[S]ocial workers with the Department for Children and Families will soon have a new office in Barre.
Secretary of the Administration Justin Johnson announced Friday that some 30 employees of the family services division will move to office space on the fourth floor of the courthouse — two buildings up Barre’s main street from their current location.
The move comes three months after social worker Lara Sobel was shot and killed while leaving her DCF office in City Place in Barre. Sobel’s accused killer, Jody Herring, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to Sobel’s killing and the deaths of three of Herring’s relatives.
Soon after the shooting, state officials began considering options for relocating the family services division out of concern for worker safety.
“Since the tragic events of the summer that group of people have been fairly traumatized,” Johnson said, adding that he hopes the move will “enable folks to move on.”
Johnson expects the move to be completed by the end of the year.
In order to accommodate the move, Department of Corrections office space on the second floor of the courthouse will be reconfigured, and the Washington County State’s Attorney’s Office will move to that floor.
The move will place the DCF offices inside a space that has a security point maintained by the judiciary that involves an X-ray machine and a metal detector.
Johnson did not share details of plans for beefing up security, citing his wariness of keeping the spaces secure.
The move, however, does not put much physical distance between the two offices. “It’s the same number of people essentially in the building next door,” Johnson said.
The office swap will not necessarily address concerns about their safety in the parking lot where Sobel was shot. Workers park in the same general area for City Place and the courthouse.
Johnson said the state had “not spent a lot of time on the parking piece yet.” There is still work to be done on the logistics of the move, he said.
The state considered several other options for reshuffling office space in Barre to accommodate the move of the family services division offices — including one option to move the division to McFarland House, a state-owned building also in Barre.
Johnson said the state decided against the move to McFarland House for several reasons, such as the distance from the courthouse. McFarland also houses offices of the Agency of Natural Resources, and a Fish and Wildlife Department wet bench where biologists test animal carcasses.
“Space is one of those things that gets people sometimes upset pretty quickly,” Johnson said.
The shooting sparked a broad review of security in state office buildings, which is expected to be completed in December.
The exact price tag for the move is not yet known, though Johnson gave a rough estimate of $100,000. He expects it will be funded out of a part of the Department of Buildings Grounds and Services budget earmarked for moves.
The move will leave the state continuing to pay rent on the space left vacant by the family services division, and the state has a long-term lease in City Place. However, Johnson said that he hopes to end up with less leased space in the long run.
“I’ve said all along that I’m prepared to spend some money if it’s going to make a difference, and I think that on balance this is going to make a difference for those folks,” Johnson said.
Johnson met with social workers Friday morning, and said he had the sense that they were happy with the planned move.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association said in a statement Friday that the union is “pleased” with the plan for relocation.
“There is security at the courthouse, and this will hopefully give the DCF workers a measure of comfort and allow them to slowly try to get their working lives back to normal,” VSEA Executive Director Steve Howard said in a statement Friday.
The statement went on to acknowledge the administration’s decision not to move the ANR workers in McFarland House.
“VSEA appreciates the State’s willingness to listen to workers at the McFarland State Office Building, who questioned the costs around moving the DCF workers to McFarland and vice versa. The courthouse seems a better move,” Howard said.
