The Vermont Senate passed its first law enforcement reform measure Thursday. The provision requires the state to develop feasibility plans for placing mental health experts in every police barrack.
The proposal is attached to the first quarter budget for the next fiscal year, one of the must-pass bills of the prolonged legislative session.
Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, and Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Sears, D-Bennington, introduced the last-minute amendment to H.961, in the wake of protests related to recent killings of Black people by law enforcement across the country.
The amendment mandates that the commissioners of the departments of public safety and mental health come back to the Legislature in August with a plan on how to partner mental health clinicians, either from a designated agency or from a contracted entity, with every state police barracks in Vermont.
Ashe said it’s an “important long-term change” in how police interact with citizens in Vermont.
The amendment stipulates that it is up to the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety to recommend to the Legislature how the program should be funded and what potential “reallocation” of money it would require.
“This seems like a good model to be delivering to all of our state police barracks and this is meant to be a very positive collaboration, building off the success the state police and the local mental health agencies have already worked on,” Ashe said.
Similar efforts have been made in St. Albans and Bellows Falls.
Ashe said his hope is that mental health experts will handle 911 calls and “other state police duties that have a mental health crisis component.”
“It falls short of ordering that it happen now or doing anything like that, but rather sets the stage for us to make that determination when we return,” he said.
The Senate leader addressed the need for a partnership between law enforcement and mental health professionals during a committee discussion last week.
“I do want to emphasize that our investments in mental health in recent years, well not sufficient to dig out of a hole that really developed over a long period of time, is a piece of reducing the need for law enforcement to be essentially mental health workers on so many calls,” Ashe said last week.
Michael Schirling, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, has also endorsed the proposal and included it as part of his “modernization strategy” for law enforcement in the state.
On the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, said mental health experts have been very helpful working with both the St. Albans state police barracks and also the police department.
“I’ve talked with a number of the offices involved as well as some of the folks at Northwest Counseling who’ve been providing the support and heartily endorse this as a very effective means that should be expanded,” Brock said. (Northwest Counseling and Support Services is the state’s designated mental health agency for Franklin and Grand Isle counties.)
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, said she believed the amendment is a “very important step not just for law enforcement but for folks who have need of mental health counseling” but added that she hopes lawmakers pursue other models of expanding the role of social and mental health workers in the public safety department.
“This is absolutely critical at this time — it has been critical for a number of years,” Lyons said.
Thursday morning the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to hear testimony on S.219, which currently mandates body cameras be used by all police officers, prohibits chokeholds and would make it a chargeable offense if a restraint results in death or serious bodily injury.
The bill also contains sections on race data collection and more general use of force policy.
The legislation comes as protests around the country and in Vermont continue over the killing late last month of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Three other officers at the scene did not intervene.
Stakeholders and advocates appeared to be split over whether the Senate committee should keep a Friday deadline to move the proposal.
Wilda White, the chair of the Vermont Mental Health Crisis Response Commission, said she understands the urgency behind moving a bill as a quick response to Floyd’s murder, but said the judiciary panel should continue to hear from community members as it crafts the legislation.
“I do not believe that this committee has engaged in the deep reflection, the careful thought and the broad public engagement that effective legislation in this domain requires,” White said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont and other advocates have said this first step in addressing police reform is necessary and should move ahead.
In the Senate Committee on Government Operations, lawmakers proposed mandating a statewide accountability review of law enforcement, in addition to disciplining misconduct perpetrated by police officers.
“This morning in judiciary, we heard very distinct, ‘act now, do something, it’s really important.’ ‘It’s better to get it right so don’t act in haste,’” said Committee Chair Jeanette White, D-Windham, who also sits on the judiciary panel.
“There really isn’t a single voice on what we should do right now and what we should put off and how we should do it. So we just have to use our best judgment,” she added.
On Wednesday, Ashe told VTDigger his goal is to have the reform measures pass through the Senate and House by June 26.
“I believe we should take action now because the policies can be done now,” Ashe said. “There is nothing stopping continued discussion to go back and revise, just like any other policy or law that we pass.” He added he wasn’t interested in “the constant can kicking on these issues.”
