House shackles prisons proposal
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By Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau - Published: April 24, 2008
MONTPELIER – The massive prison reorganization plan aimed at controlling the growing Vermont Department of Corrections budget has opened up a divide between some members of the Legislature.
The Vermont Senate last month easily passed a bill calling for a major reorganization which would close a facility in Waterbury and restructure two others, with estimated cost savings funneled toward rehabilitating prisoners.
But members of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee voted 10-0 Wednesday morning to delay the implementation of that plan for at least another year to study alternatives that they say would keep more jobs here in Vermont.
Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, the chair of that committee, said members were concerned that the plan was moving too quickly at the expense of studying other options, which could include keeping more jobs and prisoners in-state.
"We're not opposed to a prison reorganization plan," Emmons said. "But there have been a lot of questions raised concerning this plan from the Senate and we want to take some time to look at all the alternatives."
That move did not sit well with members of the Vermont Senate, where the plan originated. Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, shepherded the reorganization plan through his Senate Judiciary Committee and through the full chamber earlier this year.
He called the House committee's move "disappointing," adding that lawmakers have spent four months studying the plan. The problem of growing prison budgets in Vermont – the state now spends more on corrections than it does on higher education – will just get worse if the Legislature waits a year, he said.
"If we do nothing this year we'll simply see the corrections budget go up another 10 percent," Sears said. "And we'll come back here next year and find another $10 million hole in the budget."
Sears added that he hoped the differences could be worked out in conference committee if the full Vermont House passed a committee-revised prison plan. But by mid-afternoon Sears had found another potential way to get the plan through: He added it to the fiscal year 2009 state budget, which the Senate then approved Wednesday afternoon.
That procedural move sets up potentially two conference committees – a conference committee is a panel of House and Senate members charged with working out a compromise between each chamber's version of legislation — that could include the prison reorganization plan in the final agreed-upon legislations.
"I'm hoping that one of the two conference committees can come to an agreement," Sears said.
Under the reorganization plan proposed by the Senate, Waterbury's Dale facility would be closed and its occupants would be moved to a facility in St. Albans, which would be transformed into an all-women's prison.
Some of the male prisoners at the St. Albans facility would be sent out-of-state to finish their sentences while others, mostly non-violent offenders, could be sent to a facility in Windsor, which would be rehabilitated into a work camp.
The bill also includes funding for more mental health and substance abuse treatment for prisoners, along with more efforts toward job-training and finding inmates transitional housing when they are released. Supporters say these measures are aimed at reducing the number of inmates who reoffend within a few years of release.
But since the plan passed through the Senate, leaders from the towns involved in the prison reorganization have complained that there has been little or no communication between them and the state.
Some of those concerns seem to ring true for members of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. Emmons said members hope to look closely at alternatives, including possibly building a new facility or moving all the women prisoners to Windsor.
A memo circulated among committee members this week by Rep. Jason Lorber, D-Burlington, instead suggests closing a wing of the St. Albans facility and transforming that facility into a work camp – a move he believes would save more money and keep some jobs in Vermont. Sears disputed the contents of that memo Wednesday.
DOC Commissioner Robert Hofmann said Wednesday that the state has already studied all the prison alternatives before the Senate began working on the plan. There are no good options for cutting the rising costs of housing prisoners, he said, and lawmakers have to choose from a series of difficult choices.
But he was also against waiting another year before making those decisions.
"If we wait a year we'll be looking at a series of intolerable choices," he said.
Contact Daniel Barlow at Daniel.Barlow@rutlandherald.com.
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