Have you, at some point in your life, been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, an experience where you flip between various intensities of mania and depression? Have you thought to yourself that maybe that is not something that accurately describes your experience? Well, there is a very common misdiagnosis that autistic people get, which is bipolar disorder, amongst other things, particularly in autistic women. So today, we're going to be having a look at our landing crews video all about how they were misdiagnosed with, I was going to say, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder. Always get those two mixed up. Let's have a look at that. Hello, landing crew. Welcome to another video in my autism series. Sorry it took so long for me to sit down and share this, but I've just not been sure how to share this video. And it's why I've never shared this in the past, because this story isn't just my story. The story is kind of intertwined with my mother. I want to be as respectful as possible and not overshare and not give down too much information, but I am the queen of oversharing. So it leaves me in this really weird place. So I'm going to try to do the best I can and realize if this seems very vague. Before even going further, I want to just say guys, I'm not really sure why people would think that I would suddenly like make up being diagnosed with autism to cover up that I'm really bipolar. I literally on video had the doctor telling me that I'm diagnosed as autistic and I don't have bipolar disorder. They went through a very, very thorough evaluation with myself and way more thorough than the doctor that diagnosed me with bipolar disorder did. I'm really, really sad to when I hear stuff like this because there is a lot of people out there who seem to have certain opinions about people being diagnosed, particularly with autism and ADHD seems to be that people online think that it's somewhat of a consequence of social media and TikTok in a negative way. So you know, people are wanting to jump on it because it's like a fashionable thing. It's not like that for the majority of people. And it's sad to see like people trying to discredit the neurodiversity just because they feel certain ways about diagnoses. Diagnoses? Diagnoses? Diagnoses. It's not, I think that's the plural. I cut out the part where she said it's very common for women to be diagnosed as bipolar instead of autistic. So look, I know it's hard when you've created your own narrative up in your head of, oh, Stephanie acts this way because she's manic or she does this because of her bipolar disorder and suddenly that diagnosis is taken away and your own narrative about me is squashed. But I went through the proper channels to get properly assessed. You're just adding to the stigma. I'm here to offer support to other females or males that have been wrongly misdiagnosed. It's essentially very, very common to be misdiagnosed as bipolar or borderline personality disorder. Sometimes ADHD, but that one gets a little murky. But bipolar and BPD are the two biggest ones that autistic women are diagnosed as incorrectly. I should have. I think there is two reasons to why autistic women seem to be more regularly like diagnosed with like BPD. I think one is obviously like gender stereotypes, I would say is quite a big one. Perhaps men would be more likely to be diagnosed with anger issues. I think there's a lot to do with overwhelm and meltdowns. Maybe with bipolar, you can imagine periods of burnout as perhaps being quite depressed So it can kind of seem like there's different sort of diagnoses within that umbrella of bipolar. You have type one, type two, so I think you have like cyclophymia, various sort of intensities of mood swings as they characterize it as. And obviously the same could be said with the gender stereotypes around bipolar. Perhaps some people might have certain stigmas or stereotypes attached to that. And I suppose with all of that combined with the lack of awareness and knowledge about autism and masking and how it appears in sort of late diagnosed, undiagnosed individuals, I think it can all culminate into making misdiagnosis particularly of women a little bit more common, I would say. Should have never had a bipolar diagnosis. Like I never actually truly met the criteria. I'm not saying I'm autistic to be cool. I don't get cred points for being autistic. I get more and more people questioning me and me having to defend another diagnosis. No one questioned when I was bipolar. I mean some people did. It gave other people a narrative to use against me. Okay, let's get to the story. When I was a teenager, my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type one. She has openly talked about this before. So I don't feel like I'm like outing her or anything like that. She had... I do believe that type one is usually like pretty extreme states of mania combined with pretty extreme states of depression. I think that's what type one is. I think type two is sort of... It's got a subtle variation to it. And I think that psychophymia is sort of states of... I think type two... Don't quote me on this. I think type two is sort of similar states of depression but perhaps periods of hypomania. Which is like sort of a... I think like a medical term for like mania but maybe not as intense. I don't know. Psychophymia is sort of periods of... sort of equally sort of hypo kind of depressive periods and manic periods. Don't quote me on that. I'm just trying to think of the lectures that I had at university when I was doing them on the brain. We're learning about the sort of the medications that are used and such. I had a very tricky journey with the Sata Texas. The Sata Texas where we specifically lived was not really big on mental health especially back then. In the end, it scared me to ever want to get help. I knew that bipolar disorder, it could be hereditary. I could end up with it. Out of my three sisters, I'm the one that looks the most like my mom and the one that acts the most like my mom. So it was just the scary thing that I felt like was like hovering over my head since I was a teenager. And because of the experience she had with the Texas mental health system it made me terrified to ever seek out help, to ever get on meds. So after I had the kids, I started to just kind of go out with friends because of the thing that I take someone and like I act like them. I started hanging out with these people who would party all the time. And so I became that person as well. I became what I thought that that's what I was supposed to do at my age. So that's what I did. And it's hard because like these things I'm going to talk about, autism is intertwined in it. But it's really, really having to do with a young girl who didn't have the best childhood went through some really rough things and now she's trying to find her way in the world. But she's married and she has three kids. I knew I needed to seek out help. I knew I needed help that I was scared to. I was petrified that I was going to have the same experience because when you're younger, you can't differentiate between maybe your mom had other things going on. Maybe they got the meds wrong. Maybe if you went to a private psychiatrist, maybe it would have been better. You do not compartmentalize those things. I would say we're on 22, 23. I realized that I had some unresolved things that needed to be resolved, but I was scared to take care of them. So instead I became this person that I thought I was supposed to be and I didn't make the best choices. I would say age 22 to 24 is the years that I wish I could delete from my memory. This is a hard story. The thing is I've always been like I've always been a kind of person that didn't really give into social norms within a group. If I wanted to do something, I know I'd do it. If I didn't want to do something that the group was doing, I wouldn't do it. When I was in Thailand, I decided to step out of my comfort zone a little bit and try and be with the group a little bit more and have a little bit more group thinking sense just to see what it's like. I did have a very good experience and I did find myself, as she was saying, perhaps going out quite a bit when it's not really me, I guess. And that was positive in some respects. And I think in other respects it was not necessarily good for me because I didn't really have that sense of stability and control over what I was doing when I was sort of agreeing with the group and going along with things. I think it was good for me in a certain sense. Same as you, Yona. Story to tell. In this one year, it was 2009 and this was the one year that always made me believe that I must be really bipolar because I made some not great decisions. It's really hard because I couldn't look back and see that I was dealing with some unresolved issues and I was trying to find myself and of course I'm undiagnosed autistic. I don't realize that I'm trying to find myself by being what I feel like everyone expects me to be instead of just finding my own self and my own niche. They aren't things I'm proud of. I'm not going to go into detail because that's not really what this video is about. But I made enough poor choices that I was concerned about my mental health as well. I ended up losing a job that I worked out for about four or five years. Lonnie and I were actually separated for a year. It was just a lot on my mental health. Lonnie and I married when I was 17. We barely knew each other. We knew each other for three weeks before we got engaged two and a half months before we got married and we had three kids together. One wasn't biologically his and then we moved across the country. It was just a lot. A lot to process. I was young but I didn't feel like I was young and I felt like I knew everything and I didn't. It came to a point where I basically had an emotional breakdown and I just didn't know what to do with it. I didn't understand why I made all these poor choices. I wanted to understand it better.  Everyone would tell me that constantly that I was bipolar, that I was bipolar. And so with time I just believed that that's what was going on and clearly I just was in denial and I needed to get help for it. A few months after I lost my job, Lonnie and I ended up getting back together.  By a month's time I was like something's going on and with that, knowing that Noah had some things going on I knew he needed his mother to be at 100%. I was like if I have unchecked mental health issues if I am bipolar then I need to know I need to get on meds, I need to get treatment so I can be the best mom I could be. So at that point the thought of going through something similar to what my mom did wasn't as scary as my kids not having the mom that they needed. And so I just kind of squashed down all that fear. I'm the type of person that if you tell me something enough times I kind of believe it that's just kind of how I am. With time I just believed that I was bipolar. You couldn't have convinced me otherwise. Yeah and I think it's kind of bringing up some similarities from the last video that we watched from the fourth spot. You know that idea of ego sort of disillusion. I wouldn't say ego deaf, I think ego disillusion is probably like a better word for it but very much you know a case of unintentional gaslighting. People telling you something that you're not. That doesn't necessarily match up with your experiences but you don't necessarily have sort of a stable ego, stable identity enough to be able to counteract that. It's interesting. This person has a knack for speaking without breaks. Every time I think about pausing it and making a comment it's kind of like onto another little thing. The summer of 2011 I started the process to get help with my mental health. It was also when we were starting the process for Noah. I went to the same clinic that my mom was. My mom was a patient there. I actually got the same doctor. I don't know how they let us see the same people. I told the doctor that she was my mom. There was an assessment at all. She asked me a few questions and ten minutes later I'm walking out of there with a bipolar one diagnosis and a script for depico. And some others I went through a lot of meds they just never really worked for me very well. The depico caused me to gain a bunch of weight. That's how I actually ended up gaining a lot of my weight. I'm just thinking like I've had conversations with others who had misdiagnosed bipolar. It was I think one of the podcasts that I did with Autisticly Bee. It was a very informative podcast and I was kind of thinking about all the ways that particular meds that you might be prescribed might exacerbate some of the difficulties that you might have as an autistic person. You could think of medications like Mood Stabilizers sort of things that are designed to squash your made profile to a certain extent, I believe. If you're autistic and you're lexophymic and you struggle to notice and identify emotions particularly when they're not peaking and becoming intense enough it's going to make things a lot more difficult. It's going to make it a lot more difficult to identify how you're feeling when you're also on a mood stabilizer. You know what I mean? That's what... I'm not a pharmacologist. I had someone make a comment recently saying I think about one of the podcasts that I did saying that I need to display my credentials because I gave misinformation about I think about stimulants for people with bipolar or something like that and I was like, okay, I'm sorry. Sorry. I was just very crafting. So now I feel every time that I'm talking about my ideas about things that I need to say, I'm not a doctor. I should probably have it like plastered on my forehead. You are right with... You are right. There is no medication for autism. I mean, there's medication for things that are common to autistic people. I would argue that perhaps medications which target oxytocin might be considered to be medication. Like the podcast that I did with Dr. Miyabi Shields on sort of medicinal marijuana. Apparently she was researching a particular mediator for oxytocin which is activated through the endocannabinoid system through THC and you could argue that definitely increases someone's response to social reward. So I guess you could argue that perhaps that may be considered to be a medication maybe. It's definitely not for overall functioning but it might be for life satisfaction to some degree. Or what they tried on me. It just wasn't successful. I stayed with them for about six months just trying to figure it out because I did a lot of research as I do with anything and the research said that bipolar people didn't want to believe that they were bipolar and I refused to be that person.  And so I said, nope, I'm bipolar. I will take the meds. We will do it. And there were sometimes I would go off of meds because they made me feel so, so, so horrible. But overall I wanted to be as compliant as I possibly could. And so I did try to get on different meds.  It's not ADHD. And so she just kept pumping me up with meds and not really addressing the fact that I still hadn't found a therapist. The best therapy I could do was group therapy which was not good. It was like 10 to 12 people. I feel like it helped me like see a different perspective of like depression and things like that but it didn't help me personally. And so I kept saying like I need therapy and they just kept disregarding it. They didn't have the staffing for it. And so when I started working at a job in collections I got private insurance and I went to a private psychiatrist by the end of our second... It's not for everyone's side and I think it's definitely like especially in the UK like I don't think there's many arguments for that although you can get you can get it medically prescribed I'd recommend looking at the podcast if you are sort of interested in sort of alternative medicine I guess. Definitely very interesting. It was interesting for me. I get the Pryadel lithium for BPD and it really did nothing for me. It's jaded me against psychiatrist, yeah. I think they can be quite sedating as well if I'm not mistaken. Like the anti-psychotic meds specifically. I'm too scared to try it for my depression. Yeah, well there's a lot of stigma around it I would say. And definitely only if you can be prescribed it medically I would say. I mean, Miyabi was saying about how it should be sort of legalized recreationally but I'm not 100% sure on that. I do definitely think that medically it has a lot of benefits but it has to be within it has to be a medical system you know that sort of mediates that 100% you don't want to be getting stuff from all sorts of random places and you want to be able to have like the tailoring of the doses just like any of the medications would if that is something that you're going for but don't listen to me I'm not a doctor. Second meeting she was like I just don't understand how they labeled you as bipolar like I'm really trying to understand and I explained to her the year that I felt like I went off the deep end and things like that and she's like yeah but have you had that happen again and I was like well no I mean after that period I was pretty stable I had moments and stuff I'm also diagnosed with complex PTSD which causes all kinds of issues and none of them ever address that they all knew about my past so I don't know why it wasn't like address why it wasn't taken into consideration but it was always pushed to the side so in my head I always thought it wasn't important like it wasn't a part of who I am over it I can talk about what happened without getting emotional or anything like that so I'm over it and it doesn't affect me I didn't realize that those kind of things just are kind of like woven into you in a way Definitely woven into you if you're autistic the prevalence of elexifamia is real 100% and it's also pretty pretty well documented to be sort of an aspect of PTSD as well the idea of CPTSD although not specifically described and diagnosed within like the psychiatric systems I think it has been explored to quite a significant extent and it does seem that neurodivergent people specifically autistic people I would say do have a tendency to developing like that kind of complex PTSD stuff I think it's to do with like sensitivity I would say yes each to their own 100% it puts a blanket over your sensory issues and emotional issues that's how I got into it ended up really being bad for me well the thing is is that it has to be like it depends on whether you use it as like a medication or whether you use it as escapism and that sounds somewhat like escapism to me I guess not trying to be a cute story I think you can get that with anything you can get that with prescribed medications like common one like benzodiazepines helps some anxiety 100% great, good for panic attacks good for like intermittent like acute anxiety also can be used recreationally and very detrimentally in terms of like escapism addiction things of that nature I think it depends on the context I would say you got paranoid maybe it was the setting I was in no I think it's a pretty pretty common side effect I would say from what I've looked into best way to process your emotions as an autistic person is physical exercise and he needs to talk about emotions doesn't benefit us in the same way I do agree that exercise is good 100% it can be incredibly regulating I wouldn't say that that's necessary really processing it I'd say that it's probably a healthy way of regulating yourself I wouldn't say that it usually when you process emotions it's kind of the tying of your experiences and understanding how you feel about it and trying to dissect that in a sense it can be somewhat difficult due to alexophymia when it comes to talking about emotions but it's definitely beneficial if you manage to kind of get over that alexophymic haze if you take melatonin I do not have metazepine helps with my sleep and anxiety it would take a long time to figure out my emotional state in various moments me too even now I mean I can sort of to a certain degree but it depends if it's a very complex thing maybe not so much and so anytime I would do anything I'd be like oh I must be starting to get a little bit manic but oh I'm fine now it was just such a strange experience when you have everyone around you saying oh yeah you're definitely bipolar because your mother is bipolar but then you have professionals saying I don't know like this doesn't quite fit what we're used to she put me on lithium and prozac prozac definitely helped a lot the lithium didn't really affect me whether I was on it or I wasn't but the prozac did the prozac helped me a lot I've learned now that it actually helps with anxiety too so that's kind of what happened that's the met I stayed on for a really long time when I was pregnant with alexander about a month or two before I gave birth I went into the psychiatrist's office I was like hey I'm about to have a baby I just want to make sure I have the med so as soon as I have them I can start meds and like a few months after seeing her she was like do you know what I don't know that you're actually bipolar like I just don't know about that and this is the kind of story every time I had any interaction with any mental health provider they were just kind of like you know this doesn't quite fit you but here you go and I honestly feel like it's because not enough people but then they can't really like turn around and say well what about this I've noticed some autistic traits here yeah it would take a long time to figure out my emotional states and various moments sometimes weeks but then processing it feels like a whole of a challenge yeah and the issue there is that you've got to in my experience to process emotions alongside events and thoughts I have to somewhat stoke the emotions in myself weirdly so a lot of the ways that I would sort of process what's happening to me like when I was a teenager was was listening to like really sort of angsty sort of teen music like I don't know like my chemical romance you know stick it on and like full blast while I'm like hitting the heavy bag outside and sort of thinking about it that usually helped although not always the most healthy and sort of best place to do it just in my experience being able to like stoke it a little bit and encourage the emotions sort of rise so that I can perceive it and understand it a bit more is sometimes helpful I mean a relatable example might be like a breakup you know perhaps like I didn't really process exactly how I feel about something like this loss in a sense but having music to sort of stoke that in me gives me a bit of it allows me to sort of see it a bit more clearly people are educated in how autism can present in adult females this is why I do this video because we do have doctors and therapists and psychiatrists and psychologists that do watch our channel so I want to tell you if you have a patient that is diagnosed with B.P.T. bipolar something along the lines and they're not just fitting the mold don't just push them aside don't just keep prescribing the meds like try to figure out like I wish that one of them would have stopped and been like hey I'd really like to do a neuropsych evaluation on you I felt really really just disregarded for a really long time it was hard for me to understand because every time I would say well maybe I'm not bipolar I would go back to this year that I made poor choices and that's the thing you can make bad choices you can maybe be struggling with your mental health in an extensive way and not have mental illness no one gets to define you if someone would have said you have some mental health struggles like that would have been different they they were completely right I was struggling with so much I was a really young mom a really young wife Lonnie and I were both dealing with their own things that's why I never tried to tell someone I think you're XYZ because I feel like it could have went a different way just because you have a family member that struggles with something doesn't mean you're going to struggle with exactly that yes mental health a lot of times is hereditary and it is very very very common if you have a mom that's like a narcissist it's very common for you to be a narcissist as well so these things are very common but they don't write everything in stone either and I'm not saying my mom's a narcissist that's not what I'm saying I was just using that as an example that it's very common for it to run in the family and it's not always just like genetics a lot of times it's just environmental so if you grew up with a mom that's like really struggling with with narcissism then that's how you were raised and that's what you saw so that's what you think is okay and so it's very very very much environmental along with genetics that is kind of my story if you have any questions leave them below because again as soon as I'm done with the series so the next video is my last video but the last last video will be my answering all of your guys' questions about everything that I've posted about so leave them below and don't forget tonight I will be doing a one to two hour live stream on Twitch depending on how many people show up it's our Leaning Crew 8 and you can come ask tons of questions and you'll have to wait for the Q&A we love you guys and we'll see you then there we go that was our landing crew capital L-A-N-A-N-D how I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder good to hear someone's personal account and I'm sure it's will be very useful to some of you sort of thinking about your own sort of experiences in life I know there's a lot of individuals who do come out and say the late diagnosed autistic they existed most of the life thinking that they had another diagnosis but it never really helped them the stuff that was prescribed to them didn't really help and the therapy that they received didn't really seem very helpful either so the more that this kind of information is out there I think the better because I think a lot of the time we do expect the psychiatric system to be somewhat flawless it's quite often not the case sometimes with a lot of stigma and stereotypes are attached to it so just being aware of that and if you have enjoyed it make sure to check out our landing crew's youtube channel give it a like give the video a like and give them some love I mean they have about 234,000 subscribers so maybe give some other love to me as well maybe shift some of that love to me as well or do both that would be preferred


Hello friends, I am Sanjay Gupta. I welcome you on Sanjay Gupta Tech School. In this video, I'm going to explain how you can perform linear search in C program. So before starting explanation, I just want to give you one information. If you go to detail or description of this video, you will find links of various players. So you can watch those programs if you want to learn programming. Now I'm going to explain how we can perform linear search with the help of C program. So first I'm going to read an array and then I'm going to read a number that we want to search in that particular array. So let me draw one array here. So let's say this is one the array. These are indexes and its name is A and these are in this right and these are the values which are assigned into this. So first we are going to read this array from the code and then we are going to read a number. Let's say I want to search 15. So I need to identify whether 15 is available in this one the array or not, or we can also identify on which location it is. And let's say first we will check it for 15 and then we will check it for 25. So if n is 25, so you can see 25 is not available in this array. So in that case, the program should print the number is not found. So the program should be printing both the results. If it is available, then it will say number is present at this location. And if the number is not available, then it should say number is not present, right? So now I'm going to implement the solution. So first of all, I'm going to take an array, then the number which we want to search then variable I and I'm using a flag variable that is at whose initial value is 0. Then after this, I'm going to write printf, which will display a message, enter 10 numbers, then with the help of for loop, I'm going to read all those numbers. So for loop will repeat this kind of and all the numbers will be stored inside this. Now after this, I'm going to write one more printf and it will display the message enter the number to be searched. So user has to enter the number that he want to search in the array and then to receive that as input, I'm writing this. So this part will read any and this part will read the number that you want to search, whether it is present inside array or not. Right. So this is quite easy. So I hope you understood till now, whatever is implemented. So now I'm going to write the code that will perform linear search. So I hope you also understood why it is called linear search because we are searching from the first number and we are going to search that number till end. So linearly we are going to search that number one by one if it is available and if it is available on a particular position, then we need to break the rotation of loop or you can say we need to break the searching process so that unnecessarily we don't match the number which we are going to search with other numbers. Right. So after this, I'm going to write one more loop. So this will also repeat 10 times because we don't know that a number will be available. But if inside this loop, any time number is found, we can break the loop with the help of breakkeeper. So now with this loop, first I'm going to write if condition. So if A of 5 W equals to N, so A of 5 means element of array and N is the variable which is having the number which we want to search. Right. So in first row, in first row, wherever anyone implemented this solution, so there may be thinking like if it is true, then we can print number is found and if it is false, then we can print number is not found. Right. So in first row, you might be thinking like we can implement the solution like this, but it is incorrect. So I'm repeating it is incorrect. So now I'm telling you why it is incorrect. So let's say number is 15. I'm going to search 15 and these are the elements of array. Right. So loop will start from 0. So first it will check a 0. So a 0 location is 11. So first it will check 11 W equals to 15. So this condition is false. So it will print not found. Right. Then again, I will be incremented. I will become one. So A of 1 position is 11 12. So 12 is again not equals to 15. Then again it will print not found. So for 11, 12, 13, 14, it will print not found. Then in case of 15, it will print found. And for again five numbers, it will print not found. So it means this process is incorrect. So I am removing these statements. So I hope you understood inside this loop, inside this loop, we cannot print whether number is present or not. We can just identify whether it is present or not. So now I am going to use this variable inside this loop. So if this condition is true, then I am changing the value of flag. So initially it was 0. If this condition is true, then I am changing its value with 1. And if this condition is true, it means number is present. So we can break the loop. So we can break the loop and I am closing the loop. So you can see I have not mentioned anywhere inside this loop with the help of printf like number is found or not. I just changed the value of f variable with 1. Initially it was 0. So now again I am going to pass this with same number like number is 15 and array is continuing to be present. So first time when a0 will be checked, so a0 is having 11, 11 equals to 15. So condition is false. So we are having only two parts for it. We are not having any other part. So if this condition is false, then control will be transferred to i-pressure. So i will be 1. So next time a1 that is 12. So 12 will be compared with 15. So 12 and 15 both are unequal. So again it will be false. So i will be implemented. So this way 13 will be false. 14 will be false. Then 15 comes. So 15 a0 is having 15 and is having 15. So both are true. In that case f will become 1 and break will terminate this loop. So after execution of this break, this loop will not work and control will be transferred here just after the loop. It means if this condition is true, then f will be having 1. And if f is having 1, it means number is found. So after this loop you just need to implement 1 if and you need to check what is the value of f. So let's say if fw equals to 1, if fw equals to 1 or you can write simply f inside if you can write fw equals to 1 or you can simply write f because f is containing 1. So any nonzero value in programming is considered as true. So here you can write printf number is number is found and else you can print number is not found and you can close your main function. So now you might be thinking when value of f will become 0. So if we take 25 as value of n, so we want to search 25 inside this edit. So you can see 25 is not present. It means this if condition will not become true anytime. So this loop will repeat 10 times and all 10 times this if will be false. So if this condition is false, then f will not become 1 anytime. So all 10 rotations, if we are performing all 10 rotations, this if condition is false. So what will be the value of f? 1 or 0? It will be 0 because if it is not true, so if this condition is not true, it means we are not changing the value of f. So it will remain 0 and after completion of this loop, if f is not equal to 1, it means it is 0, so it will print number is not. So if f is 1, it means number is available, otherwise number is not available. So this way with this condition we are able to identify whether a number is found inside array or not. Now one more thing is remaining. So it is printing number is found but it is not printing at which location. It is not printing at which location. So now what you can do, let's say number is 15. So 15 is present at this location and at that time value of i was 4. A4, A4 location, 4th index is having 15 and 15 was equals to 15. So f was 1 and loop terminated using break. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So this location is 5th but its index is 4 and loop is terminated. So last value of i was 4 when number was found. So here you can print, here you can print number is found at percentage location and then you can print i plus 1. So i was 4, so we are printing 4 plus 1. So the output will be number is found at 5th location. Number is found at 5th location. So this way you can add like at which location number is available with the help of i. So this way the program that I explained to implement linear search so that we can find better of particular number is available in an array or not. And one more thing you need to notice let's say 15 is available one more time in this array. So in this program we are only finding the first occurrence of that number. So 15 is available at this position it means it is found. So no need to check any other occurrence of this number. So if array is containing all elements as 15 let's say all elements are 15. So if at first position 15 is available so no need to check other elements whether they are 15 or not. So this way in case of linear search you just need to find out whether that number is available at initial positions or not. If it is available then no need to search for another position and if it is not available then in that case you need to search for all the elements. Because maybe it is available at last location so you need to check all the elements in the loop rotation. And I also explained the use of way so I hope you understood why we implemented break here so that we can terminate the process. So I hope you understood whatever I explained in this video. Thank you for watching this video.


All right. Welcome back everybody. We're coming back from our break here and we're going to pick up our work on S 17. And we'll begin with testimony from the network. Karen, are you there? Great. I think you're still muted. I'm here and I'm muted, but now I might. Great. Thanks for joining us. And if you could introduce yourself for the record, and I think you had some testimony to offer about the standby services issue. Thanks so much, Chair McCartney of McCarthy. I'm so glad to be here. I'm Karen Tronscott Scott and I work at the Vermont network where my role is as executive director. Thank you committee for the opportunity to testify today on S 17. We want to address a small but critically important issue in section six of S 17. Sheriff's accompanying survivors to retrieve personal belongings, often referred to as this is standby. Many sheriffs often accompany survivors to their home so they can safely collect their possessions after a relief from abuse order has been issued. Many sheriffs charge for this charge fees for this service, but many do not charge. So that's worth noting, because the fees are most often not affordable for survivors. Our 15 member organizations are frequently put in a position of trying to find the funds to be able to pay the sheriffs for this service. Often they are asking members of the community to cover the cost or church local churches, or they they find the money within their own budgets. The fees range from $75 an hour to $150 an hour and often include a minimum number of hours as well as a charge for mileage. Some sheriff's department. As I said earlier, some sheriff's departments cover this cost and some, some do not. Combined the nonprofit organizations in our in our community and our community members as well as survivors themselves are paying thousands of dollars a year to access protection when removing belongings in the wake of violence. I note that across our state from DCF to VSP to town police departments, there's a unified commitment to enhance survivor safety at every turn. And I want to really thank the Vermont State Police as well as our local police departments for continuing to provide this service at no cost to survivors. It's really clear that they have a deep commitment to survivor safety and community safety. We have a couple concerns about about current practice that I, I'm very happy to share with you. First of all charging survivors access to safety. So for survivors who need to remove items pursuant to a relief from abuse order standby assistance from law enforcement agencies is should be provided free of charge to these citizens. It's noteworthy that the state of Vermont has made policy decision to cover the cost of domestic violence offender accountability programs at no cost to those offenders. And we fully support that policy but it is noteworthy that survivors are simultaneously charged in order to safely remove remove belongings from from their abuse of home. Also, we know we're noting that there's a geographic inequity around this policy there's wide variation and a lack of consistency in the fees charged in whether they charged. And again, some sheriff's departments, never charge fees, and some charge as much as $150 an hour and often with a three hour minimum plus mileage so you can see that these costs are incredibly prohibitive for survivors. So there's really significant geographic injustice across our state, based on this, this approach. So we're asking, we've had some conversations with the Sheriff's Association and the network is requesting the language in s 17 to ensure that the sheriff's provide this assistance without charging a fee to the survivor, or any of their representatives. And we agreed with the sheriff's that we can have a conversation over the course of the summer to collect more data and assess the needs, especially in relationship to collecting to for defendants to be able to collect their possessions. So, I've sent a copy of some some requested language to you. And what that does is establish that the sheriff's departments will will offer these services and they will offer them at no cost to survivors. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. I'll open it up to the committee but I'll go first here. I am wondering if you saw in the last couple of drafts so we now have a draft group one of one that just came out. It was just posted within the last 30 minutes or so and it maintains the spirit of of that section 60 that came over to us in it as 17 Senate as past but tries to clarify a little bit that it's not exclusively the duty of sheriffs if there are other law enforcement agencies that said the language that came over from the set could be interpreted we have heard in testimony as the sheriff's being the exclusive providers of services, which I don't think was the network's intent. But I just wanted to clear that out from your perspective that something like this that basically says survivors aren't going to be charged. If sheriffs are requested to provide the service they shall but they won't be the only law enforcement agency providing standby service. Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't seen that latest version but based on what you're describing chair McCarthy, it sounds like it meets the intent of, and we'll solve the, the issue that we're concerned about the, and as I said earlier, there's a long history of town police officers as well as the Vermont State Police of providing the service. Without charging survivors that's, and so that's part of the, the information that we need to collect is where are these services being provided how are they be provided by whom are they being provided and and you know how does that how does that all configure for survivors. I'm looking at the suggested language in the written testimony that you provided. And it sounds like the addition that you're suggesting here is a required report back or collaboration between the network and the sheriff's association. It seems like there's already a dialogue about that. Do you do you feel stronger that we need to add that to the bill or is that something that the sheriff's association and the network could probably do about the statutory language. Well, you know, we've had some really great conversations with the sheriff's and the, and the good news about this conversations is that I think that we have a unity of vision. So, you know our conversation with the sheriff's association we recognize that that we all agree that this is the most dangerous point in the in a abusive relationship the point at which really from abuse orders issued and the survivors is leaving the shared home. So we all know that and agree that this is it's important for us to get this right. It's actually the the suggestion of the sheriff's association that we get together over the summer and take a look at this so that we can come back next year and and have more information we need we need a lot more information we need data, and then be able to come back next year with an actual long term plan. So, whether or not it is in statutory language of course we would love to see it in statutory language but understand that you know you may want may not wish to do that but again this was. This was the idea of the sheriff's association so I would be interested to know if they also even know what they what their opinion would be about having the provision in statutory language. Before I ask Sheriff Anderson from the association to come up to does anybody on the committee have any questions for Karen representative. Thank you thank you. I guess maybe you said this. How many are these are there in a in a given year roughly. Well, in a given year across our state there are about about 2000 RFA is issued. On the on a temporary basis so RFA is go through a two step process there's a temporary RFA and then which lasts for about two weeks. And then there's a hearing that's held and a permanent RFA is issued and and there's about a 50% drop off between those the temperature the issuance of a temporary RFA and the issuance of a permanent RFA so 1000 RFAs are issued a year. So all of those RFAs are held by survivors who feel like they need standby so that's one of the questions that we need to collect data on is you know how many people are we talking about here. Just a follow up to I think you said, does it cost your network of thousands of dollars a year or how much does it. I don't have that information because what I referred to is it costs in in in those places where there's a fee charged and the network program has the ability to support the survivor than the network program will support the survivor, but they don't it's not there's no line item for this thing they might talk to a local church and ask them for money or or to a benefactor of the organization and ask, ask them for money. But survivors very often, you know, many survivors never contact the network program and so they're out there on their own and they're actually paying out of pocket for the service. And so we know that there's, you know, we do, we do know that there's enough people across our state that are paying, you know, upwards of $600 for for the service. So we know that there's thousands of dollars that are being spent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's my advice. Thank you. Well, Sheriff Anderson, if you're willing to speak to this particular speaker at this point, I would since you're in the room. It might be useful. Good morning for the record, Mark Anderson, President of the last chair of this association. So is compelling us to do something in a way, but also says let's study it. So to the question of do we need to study, we certainly are willing to work with the network to do that. I don't think we need statute to do that, but really I don't see need in the sense of gathering the data of what the collaboration is, but they'd be a natural partner to collaborate with. The reason I say this is because we'd be the one providing the service. So it would just all be internal to us. We will, the Sheriff's Association, instead of, so there's an interpretation that this doesn't, does not preclude the state police or municipal police departments and certainly do not want to suggest that they're not unwilling to do these, but often our experiences in communities that the state police and municipal police departments cover, we're receiving the calls. I've done these in Brattleboro where they have a full service police department. I've done these in communities where the state police are the sole provider of services. So to that end, the reason why the Sheriff's Association is concerned about the compulsion is because as written, it says the, if we provide law enforcement in the county, well, I have 23 towns of which 15 contract with me for law enforcement. So Brattleboro does not contract with me for law enforcement. How do I pay my staff? How do I pay for the car to go to Brattleboro to sit there for four to eight hours while the U-Haul trucks filled up? And that's where we start to run into issues. We received information from the judiciary yesterday that there's over 6,000 relief from abuse orders that were issued in fiscal year 22. If I dropped that even by half, because they were not able to track what's required law enforcement presence, but if we cut that in half, that's 3,000 hour phase. If we assume even just four hours to load the U-Haul truck, then I mean, we're talking 27,000 manpower hours or personnel hours. And so this is where we become concerned about how do we pay for this? How do I tell my deputy to volunteer? Obviously I can't. So then it comes into the internal operations of each individual department, the financial resources of each individual department. And I think our consistent message has been if we're gonna be required to do this, please provide us some resources to do it. So I agree with Ms. Tronsgard Scott that we have a shared vision. Victims shouldn't pay for this. Survivors shouldn't pay for this. There's a variety of circumstances where these are not ideal circumstances. We've never been provided the resources to do this in the first place, which is why victims were asked through the Victims Compensation Fund under the prior administration to pay for it, which is how we ended up in a circumstance where we were getting reimbursed because the victim's getting reimbursed through the Victims Compensation Fund. So that's not an ideal system. We've learned that through this bill. I'm just concerned that this does create language that will cause municipal departments to say, well, it says they can ask the sheriff. So ask the sheriff because there's complete silence on who's responsible for this, otherwise it stays touching. I guess, where does this money come from that's in the Victims Compensation Fund? I would not be a good person to answer that question, but I understand it is not generally considered not sufficient. And I fundamentally agree that what we did was a workaround, but not a good solution. Talking with the executive director of Victims Compensation very briefly and talking with John Campbell at DSAS, I think the policy is agreeable that it shouldn't come from Victims Compensation that's identified for other reasons, but then where does it come from? So I mean, Mr. Chair, if I may offer a simple tweak, the language in 3.1, if we say in the DeLeague County and remove, I'm sorry, replace it with the primary law enforcement agency, every municipality through its E910 coordinator has to identify their emergency services. That's true in all 250, I guess, two towns now and incorporated villages. So they designate that to the state of Vermont. There's a clear registry of who's responsible for this, for law enforcement and any jurisdiction in the state of Vermont. It seems to be a realistic thing because they're already a resource to provide this. And while it continues as an unfunded mandate to that point, these are departments that are resource with my agency provide services in the town of Putney, which we do, for law enforcement, then we would be the ones providing it through our contract with the town of Putney, but then I'm not required to do it in the town of Ratabarro where I have no resource. Representative? Just for clarification, where is that, where is that, so it's in section six, correct? So B, B, okay, and it would be, so I'm going to law enforcement agencies, correct, correct? What I'm proposing is to delete on line 19, providing law enforcement services for the county, delete county and replace that with law enforcement services for the town. And I guess introduce something to the effect of saying whoever provides the primary law enforcement coverage for a community, as opposed to just the Sheriff's Department. I think it still accomplishes the network's goal of having law enforcement present. And those are in communities that are already resourcing law enforcement. Well, does the committee have any other questions for Sheriff Anderson? Thank you, or Representative Waters-Evans, go ahead. Thank you. So who makes the call asking for these systems? So the general process is that when a relief from abuse order is issued, there's going to summarize it as two processes that might be a little high level, but process number one is an emergency process. There's a 24, 700, 800 number. Process number two is the judiciary judge giving opportunity for either the survivor themselves or the survivor and the, I'll call it the defendant, the plaintiff and the defendant to come before the court. And so those are the temporary and what will eventually become the final relief from abuse order. The judiciary is the one who would dictate that a defendant or in some cases it does happen, a plaintiff is required or is allowed to go to a property in the presence of law enforcement to obtain their property. The temporary relief from abuse orders, and this is a very common practice, temporary orders, usually it's 15 minutes, get the toothbrush, get the laptop, get change of clothes, someone staying in a hotel or a friend's house or whatever that may be. On final orders, let's get the bed, get the dresser, get the dog, the cat. There can be several U-Haul loads, it can be several hours we've had, some go multi-day. So we're not talking an insignificant amount. We're gonna, so back to your question. As written in this draft, it would be the victim, I'm sorry, the survivor who is requesting the service of the department. I believe I read that correctly, and they would be the triggering event. There's also, I don't think it's a significant issue, but we wanna make sure that there's not a third-party contact between the plaintiff and the defendant in order. So generally law enforcement transacts the arrangement of this, so there's also some logistical work that leads into it. Representative Fango. Thank you, I just wanna clarify with Ms. Tronsgaard's that the victim doesn't actually, I'm sorry, the survivor doesn't actually have to pick up the phone to call a law enforcement agency that your network would help with that and maybe make the call for them. You're muted, sorry. Sorry about that. If the victim is working with a member organization, then certainly we would help them make that call. Okay. But not all victims work with our member organizations. Understood, but if you are involved, you would be able to make the call for that person. We would help them make the call. We wouldn't necessarily, we would do whatever they needed us to do. Great, thank you. Thank you. Other questions from our witnesses on this? I wanna have a little bit of a committee discussion about exactly what to do with this section because I wanna try to give Mr. Devlin some direction. So, Chair Anderson, thank you for sticking with us. So, so just kind of zooming out. As Bill came over to us from the Senate, this was basically just a straight up share shelter by the service. They won't charge survivors. The language that's before you in through one was an attempt to say shares will provide this assistance upon a quest, but to not preclude the primary law enforcement agencies from providing same reserves. Representative, thank you. Thank you. I'm just gonna throw some language out there that maybe we say the individual who requires assistance would contact the primary law enforcement agency. And that could include the sheriff's department for that community. For that community. And community could mean town, county, village. State? State, yes, because some communities have no law enforcement contracts. So here's, what's on there to go ahead? No, I don't want to go ahead. I guess my question is about the service is being provided now. I understand that's not not happening if it's needed. So I'm just wondering if we need to require who does it in this bill or if the issue is really making sure that the survivor doesn't have to pay for it. Because it sounds like we don't want to require an agency to do it if they have no funds to do it. And also if we don't require the survivor to pay for it. So I'm wondering, you know, where is the exact thing that we need to put in the bill? That's a great question that is exactly the troubles here. There seems to be broad agreement from the network, the sheriffs, most of us I think, that we don't want survivors to have to pay for the service in a time where they're fleeing and they've been granted a relief from abuse or whether it's temporary or final. And there's also the acknowledgement that this can really rack up serious hours. So my, I think that what we're left with here is that we really need the data. So I'm sort of figuring this conversation declined to adopt something like the language that Ms. Tronscott put in there. But to also soften the language as I'm hearing from a couple of the comments here that there's a desire to sort of say, well, this isn't just the sheriffs providing the service now. We want to make sure there aren't any primary law enforcement agencies in any communities that are charging survivors. So what's good for sheriffs should be good for all of those. But really we need to come back to this next year and either say the state is going to pay for these hours or we really think that, you know, the state and county law enforcement agencies can absorb the cost right now. We don't have the data to know, you know, the sort of back of the envelope of math about relief from abuse orders. I've heard that it could be, you know, a couple of hundred incidents a year that really have the multiple hour, you know, it's the big move with the final relief from abuse order up to be thousands. I don't think it's thousands, but we have no way of knowing based on the testimony we've heard and there isn't one consistent repository of that data from what our witnesses have told us. So I think it's hard to, it's hard for us to in this bill totally solve a problem. I think my primary goal would be to say, we're not going to have survivors pay for this period. And then over the next year, I think we should make a commitment to get that data and then come back to this issue next year. That's where I'm starting to land, but I'll leave it from everybody else representing. Thank you. So that would mean the additional letter E from the network's proposed language, which is the study. But I was looking back at their proposed language D that they proposed that says, Sheriff's department's providing law enforcement services in the county in which an individual who has a relapse from abuse order resides, shall have a duty to assist in the retrieval of personal belongings, et cetera. And I think we could put something in there that refers to absent another primary law enforcement agency being responsible in that municipality or that community. It would default then somehow to the sheriff. And instead of saying a sheriff's department shall not seek a fee, I would say any law enforcement agency shall not seek a fee from the individual being assisted. So I think the first part of what you're suggesting is what I tried to get with Mr. Devlin's help. And after the feedback we'd heard from the Sheriff's Association on this issue before. So if you look at 3.1D, now it reads, if an individual who has a relief from abuse order requires assistance in the retrieval of personal belongings and the individual requests assistance from the Sheriff's department for providing law enforcement services and for the county with that individual resides, the Sheriff's department shall provide the assistance. That was meant to make it so that if they go to the sheriff and ask the sheriff, the sheriff will provide it, but not to exclude whoever the primary law enforcement agency is in their town. So if you're in Burlington, you're probably gonna call Burlington PD, not the Chinning County Sheriff's office. It would be my assumption, right? Or if you're in the city of St. Albans, you're gonna call the Samoans Police Department not the Chinning County Sheriff. Maybe, though, I don't know if the individual is making the call themselves if they would make that specific choice. So that's why I kind of wanted to make it sound like if there's another primary law enforcement then that's who they should get directed to. If it's a primary law enforcement agency for that community. So like St. Albans PD, but if you're living in Berkshire, it wouldn't be because there is no Berkshire PD. It would be likely the BSP or the Franklin County Sheriff's office, but because Berkshire doesn't contract with the Sheriff's office, it doesn't have to be. You know, the Sheriff's office is not Berkshire's primary law enforcement agency. So I think that's where the difference might come in in the wording, although I think it's close in letter D of 3.1. I don't think we're quite there yet. Representative Graham, I'm representing Morgan.  PD is the primary. I think normally they would do it, but staffing being what it is, they're doing that. And I would imagine that we don't put something in that says we have to have a ballot reason.  Well, I think that's true. It could happen. It could very well happen. And in the case of Berkshire, it may be that nobody wants to respond because nobody feels primarily responsible to the town of Berkshire, yeah. Yeah, I just learned that obviously in the same vein, I think that people might be on this, something of the absence of a primary law enforcement in that community, law enforcement agency in that community, then the sheriff is the default. And I think something to that effect would do the trick because it should, I mean, in my town of Milton, we have a PD, we've got almost 20 officers that we should be handling these, we shouldn't be calling the chin again, the sheriff and going, hey, go on down here and do our work because that would be, I would set up a function of our PD. So something to that effect, yeah, I like that in the absence of a primary law enforcement entity in that community, blah, blah, blah, something like that. I think I'd advise us on that, I guess. Yeah, so it sounds like there's a broad agreement that the finerals can represent Oregon and represent Tango that we should make sure that we're not having the sheriff be the kind of like automatic go-to, but that they should be the backstop and that no law enforcement agency should be chartering survivors that we should put up a prohibition that's broader than just the sheriff's department. And that we should add something like the new paragraph E that Ms. Tronk started, Scott gave us. Tim, do you need further clarity on what we're looking for if that's the consensus from the committee? Representative Hango. Thank you. I have one other question too that probably can't be addressed right here, but what happens to those unbillable hours? Like how is that going to be covered if we are going to rely on a specific law enforcement agency who was in the past charging fees? I mean, I'm concerned for their bottom line as well. Especially the law ones. Right. Yeah, so I think that it's going to be hard for us to solve that in the context of this bill without that report back. But this is really something that we should put on our agenda for when we get back in January when we have some data and say how much is it really costing the state to provide the services when survivors and figure out funding. I think it was before I knew what the number is. I'd march across the hall right now and say, hey, can you figure out how to find this? And do we need to specify that in section 10 with the report or not? Well, with this is a broader issue, I think, than just sheriffs. And I think the report back in section 10 is really talking about sheriffs. So I think that the clarity that we're asking for with the sheriff and the network to come back to us with a sense of how big is this issue? How many RFAs are there that require standby service? How many is it a quick, you know, it's just an hour, it's no big deal versus, you know, the multi-hour stops and all that stuff. One last suggestion then on the network's letter E where it's asking that the sheriff's association work with the Vermont network to gather data. I think that it should include more than just the Vermont sheriff's association. It should include other law enforcement agencies because we have no way of tracking, right? What other law enforcement agencies are which calls they're going on for this particular specific reason? I mean, if we need to know how much it's costing overall do we need to know for even the law enforcement agencies who don't charge for that service?  I mean, I think it would just involve maybe one other group meeting with them. They're in put. Wouldn't it be local police departments, sheriff's departments, state police? Yeah, so it's three groups total. And the sheriffs. Maybe or the bottom two could switch. I mean, not putting in that order but I'm saying if you're really gonna do a company has a study they need. Not all three. Yeah. And then you're just gonna have all of that information for the report which is time and money. But they clearly have an abundance of. So I appreciate it. It's new conviction that we're creating the executive director of it now. Director of sheriff's operations. Yes. Yeah, we got a new title here. Good job. Representative. Is there not somebody within public safety who could take the data from this report?  So I think what we will find with the network and the sheriffs is that since the sheriffs are the ones that are filling the gaps that aren't covered is how many total RFAs are there and a sense of the proportionality we might not hear. I think it will be as I'm thinking this through it would be really cumbersome to ask the network and the sheriffs to consult with every single law enforcement agency in the state. But the sheriffs are the ones filling the gaps all across the state. So we're gonna get a really good snapshot of a good chunk of the standby services that need to be provided and how many hours does it take? What is really the cost of that? And since they're the ones filling the gap that's the one that really would need to be filled. I think we would need to take a lot more testimony and do a much more thorough examination of this in order to make this a universal every single law enforcement agency get a sense of every single RFA and standby services. And I don't know if that's a practical thing to ask for in the context of this bill but I'm happy to have other folks disagree. I understand that totally. So I think that's great. And I think maybe my suggestion would be because I'm really curious now and I've got the network is really curious. My suggestion would be for the network to maybe try to find out that information. How many folks actually statewide from all agencies ask for help in doing this? And that's where I was coming from like if I were working at the network I'd wanna know. I'd wanna know how many people out there who are encountering this. So for the purposes of this bill, no, stick with what suggested. I have a feeling if we ask for this in statute that we're, and given this conversation and the desire that the network has to make sure that survivors are A, on the book and B, that I have a feeling that Karen and her colleagues will make sure that we know what we need to know in order to do this better. Thank you. Thanks for entertaining me thinking aloud. I'm glad. I think this is really, it's a really important issue. We all share a value here, but it's like who pays for it and how do we even know what the real lead is? Right. So Mr. Devlin, and do you feel like you have clarity from us on what our ask is for this section? Yeah, so I think so. Yeah, would you like to take the chair? I think we have enough time here before we need to dive back in. I haven't seen anything back from Tucker or other bill that's in progress this morning. So maybe the best use of our time right now would be to take a look at 3.1 to others, the other changes that are in there. And then when we come back from the floor, we'll look at an update that includes this new section six language, if that makes sense. One of the things we'll be talking about in this topic, I just like to pay attention to the terminology regarding what is a primary law enforcement agency or a new law enforcement agency with primary coverage, law enforcement coverage, it's not defined yet, so we'll have to just insert and determine exactly what that means, probably some of the more lines of law enforcement agencies are responsible for providing law enforcement services in certain towns that you're a village by statute or contract or something along those lines. Proposed that I'm gonna figure that out. I just wanna point that out. Okay, great. We will defer to your expertise and take a look at that. The recommended way to define that. Yeah, when we come back to it, is that gonna be representative? Thank you. There's just one real glaring thing on your point, one that I wanna get into before we see Tucker for the next bill. Section five C, it starts at the very bottom of page 10, but then goes into 11. Letter B, the director of sheriff's operation shall be funded by a charge assessed on each sheriff's department. I thought we talked about that yesterday with witness Annie Newton that there is a position open in state government already that could be used rather than funding this new position through the sheriff's departments. I thought that that language was coming out and I'm not seeing it in the same place, so am I? The language being referred to is section five C. And it's the session law that's two parts, one establishing the position and one regarding the funding of it. Chairman McCarthy, if you'd like, I could kind of talk a little bit about that information we've received from JFO. Yeah, because I thought we were gonna take that section five C be out, so anyway, yeah. I can start by saying you can certainly remove it if that's what the committee would like. When it comes to retitling positions, there is an established sanction process called a classification review in which essentially it's a process of looking at the job duties and responsibilities ensuring that job is kept a comparable pay grade and that can certainly result in a retitling of the job especially if it's vacant currently. So that doesn't necessarily have to be addressed through session law here, so I think our office is comfortable removing if that's the direction being. So that means we take out five C altogether. I think so. And so the references to this new director position that are in the other sections just imply that that position exists in the sense that it's already in exact position there. We can just sort of close our eyes and say, we don't need to create this, it already exists, we're just, we've looked at it briefly. I can certainly verify that with our office's attorneys to make sure there's consensus on that. So here's what I would say, unless the committee has another opinion on this, is that for now, let's say we're definitely striking five C B, but that five C A, we wanna get a definitive answer from JFO about whether we need to refer to the existing exempt position in some way or whether it's sufficient for us to just be referring to this director of sheriff's operations and then these sort of has to by default fill that position with somebody who would have those. So I think that's the open question on that unless I'm seeing nods. Sounds good. Okay, all right. Okay. In progress. And for the record, my name is Tim Devlin, legislative counsel. Before you, you have draft 3.1 of the, this committee's strike all amendment to S17. The differences between the last iteration of the strike all amendment and the one you've done before you now have been highlighted for ease of reference. The first series of changes can be found on page two. This is under the section to bill pertaining to audits, in particular section two, which will modify title 24 for you to say section 290 shares County Sheriff's Department. And again, this is one of two changes pertaining to audits in this case. Here we have, let's see, the new language. The first few highlights provide clarity that there's actually two assistant judges in each County, not just reference to one. And then of substance, we'll see online 14 through 19, language that will create a procedure for when an assistant judge potentially refuses to co-sign a disbursement and transfer of departmental assets and will allow the Sheriff's Executive Committee to instead approve such disbursement and transfer if wanted, and then to notify both the Sheriff and that assistant judge of that decision. It's just, it's just confusing. Just wanted to check in with Representative Cooper, because I believe you had a particular interest in this question of yesterday of what happens if a assistant judge just refuses to sign off on any legitimate disbursement that a Sheriff that's in the transition period was trying to make at the recommendation of the association, they said, well, the Sheriff's Executive Committee could kind of act as an appeal authority. When we put that suggested language in front of Tim, the word appeal and that kind of like getting into that legalistic language was a little tough. So the suggestion I think Tim here is that you would just say if the Sheriff's Executive Committee signs off, they can kind of overrule the assistant judge and be the secondary approver of last resort. I'm seeing a nod from the Sheriff Anderson. Representative Cooper, I just want to make sure that this kind of- It's apologize, I'm happy. Yeah. I'm happy to read through that new language you could like. Yeah, you want to just hit that piece so we're all- And the last new sentence reads, if the assistant judges refuse to co-assign a disbursement or transfer of Sheriff's Department assets, the Sheriff's Executive Committee may instead approve the disbursements or transfer of Sheriff's Department assets and shall bear after one Sheriff's and the assistant judges of the County of the committee's decision. The next part of the strike all amendment that is updated in this draft can be found at page four. This is under the section of the bill pertaining to conflicts of interest. And in essence, the changes here really reflections of certain comments. Just talking to Steve, Reverend L. Cooper, is your question on the conflict of interest or does it- Okay, yeah, so let's go back first. If in putting that language in, we're not instilling in the assistant judges any authority to actually block and say, I'm just not gonna allow that to happen. Putting a judge hat on. No. Okay. As laid out here, essentially I can just I'll quote directly from the to be amended language of this statutory section. Online, let's see. Just sorry for three, there's certain events that will trigger this phenomenon which all financial disbursements or transfers of assets. This is once the sheriff signals that the law is going to stay in office. At that point, any transfer of assets needs to be, it says right here, cosigned by the sheriff and at least one assistant judge in that county. And then if that assistant judge in the language skipping down to life five refuses to cosign that transfer of assets, then the sheriff's executive committee instead approve of that transfer. It's with both side judges too. It's really a backstop, right? It's like a lack, it's a last resort. I can imagine like in my county if the side judge just said no and the sheriff was like, okay, you know, what am I gonna do now? Then the sheriff would wanna go to some other body and say, I need to sign, I need to do payroll. They won't let me spend this money legitimately. It could get pretty public. I mean, if there's a disagreement, so we would hope that this would be a last resort kind of a thing. I remember Chittenden County a couple of decades ago, the two side judges were fighting with each other. And the previous thing of just one side judge needs to sign off so that there's the sheriff plus some outside of the department oversight during the transition period. Any other questions on that piece? Go on to the Comprehensive Interest. So skipping down to page four, we have certain updates that really reflect comments from the State Ethics Commission that were given to the committee and discussed yesterday. Really, these changes bring this proposed language here pertaining to Sheriff's in particular, more in line with the State Code of Ethics. So we have a rephrasing in the first sentence with the same statutory reference, really. The sheriffs and deputy sheriffs are considered public servants for the purposes of the, what is the definition as laid out in the State Ethics Code. We also have some tweaking of relations as to what could be considered a conflict of interest between members of family or households, but also a additional part of the definition signaling what is not a conflict of interest, in particular anything that is not greater than that of any other individuals generally affected by the outcome of the matter. Well, the next part, and actually, if there's a question. Sure. This got into sort of a question yesterday. I don't know if it's in this particular point or not, but at one point you're talking about the financial disclosure form for deputies. That's not a common thing for employees to have to file. I can speak to what is going to be in this update is disclosure, annual financial disclosures, but only for sheriffs, not deputies in this bill. And we'll see that later on. That's the more lengthy that are highlighted material later on. Thank you. I would just like to make a comment on subsection C on page five here, which has to do with the reporting or procedures for forwarding ethics complaints that is to the State Ethics Commission. In yesterday's discussion of three PSA section 1223, which states that the Ethics Commission sell any source regarding governmental ethics in any of the three branches of the government or in the state's campaign finance law. There was, it was signaled that perhaps this wouldn't cover sheriffs departments, but our office's interpretation of this language is that sheriffs department are indeed part of the executive branch, one of the three branches of government series would probably cover. But if wanted, this language could be changed by clarity or, but that's certainly at the community's discretion. The next section of updated language we have is in subsection D. And this adds a definition for confidential information, which mirrors that in the State Ethics Code currently, which states as used in the subsection means information as exempt from public inspection and copying under public records act. And otherwise does in court, these are the ones that's made by laws confidential as well. Yeah, and that last piece just clarified the, what we meant by confidential information, right? Yes. So just to be really clear about the first question, so up until this point, we're saying all sheriffs and deputies fall under the definition of public servants which means the State Code of Ethics umbrella covers them. But then in 4A that we're about to go into we're only talking about the elected chair. Yes. Indeed, new section 4A will add a new statutory section which will be 24 VSA 315 titled sheriffs semi-colon annual disclosure. And this in essence will add a new annual disclosure requirements for just the sheriffs again. And this is modeled off of disclosure requirements for executive officers found currently in the State Code of Ethics under 3VSA section 1211. And I'm happy to read through this line by line if the chair would like. Yeah, I think we can go through this now. The only thing that's giving me hesitation was that I had great hope that we would be able to breeze through a draft of the Lindenville Charter and get it on its way to the Ways and Means Committee. But it's ours in the Senate I think. So we can keep going ahead here. This language before you get into it is largely taken from what executive officials have to do. It's essentially a carbon copy. Just replace the charts. Great. So that reads starting online 19 subsection A. Annually each sheriff shall file with the State Ethics Commission in disclosure form that contains the following information regarding to the previous 12 months. One, each source but not amount of personal income of the sheriff and of the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner and of the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner that totals more than $5,000, including any of the sources meeting that total described as follows. A, employment, including the employer or business name and address. And if self-employed, a description of the nature of the self-employment without needing to disclose any individual clients. B, investments described generally as investment income. Two, any board commission or other entity that is regulated by law or that receives funding from the state on which the sheriff served and the sheriff's position on that entity. Three, any company of which the sheriff or sheriff spouse or domestic partner or the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner owned more than 10%. Or, any lease or contract with the state held or entered into by A, the sheriff or the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner or B, a company of which the sheriff or the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner or the sheriff together with the sheriff's spouse or domestic partner owned more than 10%. Subsection B, in addition, if a sheriff's spouse or domestic partner is a lobbyist, the sheriff shall disclose that fact and provide the name of that sheriff's spouse or domestic partner and, if applicable, the name of that individual's lobbying firm. Section C of Division I, disclosure forms that shall, sorry, disclosure form shall contain a statement. Hope I certify that the information provided all pages of this disclosure form is true to the best knowledge, information and belief. And quote, two, each sheriff shall sign the disclosure form in order to certify it in accordance with the subsection, subsection D, so Division I, sheriff shall file the disclosure on or before January 15th of each year or if the sheriff is appointed after January 15th within 10 days after the appointment. Two, sheriff who filed this disclosure form as a candidate in accordance with 17VSA, section 2414 in the preceding year and whose disclosure information has not changed since that filing, may update that filing to indicate that there has been no change. I'll pause there. I think that seems like a pretty familiar language to me having been through that disclosure language before. Anybody have any questions about this piece? So this is after hearing the executive's Director Silverett's testimony yesterday, just the idea that there'd be a standard financial disclosure for the elected sheriff, right? The, moving on to the next part of the bill, which is Sheriff's Department Compensation Benefits, see updated language for section 5A on page nine and this section is titled Sheriff's Department Compensation Benefits Model Policy and you'll see in the highlights and subsection A reworking of the language concerning the development of the conversation model policy. Figures just easiest to read this straight through. A, on or before January 1st, 2024, the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs after receiving input from the sheriffs, the auditor of accounts and the Department of Human Resources, shall develop a Sheriff's Department's Compensation and Benefits Model Policy and submit it for review and approval to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Vermont Criminal Justice Council May in consultation with the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, subsequently alter and update the model policy. And then a new subsection C in the next page is added regarding the adoption of the model policy by Sheriff's Department reads, on or before July 1st, 2024, each Sheriff's Department shall adopt the Model Policy Sheriff's Department's Compensation Benefits Model Policy. Sheriff's Department may include additional provisions to the model policy and its own policy provide that none of these provisions contradict any provisions of the model policy. So if I can go back up to a, it sounds like the Vermont Criminal Justice Council May they're going to be kind of the ultimate of doing something about the policy. Yeah, as they do with other model policies. I'm trying to balance two things. One is to have the structure where the Criminal Justice Council is kind of the main, you know, I think of the domestic violence policy they're kind of the main issue order of the model policies, but really the creation and the determination of what should be in that model policy is in large part going to happen between the Department and the Sheriff's. But, and the auditor has, you know, DHR all going to be a part of that. So it's this thing of making sure that the model policy gets created by the people who know about the hair workings of the Sheriff's Office and how different they all are. But then there's this approval that it makes sense and is conforms with best practices really with the Criminal Justice Council and then at the same time, the subsequent language in our testimony and the feedback that we received from Sheriff Anderson and others, each individual department adopts some policies. They have to be when there's a model policy that's been adopted, they have to align and not contradict, but they have specific references and can be more certain sometimes. And certainly, you know, when I was on city council, saying I'm the police department, they went through a multi-year process of every single policy, used to force all of that stuff of updating it and making sure that it, that our policies match the model policies and then getting approval from the city council on the specific ones that they were adopting. So we're trying not to get in the way of the normal structure while we're requiring there to be this benefits of compensation policy. I think maybe we've gotten there and I'll definitely ask Sheriff Anderson and others for confirmation that we finally have hit the mark here. It looks like I'm getting the thumbs up over there, but this has been a long process because I think in the initial drafts, we were in some weird place of sort of saying with the Criminal Justice Council is doing this over here and it was a little convoluted. So I appreciate everybody that all those stakeholders, the department, the chair of association and others kind of setting us straight here. The next updates can be found in section 5B. Again, this will embed title to the board of the USA section of 367, title department of the city in terms of shares. Adding new section E, really creating statutory references and building up the duties of the now called director of sheriff's operations. There's one that's called deputy director of sheriffs in the previous iteration of this. So E1 just changes that name, E2 does as well. Also we'll rephrase duties more robustly and explicitly in sections two and three I'll just read through those for you. Now to the director of sheriffs operations shall provide central and support services for the sheriffs with respect to budgetary planning and language policy development compliance, training and office management and perform such other duties as directed by the executive director. Three, the director of sheriffs operations shall develop, maintain and provide to each sheriff's department. Model policies on operational topics including service of civil process, relief from abuse orders, transportation or prisoners, ethics and sheriffs responsibilities. And here I'd just like to state that including is open, doesn't exclude anything that's not on this list. So really to be more, including but not exclude. And then in section five C we've already discussed that. That's the reference I've noted here to strike five C subsection B and confirm with JFO. But what the A needs to be for two and session long. Just jumped out at me page 11 line three needs to be capitalized. And I see this is unedited and right. So somebody would have caught that. We'll try to get the best capitalized on the new director of sheriffs operations. And let's see. The next updates can be found on page 13, section seven. The section seven that was in the previous iteration here was actually been removed and strapped. The prior section seven would have required sheriffs to provide deputies to courthouses. It's been removed seven A, it's been moved up to seven. And this, which is now titled sheriffs department provision of courthouse security, something called report. And this report language is essentially the same except for it adds some other entities into who the judiciary shall consult in developing this report. Specifically now, the judiciary shall consult with departments, these attorneys and sheriffs association, Vermont State Employees Association and then other relevant state courts. And that is the, and as you know, in section 11, effective dates, there was a reference to the old section seven being implemented a later date but because that's been removed, I've removed that reference. Yeah, so I think the section seven pieces is it's very important to highlight for the committee what's not there. So we had a seven and a seven A. The seven was gonna provide one deputy for every courthouse, but we're not gonna have that go into effect until a year from this July. So the July 1st of 2024. Now we're just asking for the report. And I think we will very much have to come back to this once we get the report back and say, how are we gonna actually help the judiciary and the various law enforcement and private security transition to some? That are new, hopefully more efficient model, which there's a strong implication here that we would have that report while the report is going to consider using something like the transport deputy model for the courthouse security. And so, yeah, there's the implication there that that would be a path for us to potentially get to where we want. Any questions about what's in the draft before we break? We lost Tucker to the Senate. So my hopes have been dashed. So my plan would be that this afternoon we're not gonna do our S9 walkthrough. We're gonna do, we're gonna come back with Tucker, hopefully probably do that first, go through the Lindenville Charter. And then I'll give Mr. Devlin enough time here to get us some of the changes we just asked for to update this draft. And so we'll do those two things this afternoon. So that pleases the committee. Great, well, let's adjourn.