MONTPELIER — In the span of five years, the intricate web of sheriff’s deputies, prison staff and judges that orchestrated the transport of people to and from court hearings has upended.

“The whole infrastructure of our transport system that existed for 100 years doesn’t exist anymore,” Matt Valerio, Vermont’s defender general, told lawmakers on Tuesday. 

The Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee, composed of Vermont legislative committee leaders and other lawmakers, were discussing the nagging issue, which returned to the spotlight in late August. At that time, the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs decided to stop transporting people released from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, phasing out entirely a practice that had been cut due to a lack of resources. 

Instead, people would leave the rural prison on foot, left to find their way.

While issues like rising crime and criminal justice reform tend to attract more legislative and media attention, the bureaucratic underpinnings of the legal and carceral systems, like prisoner transports, have a quieter but daily impact on those navigating them. Spurred by Covid-19 practices and fewer transport resources, the state has increasingly relied on virtual court hearings as a solution. Valerio and others have decried that switch as jeopardizing the rights of criminal defendants. 

Post-release transports — the type the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs began during Covid and ended last month — make up a small fraction of the work conducted by state-paid transport deputies, according to Tim Lueders-Dumont, the department’s executive director. 

Scarcely more than 200 of the 4,000 rides these deputies provided last year were for people leaving prison, he told lawmakers on Tuesday. But cutting the rides reveals the fraying and overburdened system. 

Before the pandemic, the Vermont Department of Corrections provided occasional post-release transports. And when sheriffs had more resources, their overall volume of rides was far larger. According to Lueders-Dumont, the hours that county-paid deputies, rather than state-paid, have spent providing judicial transports has dropped from about 20,000 to 3,000, while the state-paid level has remained consistent at about 20,000 hours annually. 

“We are feeling so pinched,” he said.

So thin is the department’s staffing, Lueders-Dumont said, that he’s had to sometimes push back at judges’ transport orders, asking them to reconsider the need. He joked that he’s so far avoided being held in contempt of court — but only narrowly. 

When people are released from Vermont’s rural prisons onto the streets, they will do what they need to do to survive, Valerio told lawmakers. In rare past instances, that’s meant starting fires to stay warm, he said. 

To fix the decayed transport system, Valerio urged lawmakers to increase funding for both more sheriff’s transport deputies and for Department of Corrections transport staff. At the same time, he recommended restricting the use of remote arraignments — the first hearings in a criminal case — so that when people are released, they’re in their home county rather than a prison in another part of the state. 

But money may be hard to come by. Last year, Lueders-Dumont asked the Legislature to fund six new transport staff. Instead, he received only an extra unfunded position. And this year, the House’s budget writers are warning their peers it will be a penny-pinching session, driven by federal cuts.   

Read the story on VTDigger here: After post-release transports scrapped, lawmakers consider how to handle rides to and from prison.

Ryan Golding, owner of Mastaler Cleaning Service, has contracts with the state to provide janitorial services at multiple properties. But for the last two months, since the state rolled out its new digital procurement system VTBuys, he says the state hasn’t paid about $12,000 it owes.

“That whole time, I’ve covered all my labor costs, all the equipment, all my supplies,” he said in an interview last week. “I can borrow from Peter and pay Paul basically until I get paid by the state.”

Golding is one of three small-business owners who told VTDigger they haven’t been paid or received payments late since Vermont adopted its new digital one-stop shop for state contracts, bidding and vendor payment. Two others spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear they’d lose future work with the state for speaking to the media. 

The Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services and the Agency of Digital Services intended to launch VTBuys July 1, but coding bugs delayed the system’s rollout. At the time, Wanda Minoli, Buildings and General Services commissioner, said the false start was a natural part of pivoting to such a sweeping new system, and she remained confident in VTBuys’ effectiveness as an upgraded e-procurement platform. 

After that initial delay, state leaders assured lawmakers late last month that VTBuys is now functioning well, paying state contractors and registering vendors. The initial hiccups, they said, had been quickly fixed. 

But the complaints from small businesses appear to contradict that assessment. Asked why some vendors had not been paid, Cole Barney, spokesperson for the Department of Buildings and General Services, told VTDigger in an email that some agencies across state government have a backlog of payments since the switch to VTBuys. He wrote that while delays are expected with any transition, the state takes seriously “our responsibility for paying our vendors timely.” 

“It is not a universal issue and there are a few factors contributing, including workflow approval errors and some user errors,” Barney wrote. 

Small businesses working with the state told VTDigger their experience with VTBuys has been far from the historical norm. While one acknowledged an occasional payment delay in the past, all described their invoice issues as new, not something they expected under the previous system. 

One owner of a small business said they’re owed about $10,000 from the state, a portion of the $100,000-$200,000 worth of work they tend to do for the state annually. 

“Every inquiry I make into how soon can we get paid,” the business owner said, “is basically (met with), ‘The system is too complicated, we don’t have enough help.’”

In the past, invoices would be processed in a day or two, the contractor told VTDigger. Now, with two-month-old invoices, they said they are disappointed with the lack of communication and urgency. 

“For a state that wants to encourage small business, this probably shouldn’t be happening,” the small-business owner said. “Because a small business can’t survive if they’re not being paid.”

A third small-business leader told VTDigger in late August the state owed them more than $60,000, almost $30,000 of which was two months past due. 

“These are significant sums for our company,” they wrote in an email.

The state has since paid the invoices — a huge relief, according to the source. But the company is a subcontractor on another state project that still has unpaid invoices from July, they said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: State contractors blame Vermont’s new digital procurement system VTBuys for missing and late payments.

In a rare media appearance, Vermont’s top federal prosecutor joined U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in Florida to tout successful arrests of alleged human traffickers smuggling people into the United States. 

Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont Michael Drescher, along with law enforcement peers from Texas and Florida, celebrated the expanding work of Joint Task Force Alpha, a U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security partnership targeting human smuggling and trafficking operations in Mexico and Central America. 

What once might have been considered a southern border issue has increasingly shown up at the country’s northern border with Canada, according to the country’s top law enforcement official. 

“We are investigating and prosecuting their crimes more aggressively than ever, and Joint Task Force Alpha is the tip of the spear,” Bondi said. 

Drescher highlighted the recent arrest of Norma Linda Lozano, charged with seven criminal counts including conspiracy to commit “alien smuggling.” She allegedly attempted to profit off transporting people who were in Vermont illegally after they entered from Canada. Lozano’s indictment was unsealed Wednesday, according to federal court records. 

“Offenses such as those charged pose a risk to the nation’s security,” Drescher said, noting Lozano allegedly trafficked children, one of whom was located alongside luggage in her vehicle. 

“I especially want to thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for bringing attention to the extraordinary work that the men and women of the United States Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations are doing in Swanton Sector,” he said, “the portion of the U.S.-Canada border that includes Vermont, northern New York and New Hampshire.”

Bondi touted Joint Task Force Alpha’s work, part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate international drug cartels. The Trump administration has labeled some of these organizations as terrorist groups.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military carried out an airstrike on a boat Trump said contained members of the Venezuelan cartel Tren De Aragua. Eleven people were killed, the NYTimes reported, and Trump said the boat was transporting drugs.  

At the Thursday press conference, Bondi characterized the southern border with Mexico as “secured,” a change she said was shifting cartel activities to the U.S. border with Canada. 

“As our U.S. attorney in Vermont knows,” she said, then referencing the northern border, “it’s gotten much worse.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s top federal prosecutor joins US Attorney General Pam Bondi to tout human smuggling arrests.

In just three months, state employees will be required to work in person three days a week, a major shift for many in the state’s 8,000-plus workforce.

This week, a team of top officials across Vermont agencies have started to think through the logistics of that transition.

The state’s plan has materialized quickly. In early August, Gov. Phil Scott first mentioned his intention to bring employees back to their offices on a more regular basis. Last week, Administration Secretary Sarah Clark announced the broad sketches of that proposal in a message to all state employees. 

The Vermont State Employees’ Association, the union representing state workers, has strongly opposed the plan. State data indicates that remote flexibility is hugely popular. In a 2024 survey, more than 80% of employees who worked at least partially remotely said it benefited their individual performance, and more than 90% said the arrangement positively benefited their work-life balance. 

Amid the looming challenges of the return to office, Douglas Farnham, Vermont’s chief recovery officer and head of a new group of state leaders providing recommendations on the transition, highlighted the goal of the policy shift — a benefit the state risks losing otherwise. 

“When I came to work at the state 14 years ago, I had people that were sitting two, three desks down that had 30 years of experience,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “I could just easily pop questions to them, or if they noticed I was doing something silly, they would let me know. And that isn’t possible in the remote environment.”

While some departments in state government have long required an in-person work approach, thousands of workers have grown accustomed to some amount of telework since the Covid-19 pandemic upended how almost every industry operates. 

Not everyone working for the state will be impacted. Vermont’s constitutional offices, with independently elected leaders, set their own workplace plans. A spokesperson for Attorney General Charity Clark said the office intends to stick with a two-day-per-week in-office schedule that began in 2024. The Treasurer’s Office would also continue a hybrid approach that runs the gamut from completely in-person to fully remote depending on the job, according to a spokesperson for Treasurer Mike Pieciak. 

The cross-agency advisory group Farnham is leading has just begun its work, meaning they have more questions than answers, but they have started by addressing the highest-priority topics raised in both official and unofficial staff feedback. 

“The farther away from the office you live, the more anxiety that causes,” Farnahm said. 

The state’s bargaining agreement with employees requires two weeks’ notice for a cancellation of a telework agreement, and the governor’s plan is providing 90 days, he said. 

It’s likely the state will develop a plan using its existing office footprint, according to state leaders. 

“They fit in the space pre-Covid,” Wanda Minoli, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services, said. “I don’t see any reason why we would need to be leasing more space.”

Little space remains uninhabitable from the previous summers’ flooding, according to Minoli, though workers have not returned to some Montpelier properties.

In 2023, the state announced its plan to sell its 108 Cherry St. office in Burlington, where more than 400 employees were assigned. A real estate listing for the state property refers to the building as under contract, and a purchase and sale agreement has been signed, but the details aren’t yet public, according to Minoli. The property’s assessed value is more than $29 million.  

Space constraints will be addressed by scheduling, according to Minoli. Employees may not all be in the office on the same day. 

“It’s a recommendation that you could have your own workstation, but that doesn’t mean you need to have it,” she said. 

While the state may have the space for its employees, the home addresses of some of those employees have changed. Though a relatively small group, a growing number of out-of-state employees have joined Vermont’s state government, according to Farnham, another logistical complexity for state leaders to address. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Questions linger as state officials plan a return to office for Vermont employees.

This story was updated at 3:55 p.m.

Gov. Phil Scott’s new return-to-office plan for state employees will require a minimum of three days in the office starting Dec. 1.

Secretary of Administration Sarah Clark announced the decision in a message to all state employees Thursday afternoon. 

“We know there is no path that will make everyone happy. But a consistent, predictable hybrid schedule will bring balance. It will increase interaction among — and across — teams, departments, and agencies,” Clark wrote. “And it will result in more effective collaboration, communication and connection among us, and the Vermonters we serve.”

Scott first hinted at the return-to-office initiative earlier this month. The Vermont State Employees’ Association has strongly opposed the move, saying hundreds of state workers have voiced their concerns. 

“The top down, managers-know-all approach is an abject failure when it comes to supporting your staff and the morale of staff,” Steve Howard, executive director of the state employees’ union, told VTDigger Thursday. 

In her message, Clark wrote the “decision to continue a hybrid approach — rather than a full return to in-office work — reflects employee feedback on the value of remote options.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont state employees will return to the office at least 3 days per week starting in December.

Gov. Phil Scott used his weekly press conference to spotlight the benefits of the state’s voluntary paid family and medical leave program, which recently opened up participation to include individuals and small businesses with just one employee.

While more than 10,000 Vermonters are participating almost three years into its phased launch, the insurance program is primarily covering state employees, and officials hope more businesses and individuals will consider joining. According to The Hartford insurance company, which manages the program for the state, about 1,800 current participants work for private businesses, and fewer than 100 are individually insured. 

Kim Rudeen, head of absence management at the Connecticut-based insurance company, acknowledged that Vermont’s program is in its infancy, but said that uptake in the state mirrored that of programs elsewhere. 

Launched in 2022, the state’s partnership with The Hartford first rolled out for state employees before expanding to private businesses in 2024 and individuals this year. The Vermont Family and Medical Leave Insurance program offers plans for people who need to take time off work to care for a child or family member, recover from illness or for leave related to a family member’s military service.

“These are not unusual circumstances,” Kendal Smith, interim commissioner of the Vermont Department of Labor, said at the press conference Wednesday. “This is part of being human.”

Plans on offer range from six to 26 weeks of paid leave per year and pay 60% or more of an employee’s standard wages. Businesses can choose the structure of the plan for their employees and how much to contribute. 

For years, Scott and Democrats in the Legislature butted heads about how to enact paid leave in Vermont. 

Democrats and advocates have long argued a mandatory program is necessary to ensure a sufficiently large risk pool — one capable of providing robust benefits to the workers that need them the most. But Scott, a Republican, balked at the payroll tax that Democrats pitched to make a universal paid leave plan work, vetoing bills in 2018 and 2020 that would have created a mandatory initiative. 

While he called the voluntary program progress, a universal program would lower costs for individuals and help small businesses compete for workers, according to Emmett Avery, manager of the Vermont Paid Leave Coalition. He pointed to data indicating almost 80% of Vermonters support a state paid leave program.  

Thirteen states and Washington DC now offer a mandatory paid family and medical leave program, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while New Hampshire has also implemented a voluntary program.

On Wednesday, Scott said his voluntary program was a great way to “test drive” how the leave insurance works for Vermonters, and he didn’t rule out the possibility that the program could evolve. As of last year, the program costs the state about $2 million annually. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Scott administration encourages more participation in Vermont’s voluntary paid family and medical leave program .

Vermont officials assured lawmakers Tuesday the state’s ambitious new procurement system, VTBuys, is working after a rocky initial rollout. 

As of this week, the one-stop shop for state contracting and vendor payment has registered almost 10,000 suppliers and processed $24 million in invoices, according to Wanda Minoli, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services, which oversees state procurement. 

“It wasn’t smooth for everyone,” Minoli told lawmakers at a Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee meeting, describing the transition to VTBuys. “We got through it.”

VTBuys is a joint project of the Department of Buildings and General Services — which houses the state’s Office of Purchasing and Contracting — and the Vermont Agency of Digital Services. Years in the making, the new digital platform intends to modernize the way state government works with vendors, creating a single streamlined interface for bids, contracts and payments. The state expects the initiative will cost about $8.6 million to implement. 

Scheduled to launch July 1, VTBuys hit initial hiccups when the state discovered coding bugs, including security concerns.

At that time, the project’s leadership team delayed the system’s rollout out of a concern that vendors might not get paid, Denise Reilly-Hughes, Agency of Digital Services secretary, told lawmakers. 

But what was first feared to be a month or more problem turned into a week, she said, crediting state staff for their work. 

State officials are now considering what functions may be added to VTBuys in a second phase, according to the officials. Minoli indicated the project team would take time to assess how the e-procurement platform is working before moving to its next stage. 

“I’m letting my staff breathe,” she said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: State officials tell lawmakers Vermont’s new digital procurement system works.

Vermont is seeking a federal disaster declaration that would reimburse affected municipalities for their expenses from last month’s flooding in Caledonia and Essex counties.

Some communities in the Northeast Kingdom counties experienced flooding on July 10 for the third year in a row. Federal assessors tallied more than $1.8 million in damages to property owned by public entities, according to a press release from Gov. Phil Scott’s office, including more than $1 million in Sutton alone. 

“The damage from last month’s storm impacted small towns with limited financial resources,” Scott said in the release. “Submitting this request is an important step in the process to bring FEMA funds to Vermont to help towns rebuild and recover.”

The federal government approved major disaster declarations for Vermont’s catastrophic summer storms in 2023 and 2024. Vermont is among the states with the most such declarations caused by extreme weather. In the two previous years’ requests, the state asked for reimbursement assistance for both public entities and for individuals. 

If approved, the 2025 declaration will allow eligible towns to receive 75% reimbursement for costs like road repairs and debris removal, according to the state. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will review the request, which must be approved by President Donald Trump. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont seeks federal disaster declaration following July flooding.

An out-of-state union is vying to represent Vermont Department of Corrections staff.

The National Correctional Employees Union filed a petition with the Vermont Labor Relations Board on Thursday requesting an election. In its filing, the union reported more than 30% of unionized Vermont correctional staff had shown a desire to be represented by the new union.

The labor relations board will need to verify that claim and would then schedule an election. To change unions, a majority of the corrections unit would need to vote to make the switch.

This isn’t the first time an out-of-state union has attempted to usurp the Vermont State Employees’ Association by seeking to represent Vermont’s prison and parole workers. In 2021, the New England Police Benevolent Association filed a similar petition. Corrections staff later voted by a nearly two-to-one margin to remain in the state employees’ union.

The Department of Corrections declined to comment.

The National Correctional Employees Union petition was filed by Giovanna Peruzzi, who works as an organizer for the union in Vermont. She previously worked as a Vermont corrections caseworker and for the Vermont State Employees’ Association.

In an interview Friday, Peruzzi said the organizing campaign began in earnest early this year. The appeal of the out-of-state union, which represents over 50 local branches across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, is its focus specifically on corrections, she said. Its staff all have experience working in the industry.

“Corrections is a field unlike any other,” Peruzzi said. “It affects your home life, your family, unlike any other work that is out there. Correctional officers are forgotten about. They do a lot of the same functions as other first responders without any of the recognition.”

Leading up to the union election, Peruzzi said the National Correctional Employees Union team will continue visiting Vermont correctional staff.

“I’m not sure this campaign will be successful,” she said. “I’m hopeful. I feel there’s good energy on the ground and people are looking for new representation.”

The Vermont State Employees’ Association is not perfect, its Executive Director Steve Howard acknowledged in an interview. But the union has a strong track record of representing prison and parole staff and working with Vermont’s state administration, he said. He pointed to $30 million in additional compensation over three years the union secured for corrections staff, as well as a new retirement plan that allows employees to retire earlier.

“We’re going to keep making our case that we are the powerful Vermont union that has a record of success,” Howard said. “(The National Correctional Employees Union) wants to build a massive empire. As soon as they have our members’ dues, they will be on to the next state. We’re not going to do that.”

The current contract for corrections unit staff expires next summer, and bargaining for a new contract began last week, according to Howard.

The primary issue for corrections workers is addressing the department’s staffing crisis, Howard said, a challenging problem for any union to address. But the difference he drew between the two unions is that VSEA has the experience and power to negotiate with the Vermont state government.

“We’re not afraid to speak truth to power, and we’re not afraid to take on the administration,” Howard said. “So I think our members will make the right decision.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Out-of-state union vies to represent Vermont corrections workers.

Sheriff’s deputies will no longer transport people who are released from the Springfield prison, according to the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. 

“It’s a problem. It’s a big problem,” Matt Valerio, Vermont’s defender general, said of the decision. 

Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield is a hub for pre-trial detainees, hosting remote arraignments for people charged with crimes in Windsor and Windham counties. 

Now, if a person is released after their arraignment while awaiting trial, they will be let out of the relatively rural prison to fend for themselves, according to Valerio.

“They’re released at the bottom of the hill and told ‘good luck,’” Valerio said. “When you’re left at the bottom of a hill in zero degrees, you’re going to do what you need to do to survive.”

Due to a lack of capacity, sheriff’s transport deputies, who are paid by the state, have gradually stopped providing post-release rides, according to Tim Lueders-Dumont, executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. Deputies are now ending the practice in the final counties where these transports were still occurring. 

“We just don’t have the person power,” he said. “It was a good thing to be doing, but we have to put a stop to it now.”

There are 24 state-funded transport deputies, with one unfunded position recently added by the Legislature. Those deputies started providing rides for people released from prison during Covid-19, when courts began operating remotely, and arraignments took place in the prisons.

Now, as Vermont’s prison population reaches pre-pandemic levels and courts process a greater number of serious crimes like homicides, Lueders-Dumont said the state is prioritizing bringing detained people awaiting trial to court. 

In the past, arraignments — the first hearings in a criminal case — took place in person, so a defendant released by a judge could walk free from the courthouse in their county of residence. But with remote hearings held at the Springfield prison, a person might be released to the streets 40 miles or more from home, with no way to call for or pay for a ride. 

Remote arraignments have been a bane for attorneys and the Vermont Department of Corrections, who have argued that the system is often an inefficient use of resources and, at worst, a threat to the rights of people charged with crimes. 

With post-release transports ending, the virtual hearings pose a new problem. 

This past legislative session, the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs pushed unsuccessfully to significantly increase the number of state-funded transport deputies. If the department had 30, as requested, it could provide more services, according to Lueders-Dumont. But the department requires “belt-tightening,” he said, warning that the state’s next budget cycle will be even more challenging than the last. 

Problems will arise as people leave prison without a plan, Lueders-Dumont acknowledged. He characterized that concern as beyond the scope of deputies’ duties. The department will consider providing rides in particularly high-risk situations, he said. 

Valerio said he has a meeting Monday with the Department of Corrections and the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, where he plans to bring up his concerns — but he doesn’t expect a quick fix. 

“It’s solvable if we have the will to solve it,” Valerio said. “We might be looking for a legislative solution.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Sheriff’s deputies will no longer provide rides for people released from Vermont prison.

As news of an upcoming return-to-office plan reverberated within state government this month, the leader of at least one Vermont agency has looked to quiet the concerns of its employees.

In an all-staff email sent Monday, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore told employees that the expected changes did not reflect on the professionalism or quality of their work. 

But she indicated more in-office time could bring positive changes and urged staff to remain calm while details are developed. 

“I understand this creates real challenges for many, and those concerns are valid. At the same time, this directive comes from the governor’s office as part of broader policy decisions about how state government operates,” Moore wrote. “I need everyone to focus on solutions rather than resistance, understanding that work arrangements can and do change, and our response must remain professional even when changes are unwelcome.”

Earlier this month, Gov. Phil Scott first signaled his intention to bring state employees back to the office on a hybrid basis. That move prompted Agency of Administration Secretary Sarah Clark to write to all state employees, assuring them that the plans are only in their early stages and will develop with input across departments.  

But more details may arrive in the next two weeks. According to Moore, the Agency of Administration plans to share the timeline of the proposal and the number of in-office days expected by the end of the month. 

Covid-19 transformed how the state did business, shifting work from downtown offices to video calls. Years later, some of the state’s more than 8,000 employees have started increasing their in-person presence, but remote work remains prevalent. For many, work location is handled on a case-by-case basis, according to the Vermont State Employees’ Association, the union representing the workforce.

On Tuesday, Steve Howard, the union’s executive director, said members have thus far overwhelmingly opposed the idea of returning to the office. Some people were hired under assurances that they could work remotely, he said, and may live 90 minutes from their potential offices. 

“We’re hearing a lot from people who are saying how am I going to be able to pick my child up from child care,” he said. 

Howard pointed to California, where the state auditor’s office determined a new hybrid return-to-office plan had not been fully studied by the governor, and that partial remote work would save millions of dollars. California’s governor refuted those findings.  

It’s unclear how all Vermont agencies are handling the early stage discussions about a hybrid schedule. A spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Education said the agency would keep its employees up to date but was still awaiting more details. The Agency of Human Services and Agency of Agriculture did not respond to requests for comment. 

Moore said she first communicated with staff about the governor’s proposal earlier this month and welcomed feedback from employees. 

Last week, the Department of Environmental Conservation, which is housed in the Agency of Natural Resources, hosted a “coffee talk” where Moore said she heard from more staff.

“The tone was moving in an unhelpful direction, I felt,” she said.

A more balanced approach to in-office time would strengthen relationships between employees who may work for different teams or departments, according to Moore.  

“For me, there is something that I think we are in the process of losing,” she told VTDigger, adding that the agency also has customer-facing responsibilities that benefit from being in-person, such as reviewing state permits.

Of the agency’s roughly 650 full-time, year-round employees, about two-thirds have telework agreements that allow them to set flexible schedules, working remotely up to 40 hours per week, according to Moore. Generally, teams and programs have at least one in-office day per month, she said. 

Natural resource staff are already making suggestions about how to optimize the changes, Moore said, like increasing Green Mountain Transit buses and designating quiet and collaborative spaces in the office. 

As long as the conversation is constructive, Moore said she’s willing to discuss the impending proposal — just not whether it should be implemented at all.  

“At the end of the day, that’s a decision the governor has made,” she said, “and it’s not up for discussion.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: One agency head hopes for a ‘focus on solutions’ as Vermont state employees react to return-to-office news.

Mere months ago, the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project was furloughing staff, reeling from federal funding cuts that slashed about half of the group’s budget. 

Now, the key immigration law organization helping noncitizens fight detention and removal in Vermont is expanding rapidly, according to Executive Director Jill Martin Diaz. That’s thanks to both private donations — some in the six figures — as well as a $100,000 grant from the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. 

“For better or worse, this year has taught me how to run a business,” Martin Diaz said. 

The asylum assistance project is the first recipient of money from the legal defense fund. A group of well-connected leaders and elected officials announced the fund in May, quickly raising more than $30,000 in donations online after that rollout, according to Natalie Silver, a consultant for the fundraising operation.

More than three months in, the fund, created to expand legal resources for Vermonters facing immigration proceedings, has raised $250,000, a quarter of the way to its $1 million goal. 

As President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up immigration enforcement nationwide, the effects have hit Vermont, with noncitizens detained, incarcerated in the state’s prisons and moved by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement around the country. Few attorneys in Vermont have immigration law expertise, a niche that the legal defense fund and asylum assistance project have looked to fill. 

“This is something Vermonters really care about,” Silver said. “What we have learned is that people are fired up about the fact that there are people in our communities who are being pushed through this system without ever speaking to an attorney.”

Silver said the fund has received money from more than 700 individual donors, and has benefited from partnerships, like one with Vermont Green Football Club, which raised $25,000.

“There is an urgent need. The need is only increasing,” she said. 

Martin Diaz agreed. The asylum assistance project is looking to increase its partnerships by having staff work alongside other community organizations, growing the clinic’s regional reach. The organization is also increasing its work in Vermont’s prisons, where legal staff can meet people in need of representation. 

“This is a system that’s overdue for Vermont, and we want to sustain it going forward,” they said. 

In the next few months, the project will bring on two new legal fellows, as well as an intake specialist and a director of operations, among other positions, according to Martin Diaz. On the back of strong fundraising, the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project plans to more than double its spending, from $383,000 last fiscal year to more than $1.05 million this year. 

Martin Diaz described this whirlwind period as bittersweet. On the one hand, the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project has taken off. But that’s due to the surge in immigration enforcement since Trump took office, and meanwhile, other organizations engaged in similar work have suffered from federal funding cuts. 

“To think that in just a few months we pivoted so dramatically, it’s stunning,” they said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund raises $250K, fueling expansion of key organization.

Gov. Phil Scott fueled speculation last week about the future of state employees’ continued ability to work remotely when he referenced a still-to-come plan to bring employees back to state offices.

“Remote work has been helpful,” Scott said at his weekly press conference on Aug. 7, “but we have plans to bring people back at least part time, so we are hopeful in the next few months to roll out our program about how to bring people back.”

But a memo sent by Agency of Administration Secretary Sarah Clark the following day to all state workers assured employees those plans were “only in the early stages.”

Remote work has been the norm for many state employees since the onset of Covid-19 more than five years ago. Two summers of flooding soon after the end of that crisis disrupted efforts to work in state buildings, Clark wrote.

“As we once again move forward after these disruptions, we are committed to restarting our work on a more consistent approach to remote/in-person hybrid schedules, with more emphasis on in-person collaboration than currently exists,” she added.

Scott’s comments took Steve Howard, the executive director of the Vermont State Employees’ Association, the state employees union, by surprise. While some of the state’s more than 8,000 employees have started increasing their in-person presence, for many, work location is handled on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Howard described the desire for a return to office as “a solution in search of a problem,” one that overlooks how successful a hybrid schedule has been. 

“The goal of management should really be, ‘is the work getting done?’ and not ‘where is the work getting done?’” he said. “This change is going to incentivize retirements, cause people to leave and make it really hard to recruit.”

A pivot back to in-person work has caused problems for state employees previously. Howard pointed to when the Vermont Department for Children and Families’ economic services division began requiring people to return to the office. That decision “backfired,” damaging staff morale due to its top-down implementation, according to the union leader. 

Scott’s office declined to comment, referring questions to the Agency of Administration. Beth Fastiggi, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Human Resources, shared the memo penned last Friday by Clark. 

“With this discussion becoming more visible, we know there will be a lot of questions and opinions,” Clark wrote. “The Governor and I assure you that we will communicate a thoughtful, complete approach well before it goes into effect.”

While she did not outline a timeline, she said that the process of developing the return-to-office plans will involve input from employees across agencies. 

“We take the impact of this change — the positives and negatives — on our employees and the Vermonters we serve seriously. So, we are taking the time to get it right,” Clark wrote. “This strategic process is in contrast to our current operating environment, which is the result of multiple emergency responses to conditions beyond our control.”

So far, the state employees union has not heard the specifics of the administration’s proposal, and there is no set time to discuss it, according to Howard. 

After the governor’s comments, Howard said the union has received close to 300 emails about what a new policy could mean for people’s lives. 

“Workers should not have to read about their jobs and their lives on the news,” he said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Return-to-office plans for Vermont state employees are still ‘in the early stages’ .

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week that his department would slash about $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts, a hit to an industry already reeling from other public funding cuts. 

Those impacts are being felt in Vermont, experts say. 

Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics in President Donald Trump’s administration have espoused distrust of mRNA technology. But experts say the criticism is by and large inaccurate and the vaccines are safe and effective, having saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

“We are now at a point where the most efficacious of technologies, because it’s new, is causing fear, and that fear has found a political outlet,” said Dev Majumdar, an immunologist at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine who focuses on RNA biology. “There’s no question that mRNA vaccines work.”

When used in vaccines, messenger RNA, known as mRNA, teach cells to create a protein or parts of protein that lead to an immune response, helping protect a person against a disease. Scientists can use the mRNA platform to develop vaccines more quickly, and the method is an alternative to other forms of vaccines, like those that include a weakened form of a pathogen.

The Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech used mRNA. Moderna has also developed an mRNA vaccine targeting Respiratory Syncytial Virus, known as RSV. 

Majumdar, who leads a UVM RNA lab, said scientists should continually prioritize how they talk to the public about vaccines and pandemic preparedness. It’s OK for scientists to acknowledge when past work has failed, he argued, and there should be no shame in celebrating successes. 

“The public is a part of the process, and we have to constantly try to do better to bring the public in,” Majumdar said. 

In Vermont, the national debate and federal cuts to vaccine research is having an impact on a significant player in the mRNA manufacturing field.

Vernal Biosciences in Colchester manufactures mRNA — for research and clinical trials — as well as lipid nanoparticles, which help mRNA achieve scientists’ intended uses. With additional investment in recent years, the company has been able to follow stricter federal guidelines with the goal of expanding its client base.

Billions of dollars in cuts to public financing of research from the likes of the National Institutes of Health have hit the mRNA field hard, said Christian Cobaugh, Vernal’s founder and chief scientific officer. Plus, the industry, which boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic, was flooded with new players, and demand has since dropped. 

“We’re all feeling it,” Cobaugh said. “It just takes more money out of the total pool.”

When it comes to the impact of reduced public investment, Cobaugh said it ranges from the “specific” to “wait and see.” Cuts to National Institutes of Health grants led Vernal to stop some work mid-contract, he said, in the short-term costing the company in the six figures with a long-term impact in the seven figures. 

In addition to infectious disease vaccines, mRNA use has shown promise in treating cancer and in gene editing therapies. So far, the latter two applications have not been as targeted by federal funding cuts. 

The most recent Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority mRNA vaccine contract clawbacks mainly impact research and development into infectious diseases, according to Cobaugh. That’s a field central to pandemic preparedness, one that’s long relied on public funding.

“We will be less prepared” for the next pandemic, he said. “I don’t want people to be scared that we’re not going to be ready for this. We’re just not going to be as ready as we could be.”

As for the future of mRNA vaccines in a landscape marred by skeptics, Cobaugh said he believes opposition to the technology is fringe. 

“What we’re dealing with here is a fundamental loss in critical thinking skills,” he said. “If people continue to outsource their decisions to politicians of all stripes, we’re going to continue to struggle with technology and where it should fit into our lives.”

Majumdar fears cuts to vaccine research may harm the industry in ways that won’t become fully clear for a decade or more. 

“It’s hurt morale a lot among the people who spend 60 to 80 hours per week working on these things,” he said. “I really, really worry that we’re looking at the precipice of a lost generation of young people that really wanted to go into this, that wanted to cure cancer and fight disease.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: How federal cuts to mRNA vaccine development will affect Vermont .

WATERBURY — Nick Deml, Vermont’s outgoing corrections commissioner, wants the public to know that more and more is being expected of Vermont’s prisons, both from federal immigration authorities and the state’s human services landscape. 

“Today, the expectation is that the corrections agency does everything,” he told VTDigger in a wide-ranging interview this week. “That’s a good thing for the most part, but we’re expected to provide education, we’re expected to provide substance use treatment, we’re expected to provide the community standard of health care.” 

Deml plans to step down Aug. 15 after almost four years leading Vermont’s prison system

Former Burlington Police Department Chief Jon Murad will take the reins, overseeing the state’s six detention facilities, more than 900 employees and almost 1,600 incarcerated individuals.  

In an interview with VTDigger, Deml discussed the learning curve inherent in taking over the department as an outsider without previous prison experience. He detailed the challenges facing corrections, like improving working conditions in order to retain security staff and working with a population of incarcerated individuals in need of more care than they were prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Deml also addressed some of the more public struggles the Department of Corrections has faced, from replacing the state’s ailing women’s prison, Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, to the increasing burden of working with federal immigration authorities. 

After leaving the department, Deml said he plans to begin consulting on projects related to corrections as well as his past work in national security. He did not rule out a return to government work, but did swat away rumors of a run for office. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VTDigger: Why did you take this job?

Nick Deml: It’s an interesting question, because when I took the job — before and even since — people say ‘this has got to be the hardest job in state government,’ or maybe the Department for Children and Families Commissioner, which I actually think is probably harder.

It can be kind of thankless. There’s a couple of things that motivated me to do the job. One, I wanted to work in Vermont. (Two), I wanted to stay in government and public service, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find another role in Vermont that can have the impact that you can have as the commissioner of Corrections. The number of lives you touch, either people in your custody, people in the community that you’re serving. 

VTD: What do you think you didn’t understand about the job going in? 

ND: I didn’t come from a corrections background, and so there was certainly a learning curve on the front end, as there would be with any job, particularly a job of this scope and scale. But I think I underappreciated the complexity of corrections. I think initially I didn’t understand the scale or scope of the workforce crisis, the staffing crisis that we were experiencing. 

And then I think we all were on a learning curve, but by myself chiefly among us, to understand how much we changed during the pandemic, and particularly looking at our incarcerated population. I think we expected health trends to rebound and we’d go back to kind of 2019 levels of everything. And that was not the case. In fact, coming out of the pandemic, the folks that were coming into our system in particular were much sicker than they were in 2019, and that hasn’t abated. 

VTD: Do you think being an outsider made it more challenging to deal with the rank and file and have some of those workforce conversations with the union?

ND: I don’t think it made it harder to talk to our folks on the line. What I heard when I went out, especially initially, for those first, you know, year, 18 months, every time I went to a facility and met with folks, they would say, ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a commissioner. I’ve not met a commissioner before.’ 

That opportunity to connect with them at their worksite, where they’re working, where they’re doing the mission, I think that is what enabled me to connect with our workforce really closely. And I think that wouldn’t matter if I was a career corrections officer or somebody off the street. You need to find ways to connect to those folks, and they’re yearning for that. They’re the folks on the ground doing the work every day, and we drifted a little bit, I think, from them. And so our mission over the last four years was really to build back that trust with our workforce, show them that we care. And I think we did that.

As it relates to the union, I think it cuts both ways. On the one hand, I don’t think they really knew what to do with me, because I wasn’t the commissioner they were used to. And on the other hand, I think they didn’t give — I don’t know, ‘respect’ is too strong of a word — but I don’t think that they were willing to engage me the way they would have somebody they’d known for a long time.

VTD: The workforce crisis has gotten better but hasn’t completely abated. There’s still mandatory overtime. (Officers are sometimes required to work 16-hour shifts.) What has worked, and what hasn’t worked?

ND: Vermont has a workforce crisis writ large. We’re an aging state. We have a decreasing number of working-age adults, and so there’s just fewer and fewer people available to do the work. 

Then you bring that down to corrections. Corrections nationally is having this staffing crisis pretty much everywhere in the country. We were at a high vacancy rate in our security ranks of 32% vacant. Today, some of the corrections agencies around the country are over 50%. 

We’re down now to 15%, and that’s great, but there’s mandatory overtime. The work-life balance isn’t there yet. Folks are stressed, it’s a tough job on its best day, and then you add the extra hours in, and it becomes very, very difficult. 

So what’s worked? I mean, we took the opportunity early in my tenure, but I think about a year into my tenure, to really go out and do focus groups, do surveying, meet with staff in the facilities to talk about, what are the pain points for them? Why would you continue working here? Why would you consider leaving? Instead of trying to decipher what we thought the problems were, we got really salient, really fairly consistent results across the entire system. And that was, ‘I’m not getting enough time away from the facilities. Work life balance isn’t there. The facilities are hard places to work. I’m not getting the supervision I’m seeking.’ 

What we didn’t hear is, ‘I don’t get paid enough.’ So it’s really for me, when we started to diagnose the workforce challenges, it’s about the experience of staff working in the system, and if we can improve that experience, we’re more likely to keep folks. Now, we did increase pay. We put more than $30 million into additional compensation over the last three years for correctional staff. We’ve added other benefits. We have a great partnership with the Community College of Vermont providing free community college education to staff. Until we can materially change the experience of a correctional officer on a day-to-day basis, going to work and having work-life balance, we’re going to continue to suffer here. 

VTD: To change staff’s experience, I imagine you need to change the facilities themselves — what they look like. There’s been an ongoing struggle to build a new women’s prison. Are we as a state still capable of building a new human services property, of siting a new facility?

ND: I mean, I hope so. At the end of the day, one of the primary functions of a state government is to provide human services. If we are going to continue to face very difficult situations trying to build new human services facilities, then the state won’t be able to deliver on its mandate. 

But I do think there’s hope. I think that we will build a new women’s prison. I think it will be a significantly different experience at that facility than hopefully any facility in the country, but certainly any facility that Vermont has ever had. 

But we’re not going to replace all the men’s facilities, certainly not in the next short period of time. I think it’ll be decades before we do that. So what do we do with the facilities we have? And that’s where we’ve tried to focus in, to improve the staff experience, by creating spaces that are dedicated to staff so they can decompress, recoup, take breaks. We’ve tried to change paint schemes and things like that just to soften the facilities. And we advocated very strongly for HVAC systems for our correctional facilities. So we’re on a multi-year project to put air conditioning throughout the system. 

VTD: You’ve described the communication breakdown or a stalemate with the town of Essex in trying to build a new women’s prison. What can change in that process? Does the state need to throw its weight around more? How does this get done? 

ND: I think Vermont as a community really leans into collaboration and partnership, and so I think that’s the space where I hope we can make the most ground up.

I understand folks don’t want the concept of a prison in their backyard, and I appreciate that. And yet, I think if you talk to the neighbors around the Chittenden facility, the current women’s facility in Vermont, they would say, ‘We like having them as our neighbors.’ I know that because we’ve talked to them, and that’s what they say. The police chief, the fire chief, local businesses have appreciated that facility being there. We’ve been good neighbors to them. They’ve been good neighbors to us. And it is part of our community, whether people want to acknowledge that or not.

I think the situation in Essex will get better. We’re trying to build a complicated human services facility in a community that hasn’t had that in the past, and so, you know, they’re going through iterations too, and there’s going to be some growing pains. But I have confidence that the town leadership will continue to advance this project. We don’t want to get to a place where the state is trying to exert control, because that’s not going to get us the best outcomes. 

VTD: Compared to commissioners past, you’ve been a more ubiquitous face. People see you on the news. Your department has taken a different media strategy than others. What’s the thinking behind that approach? 

ND: I’m a firm believer in transparent government. We’re here to serve our communities, and to do that effectively, communities need to see us and what we’re doing.

I do think we’ve really benefited from transparency. It’s helped us to re-establish credibility where it was lost. It’s helped us to elevate the work. I mean, we have almost 1,000 staff in the Department of Corrections, and they’re public servants. They’re doing really hard work every day. And I think in general, people either don’t think about it or don’t respect the profession. And I wanted to change that as part of my work here.

VTD: Do you want to run for political office?

ND: I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. I have no interest in running for office. You know, the interesting thing about that, I mean, there’s nothing about running for office that is appealing to me. But doing these jobs, having the opportunity to serve the public and being able to do the work is what’s appealing. And so, you strip the politics away from it, the government work is, I think, the important part.

VTD: It seems like in the last couple of years, the governor and his team have pushed for what might be labeled ‘tougher on crime’ policies (like a public safety package in 2025 and new crimes targeting drugs and retail theft in 2024). Your department has pushed for more progressive approaches to problems like substance use. Do you feel like you’ve been working at cross purposes?

ND: I mean, I don’t think so. You’re right, the corrections agency doesn’t get to decide who comes to us. So our job, our mandate, is to receive whoever is sent there and take care of them as best we can. So that’s care, food service, health. And helping folks go back to the community to be successful. 

And while we’re doing that, certainly I think the communities that I’ve heard from are really struggling to adapt to the substance use crisis that’s been kind of plaguing Vermont over the last several years. These kind of low-level repeat crimes over and over again — what do you do with somebody like that? And so that public policy debate has been going on, but it’s really outside the scope of the department. Our job is to take care of the folks when they come to us, and I think we’ve done a good job with that. 

We see population changes over time. I think we’re on a bit of an upswing right now, and I don’t exactly know what the cause of that is, but our job is to try to figure out, how do we provide for these folks in our custody as best we can for the period they’re with us. 

VTD: At the beginning of your tenure, there was a string of deaths, particularly at Southern State, a rate of deaths that data would indicate outpaces the national average. With that, there’s been a lot of attention put on the health services provided in Vermont’s prisons and the various contractors that provide those services. Is prison health care broken, and what can make it better?

ND: Yeah, I think prison health care is definitely in a tough spot. I hope it’s not broken, because I do think that there are ways that it can improve. 

States are in a difficult place. There’s kind of three general models for this. You have a private, contracted health service, that’s what we do in Vermont. You have an in-state, in-government service that’s provided. That would be like if the Department of Corrections hired nurses, doctors, and they would be department staff. Vermont used that model about 20 years ago. And then a third, you have a partnership with a hospital system in your state. Often those are tied to universities, but not always. 

A state like Vermont, I think, suffers additionally from its size, in that we can’t create economies of scale in the way that a state like Texas can, for example. So Texas has its own hospital system within the correction system, massive multiple actual physical hospitals that they can utilize. They’re all corrections patients. I mean, we couldn’t afford something like that here. 

And that’s the model that we used 20 years ago. I wasn’t in the space 20 years ago, but talking to colleagues who were, including the defender general and others, they would say that wasn’t better than what we have now. 

VTD: Do you think an improved system would have prevented some of these deaths?

ND: I think it’s pretty difficult to say. 

We looked at each individual death that occurred in our system in the last four years. We did that. There’s also multiple other investigations that take place under state law. And then we also tried to look at trending analysis. 

Our numbers are pretty small, so it’s hard to extrapolate trends out of the small numbers. But there weren’t things that were immediately apparent that were major consistencies between the deaths. That’s tough for us, because we want to solve the issue, but if there isn’t a consistent issue to solve, it makes it more difficult.

I’ve been happy — happy may not the right word — but happy that the deaths by suicide numbers have definitely gone down. That’s a space where I do think there’s different ways for us to intervene and try to pick up on signs earlier, do everything that we can to prevent that outcome from happening. And I think we’ve taken steps to do that, and hopefully that continues.

That leaves us with folks who are dying of some type of medical issue or substance use, and those are more difficult to manage and intervene in. That’s, I think, where we want to focus.

VTD: What are the biggest challenges facing your successor?

ND: He’s going to continue to have to grapple with the workforce challenge. That’s the biggest existential threat to the success of corrections agencies across the country.

He’s going to have a population that is continuing to age, continuing to present with very complicated medical issues. And you know, in Vermont, we have a unified system, so we have the sentenced population and the detained population. That detained population is presenting to us much sicker than they ever have in our history. And that’s really challenging. 

If you get somebody on a Friday night brought in by law enforcement, and an hour later they’re overdosing and need to go to an emergency room, that puts a corrections system in a really complicated place.

VTD: Have you seen eye-to-eye with Gov. Phil Scott on the department’s work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol?

ND: That is a really complicated issue

Vermont’s always had a relationship with ICE, or at least for a long time. Historically, it was folks who were coming across the border allegedly without authorization to do so, and they were detained by border patrol, brought to us temporarily because there’s no other detention space in the state, and then they’d be moved on and adjudicated through whatever federal immigration process existed. 

That’s changed a little bit, as we testified to recently. There’s folks being brought from other states and other spaces. It’s not just those folks who are doing the illegal border crossings. We’re just at the beginning of unpacking what this means.

But certainly I see eye-to-eye with the governor on — our obligation is to help people that are coming to our system. And I can affirm to the governor that if somebody comes to our correctional system, they will have access to the courts, they will have access to health care, they will have access to food, and we will try to provide them with any of the needs that they have in our system. 

VTD: Did any of these challenges or frustrations about collaborating with federal immigration authorities influence your decision to leave the department?

ND: No. Certainly there’s been a lot more work with ICE in the last six months. But no, my decision predated that and I was pretty confident that this was roughly the timeline I was going to be on when I was going to leave.

VTD: Was it your decision to leave?

ND: Yeah.

VTD: What are you most proud of from these years?

ND: Philosophically, we reoriented this department. Our goal, and hopefully we’ve accomplished this, was to reorient this department to the people it’s supposed to be serving. So on the one side, that’s our staff. They deserve to have a department that’s invested in them, who care about them, who want them to have meaningful careers with lots of impact, mission focused, and we know that this job extends beyond the walls of our facilities, and we need to take care of them outside of there, too. These are really, really tough jobs, 

And we have people in our care and custody that are counting on us to keep them safe, keep them fed and healthy, and take care of medical issues for them. And we, I think, reoriented the department to that work as well. In particular on the health side. That was the greatest body of work where we could make a huge impact and continue to improve on that system. 

And so we redesigned our health system. We’re about to onboard our first ever manager over nutrition to really target, How do we improve people’s health by giving them good food? Can we locally source food? Can we grow our own food so that it is the best food available for the population? I mean, just a year or so ago, we went to fluid milk across our system in partnership with the Agriculture Agency here in Vermont, and we’re using local Vermont and upstate New York milk to provide to our population. 

It’s a basic premise, but if folks are healthier when they leave, they’re more likely to be successful when they go to the community. And so it’s good for public safety, it’s good for the state and it’s just simply the right thing to do. 

VTD: What do people not understand about the Department of Corrections? And what do people maybe even within the Vermont Agency of Human Services not understand about the Department of Corrections? 

ND: One thing that we’ve been trying to highlight to folks is — as other systems across the state, across the country aren’t able to serve folks, as we have a lack of available medical care for folks, or mental health care, substance use treatment — what happens is those folks all end up kind of at the end of the line. The end of the line is either they’re unhoused, they’re in an emergency department, or they’re in a correctional facility, and often they’re cycling between the three.

I think the other thing, though, particularly in Vermont, but other places too, more and more is expected of the corrections system. Thirty years ago, largely the expectation was that somebody would be incarcerated for a period of time. You’d keep them safe, you’d stop them from fighting, and then you’d provide health care and food service and those things. And then when they got out, they got out.

Today, the expectation is that the corrections agency does everything for that person. And I think that’s a good thing for the most part, but we’re expected to provide education, we’re expected to provide substance use treatment, we’re expected to provide the community standard of health care. And all of that is good, but more and more is layered on top of the corrections agency as the one-stop-shop that can do all of that work while we have a staffing crisis, while there’s pressure for us to close facilities and decarcerate, and new resources aren’t added in. 

Frankly, corrections agencies can’t be good at everything and shouldn’t be good at everything. Our approach to that was to turn to community partners and try to bring more folks into our facilities to help. But I do think that that is kind of an untenable position that corrections agencies are being put in, and particularly as other community support systems collapse or recede from their ability to provide services.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Q&A: Outgoing Corrections Commissioner Nick Deml on the challenges facing Vermont’s prisons .

William Cohen, a Vermont Supreme Court associate justice, plans to step down before the end of the year. 

He informed Gov. Phil Scott of his decision in a retirement letter dated July 28, and Scott confirmed the justice’s plan Thursday.

“He was a great appointment,” Scott said at his weekly press conference. 

Cohen joined the state’s highest court in 2019 after two decades as a trial judge. In his resignation letter, Cohen described himself as the longest active member of the state judiciary.  

Earlier this year, Associate Justice Karen Carroll also announced her plans to step down. Scott said the judicial nominating board has submitted names of potential candidates, and his administration would be reviewing possible replacements for both vacancies. 

Prior to becoming a judge, Cohen, who hails from Rutland, worked as a deputy state’s attorney and in private practice.

When appointed to the Supreme Court, Cohen described himself as “moderate, balancing the law with the human needs,” a sentiment echoed by others in the judicial system at the time.

“Throughout these years I have worked hard to serve the litigants with professionalism, integrity and fairness,” Cohen wrote in his letter to the governor, praising court staff and his fellow judges. “Vermont continues to have a strong and independent judiciary that will continue for a long time to come.”

In a press release from the Vermont State Court Administrator’s Office, Chief Justice Paul Reiber praised his colleague.

“Justice Cohen has been a valued colleague to every member of our court,” Reiber said. “He has been a mentor to young lawyers and a confidant to those facing life challenges.”

U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Lanthier similarly commended Cohen, recalling their time working in Rutland County’s courts. 

“Justice Cohen loved jury trials. He understood the critical role individual Vermonters play in our legal system,” she said in the release. “He knew Vermonters serving on juries took their responsibility seriously and relied on their collective experiences and wisdom to render just and fair verdicts. The State of Vermont will miss his service greatly.” 

An avid cyclist, Cohen said he looked forward to biking back roads in his new free time. Cohen’s retirement is effective Dec. 27, according to his letter. 

Alan Keays contributed reporting.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Associate Justice William Cohen to retire from Vermont Supreme Court.

Medicaid cuts and other elements of the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” will restrict access to health insurance for noncitizens in Vermont in 2025 and 2026. 

Even though some noncitizens will avoid the worst impacts, the confusion alone could inhibit them from accessing care, people working to provide health care for immigrants say. 

“There’s a lot of Vermonters with a whole range of different immigration statuses, and they are the people who are putting on our roofs and helping milk our cows,” Mike Fisher, Vermont’s health care advocate, who helps people navigate the health care system, told VTDigger. “It’s so disheartening to see an attack on their access to health care.”

State health officials shared their predictions of how many immigrants will lose health coverage in the next year and a half, even as they emphasized that the exact implications of the latest federal cuts are still unknown. Medical providers and advocates helping immigrants access health services told VTDigger they’re already seeing patients eschew care due to the bureaucratic complexity and fear of the Trump administration’s federal immigration enforcement. Advocates predict the health system’s administrative burden will only become worse in the months ahead.  

In a hearing with legislative leaders last week, Jenney Samuelson, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Human Services, shared the state’s latest predictions on the scope of the federal cuts impacting immigrant health care. 

She said an estimated 100 legal noncitizens who have been in the country fewer than five years are slated to lose health insurance premium assistance on Jan. 1. The state also expects 400-500 refugees, asylum seekers and nonlegal residents to lose the same assistance at the turn of the year, she said.

Between 500 and 600 Medicaid enrollees who are asylum seekers or refugees are expected to lose eligibility in October 2026, Samuelson told lawmakers.

The increased administrative burden associated with the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” will make it more difficult for noncitizens to access health care, said Naomi Wolcott-MacCausland, program coordinator of the Bridges to Health program, which helps migrant workers access health services.

“Health insurance can be really complicated for anybody, regardless of whether you speak English or don’t have access to the internet,” she said in an interview, and the federal changes will only add to those challenges.

A patchwork of federal and state programs allow some noncitizens with a range of immigration statuses to receive health care. 

In Vermont, the Immigrant Health Insurance Plan allows pregnant individuals and young people not otherwise eligible for Medicaid to enroll in health insurance. 

But many immigrants go without coverage. 

One barrier to insurance, according to Wolcott-MacCausland, is that it is challenging for many immigrant workers to estimate their incomes because industries like agriculture or construction can boom or bust due to uncontrollable factors like weather. 

As the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” causes health insurance subsidies to shrink or disappear altogether, Wolcott-MacCausland said, the changes will disproportionately affect immigrants and those with variable incomes. She said she already sees many workers on temporary visas who are eligible for insurance choose not to enroll due to concerns that their fluctuating income will lead them to owe more money than they expect. 

Federal cuts to services for noncitizens are not the only changes in Washington, D.C., affecting access to health care. Wolcott-MacCausland said increased federal immigration enforcement is causing people to fear going to the doctor. 

“People are delaying care that can in turn result in them being at a really costly emergency department visit,” she said. 

Open Doors Clinic, a free clinic in Middlebury serving uninsured and under-insured local residents, including migrant and immigrant workers, is seeing fewer new patients, according to Julia Doucet, the clinical and program director. She said she is also seeing patients who are choosing to return to the countries where they were born. 

While health workers are already seeing people change their behavior, the full scope of new federal policies is still coming into focus.

“We’re trying like everybody else to understand impacts as the changes are coming down,” Wolcott-MacCausland said. “There’s a lot of unknowns.”

Correction: Due to inaccurate legislative testimony, the immigration status of people losing health insurance premium assistance was misrepresented.

Read the story on VTDigger here: How Medicaid cuts and federal policy changes will impact health care access for Vermont’s noncitizens.

MONTPELIER — Economists told Vermont legislative leaders and Gov. Phil Scott that state revenues and forecasts have remained relatively level despite the uncertainty and tumult generated by President Donald Trump and his administration. 

Tariffs and federal budget cuts dominated the conversation at Thursday’s meeting of the Emergency Board, composed of Scott and four state House and Senate committee chairs in charge of the state’s budget and financial policy. 

Overall, state economists increased their expectations for the state’s coffers by about 2%, driven by higher than expected income tax revenues. Vermont’s Transportation Fund, which pays for roads and bridges, was downgraded by just over 2%. 

The relatively cheery outlook took some at the meeting by surprise, given the news coming out of Washington, D.C. The Trump administration’s tariffs have fluctuated constantly, fueling booms and busts in the stock market. The passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, with its cuts to Medicaid and other safety net programs, has further fueled concerns. 

Plus, in this year’s state budget, lawmakers and the administration agreed to plan for contingencies if — or when — federal funding cuts arrive. 

“I feel like we should be preparing differently,” Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, chair of the House’s tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, said at the meeting. 

“That’s pretty much what the report says, ‘Don’t get comfortable,’” Tom Kavet, an economist for the Legislature, responded. 

Looking beyond the state’s tax revenue, Jeffrey Carr, an economist for Scott’s administration, addressed the labor market, particularly concerns about what could happen if the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement. 

“I don’t know how we’re going to do a roof in this state if we get rid of all the illegal immigrant labor,” he said. 

Agriculture, construction and health care are all economic sectors in Vermont with high rates of undocumented immigrants in the workforce, according to the economists. 

On housing, the state financial experts highlighted some signs that the market could finally be cooling. Five out of 14 counties saw median home listing prices drop year-over-year, Carr said. The number of listings increased in all but one county during that same time period. 

“Maybe the world isn’t going to continue to go quite so crazy in the housing markets,” Carr said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: So far so good for Vermont state coffers, but economists warn ‘don’t get comfortable’.

Lt. Gov. John Rodgers will serve on the executive committee of the National Lieutenant Governors Association after being elected at the association’s annual meeting earlier this month. 

The National Lieutenant Governors Association is a bipartisan organization fostering collaboration between seconds-in-command in states across the country.

“I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to serve in a national leadership role with NLGA, where I can participate in the exchange of ideas and solutions to the shared challenges we face in the states and territories,” Rodgers said in a press release announcing his role. 

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, a Republican, was elected chair, according to the NLGA’s Facebook page. Kentucky Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman, a Democrat, is chair-elect.

A plane maintenance issue kept Rodgers from attending the association’s annual meeting in Lake Tahoe, according to James Ehlers, the lieutenant governor’s chief of staff. Rodgers intended to deliver a presentation on workforce development, and he now plans to attend the association’s winter meeting this December, Ehlers wrote in an email. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s lieutenant governor appointed to leadership board of nationwide peers.

Nick Deml plans to step down next month as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections.

A familiar face is set to take over as interim commissioner: former Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad.

Gov. Phil Scott announced the leadership change in a press release Monday. 

“Serving alongside our correctional staff has been the honor of a lifetime,” Deml said in the release. 

Since November 2021, Deml has led Vermont’s six prisons. He took over from interim Commissioner Jim Baker at a tumultuous moment, shepherding a department rocked by scandal and the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Announcing Deml’s successor, Scott called Murad a “proven leader with a strong background in both managing and improving organizations.”

Murad attracted the limelight while serving as Burlington’s top cop, sometimes coming into conflict with the city’s progressive council members. He led the department during summer 2020, which saw nationwide protests against policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. He remained in the role after the Burlington City Council voted to reduce the city’s police force through attrition — a decision he strongly opposed. 

Murad announced his intention to leave the Burlington Police Department in November and left in the spring.

“After more than two decades in municipal public service, I’m excited to move to the larger stage of serving the great state of Vermont,” he said in the press release. 

Overseeing Vermont’s prisons has historically drawn scrutiny, and Deml’s tenure was no different. A spate of deaths in 2022 and 2023 at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield called into question the medical care provided by the prison’s health services contractor at the time. An investigation by Vermont’s Defender General’s Office later found that medical staff with VitalCore Health Strategies appeared to struggle to perform CPR and use a defibrillator. 

Wellpath took over the state’s prison health services contract in July 2023

Like facilities across the country, Vermont’s prisons have had acute staffing shortages since the pandemic, sometimes leading to mandatory 16-hour shifts. 

Under Deml’s leadership, the correction’s department focused on addressing substance use disorder among people in prison. The department prioritized providing medication for opioid use disorder and worked to expand peer recovery coaching and educational opportunities. 

Murad, who will serve as interim commissioner, requires the Vermont Senate’s vote to officially become commissioner. Deml’s last day is Aug. 15.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Corrections Commissioner Nick Deml to step down, and former Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad to take over.

Vermont Green Football Club, the state’s semi-professional soccer team, will compete in the United Soccer League’s League Two eastern conference finals Friday night. 

The Green is set to face Virginia-based Lionsbridge Football Club in front of a sold-out crowd at Virtue Field in Burlington at 7 p.m.

Started in 2022, the Vermont Green has become a summer mainstay in the Queen City, filling the bleachers at the University of Vermont with devoted fans in club garb. The team, which has an environmental justice mission, includes college athletes from across the country and world, and features some of the University of Vermont’s national title-winners. 

This year, the Green went undefeated in the regular season, winning the USL League Two’s northeast division and advancing to the playoffs.  

In its most recent playoff match on Sunday, the Green came from behind to defeat previously unbeaten FC Motown 3-2.

Lionsbridge and the Green met once before in a 2022 playoff match, which saw the Vermont men knock off the Virginia side. If the Green win on Friday, they will play Sunday night in the league’s national semifinal, again hosted at Virtue Field. 

Tickets for Friday’s conference final sold out in under 30 seconds, the team said. Fans can stream the game here. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Green Football Club to compete in eastern conference final Friday .

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board approved new deer hunting rules last week including one that will allow hunters to harvest does with rifles during the regular November season. 

The rules passed on a 7-5 vote and will take effect in 2026. Current rules still govern the hunting season this year.

But next year, for the first time since the 1980s, hunters in Vermont will be able to hunt female and antlerless deer using rifles and shotguns during the regular deer season if they purchase and receive an antlerless permit. Currently, hunters can harvest antlerless deer during archery, muzzleloader and other special seasons, but not during the 16-day November firearm season. 

Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists have said the increased frequency of mild winters has led to increased deer survival. Changes to land use patterns have put more areas off limits to hunters, and fewer people are hunting. Now, more deer are competing with one another for limited food and habitat. 

The new doe rule may be the tool the state needs to change the trend.

“We feel it’s necessary,” Nick Fortin, a wildlife biologist who leads the department’s deer and moose projects, told the board at a June meeting, noting the practice is common in other states.  

Hunters currently fill only about 14% of their antlerless permits, according to department data. Fortin expects that percentage will increase if hunters can use rifles. Plus, thousands of people only hunt during the November rifle season, opening up doe harvest to a new pool of hunters. 

Because the department expects hunters will harvest antlerless deer at a higher rate using rifles, the state will likely issue fewer antlerless permits. Like they are now, permits will be allocated by the wildlife management unit. 

Department surveys indicate that a majority of hunters under 55 support the change, and a plurality of hunters 65 and older oppose the policy. 

David Sausville, the department’s wildlife management program manager, said in an interview that health indicators like antler diameter and fawn numbers help the state’s biologists know when there are too many deer for certain regions. 

And while there may be fewer deer than generations past, that doesn’t mean Vermont’s habitat can support the cervids. 

“What I always try to reinforce with people, is ‘You’re right, you’re not seeing as many deer as you did in the 70s,’ but there’s still too many deer in certain areas because they’re impacting the habitat,” Sausville said, “and we’re not seeing the health indices in the deer that we would like to see.”

While the rifle doe rule drew the most attention during the public comment period, the board approved a number of other changes as well. 

The new rules create an ‘earn-a-buck’ program, which allows hunters to harvest two bucks during two different seasons if the first buck meets certain antler criteria and the hunter also harvests a doe. 

Starting in 2026, Archery season will continue through the regular firearm season. 

Also new, the department will designate expanded archery zones located in deer-dense areas, which staff hope will create new opportunities for antlerless deer harvest. 

In addition, hunters will be able to hold two antlerless permits at once in two different wildlife management units. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board approves new deer rules, adding does to the regular rifle season.

The launch of a sweeping new system for Vermont government contracting stumbled earlier this month when state IT staff discovered “security-related issues” and other bugs during its rollout, internal emails reviewed by VTDigger indicate. 

The botched debut means state employees are left managing day-to-day operations using a contingency plan. The staff team implementing VTBuys has urged workers across departments to hold off on non-urgent invoices, stop working with new suppliers if possible, and delay new contracts, according to the emails. The stopgap protocols require documenting a variety of processes that will need to be re-input once the new system rolls out.  

VTBuys is a joint project of the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services — which houses the state’s Office of Purchasing and Contracting — and the Vermont Agency of Digital Services, which takes a leadership role on state IT projects. 

The new digital platform is intended to modernize the way Vermont state government works with vendors, creating a single streamlined interface for bids, contracts and payments. The system “will be a single-stop shop for businesses to register as suppliers, submit all paperwork, sign up for bid notifications, and complete all of their transactions with the state,” as described by the department on its website 

In an interview, Wanda Minoli, commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services, called the initiative “a radical change in how we pay bills and do contracts.”

She described this month’s hiccups as routine. 

 “You’ll have that with every project,” Minoli said. “This is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

The massive redesign of how the state works with vendors began in 2019. The state inked a $6.4 million contract with multinational company KPMG for the project, with an additional “software solution service” contract valued at $595,000 per year, Minoli said. 

The Agency of Digital Services maintains a public-facing dashboard with details about state IT initiatives. The interface had listed the VTBuys implementation cost at about $17.2 million. But when VTDigger inquired, an agency spokesperson said the implementation cost was actually half that, and the dashboard has since been changed. The project is listed as 17 months behind an “initial completion date.” 

The House Committee on Energy and Digital Services crafted a law this year requiring more detailed information on ongoing projects moving forward. 

Early on, the VTBuys project hit a number of delays as BGS responded to emergencies, first related to the Covid-19 pandemic and then the 2023 flooding, which damaged 22 state buildings in Montpelier. Repairs to those buildings have been a top priority for Buildings and General Services, according to Minoli. 

As the combined Building and General Services and Agency of Digital Services team got closer to launch this year, they set a July 1 target. The idea was that by coinciding with the new fiscal year, the change would be less disruptive, Minoli said. 

But the day of the rollout, the implementation team discovered immediate problems. 

“Due to a technical issue, the VTBuys rolling ‘go live’ will not begin today,” the team wrote to state employees on July 1. “We will share the revised timeline for our rolling launch as soon as possible.”

More than two weeks later, the timeline still isn’t clear. Minoli declined to share when the new system might go live. 

On July 11, the project team conveyed additional issues about the launch to employees across state government. 

“After careful consideration of the ongoing challenges with the deployment and delays in achieving a successful go-live of the VTBuys system, the State executive leadership has made the decision to discontinue all efforts related to the production deployment of the system,” wrote Stacy Gibson-Grandfield, director of the Agency of Digital Service’s enterprise project management office. 

The new goal was restoring the previous financial management system called VISION.

“State IT staff are now directed to focus on reverting functionality back to VISION without delay,” the email said. “Restoring VISION to its normal function is our top priority, ensuring that business offices can operate seamlessly … to avoid any financial impacts.”

On July 14, state IT leaders said security issues had been resolved, but bugs remained. Minoli said Wednesday that seven out of 12 bugs identified had been fixed. 

Despite the rocky start, Minoli remains optimistic about VTBuys. She said once the system is operational, vendors will no longer have to re-input the same information over and over, and disparate processes will be consolidated into one platform.

“It is going to change how we can do business,” the commissioner said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont wants VTBuys to revolutionize state contracting. It’s off to a rocky start. .

The head of Southern State Correctional Facility was placed on leave “pending the outcome of an investigation into an allegation of misconduct,” the Vermont Department of Corrections announced Thursday.

During the investigation, the Springfield prison’s Assistant Superintendent Dave Bovat will serve in an acting capacity while Michaela Merrill, the superintendent, is on leave. 

The previous superintendent, Mike Lyon, was similarly placed on leave for alleged misconduct in April 2023. But an investigation determined the allegation was unfounded, according to the Department of Corrections. Lyon returned to the post the following month and retired that August.

“Given our responsibility to serve some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, we have an obligation to uphold the integrity of our system for Vermonters,” Nick Deml, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections, said in a press release. 

Per state policy, the Vermont Department of Human Resources will conduct an investigation. According to department protocol, the corrections’ investigative unit will also “review the facility’s compliance with Department policy and procedures.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Head of Springfield prison placed on leave.

Vermont’s prison population has hit a five-year peak. 

That’s according to new Vermont Department of Corrections data shared with lawmakers Wednesday in a key committee overseeing the criminal justice system. 

“This is a direct reflection of the court system and the backlog,” Jess King-Mohr, the department’s director of research and data analytics, said at the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee meeting. 

Starting in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic altered all aspects of daily life, Vermont’s prison population plummeted by more than 500, to under 1,240 people. The reduction was due to  criminal justice reform legislation and Covid-conscious efforts — releases and limits on detainment — to prevent the disease’s spread in congregate settings.

But five years later, Vermont now incarcerates more than 1,550 people, a number corrections officials expect to continue growing. The spike is driven by people detained while awaiting trial.

Vermont’s courts have tens of thousands of cases on their dockets, according to state judiciary data. That backlog, coupled with new, stricter bail laws, are likely keeping more people locked up pre-trial. 

The male detained population — people incarcerated while awaiting trial — has increased by 60% since 2021, according to corrections department data. The women’s detained population skyrocketed by almost 150% in that time, leading the state to incarcerate more female detainees than sentenced women. 

While federal detainees — especially those held for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — have drawn most of the political scrutiny, state data indicates federal detainers make up a modest portion of the total spike. 

Vermont’s prisons lack the general population beds needed to hold every person the state incarcerates. An increase in the incarcerated population — especially men — has resulted in more people being sent out of state to the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, King-Mohr said, where Vermont holds a contract with a for-profit prison provider.

Nick Deml, the commissioner of corrections, also updated lawmakers on Vermont’s push to build a new women’s prison in Essex. State leaders and many advocates for incarcerated women say the current South Burlington facility’s ailing infrastructure does not lend itself to rehabilitation, problems exacerbated by a growing population. 

But according to Deml, work on a new prison isn’t going well. 

“We’re at a bit of an impasse,” he said, describing the state’s work with the town of Essex. 

State leaders said they expect more information regarding zoning changes from Essex officials in September. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s prison population reaches 5-year peak.

Described by advocates for youth as two trailers plopped in a parking lot, the Red Clover Treatment Center is Vermont’s temporary — and only — locked juvenile facility. 

The secure program, opened in October 2024, was meant to meet an immediate need, providing a crisis-ready option for children in the juvenile justice system requiring short-term care. 

The temporary facility in Middlesex bought the state time to build a permanent, secure complex in Vergennes. But now, plans for that project are up in the air, and officials are grappling with the limitations of Red Clover given that the program may operate longer than intended. 

Vermont’s scarce options for secure placement of youth are having immediate effects. Just last week, a 14-year-old boy was held at Marble Valley Correctional Facility in Rutland — an adult jail. The boy was charged as an adult with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was later transferred to Red Clover, according to court documents.  

Advocates for youth and Vermont Department for Children and Families officials agree that Red Clover’s operator — the for-profit contractor Sentinel Group — is making the most of an imperfect space. They agree the facility functions well when children are held there short term. 

However, that doesn’t mean juveniles are receiving ideal care, and the experiences of youth reveal the constraints of Red Clover’s stopgap nature.

The state is often holding juveniles at the Middlesex facility for a month or more. Providing an education in such a restrictive setting can pose a challenge, and without a complete kitchen, the facility often relies on takeout — including fast food —  to feed residents.  

“In our opinion, Red Clover is suitable as a short-term facility. It’s not suitable as a long-term facility,” said Marshall Pahl, Vermont’s deputy defender general. “No matter what kind of programming they put in place, even if they had great meals there, it would not be a suitable long-term facility. It just isn’t built that way.”

A temporary building for short-term stays

Since the closure of Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in 2020, Vermont has been without a permanent, secure facility for youth where residents are locked in and closely guarded. 

To fill the niche, the Department for Children and Families proposed the Green Mountain Youth Campus. The 14-bed concept, originally slated to open in 2026, would be half the size of Woodside, serving children in a space designed to be therapeutic, not punitive. 

But the state pulled back its plan to build the permanent facility in Vergennes last month, running into local opposition and zoning obstacles. Though department officials assert the state still intends to construct the facility, they have not chosen a specific site. 

In the meantime, Vermont has Red Clover. The Middlesex program, itself a repurposed psychiatric facility formerly run by the Vermont Department of Mental Health, is intended to stabilize children in crisis through short-term stays. That means holding youth charged with or found guilty of violent offenses, many of whom may also be in mental health distress. The facility is designed for ages 13 through 17, although teens up to the age of 19 can be sent there in certain circumstances, according to the state’s contract with Sentinel. 

On average, the state has held teens there for 34 days, according to Aryka Radke, deputy commissioner of the department’s family services division. Eighteen children have been held in the facility at various times since it opened in the fall. 

“The facility itself lacks the size, expansion potential, and projected lifespan to meet the full needs of the state,” Radke said in an email. Otherwise, she said she’s confident in the quality of service the department has provided so far. 

According to Tyler Allen, the department’s high-end system of care director, youth held at Red Clover for extended periods of time fall into two broad categories: Vermonters whom the state cannot find a bed for at a different program and juveniles from out-of-state with court proceedings in Vermont. 

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vermont has lost about half of its youth residential treatment beds, Allen said. The decrease, driven by programs’ staffing shortages, has caused statewide capacity to slip from roughly 200 to 100, he said. 

In the web of residential placements, Red Clover is the only program required to accept any youth, space permitting, regardless of their legal record. 

Sometimes, another program might reject a youth because of their past behavior, according to Allen. And sometimes there just isn’t another place to put a child, he said, which has resulted in Red Clover’s longest stays. The department did not answer a request to provide data on the longest it has held a child at Red Clover. 

Out-of-state youth have also wound up with extended stays at Red Clover, in part due to the separate regulations governing them. The Interstate Compact on Juveniles outlines how states interact with each other when dealing with children in custody.

If a child from elsewhere is charged with an offense in Vermont — in family court or criminal court — the youth generally must remain in Vermont until their case is resolved. 

Adult criminal court proceedings for juveniles can be especially complex because they typically involve a serious offense, drawing out a youth’s time in Vermont’s custody. 

So far, four of the 18 children held at Red Clover have been housed through the interstate compact before being transferred to their home states, according to Radke. Most of those youth have been held for around 50 days, she said. 

To Vermont’s top juvenile public defender Pahl, much about Red Clover only causes concern if youth are held there for weeks and months rather than days. He praised Red Clover’s operators for making the most of the space and noted they offer youth more freedoms, such as extensive time outdoors, than other programs. 

However, the physical space poses limitations. A therapeutic program starts with designated treatment space — something Red Clover clearly lacks, Pahl said. 

“I mean, it’s literally sort of two trailers joined together in an L-shape with a courtyard between them,” he said. “They’re doing the best with what they got, but it ain’t a good space.”

Vermont’s children would benefit from more intermediate placement options in less restrictive environments, Pahl argued, and the state should focus on expanding access not just to the most secure youth treatment programs. 

Otherwise, Pahl fears youth will face the same issues they experienced at Woodside — like physical abuse, neglect and retaliation. 

“We will see those same kinds of problems again if youth wind up at Red Clover for way too long,” he said.

Takeout and fast-food

Red Clover’s licensing agreement grants the program special permission to bring in food from off site, including takeout. 

The kitchen has limitations, such as lacking ventilation for its stove, which prevents staff from cooking meat, according to the Department for Children and Families. Equipped with an oven, range and microwave, facility staff prepare cold foods and warm up precooked meals. 

The inability to prepare whole-cooked meals has worried advocates.

Patrick Warn has served for more than eight years as a guardian ad litem — a volunteer who advocates for youth in court. He’s worked with two kids placed at Red Clover. 

“Basically, their dinner is they literally run out to McDonalds or Burger King or whatever,” Warn said. 

He acknowledged that giving youth the ability to choose their meals — including fast food — can be a tool to reward or incentivize good behavior but said it should not be an everyday practice. Pahl thinks similarly. 

“Is serving kids McDonald’s at a placement a problem? Maybe it wouldn’t be if it was actually a short-term placement, if kids were only at a placement for a day or two or three,” he said. “But it’s not just a food problem. It’s a problem because that place was never meant to be a long-term placement. It wasn’t built for that. It’s still not built for that.”

Allen, the department official who oversees Red Clover, rejected the idea that the program serves takeout daily. Instead, he said the program’s staff try to find creative ways to expand dining choices for youth. That includes offering food from local restaurants, such as Thai, Chinese and more-upscale establishments, noting that fast food is one of the less frequented options.  

He acknowledged that the program serves takeout “more often than your average family.” While he did not know the exact frequency, Allen estimated Red Clover serves takeout “probably three to four nights per week,” which he described in positive terms. 

“Having some choice in meals is, I think, one of the things that we’ve appreciated about the program,” Allen said. “They’re willing to make that investment of time and energy to tailor it to kids.

Pahl and Warn also identified similar concerns with the education youth receive. 

“Courts have always held that kids are entitled to their education, whether they are in DCF custody (or) incarcerated,” Pahl said. “My understanding from our clients is that they are getting some educational services. Is it as good as we could have if we had a more permanent, better-staffed, well-structured program in place? Definitely not.”

Warn, who’s worked with kids held at placements across the state and country, said programs often struggle to provide an education when they are not attached to an actual school. To him, Red Clover is no different. 

He compared the schooling to when a substitute teaches a class — an interruption to the educational flow. 

In contrast, Allen described Red Clover’s educational tutoring as adaptable and a stabilizing factor for youth entering the program, some of whom weren’t regularly attending school beforehand. 

Public versus private accountability

When Vermont closed Woodside in 2020, state officials declared it the end of an era. Since then, Department for Children and Families leaders have said the state should no longer both run and oversee a facility themselves. 

Instead, they would turn to private contractors to run secure programs in the future. That way, the state could serve as the watchdog, ensuring accountability, officials said. 

As Allen described it, the Woodside model involved a conflict of interest. 

“That inherent conflict creates a gap that can limit the power of your regulatory intervention,” he said.

But advocates for youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have argued the opposite. They are skeptical that privatization will bring increased accountability. 

The state tapped the for-profit company Sentinel Group to run Red Clover and help create the still-to-come Green Mountain Youth Campus. The company’s owner operates other youth facilities around New England, including the Vermont School for Girls in Bennington and Mount Prospect Academy in New Hampshire. 

At the Bennington school, some staff have faced criminal sexual abuse charges. As recently as March, an employee was charged with repeatedly sexually assaulting a student. In New Hampshire, Mount Prospect Academy faces more than 100 lawsuits by current and former students alleging, among other claims, physical and sexual abuse, Seven Days reported 

Vermont pays Sentinel about $343,500 a month to run Red Clover, according to the state’s contract. 

Some advocates for juveniles think a tarnished reputation is inherent to any secure facility. 

Mike Maughan, who’s lived in Vermont for more than a decade, grew up in foster care and youth shelters in Pennsylvania. At age 15, he was stuck in a juvenile detention facility for a year and a half when officials could not find a therapeutic setting to treat him in, he said. 

The secure facility was not designed to heal him but rather contain him, Maughan said. Grouped together with violent kids, he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was caught in the middle of an altercation and hit by a chair that had been thrown, he said. 

He doesn’t want the same thing to happen in Vermont. Maughan doesn’t think it’s possible for a company like Sentinel to run a facility that’s truly therapeutic, he said. 

He finds the design of Red Clover and the Green Mountain Youth Campus to be problematic — “it’s just the perfect environment for abuse of youth and staff,” he said. 

He sees the abuse as a symptom of the model. In that setting, kids are always in a vulnerable position and at the hands of a power imbalance, Maughan said. Sometimes that imbalance becomes dangerous for everyone. 

“When you go into work and you have the same youth try and punch you in the head and call you an asshole everyday for six months or so, there’s a good chance — and I’ve definitely seen it — staff will just snap,” Maughan said. 

The harm is greater when the company running the facility is not held responsible. 

“They are experts in deflecting accountability,” Maughan said. 

Warn, the legal advocate for youth, agrees. 

Rather than a privately run facility, Warn said he would prefer the state construct and run its own program, as it did with Woodside. As a guardian ad litem, he’s able to inspect any state and court records related to the youth he works with, but he cannot access records solely held by a private program like Sentinel. 

Though he’s had a positive experience with Red Clover’s staff, he views reliance on any private provider as flawed. 

“The fact that it exists is a big failure in our system,” Warn said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont keeps youth for weeks at a temporary locked facility that ‘just isn’t built’ for long-term stays.

Gov. Phil Scott on Wednesday announced two new leadership appointments of state environmental departments. 

Jason Batchelder, who most recently served as the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, is set to become commissioner of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. Having previously served as colonel of Fish & Wildlife’s warden service, Batchelder replaces interim Commissioner Andrea Shortsleeve. 

“I’m truly humbled to be asked to rejoin this group of mission-driven individuals who live their work, day in and day out,” Batchelder said in a Wednesday press release. 

Scott selected Misty Sinsigalli to replace Batchelder as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. She joins the department having previously worked as a disaster recovery lead for the water and environmental programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, according to the release. 

“Misty’s experience at the federal level, as well as her lived experience growing up in Vermont, will be important as we balance conservation with the housing we desperately need in the state,” Scott said in the release. 

Sinsigalli said in the release that she was grateful to lead the department during a challenging time, noting uncertainty in both the physical environment and Washington, D.C. 

Scott also appointed Sara Teachout to the Green Mountain Care Board, a key health care regulator in the state. Teachout most recently worked as a lobbyist for BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont, a health insurer the care board regulates. Care board members are chosen from a list of candidates submitted by the board’s nominating committee. 

Teachout told VTDigger on Thursday that she had resigned from BlueCross and would not participate in this year’s health insurance rate review process. She has almost 20 years of experience in health care policy and fiscal analysis, according to the release. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Gov. Phil Scott appoints 2 new leaders of state environmental departments.

Caledonia County State’s Attorney Jessica Zaleski plans to resign as the county’s top prosecutor on July 25. 

The Caledonian Record first reported the decision last week. 

In an interview, Zaleski said the choice was sparked by a desire to move closer to her parents in North Dakota. She’s tapped Claire Burns, a deputy state’s attorney, to take over the office in an interim capacity. 

State’s attorneys in Vermont are elected every four years. Following a resignation, the local political party of the resigning prosecutor submits names to the governor for consideration. The governor then appoints a replacement — typically from the list of suggested candidates. 

Though she cited family reasons for her departure, Zaleski noted that “everything” about the job had changed during her tenure, making the work more challenging. 

“The caseload, the volume of violent crime — particularly homicides — the inability to properly staff the office in a way that controls and manages the workload,” she said.

The judicial system would benefit from more staff in all roles, Zaleski said, including defense attorneys and judges.

Vermont’s stubborn court backlog, exacerbated during Covid-19, has been a constant focus for prosecutors, the defense bar and lawmakers in recent years. 

According to data from the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, most prosecutors have more than 200 criminal cases on their docket. Since the end of 2023, the number of pending homicide dockets statewide has increased by about 30%, from 90 to 117, as of May. Zaleski’s office has prosecuted a number of high-profile shootings and homicides, including a case involving a 15-year-old charged with second-degree murder last year. 

Caledonia County has the second most severe case backlog in the state, according to state data, measured by the percent of pending cases older than the state’s disposition guidelines recommend. 

Reflecting on the challenges she’s encountered on the job, Zaleski cited frustrations with Vermont’s juvenile justice system, particularly the lack of a secure detention facility for children and youth offenders. In the rural Northeast Kingdom, accessing resources — like mental health and substance use treatment — is a constant concern for community members, she said. 

Despite the job’s difficulties, the prosecutor said there was much to enjoy about her work. 

“The experience generally has been exhausting but incredibly fulfilling. I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done under incredible pressure and lack of resources,” she said. 

Zaleski is one of at least three prosecutors to leave office in the past year. Former Windham County State’s Attorney Tracy Kelly Shriver stepped down mid-term in July 2024. Last month, longtime Windham County Deputy State’s Attorney David Gartenstein retired. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Caledonia County State’s Attorney Jessica Zaleski to step down later this month.

Despite years of work and more than $2 million spent, the Vermont State Colleges system announced it would stop working to create a dental therapy program. 

“After nearly a decade of diligent effort, it has become clear that the dental therapy program is not a viable path forward to address our state’s acute and pressing oral health workforce challenges,” Elizabeth Mauch, Vermont State Colleges’ chancellor, said in a press release Monday. 

“We are committed to investing where we can have the greatest impact — and that is in our highly successful and expanding Dental Hygiene Program,” Mauch continued.

Vermont State University offers the dental hygiene degree and would have operated the dental therapy program. The school runs an on-campus dental clinic in Williston. 

A dental therapist is a position analogous to a nurse practitioner and allowed to perform more procedures than a dental hygienist. In Vermont, a shortage of dental professionals has contributed to insufficient access to oral care. 

In 2016, the Legislature paved the way for the dental therapy initiative, which would have been the first of its kind in the northeast. Supporters argued the new professional certification would help address the state’s dental needs. The state allocated $400,000 to help establish the college course.

But the program struggled to get off the ground, drawing scrutiny in 2023 from State Auditor Doug Hoffer, who investigated its delayed launch.

The Vermont State Dental Society had opposed the dental therapy licensure, arguing it would lower the standard of oral care in Vermont. 

In a statement, Jeff Blasius, the society’s president, said the group is glad the state college system “is committed to expanding its dental hygiene program and stands ready to assist in that effort any way we can.”

In a feasibility assessment of the cancelled program dated last month, Mauch wrote that the school couldn’t pay would-be staff enough to recruit them away from the dental field and into teaching. And if the college could pay market rate, the per-student cost of the initiative — estimated at $96,000 — would be too much. Plus, the state colleges’ budget problems — and the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic — further undermined development.

According to the assessment, the state college system needs to find $5 million in “structural budget savings” for the new fiscal year that began July 1 to fully balance its budget.

Kayla Dewey, an assistant to Mauch, said in an email that the cost of the program’s development is $2.3 million, but of that total, $1.5 million worth of equipment, supplies and facilities improvement would go toward expanding the state’s dental hygiene program.

That expansion, bolstered by more than $6 million in “newly secured” federal funds, will increase the dental hygiene program’s enrollment from 24 to 48 students starting in the fall of 2027.

Read the story on VTDigger here: After stalled development, VTSU scraps dental therapy program that never materialized.

Greg Hale didn’t understand why border patrol officers from Maine were showing up at the prison he oversees in St. Albans town. He was used to federal immigration authorities bringing detainees in from Vermont’s northern border. But this signaled a shift. 

The superintendent of Northwest State Correctional Facility, Hale had previously informed his contacts at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Vermont didn’t want to become the feds’ hub in the Northeast.

“Apparently they are disregarding that,” he noted in a memo to his higher-ups at the Vermont Department of Corrections in early March.  

The emails reveal mounting frustration within Vermont’s corrections system as ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have increasingly relied on the state’s prisons to warehouse detained immigrants. New demands, arrivals at all hours and a rare disease are just some of the challenges Vermont’s prisons have faced while working with federal immigration authorities. 

Internal communications since the start of President Donald Trump’s second administration, obtained through a public records request, offer a window into how the Vermont Department of Corrections has cooperated with — and pushed back against — federal immigration police as the number of detentions increased. Leaders have navigated the growing strain on the state’s prison system while also encountering the unique health and language difficulties posed by housing immigrant detainees.

Nationwide, ICE is detaining about 59,000 people, a possible record. Deportations have also ramped up, according to the New York Times, while border apprehensions have fallen. 

Regionally, in addition to Vermont’s prisons, the federal government uses facilities in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts to hold immigrants, many of whom have not been charged with crimes. 

Vermont’s memorandum of understanding with U.S. immigration authorities gives them access to the state’s six prisons in exchange for $180 per-detained person, per-day. That deal expires in August.

This year, the Legislature passed a law removing a provision in state statute that allowed collaboration between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration authorities during declared states of emergency. 

In Vermont, the St. Albans prison serves as ICE’s primary jail for male detainees, and Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington holds female immigration detainees. The average number of immigrants detained for federal officials in Vermont’s prisons fluctuates, hovering in the teens to the 20s on any given day. 

Federal officials have also shuffled detainees from other states into and out of Vermont, and used commercial flights out of the Burlington airport to facilitate deportations. 

Those jailed in Vermont’s prisons include people with established lives in the state, like farmworkers. Vermont’s prisons have also held people from other New England states, like a Russian scientist working at Harvard University.

VTDigger’s reporting previously revealed the challenges facing jailed immigrants. Several people in prison reported that ICE detainees were struggling to access phone calls, lawyers and medical attention, often due to a lack of translation services. The department of corrections has invested increased resources to address language access concerns, documents show. 

Following the high-profile arrests of Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University grad student Rümeysa Öztürk, Vermont’s work with ICE drew increased scrutiny. 

The Vermont Department of Corrections declined interview requests for this story, instead answering questions over email. Asked about workers’ complaints with the feds, Haley Sommer, a department spokesperson, wrote “DOC is committed to maintaining a collaborative working relationship with our federal partners.”

‘Not a fan of ICE’

As federal authorities increased their use of Vermont’s prisons, leadership at the St. Albans prison grew frustrated, records indicate. 

ICE agents’ demands stacked up. They requested detainees’ medical information, which they said was “required for the flights,” in addition to bagged meals and clothing. Sometimes, they arrived in the middle of the night. 

In late February, St. Albans’ assistant superintendent informed his higher-up that during a recent interaction with ICE, agents were “very very lax in their security procedures around their keys and they were rude when confronted about it.”

“Let’s get a report and then we can yell at them,” Hale, the superintendent, responded.  

The next month, ICE transferred 19 people out of the prison at 4 a.m, requesting medical summaries, two meals, and closed-toed shoes for each. The day after, federal agents brought in 16 new detainees, according to communications records. 

“Mostly I am concerned about the traffic, my booking is not built for 31 ICE movements in 24 hours, this is on top of normal movements,” Hale wrote to his corrections colleagues. “Booking is swamped and we are going to miss something critical.”

He made his exasperation clear to department leadership.

“I continue to push back on them, but they are technically operating within the agreement I think, it is just overwhelming us,” he wrote of ICE. “This break-neck pace with them is going to be the cause of bigger issues.”

Hale attached security camera photos of the crowded areas, though the department declined to provide them in the records request, citing security concerns. 

“What a mess and by all accounts not a safe situation for our staff to be in,” Al Cormier, DOC’s chief of operations, responded to Hale.  

The superintendent was taken by surprise when the news arrived in March that border patrol agents from Maine were bringing detainees to St. Albans. One of his colleagues questioned ICE on the decision, writing, “It was my understanding that we don’t accept individuals that cross the border from other states … Is this a new practice that we have started?”

Elsewhere, Hale noted ICE provides little information to state staff — and he was skeptical of the information the feds do provide. 

“It’s unusual for them to share much of anything honestly and what is shared I don’t trust,” he wrote.   

Around the same time Hale was raising concern about the feds’ increased presence, his counterpart at the South Burlington prison, Superintendent Theresa Messier, also noted an uptick. In an email to the department’s health equity program director, she asked for additional support for the women’s prison’s work with detained immigrants.

“I think it would be a good idea for you to come to talk with staff regarding ICE detainees. There has been an increase with them recently and there have been issues,” Messier wrote.

But though corrections staff expressed annoyance at ICE’s strain on the system, the working relationship appeared solid from the feds’ perspective.

After an inspection of the women’s prison this spring, ICE’s detention oversight branch reported they were “highly impressed with all of the operations” and identified no deficiencies.  

In April, Nick Deml, the corrections department’s commissioner, convened a meeting with the South Burlington and St. Albans superintendents to discuss their experience working with the feds. 

In an email to many of the department’s central office staff on the day of the scheduled meeting, Hale offered his thoughts on the state’s continued cooperation with immigration authorities. While he described himself as “not a fan of ICE,” he didn’t think ending the state’s contract would impact the feds’ operations, and he feared financial retaliation from the Trump administration.

“That said, I do think working toward restructuring the contract to better reflect the amount of work, time, and other resources it takes to house their detainees not to mention meeting our own operational (requirements), would be worthwhile if that is a supported direction at some point,” he wrote to department leadership. 

Inroads for a deadly disease

With detainees arriving at Vermont’s prisons after leaving countries around the world, staff communication shows the emergence of a unique health challenge: tuberculosis. 

In late April, an infection control coordinator with the department’s health services contractor, Wellpath, outlined concern about detained immigrants carrying and spreading the dangerous disease — a bacterial illness most often impacting the lungs that is rare in the United States. While treatable, tuberculosis kills more than a million people per year worldwide. 

Later, Travis Denton, DOC’s facilities division director, summarized the issue as described by Wellpath. Procedures at the time allowed ICE detainees to enter the general population before the results of their tuberculosis tests came back, he wrote. 

“Recent incidents have involved patients who were later confirmed TB-positive after already entering GP, posing serious exposure risks,” Denton told colleagues in a memo. 

Last year, there were more than 10,000 tuberculosis cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because immigration detainees may have arrived in the U.S. from countries where tuberculosis is more prevalent, some of those cases are found in prisons. 

Last fall in Louisiana, an ICE detainee tested positive for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, but it’s unclear how prevalent the disease is across all facilities. According to a 2004 memo written by an ICE official, there were between 100-150 tuberculosis cases a year in detainees at that time. Academic studies have shown immigrants detained in the U.S. are far more likely to have the disease than the country’s population as a whole.

Language barriers and unreliable self reporting made it challenging to identify people’s tuberculosis history, Denton wrote, and the disease’s symptoms overlap with drug detox and Covid-19 — health concerns staff are more accustomed to. 

The medical contractor proposed a system to account for the concerns. Detainees would receive a tuberculosis test during intake and spend the first two to three days in restrictive housing or another separated space until the test results arrived. Anyone who tested positive would receive a chest X-ray and potentially be moved to the hospital. 

“I want to just flag that the distance between this proposal, and successful implementation, is not quick or short,” Denton wrote in the memo.

He described the proposal as a big undertaking reminiscent of procedural changes during the Covid-19 pandemic. “It is further complicated by the focus on ICE detainees, which is a chaotic process that we have very little control over, and must be handled strategically due to the high-profile nature of topic,” he wrote. 

Later, as Denton informed the department’s leadership of the proposal, his skepticism grew. “While the intent behind Wellpath’s proposed protocol is understandable, it doesn’t appear to fully account for the significant operational impact it would create,” he wrote, questioning whether there was any input from the prison’s security staff.

Hale, the St. Albans prison leader, echoed Denton’s concerns, saying Northwest lacked the cell space for such a procedure: “I get the concern but I don’t see how this will work.”

Asked this week whether the department had ultimately decided to change procedures, Sommer, the spokesperson, wrote that Wellpath had “enhanced patient monitoring practices.”

“Since the implementation of the new policy, there have not been any active confirmed TB cases,” she told VTDigger.

While ICE will likely continue to work with Vermont’s prisons, what that work looks like could change. 

Gov. Phil Scott holds sole authority in the state to partner with federal immigration authorities. Asked in June about whether the state would renew or alter the existing agreement, Amanda Wheeler, a spokesperson for Scott, signaled the deal would continue in some form. 

“The Governor has been clear that he believes there should be a state contract with ICE because canceling or allowing the contract to expire won’t stop detainments, it will simply mean detainees will be sent someplace else,” she wrote. “We’re not going to get out ahead of contract negotiations, but we are reviewing the (contract) and considering changes.”

Vermont’s current agreement with federal authorities expires on Aug. 21.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Internal communications reveal Vermont prisons’ frustrations working with ICE.