory commission. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Thank you. Can you scroll to the next slide? As I said, radio technology is very technical. And, Corey, why don't you give them the thousand foot view of what you think? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Thousand foot view starts at the top of our Mansfield. Okay. Pretty power sites around the state, including the trans trans units of these power sites that are which are related are used by many agencies including the state fleet, but also AOT and the wildlife. And the other first responders around the state also rely on that. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And Corey's gone a long way to upgrading the training of his radio technicians. Very recently sent all of them to tower climbing school, and [Chair Matthew Birong ]: I don't know if that's really what they call it. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: But it enabled them to be the technical arm of fixing things from up in the towers that replaced a very expensive contract [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Okay. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: That we were having to spend a lot of money for outside entities to do. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: So good good movement on the [Chair Matthew Birong ]: front of our technical capability. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: And they also in RTS, they also manage our phone lines. We are not on the ADS traditional phone line as of the mission critical need for uptime, in our mostly in our PSAPs, but also in a couple of other places. So they manage our over seven hundred phone lines that support the work at Public Safety. And they're really they're they're they are deeply involved, obviously, and will be deeply involved in the work of reimagining what a future public safety communications scheme looks like, whether that's statewide or regional. And that work of that task force is progressing, and we can talk about that another time. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: Perfect. Just yeah. I was actually curious to get rid of the contract, an expensive contract. How many employees do we have doing that power work now? What kind of savings did we did we save? I mean, that'd be good to know. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. Corey, I don't know if you have that information off top of your head. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: I don't, but I [Chair Matthew Birong ]: can I can get notes? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: We did not add positions. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: No. No. No. No. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I'm So it was the existing team learned a new skill, and then we were able to drop a contract. So we didn't add any money on the employees, but we can get the amount of that. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. I'm glad. Corey, how many how many technicians do you [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: have have [Representative Albert Hooper ]: have have staff? Eleven total [Chair Matthew Birong ]: in my vision, and six of them are trained for tower line. Okay. Great. We don't do all of the tower planning. I just wanna be clear. We we do most of the work, but there is there is significant problems when you have to get up on the tower in the middle of winter and and and realign antennas, microwave events. And it's okay. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And some of the challenges that Corey identified when he came on were that some of these technical glitches that we run into, especially in the wintertime, are relatively simple fixes, but we were relying upon an outside contractor that oftentimes are sending people from Massachusetts and far away to take care of these issues. So that simple step of saying, hey, let's get these guys certified. Let's let's get these men and women trained to do this task was a really smart efficiency, I think, anyway. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: Yeah. And I I'm really glad to pause [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: with you on on exactly what that means. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: No. I know what it takes to plant a tower. That's why kudos to the Yeah. Individuals that volunteered to learn. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. And and and remember, these are not towers that are, like, easily accessible. This is on mountain tops, and they drive their ATVs up the side of the mountain show mobile. And all that kind of stuff. Sure. So these are dedicated folks doing a difficult job. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Okay. What's next? Doctor Conti, did I miss anything about the lab? No. I think you covered it. Alright. Terrific. It's really cool. If you've ever had a tour of the lab, you should certainly have a tour of the lab. It's I think, you know, if you like CSI stuff, it's really, really cool. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: It's a popular show. We're talking about representative Morgan. Do do you all do forensics with, like, computers at component of it or no? You leave that at the, like, other entities to [Representative Albert Hooper ]: sum that [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: out too. I can hear forensics and the state is handled by the TIU unit. Champlain? No. No. No. We have a technology. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: We have it. Oh, we have it. Oh, okay. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: The state police has a technology investigation unit. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Oh, okay. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: And if it's something beyond their capabilities, it goes to the feds. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: To the feds. Okay. I know Champlain College used to be [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: we have we do local resources that are roped into that. And if it exceeds anything at the local level [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Then it gets elevated. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. No. I'm just curious. Okay. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And that's certainly been an area of expanding consequence. You know, if your crime these days has some measure of a cell phone or a computer or something attached to it. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yeah. That makes sense then. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: You know, only getting bigger Yeah. Unfortunately. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Yeah. They're they're the guys with the uniforms look too big. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Right. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Administration and finance. Rick, did I miss anything on your new work? Alright. And you can see when I was talking about a lot of money, we have we manage thirty one federal grant programs across the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, FEMA, and many others, ARPA included. And in, state fiscal year twenty four, we dispersed a hundred and fourteen million dollars, and ninety five of that was disaster grant funds. And in the wake of the twenty twenty three floods and twenty twenty four floods, most acutely in twenty twenty four, we learned that small towns were literally out of money. They had they just didn't have money to be able to take the next steps. And Rick and his team developed a very streamlined turnaround. So the minute the money came from FEMA, it was out the door within days. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. And and, being the color man here, I'll just add one quick piece. These grants are not oftentimes planned out. This is not the standard finance office where we're looking at years ahead. These are, like, FEMA grants that are coming in again to aid communities that are just in desperate need. And Rick's team has just been credible in terms of their nimbleness and their flexibility and their ability to leverage all of their skill and capabilities to get money where it needs to go. And that's not just for FEMA money, but also for Homeland Security grants and, you know, a tremendous amount of money that are are used by not just the state, but by our partners in both entities as well. [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: Representative. Does FEMA still have a presence in Vermont right now? Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: In Williston. Yep. Okay. What's next? It might be the end. Oh, I already told you. I already gave you the teaser. Sorry, Bob. I'm doing the question. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Yeah. We have a had a contract with Homeland Security at airport, stuff like that, stuff that might be coming up the road from Washington, are we obligated to fall in line with any requests or [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So [Representative Albert Hooper ]: the storm might become particularly with board. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Are you talking about the executive orders of the president? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So far, there have not been any of the executive orders that have come other than the one that was rescinded [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Mhmm. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: That have a direct impact on the work the book of work within DPS. The one about all the grants caused us about twenty four hours of what's happening here? [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: I know. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I know. I know. Yeah. But but yeah. But, hey, we remained calm. We waited to see what the direction was. And lo and behold, the court intervened, and then they rescinded some memo. So is it possible that there could be future directives that are in conflict with the way we currently operate? I would say that's possible. But we will have to evaluate it within the time frame. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Hey. Do we you know, somebody showing up and saying, you're a deputy. Go do this federal job or we normally? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Highly unlikely. I I mean, highly is it listen. Stranger things have happened, and a lot of strange things are happening these days. So I'm not gonna say anything is impossible, but we have a very clear line in the sand that we will assist federal attorneys with criminal investigations, criminal immigration violations. And if there were an officer safety situation, a scene safety situation, we would peripherally assist to make it safe for others, but we would we are not in the business of engaging in civil immigration enforcement, and we never have them. So [Chair Matthew Birong ]: The only thing we all know for sure is the list of hypotheticals is endless. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Yeah. Right. And, you know, I literally, if something comes our way, we will have to dive in with our attorneys and the delegate office and figure out what the what the right thing to do is. I think that's it. Can you go to the next slide? Did I miss one? We had animal welfare. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: That's it. Yeah. That's it. Does it? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: That's the whole enchilada. It's a lot on Disney. Share. Yes. Thank you. I have [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: one question. My my brother is [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: the fire chief [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: Manchester, and last year, they did public safety at the schools. And there's a film that they show. There's a fire safety film, and apparently it has a boy with a head, headdress from an Indian, and the teachers would not let them foresee because the diversity. So he said that's the film that's ever that is so I'm just curious. Are you familiar with that? No. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. Maybe Mike is I'm not I'm not personally familiar with it. [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: Yeah. He's ripping because he's like, hey. Director or director? Do you know [Director Michael Desrochers ]: familiar with this at all. Okay. [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: Right. I was just curious if it was an up okay. It was something through your program, public safety that was given to the providers, [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: we'd sure like to know. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: Yeah. Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: I'll ask him to find out [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: a little bit. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Sounds like a great follow-up email. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Yeah. Yeah. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: We should underscore the publication arm the public education arm of of fire safety because it is so important. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Right. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: You're probably aware we've had five fire deaths in the state of Vermont in January alone, which equals our entire total per last year. And if you dig down on those deaths, they're have they're preventable. They're associated with smoke alarms or associated with [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Thwarting out of hand. Situations. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Or going back in to get your pet. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: And, you know, that that public education piece is a very important component of how do we stop that trend from getting any worse. Right. But yeah. I hear you, and I don't know [Representative Sandy Pinsonault ]: Yeah. Because we actually have a home that was saved in Manchester from a a girl that went to school and had this safety program and went home and told her parents they had to get smoke detectors, and they installed them in the next following weekend. Their house caught on fire and they got out because [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: of the smoke detectors. Wow. Yeah. Positive story. Yeah. Thank you. Chavarone, do you want to bring mister Hallam? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: That was kind of the next plan in our our schedule today was to talk to mister Hallamback, director of finance, about the BAA numbers. And so committee, we are we're having a conversation with these folks about their BAA request. We are this is sort of the final component of our memo with appropriations. When we break with these folks, we're gonna stay and go over the memo just to have an understanding of what we are going to be sending to our friends next door. So just a little tee up as to what we're gonna do after this portion of our morning. And with that for the record, my name is Rick Hallenbeck. I'm the director of administration at the Department of Public Safety. And I just thank you for having us to discuss the the budget adjustment this morning. And I'm not sure if if this document was provided [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Yes. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: When you posted on our page [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Thank you. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: For providing. Yes. Would you like me to run through that document, or do you just have questions? No. Please run through just so you know, I I'd like to use this as, like, an educational resource and an immersive experience for the committee. Okay. Great. So before I dive into the line items on the document, I'd just like to kind of frame the the situation we have with the two two, funding sources that we're asking for general funds. The first one being our indirect cost rate, which is recorded in the interdepartmental transfer fund. So we've been we have a federally approved indirect cost rate, and we haven't been drawing a sufficient amount of revenue to cover the expenditures. We've had some years where it within just that year, it's been positive, but most of the years recently have been negative. We did have a significant balance that we, had started with back in, maybe, like, the twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen range. We had balance, so we've been seeing that dwindle over time. So that's why now it it has led to a problem because we don't have that balance to apply anymore to whether the the the individual fiscal year shortfalls. So and the other fund that we're experiencing a shortfall in is the criminal history record check fund. The revenue from that fund comes from a thirty dollar fee that folks can pay to get a Vermont criminal conviction report. We've seen some fluctuations over the years in that fund. Prior to COVID, it was increasing. We were seeing more and more revenue, and then it took a nosedive during during COVID for a couple years, and then it started to come back and is now declining again. We saw that this was going to be an issue when we developed the budget for twenty five, and a hundred and seven thousand was appropriated in general funds to, port the hole. But now the deficit that we're projecting is another million dollars on top of that. So any questions before I dive into the line items? Steve. Great. So if you look at the, appropriation number one for administration, there's the first line item, five zero seven six hundred, is a contractual line item for seventy five thousand. This, pays for our legacy CAT RMS system, which has many years of law enforcement data, and we need to keep that data alive so that it can still be referred to. And that also connects with a line item in the next appropriation we'll look at in the same account code. There's a down in special funds because that was budgeted in the criminal history record check fund. And the fiscal twenty three appropriation is where that first appeared in the criminal justice services appropriation. I'll pause there in case there's any questions about that. Great. The next line item down, five zero seven five fifty. Seven hundred and two thousand for, Crosswind, our CAD RMS system that we're currently using. This the software itself is called Valcore. Crosswind is the vendor for that. The only thing to note here is that the seven hundred and two thousand does not match exactly with the down in the criminal justice services appropriation. It's six hundred and six thousand two hundred and three dollars back. It was an oversight when we built twenty five that should have been built at the seven hundred two thousand because we have a contract. We know the exact amount the invoice is gonna be, so that is the that is the amount. Moving down the the grid, we get into the operating expenses, and I will sort of cover all of these together because they're all internal service fees. These are all amounts that are set, at the administration level for each department. I wouldn't look at these as increases in these particular line items. This is a funding source issue, not an increased fees. I could have just as easily chose our salary and benefit amounts that are funded by the indirect rate. But I thought for simplicity, it would be easier just to to focus on the operating line items. And these so what is happening is we're reducing the expense in interfunds where we're experiencing a shortfall in revenue, and we're backfilling that with general funds for each of these. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Any questions? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Mary, can representative Stone? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Thank you. I wanted to go back to the, the Valcore system that you guys are using. I know a few years ago, but there were some problems with it when it was being rolled out. Have those been fixed? Have you had any more challenges with it? [Representative Albert Hooper ]: I'm going to put that one because [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yes. Senator Morrison. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Sure. So there's not widespread problems with Valcour. It is an application that is used by almost every police agency in the state. There's a couple of agencies, Hartford Windsor and others that are not on Valcour. And the state pays to provide that to all law enforcement agencies and dispatch centers because it's really important to be able to share information in real time. Time. We see incredible value in having a statewide records management system. The problems that we hear from the field are that, Valcorp is being used in dispatch centers in a way that doesn't work well as an EMS or fire computer aided dispatch system. They're very they're different. A computer aided dispatch system and a records management system usually are connected to one another and dump information from the CAD into the records management system. Valpar was not built as a CAD system for fire and EMS, and so it doesn't necessarily meet the needs of that portion of first responder community. So if you say, are there problems with it? It really depends on what balcony you're looking at it from, but there is no fundamental problem with Valcour. It's a all the things that it was designed to do, which is to be able to be customized by home agencies, to be able to collect information and report out and build your own custom reports without having to go back to a large vendor and wait six months, pay a lot a lot of money to have them build the report or change your drop down menus for you. All the reasons why it's super nimble and user friendly for home agencies are also some of the reasons why it's it was never billed for fire and EMS, and that's becoming more and more clear. So that's that is something that the public safety communications task force is taking a a look at, and our consultants have been diving into, talk about what the future might be. But there is no problem with Valcour. It's a it's a a very innovative solution to what was a problem of basically being held hostage by these large national CAD RMS companies that cost a lot of money and required a lot of maintenance hardware and software fixes that that had to be constantly updated by tech techs. This is a cloud based solution. It's an application. It's not a software sitting on your device or anything. So there's there's mixed opinions, and Valcore is not, not everybody's cup of tea, but it does provide tremendous benefit to the statewide information sharing landscape. And, we're at a place in this whole discussion of what's the future of dispatching and and how we organize our communications across the state, that this will obviously come up and and a discussion will be had about whether there's other options we should explore. K. Thank you. You're welcome. Did you have a question? [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: Will you be coming back to talk more about that information sharing landscape? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: And If you're if you invite me, I don't know. [Representative Philip Jay Hooper ]: I hope so. That's me saying that. Yep. Mhmm. Hope so. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Great. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: That concludes administration. Just to note that if you look in the interdepartmental transfer total, it's one point one million. That's our projected shortfall. The total of one point nine general fund column, come additional funds come into play because of the criminal history record check shortfall that we'll get into in the criminal justice services. So that adds some complexity that there's there between the the two appropriations. And as I delve into that second appropriation, the the top line under personal services just says VCIC director and deputy salaries and benefits. So this is the one thing that I haven't discussed from above because this is just simply a shift from special to general within this appropriation to alleviate some pressure on the criminal history of record check fund. And the other two right below it, I've already mentioned from above because those Yeah. Meaning, the special fund hoops, the general funds, and it's a better those two contracts are a better fit in administration. They're it's really a a statewide system not really related to the criminal justice service of the coverage. You say you're just shifting the expense to a different bucket that's more functional to or applicable to the expense? Correct. And that is everything I had to share. Okay. So the total BAA is the six eight five eight six point eight? Five nine? Not sure I have the total BAA number in this spreadsheet. For the we're we were mostly asked to look at the the b two zero eight and b two ten. Right. Right. And so the the total BAA request would [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: be [Chair Matthew Birong ]: it's it's around two point two million. I can I can get that exactly here? It's just the it's just the it's the subtotal of the general fund column in administration of one point nine million and the subtotal of increase in the ChromaVest services of three hundred and forty three thousand. Okay. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Okay. And then last? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: That's almost that two point one seven two two nine five. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Questions from the committee at the Chamber of that? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: We just wanna make sure we're getting our total correct for our memo. Sure. I I can email you something on that. Yeah. Is there yes, representative? [Representative Chea Waters Evans ]: I was just wondering if you could give some more context for the, the fees that you said had kind of gone up and down. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Sure. There's there's this proven in in play, the indirect cost rate and the criminal history record check fund. Are you asking about both of them? Like, it [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: kinda Yeah. Just curious if you [Representative Chea Waters Evans ]: know, like, what causes them and [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: what you're thinking about the future? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yeah. So for the the indirect cost rate, we have a federally approved rate. It has fluctuated between fifteen point five and twenty five point three, which is actually our current fiscal twenty five rate. But the the rate itself isn't the end all, be all. It depends on what grants to get and what type of expenditures are within those grants. Because if we have more grants, we we have more funding sources to draw from, but there is a a rule that if it's a subgrant or a contract, you can only draw that rate on the first twenty five thousand in expenditures. So we have a lot of grants like that. For example, public assistance, that's all subgrants to municipalities. So we're only able to draw out of one of them but it has helped because so many of them it's you know does add up to a significant number. So it's the other component is it's not just a a revenue issue. You know, we're trying to keep up with the expenditures, which keep going up over the past few years. The salaries and benefits have gone up, and I don't wanna focus so much on the the the salaries. They have gone up, but the benefits have have been significant, and the internal service fee increases have been significant. That's that's about direct costs for the criminal history record checks. I don't know that I could speak to what's causing that fluctuation. It's just that it's dependent on the number of Vermont criminal conviction reports that folks requesting pay the thirty dollars for. I'm sure that there's some drivers for that. I mean, that we wanted me to to pun it to director Wallen. He could probably tell you the types of of entities that request that information. I'm sorry. The the cost has or the the revenue let's see. It it was growing up until twenty nineteen. We had a growth of twenty one percent in twenty nineteen. And then in twenty twenty, it went down. It rebounded in twenty one and twenty two, both up years, and then started going down again in twenty three and twenty four. So that's where we're at now or well, that's our last four year data. So that's where we're projecting from. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Representative Cooper? [Representative Albert Hooper ]: In the agency as a whole or in particular divisions, are you experiencing a lot of vacancies, inability to hire, or utilizing vacancy savings? [Chair Matthew Birong ]: We're definitely still experiencing significant number of trooper vacancies. That's that's one that we have built into our budget. There's a significant amount of vacancy savings built into account for that. I'm not sure if there's any other vacancies that we need to speak to outside of that. [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: I mean, I think there's a handful across [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: the [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: division. We're doing better in most of the other divisions, but there's still a handful here and there. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Can you see if you wanna They're we're talking about, like, three in VEM, but they're all in process of being hired. And, I don't know. Mike Durocher, do you have any big numbers of vacancies in fire safety? Part time part time fire instructors, I know we're we're looking for. Again, that comes from that number of two hundred part time employees. But full time employees, do you have a lot of openings? [Director Michael Desrochers ]: No. We're actually really good and nearing full capacity, finally. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: So Right. Yeah. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So the troopers are are really the big area, and I will say Michigan critical. Finding wood finding some wood or laminate to knock on. We're finally getting to a place with the last class this class that's in right now, and, hopefully, our I'll put a class where we believe we will turn out as many new troopers as we are losing through retirement and attrition, which means we're gonna stop losing that because we've been losing that for the last four and a half years. And so the the vacancies are substantial, and we really need to bring them back. We have, we have flipped twelve positions to civilians because we just can't hire troopers. But, things that historically troopers have done are now being handled by civilians, and we are obviously encouraging our colleagues across the state law enforcement enterprise to do the same thing. And, we're we're making a little bit of progress, but it's too soon to plant the flag of victory, but we think that guidance is true. Lab watering's new. Right? Yes. Right now. Well, and the the only thing that the application number line is still different. It's still still [Chair Matthew Birong ]: December, and that was a troubling stat you shared with us. Yeah. Representative Coffin? [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: Yeah. I was just wondering because how many troopers are we talking about that we're short that you're told we get out of the get out of the premises? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Well, we have thirteen in right now. Jim, do you I know we did a a staffing report about three weeks ago. Do you know the most recent numbers? [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: We are at forty seven vacancies, and but that includes the troopers that are in pre basic right now. So the they're not out in the road. They're in training. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So there's thirty four that that that we could hire tomorrow. And, of the thirteen that are in the basic training right now, we hope they will all make it through and come out and be successful in field training, but they still have a long path before they actually get in a car by themselves and answer calls for service. [Representative V.L. Coffin IV ]: How long are they in the training class before they're released to ride with [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So they have a three weeks pre basic where we bring them in and teach them about the organization and prepare them to go to the the regular basic training academy. It's about fourteen weeks at the academy and then another three post basic where they get certain certifications like DUI certification, figuration, various other certifications. So it's a total of twenty weeks of being at the academy. And then they come out and go into field training with with a field training officer. Jim, how's how long is that these days? [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: We're talking about a month and a half of time. It's a little over forty days, I believe. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So ten weeks because they've don't they mostly work four four, five days? So eight to ten weeks of field training? [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: Yes. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: So it takes a long time. Thirty weeks is, you know, better part of a year. But you gotta make sure they're equipped to do the job because it's frequently out there by themselves to go back up nearby. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: Yeah. Two hundred and four. Well, two hundred and four. I don't know if it's the [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: The the authorized number right now is three twenty three three twenty four? [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: Three twenty three. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Three twenty three. I was close. Yes. As I said, we've we've converted positions like, cold case investigator that previously had detected who handled cold cases. We now have civilians doing it so that if it comes to a point of an arrest, then a trooper gets involved to write the affidavit of probable cause. Our technology investigation unit was headed by a a sworn member that now is headed by a civilian. The examples of things like that where we we just have to find ways to put more police officers out doing the jobs that require a badge and a gun. [Representative Albert Hooper ]: What are your recruitment arms? [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: We have a great recruiting team, actually. We have a a civilian recruiter. That was another one that we Yes. Switched a bunch of people plus the the optical why don't we speak about this, Jim? They're much better too. [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: And I I think I captured the question, but it was a little low for me. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: It's about we describe our recruiting arm. [Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whitcomb ]: Okay. So we have our office of professional development. I think the commissioner was describing the fact that we have some civilian assistance there. Dale Nelson's doing a lot of our social media. In fact, he's heading up, our social media reach out, our PIO, Adam Silverman. If you look at some of our our websites been rehabbed and, modernized, our, engagement in social media is amazing. We are very proud of where we're headed, and we're make we're making attempts to, reach people where they are. And that's that's things like Instagram. So, between those two civilian, recruiter positions, we've got detective sergeant assigned to recruiting. We have a lieutenant that manages all that, and then we also implement all the thought processes for recruiting into our barracks. So you'll see troopers that'll get pulled out from, weather duty and supplement travel, the local area making these these, recruiting events representing the Vermont State Police. And we'll go as far as into New York State, Massachusetts, New Hampshire for these events. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Perfect. Thank you so much. We probably need to wrap up. We really appreciate you all being here. We have a a BAA discussion coming up, so we'll take your your numbers into serious consideration for sure. And thank you very much for all of your service and what you do for the state of Vermont. Thanks for having us. Thank you. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Appreciate it. Yes. Oh, we'll be chatting soon. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Thank you [Deputy Commissioner Daniel Vazia ]: very much. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Appreciate it. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Yes. And, thank you for everyone who joined us remotely and in person. We really appreciate the time. [Commissioner Jennifer Morrison ]: Thank you. [Chair Matthew Birong ]: Alright, committee. We are gonna take a just a short short short break while we wait for representative Harrison to come over for appropriations to chitchat about the budget adjustment demo. So payback.

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