d I think once people get used to that, they won't have this kind of knee-jerk reaction. I find it interesting, personally, people don't tend to freak out when you say male supremacy. I don't know a lot of men who then go, wait a minute, I'm not a rapist. But I know so many Caucasians who stop and go, but wait a minute, I don't have a pointy white hat. And I'm not making fun of that. It's just there is a way of portraying this that is very deeply problematic. And we've got to get beyond that. With that, it doesn't help when the Democratic candidates through the United States president start arguing amongst themselves about who's more, who's been more discriminated against. Yeah, the oppression Olympics is kind of boring, you know? It doesn't help the discussion. No, it really doesn't. It really doesn't. I wish they'd stopped arguing. Yeah, I agree. Focusing on the problem here with all due respect to my good friend, Bush Shaw. That's fine. I don't think he agrees. I think he agrees. He totally disagrees. He disagrees. But I merely point that out, because that's how we get into these. That's one of those little, just one more on the data. I agree that the data is our data process right now. It's just not, saying it's not sufficient would be putting it very diplomatically. Especially when we're attacking this problem, but knowing how important the data is, isn't it important that we also attach some accountability or take a really hard look at accountability for fulfilling those data requirements that we've put on people? Say more to me. Just that, wouldn't we be doing ourselves a favor by potentially looking at attaching, whether it would be through funding or a different vehicle, some levers of accountability for different agencies to collect data so that we have that, and we're not just, if we're saying how important the data is that it isn't good enough to just say, well, please report this data, and we're gonna trust that you're going to collect it in a sufficient manner and give it to us so we have it. I'm not sure that's entirely what the reports, I mean- Not characterizing the report is saying that, but just that I know that you guys hadn't really, it seems like you hadn't taken a deep dive into establishing like a hard line accountability measures for reporting that data, and just wondering that if it was worth taking a look at- It's certainly taking, worth taking a look at. Again, we were doing this for this initial run through, the 30,000 foot metaphor that I was using at the bottom of page five, thank you. We do have in there, with that last bullet point, the panel strongly urges a commitment to staffing and other resources to collect and compile data properly. This could include, and the last one there, mechanisms to ensure accountability and compliance. Again, we didn't want to define what exactly that would look like. I'm not sure that's entirely our purview. We can do it.  I'm not sure. Okay, but that's, but a recommendation is, you know, it's a bit broader than that. Just to add in there, I was at a meeting of Mark Hughes's group in Burlington, and we got talking about that very thing. And so I've had a bill drafted to tie agencies' grant funding from the state to timely reporting of traffic stop data. And that sounds on the face of it really lovely, but that's exactly what we wanted the elected officials to actually participate. And come up with it. Rather than the panel, the panel, again, we wanted to focus attention. We wanted to draw attention. We wanted to suggest. We don't want to do your job. Yeah, that's why you were elected. David, is there anything you'd like to add to? No, I appreciate Dr. Nussred in the longest presentation here. It's been very helpful. Yeah, and I'm really here as his assistant today. So I don't have too much to add if you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them, but.  I mean, I, you know, microphone, I can't help it. We really appreciate it. I can tell you how much it's worth. How helpful this is to, you know, some of our questions may sound. I'm not gonna say I'm important, but. No, I think there's. A question is a question. I think a number of us are concerned about where the state is heading and where our society's heading. As is the panel. So I do have a question or comment for the doctor. Yeah. How do we, how do we, this report's very inclusive and looked at it, but it's been spent a lot of time on it. How do we take this message to the public in general statewide? Because the attitude statewide is may not be the same attitude that we see here in Montpelier or other counties that are. Sure, it's not. How does that message get, get out? It's a good one. I like, I always want to go back to transparency. I always, there's a part of me that says, you're, this is being filmed. That should be disseminated. So people know that these discussions are taking place. That people know that there's a conversation being going on about white supremacy itself, but that term has come up. I think that there's a lot that needs to be broadcast. It needs to be online. It needs to be in all sorts of media because there is a sense. And I certainly got it when I was showing people the work we were doing. They were completely surprised that this was taking place at all in the state. To me, I don't know, I'm a simple person. Okay, we have media. Let's engage it somehow. Let's talk about how to engage it. Let's make sure that the discussion that's going on here and that you're going to have in a few minutes is in fact out there for people to see. I mean, it's great to have open meetings, but if people don't know how to access them, that's not really very helpful. Does that help at all? I haven't like come up with a... Yeah, it's just, it's not a real relation. No, but I'm sure it's not to start. It's a place to begin. I think that's a great question. I mean, my concern is that as a nation, and then to some extent as a state, we are okay that the white supremacy that you described, certainly not the Klan or the lynching, but that certainly that we are... And it hits loud and clear when we had meetings in the Senate Judiciary Committee that we heard about the Northeast Kingdom. I thought it was only in Burlington and Bennington, but it wasn't, it's state-wide. And I think there's that, the media focused on Bennington, the Kayamorta situation, focused on Burlington with several situations that you're more familiar with than I am. But there wasn't a focus when the gentleman from the Northeast Kingdom came down and talked to us about what they have been seeing up there, that it is state-wide. It's not just, and it's easy to say, well, people of Bennington and the people of Burlington are just not. And I think it is recognizing that it's not just isolated situations that it's... If the whole notion of microaggression, which you've heard this, is based on this, is that in the normal course of events, every day, social intercourse, there are racially disturbing, indeed racist moments enacted. Once you understand that, you take the spectacular out of it and it becomes very quotidian. We have to understand that. We have to start understanding that. And we have to also get comfortable. And this is gonna be very controversial. We have to get comfortable being called racist. We have to go, okay, that was really insane. I do it. I do it all the time. We have to be comfortable being wrong. We have to be comfortable not getting it. But we also have to be willing to be open to changing that. I learned that from my mother and I teach it in my classrooms. It's nothing that is impossible. Thank you very much. I just wonder if some of the... Based on what you just said about acknowledging it within yourself and being clear about it, I wonder if some of the reaction that happens is, oh, no, I'm not a racist. Because it's an uncomfortable feeling. Oh, yeah. When it comes up and folks don't wanna acknowledge that. So they just say, I'm not a racist. I'm just wondering how that plays into it. And it's difficult because we anathematize it. But at the same time, everybody does it. There's a mixed message that as a society we put out there. We certainly don't want it going on. It's not a good. We don't wanna do that. But to completely anathematize people who may in fact unknowingly, unthinkingly put something forth that is racist is a very problematic gesture. Because it does not allow for a teachable moment. You simply say you're wrong. And I know from 30 some odd years of being in a classroom there is no more dangerous thing and no thing that will get in the way of teaching any more than telling someone that they are simply wrong. You have to invite them in in order to change them. I wish I could just make them wrong. But it doesn't work. That's good for everybody too. Approach it back. Remind me of my mother who used to tell me I was overweight. She was wrong. There. What? Are there other questions? Thank you so much. You're very helpful. I've been trying to make some of your classrooms. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Thank you all. Skyler, if you wanna introduce the next. I think it's a pretty natural segue. I know when we were initially talking about the raising of the age with the juveniles back November 13th, I think it was. And we were getting kinda, I think a lot of times we get frustrated with these outcomes that we're seeing and these disparate outcomes. And the one thing I said then and which kind of led into this is that, we're getting frustrated trying to find solutions to these problems working within a system that was produced and designed to produce these outcomes. And that is the problem of systemic racism. And so I think, I hope that today we can begin to expand this conversation from just looking at policing and law enforcement to the entirety of our systems that racism is rampant and has been since their inception. And so I think it's important that, we're gonna hear testimony, but that this also is an opportunity to ask questions and learn. And hopefully give you all going into the legislative session, some of the language, the ideas, the knowledge base to engage in meaningful conversations with the constituents and with legislation to really go forward and as a state kind of achieve what I think some of us are trying to skip steps and say that we are right now or we're not. I'm accepting that we're not there yet, but that we can be. But this, all of this, the panel and then addressing this problem and naming it systemic racism is an important first step to getting to where I think we all want to be eventually. So I thank you guys for allowing me to put this together and listening. And I hope that everybody finds some value and engages with this. Thank you. We'll try to do this in 45 minutes. We've got four witnesses, so I look forward to it. Mark. And we're going back for a moment first. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee. For a record, I'm Mark Hughes. I'm the coordinator, the interim coordinator of the racial justice, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. Appreciate the shout out earlier to Senator Beirut for getting me to feel special. I said you were in one of our events. We do these types of events, mostly in Chittenden County on a regular basis. We've literally over the last five years and hundreds of community outreach events, largely in Washington County, because I'm a big Washington County guy. I've been here most of my life, most of my time in Vermont, nine years, but I've been in Chittenden for about the last year. We make a lot of noise. I want to just acknowledge Human Rights Day as well. I just also encourage those of you who have the opportunity when you're in the Burlington area to stop in at the 1619 exhibit, which we have on display in Fletcher Free Library until 15th. So I want to highlight that and flag that. Also, a shout out to the event that we'll be having this evening, which is a reparations event for those of you who haven't realized the United Nations has been calling on the United States to move forward with reparations for quite some time now. And so we have an event scheduled tonight at 38 South of Newsy in Burlington at the First Congressional Church. We will be talking, we have a couple of speakers and also community involvement there. And I would also bring your attention to H-478, which is in House Government Operations and Reparations Task Force Bill. I have on the line with us James McKim, who is a, who is a, in addition to a leader in the Episcopal Church at the national level, he's also an avid social justice worker, racial justice worker across the state of Vermont. And he's engaged quite intensely in a number of their initiatives. And I was hoping at the end of this we would give James an opportunity to at least give the committee an opportunity, give the committee some outside perspectives. Because we're not dealing with a unique issue. I thought it would be enlightening to hear maybe what another state was doing. New Hampshire, right? This is New Hampshire. So my original plan was to offer you a video, maybe like a five minute video. That doesn't look like that's gonna work very well given the constraints of where we are right now. So what I will do and move that is, is maybe speak to it. What the original intent was, was is that we would have a conversation about systemic racism, and about some of those, some of those building blocks around systemic racism. I think the last time we were together, is there a nilifolder back there somewhere? I don't know if that's bad. Maybe not bad right there. If you see it. The last time we were together, what I was able to do was to tell you a little bit about a guy named Joe Fagan. Joe Fagan, a pre-eminent researcher on systemic racism. So I wanted to just share with you again, part of his definition of systemic racism. On the front end of this very brief, believe it or not, Mr. Chairman, very brief testimony that I have for you today. Systemic racism includes the complex array of anti-black practices. The unjustly gained political economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of our society's major parts, each major part of U.S. society. The economy, politics, education, religion, family reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism. As I told you in my last time, I was here and testifying the systemic, rather the existing government structure. It was not designed to disentangle itself from its own DNA. It was designed to protect itself and to self-heal as well as to adjust. And that's exactly what we've been seeing for the last 400 years. To change this requires new thinking and a willingness to transform the fail safes that enable the existing system to protect itself to one that auto-corrects to justice for everyone, no matter what you look like. Justice in housing, in education, employment, health services access, in economic development, and in the justice system. You recall in Act 54, there was another component of Act 54. We've just spent 45 minutes, 50 minutes talking about the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. However, it was a task force that was created. The Attorney General's and the Human Rights Commission's task force, and they produced a report on 15 December, 2017. And he articulated this in probably the best way this has ever been articulated in this state's history, this quagmire, this conundrum that we're talking about here, these challenges where we have racial disparities across all systems. When we sit back and we look at the criminal justice system, and we ask ourselves repeatedly over and over, how can this be? What is causing this? What is causing this? Without taking a couple of steps back and acknowledging the fact that we are experiencing the exact same challenges in all systems. If we don't do that, then we fail to acknowledge what systemic racism is. Because if systemic racism exists anywhere, then it must exist everywhere. Now Joe Fagan, he left us a few pointers. And I think I just wanted to share those with you before I moved on. And that was, these are some of the, some of the, I guess, aspects of systemic racism. He explains it in his book called Racist America. I recommend that as I did last time. The impoverishment of people of color and the enrichment of white people is the top point. The impoverishment of people of color and the enrichment of white people is the top point, as well as in terms of characteristics of systemic racism. Vested group interests among whites is number two, alienating racist relationships between white people and people of color is number three. The cost and burdens of racism are borne by people of color is number four. The racial power of white elites is number five.  And the last one is resistance to racism. And that is, it's exactly as it sounds. There's a dimension of racism to where throughout all history we have and we will continue to resist. Again, I encourage you to read the book. I ask the committee members to consider your perspective on your legislative priorities. I mean, ask yourself how and why do your interests intersect systemic racism? Again, reflect upon your legislative priorities and ask yourself how and where and why do they intersect systemic racism? How do your priorities enable or how do dismantling systemic racism decriminalize and eradicating poverty and ensuring equity and enable your legislative agenda? How would you use the population level outcomes to be helpful in achieving desired systemic racism, statewide outcomes? How would you use those? Is the impact of a flat budget for the executive director of racial equity into 2022? Is that a, does that factor, how does that factor into addressing systemic racism statewide? The impact of a flat budget for the executive director into the executive director of racial equity into 2022, understanding her charge, how does that interact or interplay with addressing systemic racism? And finally, as I close, how do we close a one in 13 black, white, medium wealth gap in this state? How do we do that? I'm giving you some things to wrestle with. I've provided you a report of my written testimony, rather each of you, I also provided my previous testimony. I'm open to your questions. I wanted to also just encourage you to go out and take a look at our race data traffic stop dashboard which was released November 12th. It is the only statewide race traffic stop data dashboard that exists. We're all 79 agencies, data are correlated where there is comparative as well as trend analysis capabilities. We'll continue working on that. I'm moving to your questions. The dashboard, where do you find it? It's on a link in the email that I sent you two hours ago. Oh, look at our email, look at our email. I realized that, but I figured you'd get back to that. Thanks for asking. Thank you. Also, thank you for inviting me, Mr. Chairman. The person that we're gonna have on at the end of this, I guess you guys are gonna call James in. Is that correct? That's the number, yeah. I wanna first thank Cameron Sears and the committee members and our guests for allowing me to speak with you today. I bring you greetings from your sister state of New Hampshire. I'm honored to speak to you about this challenge we all face of addressing systemic racism at the statewide level as Mr. Hughes has so eloquently pointed out. And I understand you've been helping you all understand this issue. And you've all been doing some really good work from what I've seen in trying to address this issue. Thank you. As a bit of background since you cannot see me, I am an African-American and I've led a complex life. I was raised in Charleston, South Carolina to parents who were educators and civil rights activists. Over my lifetime, I've been discriminated against yet I've also had privileges that few people have had. I've had the privilege of studying at, in my humble opinion, the best academic institution on the planet, Dartmouth College. I work in management as one of the most successful technology companies on the planet, Hillwood Packard. And for those of you who own HP computers or printers, I thank you very much. Thank you. Besides my day job with Hillwood Packard doing consulting and management, I played and play many roles in public and nonprofit organizations, which are very relevant to this topic. At the state level for the official Church of New Hampshire, I serve on the reconciliation commission, which focuses on reconciliation, racial and otherwise, around the state. I help facilitate the state's economic vitality New Hampshire initiative, which is out of the state's Department of Business and Economic Affairs, led by Taylor Caswell and Willar Velo. I co-facilitate the economic development work stream of the race and equity series that is sponsored by the non-profit New Hampshire Health Equity Partnership at the national level as a pleasure of the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. I serve as the chair of the executive council committee on anti-racism. So I see this issue and this challenge from many different perspectives and at many different levels. My sense is that those perspectives and levels, with those perspectives and levels, comes complexity and frustration. I understand that you and Vermont have been grappling with this complexity and maybe thrusting with your ability to affect substantive change and fast enough change. To this I try to keep the perspective of taking heart. As Theodore Parker, a university, a unitary minister and prominent American transit devilist who called for the abolition of slavery, back in 1853, said in a sermon, which you may have heard paraphrased by Dr. Martin Luther King. He said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. And we have successes and we have setbacks and I think, keep that in mind as we go through this challenging issue. So Mark has laid out a little bit of the facets of this work. We wanted to share with you a video and the video talks about a couple of those facets that I'd like to touch on here. One facet is the work of individual personal learning and that work needs to be done at, first of all, an awareness level. Just understanding the concepts of unconscious, implicit bias, white supremacy of the real cause of racism, the economic foundation for the reason for racism, understanding that just being aware of all those concepts, that's one level. And then there's the understanding are acquiring a competency level, individual attainment, which is having the skills to engage in the changing of hearts and minds of our fellow citizens and the people in power. This individual personal work must be done and may not well be done by the state as an entity, but by better done by individuals and communities and a stage role can be to support that work being done by individuals in those communities. So this is one facet we deal with and we talk about that this facet alone is not sufficient to get us where we want to and need to be. Another facet of this work is the altering of interlocking systems in areas that make up our lives. The areas that Professor Patricia Rose from Brown University has identified so well and speaks to in the video we wanted to show you, the areas of wealth, housing, education, media and criminal justice. I'll say those again because I think they're so important to keep in mind as we look to affect change. Wealth, housing, education, media and criminal justice. Those are all systems. There are systems of wealth creation, wealth disillusionment, wealth dispersion. There are systems of housing, development of housing, purchasing of housing, maintenance of housing. There are systems of education, there are systems of how the media operates to shape our lives and what we believe as well as to educate and inform us. There's the systems of criminal justice. Racism has an impact on each of those systems and our challenge is to address that impact in each of those systems. And as you're probably all aware, impacting any one of those systems by itself is a huge and daunting task, challenge. And since those systems are made of people, this authoring has to be done by individuals. That's the importance of the first batch that we talked about, the individual personal work that has to be done. You all are individuals. You all need to do your individual learning and awareness and competency level training in order to understand how to truly impact the systems that you interact with and have influence over. But I wanna talk about another facet, another dynamic as well. To truly address systemic racism, which involves all of those areas about the change that we really want, racial reconciliation. We need to address the fact that the facets in the areas are interrelated. That's what makes this even more complex. Housing impacts wealth and in some cases helps define wealth.  The media on all the images that we see through the media shape how we perceive the world, how we perceive individuals and how individuals are educated, what monies are shifted toward education for various communities and various people that lead to affordable ability to afford housing and to generate wealth. So these areas, these facets are all interrelated. To address that interrelated nature of the challenge, we need to address what? And the cultural norms that have been established that keep the status quo behaviors in place. That's the question, what is culture? Think about that. What is culture? What is this culture that keeps us behaving the way we behave? And for Paul, it's Christina DiRossi from Bartlett and Southgate College in London defines culture as encompassing religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, our marriage cultures, our music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at a table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and a million other things. So culture is what's keeping our status quo as it is. How do we go about changing culture? What part of culture do we want to change? I wanna stop here because I've just thrown a lot at you and I wanna ask if there are questions so far about what I've said and I'm making this cause because this is the next part of my testimony and I'm gonna share with you a bit about what we're doing in New Hampshire, how we're trying to do this in New Hampshire. But I wanna make sure I stop and ask if there are any questions about what I've said so far. Well, this is Dick Sears. You did a good job of trying to combine wealth, housing, education, media, and criminal justice, but here in Vermont seems to me that we focus a lot on the criminal justice portion of this because it's quite frankly easier because you can, education is throughout the state. It's got 251 different school districts, correct me if I'm wrong. Fewer than that now. Fewer than that now. But just like New Hampshire, we have this local control of schools. So it's harder with education. Housing is a problem for everybody and it's huge. So I think we tended to focus on the criminal justice portion of it rather than bringing it all together. So I'm quite frankly looking forward to hear how you're gonna bring it together in New Hampshire and maybe we can talk to you. But I think you've identified what for me is a huge problem. Being chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the state Senate here, our focus is naturally on the judicial process, why we got such racial disparities within our incarcerated populations and other questions like that. And so we spend a lot of time on traffic stops and all of that. I don't think we spend a lot of time on housing education. But I would add one, and I haven't heard is obviously, and I suspect it'll be similar in New Hampshire, the issue of climate change is gonna be a huge issue that legislature is gonna be dealing with. And I haven't heard much discussion of how that impacts the issues of systematic racism or so I would love to hear that included. I was thinking on the way up, I have to drive 240 miles round trip to get here. That's an expense to me, but it's also involves emissions and so forth. Those of us that live in a rural state, most of my constituents need to drive a car. They're not able to use public transportation. It's not really available yet. And many of them are persons of color as well. How is the climate change efforts gonna affect those? Are we gonna take that into consideration? So those are my comments or questions. Great, thank you, thank you for that. And I will touch on climate change a little bit as I go forward. Love to hear other questions, thoughts, reactions. I wanna mention that I was in Savannah, Georgia and that's part of where the climate change came up because many of the persons of color, of course, in that area in South Carolina and Georgia live in the so-called lowland areas of the state. Yeah, in a low country, which is where I came from in Charleston, so I'm quite familiar with that. Yeah, you would be, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Questions, thoughts? Any others? Do back. No, we'll go ahead with the solutions. Yeah. No. Sure, solutions. Here we go. Here we go. So in New Hampshire, we're taking an approach that is both in the private sector and the public sector. And also trying to marry them as best we can. From a public sector perspective, I think I mentioned the economic vitality of Hampshire initiative being driven by the State Department of Business and Economic Affairs. And I'm gonna hold that until kind of toward the end of my remarks. Governor Sununu, in an executive order on December 14th of 2017, brought into the life and advisory council on diversity and inclusion. And the charter for that was led by Rogers Johnson, who was actually president of, well, he's the state head of the NAACP in New Hampshire. And he's also president of the Seacoast chapter and also a former state representative. So he has a big experience in government, from the government perspective, which is why our governor chose him as the chair. But the charter for that group was to review, analyze the Hampshire laws, regulations, and agency policies of the teachers to make some recommendations around amendments, around diversity and inclusion, to look at ways in which the state could support local and community efforts through educational programs or otherwise, to identify and recommend ways that the state could partner with non-governmental organizations and to identify recommendations and revisions to a specific RSA for New Hampshire, which brought forth and defined the duties of the Commission for Human Rights. So that was the charter that was created and the council consists of representatives from state government, from various commissions of state government, from the UNH, the University System in New Hampshire, from representatives of the Police Chiefs Association to handle criminal justice from the Municipal Association, which is an association of municipalities in the state, to public members and leadership experience with cultural competency, and a couple of other folks who are appointed in serving at the pleasure of the governor. So from a state government perspective, the governor wanted to do an investigation to really understand the state of our state with respect to diversity and inclusion that brought our topic and diversity and inclusion here. I guess I wanna step back and say the term diversity tends to be used and defined differently by different people. In some cases, when people use the term diversity, they mean black and white, my sense is our advisory council used that definition. When I use the term diversity, however, I use a broader definition. I use the definition put forth by Marilyn Larber from Johns Hopkins Institute, which is described as the diversity wheel, which includes race, age, ability, a much broader definition of diversity and inclusion. I think Vermont is going to benefit by doing is defining your terms, language matters, and recognize that not everyone has the same understanding of certain words that everyone else has. And I think that was one of the things that actually came out of the advisory council has put forth a preliminary report, which we can certainly point you all to. It's actually on the diversity and inclusion council's webpage that made recommendations mostly around state government. They've not really made recommendations on how to help communities yet. We're waiting for that final report which respect in any day now, actually. But it was the state's attempt to, through listening sessions, there were seven listening sessions held around the state to hear what people said about diversity and inclusion, what they felt their needs were, and to take that information and generate some recommendations as to how the state could improve from the state government's perspective, and really focusing on the state government. James, I just want to, we're running down on time and I want to give you five, 10 minutes to kind of wrap up if you can. Great, sure. Thank you. So that has been good because that was what I wanted to say about the governor's advisory council and the public sector work. Let me just say a few words about the private sector work that's going on through the RACE and Equity series that was initiated by the New Hampshire Health Partnership. The partnership recognized that there are many organizations across the state working in this space. Yet they're working in silos. So in October of 2017, they convened a symposium inviting anyone in the state who is interested in this topic to come and be part of a larger effort to create a set of action plans in five key areas. Civic engagement, economic development, education, government, and healthcare. So you'll hear that some of those mapped to the five areas we talked about being the areas of concern from Dr. Trisha Rose and some of them are a little bit different. There are work groups working on those various areas even today and I could facilitate the economic development work group. They're trying to look at and map who in the state is working on these issues, where are the gaps? And then putting plans into place to address those gaps where they are needed. And after that, I think is a role of not necessarily government, but government can help to launch that kind of an effort in conjunction with the NGOs that are involved in the state. And certainly the NAACP chapters can play a role in that but there's so many more organizations involved. We in the civic engagement group found at least 50 organizations across the state that the eight members of the work group knew themselves were doing this work. So we know there are a lot more because eight people don't know everything that's going on in the state but it was a start. So that's the kind of set of initiatives that we're launching into New Hampshire to try to get our arms around this huge issue and make some sense of it and build some action plans to address it. And I'm going to stop there. And he's just tied. If there are any last questions I can answer before I turn the mic over to whoever's next. I don't know if it's 60 years from ever. Pretty much finishes it, but thank you very much. Thank you so much, James. Thank you, James. Is there a way of sending us a link to the video? Yes, it's also on our own. You haven't had a chance to check your email. It's in there as well. Oh, it's in there. If it's not, I will make sure that it's in there. See, we're being polite. We're not checking our email. I will look into that. That's great. You guys are amazing. I really appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to thank you. Thank you, James, by the way. Have a good one. I am. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. James, I'll call you from the road. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your time. Committee, I want to thank you for your time. You've gone again above and beyond by affording us so much latitude so thank you all so much, Peggy, everybody. Thank you so much for being accommodating and listening to what it is that we had to offer what we had to provide. I would most definitely love the opportunity to interact with you regarding the latest report. It's only been out for six days. The racial disparities in criminal justice has begun to work. Back in January, we should be hearing from you. Absolutely. So I'd be glad to come back and give you some on that. There was just one thing that I did notice about the report. Just one observation is that I do think that that term bias has really gotten a little loosey-goosey on us. And it's going in a lot of different directions. It's creating a lot of unclarity and potentially even some, it could even be weaponized in some way. So I just want to be very careful about language. I'm looking at that report. I've only had the opportunity to see it just before I came down. But I did want to just caution that that report, I haven't had a chance to look at it, but I'd love a chance to respond to it. Thank you again for your time, Drew. Have a great afternoon. You too. I'm concerned about our behavioral health contracts. You help us understand where we're at. I certainly can, if that's the question being directed to me on the phone. Yeah. Okay. Can I ask my colleagues, Matt and Judy, have you provided any information about the contract? They just sat down. Okay. They just sat down. Just walk in the room, Annie. Sorry. We can do this all together, if you'd like. We start with you two and then go in with Annie or do you have to go down? She dialed Annie, I thought. But we can have all three of you at the same time. It's fine. Sure. I begin by introducing myself. I'm Judy Hentken. I'm the deputy commissioner. Matt Dugasino is our financial director over at DOC. And our request was for the contracts for this. There is a very large centurion contract, over 200 pages. There's, the Phoenix House contract is another one. We did not bring copies of those just to the bulk and the relevant sections, but we were also, we wanted to narrow down. I understand that you're concerned about the behavioral health services that are provided under the contract. And I think the specific questions about those. Well, the specific questions are the quality of the services that are provided by centurion. And secondly, the availability. Now, again, I'll start. You didn't hear me, my opening statement was maybe I'm being conned by a con in St. Albans. But basically I was told that they are part of the, he's part of the MAT program there. And there is no counseling available. And so you were on the right track with speaking to Annie. We did have a discussion earlier and she visits the facilities is the most aware of all the programs and the availability. There is what I understand, there is availability to those who want to get counseling. But I think Annie can tell you about at each facility what is available to her knowledge and how we are getting information from people. It's not a subject of grievances for us that there's unavailable counseling. We don't see that as something that we're seeing a demand that we're not meeting. But Annie could at least explain what services are available and if there is a person out there who has made a request, I'm not aware of that through any type of grievance or any type of weight or denial. So, and we can look into that. But Annie will at least inform you as to what's available. Sure. So piggybacking on Judy's statements, I can only echo much of the same. I review all the grievances that come into the department that are primarily penned by the person I supervise, Colleen Nielsen, the mental health chief. But I review and weigh in on all of them. All the responses, generally the language comes directly from the providers themselves but we also provide oversight pouring through the electronic health record and reading what we can see there as well. If there are any discrepancies we ask them to correct that. But there really are no grievances about this particular matter. What there has been some concern about is the timing of dose adjustments, people wanting to be on more medication or different medication and meeting with providers, medical providers on a more frequent basis. I'm specifically talking about counseling. Yeah. NA or availability of NA, availability of individual counseling, substance abuse counseling. Yeah. So it's also part of the oversight. I get a schedule and check in with the providers on a weekly basis and have a monthly oversight meeting as well. And so I know on a daily basis how all these behavioral health services are staffed and that information is also communicated to all of the superintendents and their chain of command. Specifically at Northwest, there are AA meetings, there is individual counseling, there is MAT counseling, there are recovery coaches. And I'm actually at Northern doing the third annual recovery coach training. So they're increasing the amount of recovery coaches at the facility. We were told there was no NA. There, I'm not sure about that. I know that there's definitely AA and MAT. But I'm talking about the counseling that goes along with MAT, not the MAT. No, I understand. No, there's that. But I'm wondering if there's actual counseling. Yes, there is. And I can also report that Centurion just completed the second annual training and evidence-based practice that was developed by researchers here in Vermont. That was an offshoot of the SBIRT program, the Screening Brief Intervention Referral to Treatment. And we're looking to increase the capacity and cross-train the mental health providers as well in substance use. So the mental health providers and the substance use MAT teams can be working in a more integrated fashion and provide more consistent group services. But all of these are happening right now. So I know you began to comment, Senator Sears, by saying maybe you were conned by a con who's receiving MAT. I don't know his particular situation, but I can tell you that services are available if he wanted them. Hi, Annie, this is Mary Hooper. Can you say what percentage of folks who are receiving MAT are also participating in a weekly counseling session? So I remember you asked me that question several months ago when I appeared in front of the committee and I did my best to mine the data. I do not have that data in front of me and quite honestly it was quite difficult to glean. The electronic health record is not set up to create a report like that at this time. So I had to do a basic count of how many sessions were being conducted, but I was not able to cross-reference that part of the record with whether or not they were receiving MAT. And I couldn't tell you how many unique sessions they had or whether it was the same group of people coming for that volume of sessions. Does the contract call for the provision of a certain number of sessions? I mean, there must be some way of managing that through the contract or knowing that. Well, we amended Act 176 last year in regard to the counseling behavioral section to make sure that it was an alignment with the Department of Health rule on opioid, office-based opioid treatment programs, OBOTS, which we are considered to be. We are a spoke. And counseling certainly is a component of recovery, but it is on a voluntary basis, as you know, and only becomes a mandatory component of their treatment when the medical provider determines that it's medically necessary. We certainly do have those instances where that decision is made and those people are then referred to a group or to individual counseling. So that is absolutely happening right now in the system. So, Annie, what you just described, does that also happen out in the real world? Yes, the model that we are replicating. Oh, our world. The model that we're replicating, I mean, I can't see your face, but the model that we're replicating is the Health Department rule for this level of opioid use disorder treatment. So someone who's out in the community, this non-offender, could be one of us, that's participating in an MAT program at their local spoke, they would enter into some form of counseling if their provider determined it was medically necessary. Correct. And not all folks who are under MAT in the community are required to be in counseling if they're on MAT, is that correct? That is correct. It's a medical determination and so people who are receiving buprenorphine obviously do not need necessarily to be treated in a hub, which is for more complex patients, they can be treated in a spoke, like the Department of Corrections and counseling is only part of their treatment plan if the provider determines that it's necessary. So I guess the question, the next question to this, within an incarcerated setting, the provider, the medical provider is Centurion. Correct. And there is a contract there that we have entered into and the leap could be that some of the counseling is not being provided because the contract and the costs of the contract would be too much. So it's economically driven and therefore the medical provider, the Centurion might not provide it. Can that leap be made? Because when we put in MAT, it was a real cost increase to that contract that we had not anticipated. I think that's about 50% so. Wait, can I just jump in, Judy? So as part of our whole behavioral health conversation with this committee and then also with the House and Senate, and part of our compliance with the health department's rule, we also adopted their metrics of staffing, which they recommend. So currently part of that renegotiated contract amendments support the MAT program through its implementation. We adopted the same metric of providers that exists in the community, which has been found to provide the capacity for the medical necessity that comes with this treatment protocol. So that's a bunch of fancy language to say that we have already absorbed that cost in the existing contract amendment and have been operating at that level of service for quite a while now. We have dedicated sections or subsets of FTEs in nursing that are dedicated to the MAT program to dose people at the MAT med lines and to provide the oversight necessary at that nursing level. We also have clinical case managers that are MAT specific only. Again, a certain number of FTEs per ratio of number of inmates in each facility. We have a MAT care coordinator who's entirely dedicated to oversight of the care coordination at release. And then we also have a MAT program director and a MAT LADC specialist who also aids and supports and supervises the MAT clinical case managers. They are interviewing patients whenever they put in a six lip meeting with them face to face, triaging dose requests, offering behavioral counseling on a daily basis as these six lips come up. I think it's a testament to their ability to meet that demand that we are not getting grievances about this because they are meeting with the patient's face to face. Hi, Andy. What's, so backing up a little bit. If I'm in the community and I'm receiving treatment, I spoke and I say to my physician or provider, I'd really like some counseling. Would I be able to get that counseling even though it may not be medically necessary or whatever the current rule is? Absolutely. Okay. Would the same thing happen within the facility? Yeah. So if I'm in the facility, which I think I should be sometime, will I get, and then I ask for counseling, I will receive counseling. Yeah. Even though it's not medically necessary or part of the treatment measurement as prescribed by the department. Correct. Okay, that's not what we heard. Right, that's not what we heard. So the question then is, are people requesting this and it's not being provided or are they not requesting it and not knowing that they could request it? We, I heard that they were requesting it and it was not available. Or perhaps also they were told it was not available don't the last step request. Yeah. Welcome to the world of corrections. Yeah, I just, you know, I'm at a loss because as I said, honestly, we could give you all the grievance data. There are no grievances on this. And I mean, I'm here with the open years coaches right now. This has been part of the discussion. There hasn't been any report to me about this from them. I would hope that they would trust me to tell me. And then I meet every two weeks, we have a very extensive Matt work group meeting where we meet with all of the players and no one is talking about being overwhelmed or not being able to provide a level of service. So where are you now, Annie? I'm at Northern Newport. Newport. You're not at St. Albans. No, I'm not at St. Albans. One of those, one of the people we met with was an open years coach. Really? Yes. But wasn't the coach that mentioned it? I don't remember. I think it was the other person. But he was in the same discussion. Yeah. He seemed to agree. Uh-huh. He said, as a matter of fact, he said, yeah, there's AA but no NA. Right. No NA, but NA may be different than counseling when you're in an MA teacher. Is that correct or not? So what I can tell you because I, so all the other recovery centers like almost every month as well is that the NA meetings for whatever reason and Northwest is not alone in this are somewhat more difficult. Newport has suffered from the same thing. I've been trying to get an NA meeting going at the facility here for, you know, two years. There isn't anybody who's willing to step forward in the community to come to the facility to do it. And there's not one in the community either. Well, if we can shift gears for a moment to sex offender treatment. We can. What do we have with that? That is not my area. Oh, that's right.  I would defer to Matt. Yeah, Max Titus is our kind of person on the contract. I wasn't aware that was a subject of discussion today. What behavioral health? Yeah. And I know I remember when you're talking about the old I don't want to be, I don't want to be difficult here, but I just have had too many concerns expressed by various people regarding the behavioral health contracts that the department has. And it just, so, except we don't have answers to the sex offender treatment, I would like them at some point because I, you know, you can send them to me personally, but concerns me that we, at one time, Vermont had one of the most renowned sex offender treatment programs in the country and now we're having a hard time getting sex vendors out of our programs, out of our institutions. And I suspect that part of that is the housing situation. I can hear the complaints there. I know there's a battle going on with St. Johnsbury about transition residences there and whether or not, you know, the problem that the department has is getting sex vendors out into the community who are past their minimum and have been treated. The communities don't want them. There needs to be a conversation about that contract and what we're doing. Whether or not that's part of the problem or whether the problem is the communities or what's going on. I didn't know that you weren't prepared to talk about that. Well, the transitional housing piece is a whole separate piece. I understand that, but I'm saying that the sex offender treatment, let me back up, maybe I wasn't very diplomatic. I'd be more diplomatic. What has happened, if what has happened with sex offender treatment appears that there are a number of sex offenders who are past their minimum that do not have an appropriate place to live. And part of the reason they don't have an appropriate place to live is because they can't find a community placement that will accept them. And is that reflective of the treatment program? Is that reflective of the community's adverse? Or is it reflective of the departments trying to find placements for them? And it's not easy. I don't know what's going on, but we've been asked to look at various groups of individuals for release into the community and how do we ensure that these folks get out and we've been having discussions about perhaps presumptive parole or something of that nature. And if we go in that direction, that means that we would presume that if you're past your minimum, you're gonna be released unless the department has a reason not to. Yet, we seem to have great difficulty getting sex offenders back into the community. And I think there's a real reluctance of landlords to take, if there's a housing requirement, it's a very difficult thing to get landlords that are willing to take people that have sex offenses. I don't think it's necessarily the lack of, or inevitability of treatment. I do think that there's difficulty getting people into the community in a community that doesn't want them. And if there's restrictions of where they could live, whether it's near children or some other type of imposed restriction, those also limit the options for people. And I would just chime in that the sex offender treatment center here is bundled under program services, and it's not part of the Centurion Behavioral Health Contract. Okay, whose contract is that? So that is managed under Kim Bushey. She would be the person to come in. Yeah, and she would be the person to speak to that. I think we got too much bureaucracy. That's in her charge in regard to, you know, the TIPSA and the VAZOR, the sex offender treatment assessments, et cetera, it's handled under a criminogenic risk in need. So Annie, the folks doing that work, are they state employees or is that contracted out? Matt? Thank you. So the TIPSA folks are part of our department, but the services are through contracted vendors. There's a number of contracts, and I apologize, Senator Sears and all that. We don't have the list of those. Not including a program service component of.  And I'd like to also have a complete inventory of the number of offenders who are incarcerated on January 1, 2020, who are past their minimum, and the reason they're not being released past their minimum. So that'd be January, I think January 7th. It's the first day, yeah. So January 8th, please. And Peggy, if you would set that agenda for contracts, so you don't have to worry about what to do the first day. She was worried. She was worried. So I would really like to get a full understanding, and if you could share that information to Stephanie Barrett from Joint Piscal. I just don't have, if you want to join us in that meeting, you're welcome to, Stephanie. I brought this. I brought this. Depends what we're doing on the four, maybe paid family leave or minimum wage. On the eighth? On the calendar for the seven. It's on the calendar for the seven. Oh, good. I still have to. Glad I'm not at the house. At least for the big contracts, also when they expire, kind of those are my things. Also. Was that Centurion? Yeah, in particular. Well, I will say, at the St. Albans meeting, I was impressed with the doctor who we met with informally. I believe works for Centurion. He's their map person. Yeah, I was impressed with him. He was very helpful to us. And so it's not all bad, but I'm just concerned about behavioral health and what we're getting for the money with pet spending. I'm also concerned about the so-called anger management and other programs that are being offered. And can I just say that it isn't just like the map program and stuff, I had a constituent who called and was concerned because of an inmate who was suicidal and hadn't had, didn't feel that they were getting enough help there. So I'm hoping that that's taken into consideration. Yeah, the behavioral health. Absolutely. When is the Centurion contract out? It runs to June 30th, 2020. So you're in the process of selecting a vendor? Or another vendor or that vendor or whatever you want. New contract. We will have a new contract. With somebody. With someone. So are you already into the year extension of the existing contract? I'm kind of remembering that you had it for maybe a couple of years and the opportunity to extend. Yes, so we're in the final amendment and that's, yes, I think it's June 30th, 2020. If you remember, we had our joint fiscal office do a study about our medical and mental health and we wanted that information to come back to us to help us discuss how we move forward with the new contract to providing health and mental health services. Which we got last year. Right, because we knew this contract was expiring and coming up for, it was gonna expire. And the main thing it said was centralize your services. Yeah. Any while we got you on the phone, could you explain a little bit about, is the recovery coaching and the, what's it called, open ears or program? Those are inmate, inmate to inmate, correct? Correct. And the recovery coaching is done by inmates to other inmates? Correct. And you're kind of, how do, how do, is that a DOC program or is that? It's a DOC program. I developed it and overseen it. Okay. So you're using us a fairly unique system that sounds like it's really, I'm familiar with recovery coaching in our local turning point center, but I wasn't familiar with the open ears. I don't know if that's in any other correctional facilities or not, but sounds like a really good program and what the inmates were relating to us was fairly positive about it. Thank you. Yes, it is, it is unique. And then we are in the process of expanding it. Probably to date, there's been over 16,000 individual coaching sessions and that does not include the extensive tours and segregation and other restrictive housing that they do, the infirmary and all the informal meetings that they have with people, those are only scheduled. But in addition, after this training is complete, we'll have enough coaches to expand. We've been piloting a reentry recovery coaching group here at Northern that's been very successful. It's facilitated through a coordination with the recovery center here in Newport and a recovery coach who works there, who has been a formerly incarcerated person and he along with an internal inmate recovery coach facilitate this reentry group to help address the emotional behavioral aspects of impending relief and to also help support people obtaining resources and talking through what resources might be helpful to them upon release. So it's really meant to also augment and relieve some of the intense demands that are on our case workers inside of the department, inside of the facilities. But the next thing that I'm working on with the health department is to expand it further and we're trying to set up a protocol whereby every inmate at release through a conversation with their case worker can voluntarily elect to have a recovery coach on the outside prior to release so that there's a much stronger handoff and connections when they reenter. And I'm waiting for the protocol to draft to come to me hopefully in the next week or two. But the health department is involved in that as is all the recovery centers. We hope to streamline a universal system and train case workers on how to make this offer to releasing inmates and then put it into motion. How is that different Annie than the pilot project or is it just the extension of the pilot project? The reentry group will just be expanded as Northern had more coaches and had more workforce capacity simply to do it without straining the coaches since they deliver so many individual sessions. So we needed to go through the training that I'm doing right now so that we increase the number of coaches in all the other facilities. And then once that's there, the more mature coaches who have been doing this for a while will be the ones to do the group facilitation and the younger coaches that are just being trained will kind of be brought up and through the ranks. We have like a multi-generational system now of three generations of coaches. But I'm thinking of the piece of reentry and then connecting with the outside recovery coaches. Yeah. Yeah, so that will happen at the reentry group and then the separate individual connection will also be made through the development of this protocol that I just talked about from the health department meeting I had. We're working with Fawn Montague who is the recovery network director. She's in turn coordinating with all the recovery centers. Representative Emmons, you know that I go to all those centers and see me in action at the centers. They know me very well. They're all primed and know about this effort and want to participate. But we're just looking to try to work with our sister agency ADAPS to make sure that this is centralized and that everybody has awareness of all the levels of service that are being provided. Are the recovery coaches all volunteers? Yes. Well, they're volunteers, but there's money that comes from the current recovery, from the turning points. It's part of their budgets. Oh, so are you asking about the... They don't get, they're not compensated. They're not paid by DOC. Are you talking about the inmate coaches? Particularly, I know that the recovery center coaches are volunteers, at least in Ruffin. And I'm just wondering about the inmate coaches. I think they get paid. They get paid, they get a little from the turning point. It's not great. It's not great, but that's part of the turning point. Do the inmates get paid? The inmates get paid. I think you'll find it in Ruffin. They get some compensation. I don't think it's getting rid of it. No, I'm not sure it is, but... And it may be one particular coach. Either of you have information on any of the contracts you'd like to share with us as you came here to talk about? The recovery coaches.  If you gave us the opportunity to go back and go through and make that listing for you. We had focused on the centering contract, which as I said, we didn't think we wanted to sit through today. There's a lot interwoven. There's not a specific behavioral health alone section. So, we did not bring that. It's really hard to figure out what we contracted out, what we do in-house. Are there any other questions or anything? Sorry to bring you all over here for very few questions, and I know that we just heard about your new assignment, so good luck. That was earlier at 11 this morning, so I was surprised to see it here, actually. My closing up of business on a lot of things today. No, I'm going to retain a few things that I'm working on there. Okay, good. It's a temporary assignment, so go right to Secretary's office. Let me know if you want to join us on the 8th. We'll do it in the morning. Okay. At 8.30. You may not be on the floor until 10.30 or something. All right, good week. All right, okay. Welcome to join us. Sir, can I just ask maybe that before the 8th, if you can maybe on just on maybe the week before, get that information to Peggy so that we can make sure that we're staffing them properly with whoever covers that particular, because I'm guessing this is probably a pretty wide swath of different contracts, and I want to make sure that this... Yeah, we'll get all that together, and also anyone who would provide the... The next meeting, do we concentrate on transitional housing instead of the other contracts that we talked about? Do you want me to... I'd like to focus, if you're all prepared on the transitional housing to talk about that next week, that seems to be, there's also, and part of that reason for bringing that up here is because it really is a justice oversight issue is just what do you do with the St. Albans work camp? And I don't... It's on Johnsburg. It's on Johnsburg, right? Excuse me. Thank you. The issue, I think we all received emails from Senator Benning and somebody else who were... Can... You. No. Well, anyway, there was a meeting that took place in St. Johnsbury with the St. Johnsbury Select Board and Commissioner Tushett, I believe, about the work camp and what to do with the 50 odd beds that aren't being used, and it was tremendous pushback from St. Johnsbury, but they like to use it for people that we don't have incarcerated. I'm just paraphrasing, okay? So, you know, we've got a problem. We've got a facility with 50 beds and the town is saying, you can't use it for what you really need to use it for. I don't want to use it for a group that's no longer incarcerated. So, I don't know how we're going to deal with this, but it would be helpful for us next week to hear a little bit about transitional housing and what the plans are, whether they're expanded or... I know in Bennington, they're willing to look at women as the depot program. They've already got 14 beds for that. I don't know how many are being used, but a better discussion of transitional housing would be helpful for all of us. When those beds up at the work camp, what was the work camp? That is to house folks who are transitioning to the community. The contract right now with St. Johnsbury is there are no sex offenders there to be housed there unless they come from the area, right? So that's tying, what we're hearing, that's tying DOC's hands in terms of putting folks, part of those B1s, that might be able to stay at the St. Johnsbury facility, but there are sex offender from another part of the state. And St. Johnsbury is saying no to that. The St. Johnsbury is also getting money from the state for what is called a readiness to serve. And that was negotiated when those B1s went in there. Based on 100 beds. Based on 100 beds? Was it 100 or the other 50? I don't know. Anyway, we increased their make-to-be-ready money from that population in there. And I was part of the discussion in St. Jay. Matt was at Fyre, Juncture, part of the discussion with St. Jay officials, and there is not any welcome Matt out for anyone who did not qualify when they negotiated that contract. And so they are people we don't have. So I wasn't being facetious when I said that. They want people we don't have. So hopefully we are not paying them. We are. We serve based on the 100 beds. So even though those beds aren't using them, I would hope we're not paying for them. We are, especially if we can't use them. So I look forward to the budget that does not have a payment for that. I don't want to have that. That's an appropriation issue, but I would like to focus on what we're going to do with the people that are incarcerated who are past their minimum who don't have appropriate housing and it appears that St. John's Bird is not the answer. Tell me what's the answer. What's the answer? What is alternative B? You know, there will be a push, I suspect, from the representatives and senators from that area. And I might mention that two chairs of the Appropriations Committees are from that area. So there will be a push to try to use it, but if they don't... And the chair of the Institutions Committee in the Senate is from that area too. Yeah, so I would prefer to have this committee have a grounding in it so that we can respond to that when the time comes. So that's for next week, if you want. Next week to talk about transitional housing, clearly... It's always good to let noon right now. Yeah, I just want to make clear what we're talking about, that there have been some lack of clarity from me because I was out at sea on these issues. But I want to make sure that we're talking about what are we going to do in the light of the fact that the 50 beds that would be appropriate, perhaps, are not going to be available at St. Jay. Rather than trying to fit what we don't need. You could ask the question, why are we buying what we don't need? We're going to do that all the time. You buy what you don't need, or you ask the question? I ask the question, happy to have my committee. And they get kicked. You sit anywhere near kicked? Yes, I do. I'm just close. We all are closer. And butch kicks me. All right, thank you both very much. I appreciate it. Hopefully we're clear on next week on the idea of transitional housing. Thank you, Whitney. You're welcome. So besides that, and what else you want to talk about next week? We have actually we have time scheduled about an hour and a half for the justice. Here's the agenda that we have. Justice, yeah, because we're meeting on. We're meeting on what we talk about, what we did, we did at least 10 meetings. You know, if there's any legislation needed in the various communities of jurisdiction, without letting them refer. We're not coming in at 1030. Coming at 1030. You are? Yeah. Oh, you and I meet. We're meeting at 9 to 1030. 9 to 1030. We're not coming in at 1030. We're not coming in at 1030. Next week. If we don't have a snowstorm that day, which I hope we don't. We don't. And did you check it? I think we're going to have to delete the presumptive parole court. I think we're going to have to put in the have to have time for the woodside, the closing of woodside and hearing from state employees. You want to hear what that's? I also want to add a judge to that group that we hear from on closing the woodside. Can I judge Gerson? Yeah, and I'd like to hear more from the state's attorneys as well. I think that was rather brief today, and I think they had some significant concerns. Judge Gerson, can you pepper to anybody else? So this one, getting rid of that. Yeah, getting rid of that and just put Steve Howard. Steve Howard, and then continue with that at 1130, and then this new rule. So I'm not dead. I guess you know what I mean. I'm going to tell me who else to add. Yeah. Do you want more time on this now that we? No, I think that half an hour should be enough. Don't you think? I guess we may have a snowstorm next week. No, we're not. It says one to three inches during the day, one to three inches. And we have this right now. We do have half an hour stay. Conters, you want to take that off, right? Yeah. And then where do you want to add time? All right, well, let's do lunch at noon. We'll put them at 12.45. Or two. Well, you can get here at 1030 and have lunch at early. No, I guess you're right. I'm going to try and you don't want the lunch there. Have lunch at 1.30. Well, appropriations. When does it approach me? 1 o'clock. OK, so that gives you. We could do a canyon. 1 o'clock, 1.30, 1.30, then. Talk about 3, 2, 15. I could come down for that. OK. All right, so that sounds good. I don't know what we're doing here. What are we doing at noon? We're doing here? Yeah, for. So I don't know lunch at 12. Mike, can be traditional. Oh, transitional. I know. OK. It's one. I was hoping to sneak out for part seven. Yeah. I may not. Well, sneak out as much as you can. Get a note. Just tell her. Get a note. Get a note. Just tell her. No, it's more fear of what will happen. OK, no. I'm leaving. I'll be fine. Just the administration president buzzer, right? So that will be your last meeting. Our last meeting. And there won't be any of the meeting prior to the session about anything that should be done. Unless you desire an emergency meeting, something serious comes up. Which is a suggestion that we just kind of review what needs to be done. Did that make it on you? No, it didn't. Yeah. That's a good. Yeah. Michelle, would you be able to review whatever needs to be done that we didn't do? Whether we did do. Right now? No. Next meeting. So I was just reminding Peggy, so I'm only here to move on the 17th. Right. Good morning. So, you mean go over. Is there anything we've missed? That's the question. I mean, just remember when we were meeting over the tax department, I kind of went through your charges. There were some things that you didn't really get. Yeah.  And I raised those. I can go over those again for you, but I. So my question was not what we're really supposed to be doing, but what have we done that needs more action in the legislature during the session? During the session. This is a good idea. Maybe we should talk about it in the community's interest and the whole justice reinvestment needs to be legislated. Right. Should we just do that all at the same time or like kind of your representatives? Yeah. Because that all needs to be in legislation in order to get federal funds to help us. But that, right? Yeah. The recommendation that they made is to be in the legislation. So whatever they come up with on the 22nd is their final meeting. But unfortunately, we have to have our bills. And so that's why I'm hoping that one day we can invest right there. It's going on there. Now on Tuesday they're going to present this committee. I'm sorry. I just get frustrated with the department sometimes. It's the department. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Too right. Yeah. You can see all of that. You know, I probably would like to say. There are problems with the behavior of the public. There are really problems. Yes, ma'am. They have, they are no longer forward-thinking, solved, but they have so much to turn in the system. As far as they've lost that, they've lost that view. We should have been more of a caretaker. And I'm hoping that, like to show that you're taking a seat in the board at any time. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. St. John'sbury is the only case where there's people who operate programs that are operating programs for people that we no longer need the program. I think there's some I know in the juvenile side there's some federal law coming that's going to require medical personnel on board and these programs like you just said that are you know a block up the hill is the hospital but they're going to have to have medical personnel on board because of the federal the first families first I don't know they're it's very so I don't have federal requirements there but it would be helpful to have an inventory of all the transitional residences and what the rules are for admission to those programs and maybe there are more programs that you know they're trying at more than just St. Jay I mean St. Jay is such an obvious example of trying to get people that don't we no longer have we were thinking of the Windsor for the re-entry program and the Windsor down at Windsor do what they do with it. There are a lot of factors involved in the discussion of what site being used as part of the re-entry. Which site could be could be a lot of things we're still being filmed yeah we're more informal discussion right?


You seen the band on the circuit? Yeah. Oh, on the TV? They ride on it, they ride by it, and they got the big ride up. No, I'm sorry. I've only seen it on TV. I've been to the series, man. On the Segway.  Yeah, they do on the Segway. Oh, man, he trippin'. Nick said I was trippin' when I said Nick was by a change. What? Last time when I said Nick was by a quarter, you see it, you like, y'all trippin'. Y'all tellin' me it's a bell on the bike. It's a bell on the Segway. He ain't need a bit. Get him a hand, man. He think he goes right. I ain't gonna believe this. It's a natural movement, though. It's a natural movement for their feet.  Like, their legs do that anyway.  What, he got his balance, though? I was before I asked the same question. But he got his balance, though. What you be studyin' there? Man, they got worked in the circus, Nick. I know. What? Come on, man. What? What did she do in the circus? What did she do in the circus? You remember her song, Circus?  The Black Circus. Oh, hype the crowd up. Oh, okay. It was like, yeah. I thought she was walking the door, man. Put a little man down. Oh, what? No, the little man was always there. Oh. They ain't let him say a lot, though. Uh-huh. They keep that table talked to a minimum.  Oh, man.