The Vermont Department of Corrections announced Thursday that Michaela Merrill will serve as Southern State Correctional Facility’s superintendent.
Merrill, who has been serving as interim superintendent, filled the post following the retirement of Mike Lyon this August.
Merrill joined the department of corrections in 2003, beginning her career as a correctional officer. Following a series of promotions, she became an assistant superintendent at the Springfield prison in 2015, according to an announcement to staff written by Nick Deml, the department’s commissioner. Merrill also served as interim superintendent at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland.
In a press release, the department cited Merrill’s work on Springfield’s incarcerated coffee shop run by inmates and the prison’s “honor unit,” a less-restrictive housing unit.
“In her almost eight years at Southern State, Superintendent Merrill consistently acted with
conviction, passion, and with the best interests of Vermonters at the forefront of her work,” said Deml, who had been on parental leave but returned to work last week, in the release.
Dave Bovat, who most recently served as risk intervention services coordinator, will step into Merrill’s former role as an assistant superintendent, according to the message to staff, a job he previously held.
Between January 2022 and May 2023, 12 people died while incarcerated at the Springfield prison, compared to an average of three people per year who died in Vermont’s entire prison system from 2017 to 2021, according to department data.
The deaths have drawn scrutiny to the private company that offers medical care to the prisoners at Southern State Correctional Facility, who are generally the oldest and most medically frail in the system.
