The Vermont Department for Children and Families is seeking to build an eight-bed secure facility in St. Albans for teens involved in the criminal justice system. The department has pitched the plan as a temporary solution while the state works to build a permanent site for youthful offenders.
The department’s short-term plan, as presented to state lawmakers and the St. Albans Selectboard, would consist of 10 modular trailers built together into a single 64-by-135-foot structure near the Northwest State Correctional Facility. It’s intended to house 15- to 18-year-olds on a short-term basis, with stays averaging “a couple weeks,” Harry Chen, the department’s interim commissioner, told the selectboard. Once stabilized, the youths would be transferred to a lower-security residential program, Chen said.
At a Feb. 2 hearing in the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, state officials told lawmakers that the department plans to use the St. Albans facility for at least five to eight years.
“Let’s hope it’s not longer than a few years,” committee chair Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, said with a sigh. “Let’s hope.”
The state wants to build a permanent facility in Newbury but is entangled in a lengthy court battle.
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration requested $4.6 million in this year’s budget adjustment act — a mid-year true-up of the current budget — for secure facilities for youth. That money would fund the temporary site in St. Albans, as well as a two-bed, “staff-secure” facility in the former Vermont Yankee headquarters in Brattleboro. The House approved its budget adjustment bill, and the $4.6 million, on a party-line vote earlier this month. It is now under review in the Senate.
The Department for Children and Families requested modular construction as a way to speed up the process, Chen told state lawmakers. “Time is really the key factor here,” he testified at the Feb. 2 hearing.
Department officials argued Vermont needs a secure facility to stabilize the broader system for all kids in state custody. Since the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex closed in October 2020, the state has sent some youths to the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, and has sent at least four minors to adult prisons. In 63 instances, DCF Family Services workers and local law enforcement have sat with youth in police departments, hospital emergency departments or DCF district offices for “anywhere from hours to months,” awaiting transfer to a permanent placement, Chen told the St. Albans Selectboard at its Feb. 6 meeting.
In some cases, the state has resorted to placing high-needs youth in less secure residential programs, Tyler Allen, adolescent services director for the department’s family services division, told House lawmakers, which he said “chews up and burns out the staff” at those sites.
“The reason they’re having such a hard time maintaining their staff within that culture is because we’re using those programs, the crisis stabilization programs, for more than that which they are intended,” Allen told lawmakers. “They’re being used to house long-term youth with legal challenges, mental health challenges, challenges associated with developmental and intellectual disability, in addition to runaway challenges, so on and so forth.”
Officials from the Department of Buildings and General Services said they considered various state-owned properties, including in Middlesex, Waterbury and St. Johnsbury, before recommending DCF pursue the St. Albans site.
They selected St. Albans in part because they hoped the local community would be generally receptive to the proposal, BGS Commissioner Jennifer Fitch told the House committee.
When the state started looking into options two years ago for a new women’s prison, Fitch told lawmakers, “St. Albans raised their hand, they reached out to me. They were extremely eager and they wanted to engage in dialogue.”
However, some selectboard members, as well as one member of the public, expressed doubts about the proposal when Chen presented it to the town on Feb. 6. Jeff Sanders, a selectboard member, said he’d like there to be a fence around the perimeter, to prevent youth from escaping on foot.
While the state owns the land around the prison, it would still need to go through the town’s zoning process, according to St. Albans Town Manager Carrie Johnson. She said the state had yet to submit a zoning application. BGS is currently working with the St. Albans town zoning administrator, Fitch said.
The state hopes to have the temporary facility up and running within a year, Fitch said.
The Department of Buildings and General Services also evaluated different locations on the St. Albans property, Fitch said in an interview. She is “very confident,” she said, that the proposed location is far enough away from the prison where youth inside will not be able to see or hear the adult facility, which was a concern for lawmakers. The department would consider planting trees or installing a fence to block visibility, if necessary, she said.
The Legislature has moved to expedite funding for the project while executive agencies continue to work out the details. The budget adjustment bill would hold the $4.6 million “in reserve” until the department provides a more detailed plan for construction.
By funding the project through budget adjustment, it moves through more quickly than the regular, full-year budget, which usually isn’t approved until the end of the legislative session.
“It’s kind of an emerging picture of what the plan is, but I think it’s still kind of up in the air,” said Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, “which makes you nervous about committing a lot of money for a temporary component of a big plan that isn’t fleshed out.”
Lawmakers could adjust the plan in later bills, Donahue noted. Language in the budget adjustment bill would require DCF to submit a more developed plan to lawmakers by the end of March.
