The state auditor’s office has found that Vermont’s police training, certification and oversight council has not enacted policies to ensure that law enforcement departments are adhering to state training and policy mandates.
The Vermont Criminal Justice Council has yet to develop practices to ensure police officers obtain their required 30 hours of annual training, according to a report issued this week by the auditor. The council also has no way to know whether police departments’ policies are in line with Vermont’s model policies on issues such as racial bias or use of Tasers and body cameras.
“There may be no greater power granted by the State than that which it gives law enforcement to perform their public safety functions,” Auditor Doug Hoffer said in a press release Tuesday. “With that power comes enormous responsibility. The training and policies required by Vermont statutes are there for a reason — to make sure officers are continuously trained to deliver the highest level of public service, and to protect the rights of Vermonters.”
Heather Simons, the council’s executive director, affirmed the report’s findings in an Aug. 31 letter to the auditor’s office. She wrote that the audit “has provided a comprehensive and overdue assessment of the gaps in compliance and shed light on the vast responsibilities required of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, the VCJC Executive Director, and the VCJC staff.”
But there’s more to it, according to former Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who chairs the council. The state entity was reestablished after a 2020 law revamped its membership and tweaked its responsibilities. It was previously called the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council.
The audit, Sorrell noted, reviewed officer training records from 2019 and 2020, before those changes were made.
Still, the former attorney general said, “Quite frankly, we welcome the audit.” The 24-member council is tasked not only with ensuring officer and department compliance with state training mandates, but also developing training curriculum for new and existing officers and hosting disciplinary hearings for individual officers.
“It’s a little bit like drinking out of the end of the fire hose, all of the stuff that’s on our plate,” Sorrell said.
He said he thinks the audit will help make the case to state lawmakers that the council needs more money and personnel. “I think if we’ve got more resources, we’ll meet our responsibilities,” he said.
Sorrell said the council is also juggling competing priorities. Police departments nationally and in Vermont face significant vacancy rates, and Sorrell said chiefs are urging the council to amp up training in order to hire new officers.
“What we’re hearing from law enforcement is, ‘We’ve got vacancies. We need new deputy sheriffs, new local police officers, new members of state police, new troopers, and you’ve got to train them, please,’” Sorrell said. “So it’s a challenge for us to try to decide, is the training the more important hat that we don? Or do we get out on the road and … make better assurances that the ongoing training responsibilities and the record-keeping is being done?”
The audit found that, for 60 officers in 2019 and 2020, there were “significant differences” between the officers’ reported training hours and documentation. At least 12 officers appeared not to have met their requisite 30 hours.
The auditor’s office also reviewed policies of 12 Vermont law enforcement agencies. Four departments’ fair and impartial policing policies, four departments’ body camera policies and seven departments’ conducted electrical weapon policies strayed from the state’s model policies.
“While not all differences were significant, some were concerning,” the auditor’s office wrote. “One agency removed the guidance not to use conducted electrical weapons, commonly referred to as Tasers™, on the abdomen of pregnant women.”
Hoffer acknowledged in an email on Wednesday that his office lacks enforcement power. But should the council ignore the audit’s recommendations, he said, the governor “could encourage it/them to act since he/she appoints a majority of members.” The state Legislature, Hoffer added, “has the power of the budget, which can certainly influence such entities.”
Sorrell said the council “is not going to be able to be Big Brother,” and he hopes that leaders within agencies beef up enforcement of their own forces.
“It’s got to be (an officer’s) supervisors who are impactful in the culture of whether this (ongoing training) is important or not, and seeing that it’s done and the spirit with which it was done,” Sorrell said. “That’s an attitudinal thing and a cultural thing, and I hope we’ll see much more cooperation in individual departments.”
