Gov. Phil Scott’s 2025 budget proposal would force the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs to cut as many as nine prosecutor positions, department leaders said this week. It’s a move that Democratic lawmakers, and the department itself, said could hinder the state’s efforts to bolster accountability in the criminal justice system.
The possibility of layoffs — or of reductions in attorneys through attrition — also drew criticism from the leader of the state employees’ union. Steve Howard said he sees a disconnect between the possible impacts of Scott’s proposed budget and the governor’s calls for lawmakers to tackle pressing public safety challenges.
Among those challenges, officials have said, is the state’s persistent backlog of thousands of unresolved court cases, which has left some alleged offenders — and victims — waiting months or even years for a trial.
“It is troubling to have the governor give a speech saying he’s concerned about crime, and then propose a budget that doesn’t invest in what the system needs in order to get justice for victims and to keep communities safe,” said Howard, the executive director of the Vermont State Employees’ Association, in an interview.
Department leaders testified to lawmakers that they need those nine positions — and then some — to bring down the amount of cases that county prosecutors are handling. At current staffing, many deputy state’s attorneys are juggling more than 300 cases at a time, officials said, suggesting a more reasonable number would be below 275.
Scott has made public safety a major focus of his policy proposals to lawmakers this year and is pushing for legislation that would roll back bail reform measures and increase penalties for some offenses, among other changes. Some of these measures are the subject of bills being considered in committees in the House and Senate.
But at the governor’s weekly press conference Wednesday — which he focused on public safety — Scott said he does not think the state can afford to fit those prosecutor positions into a budget that should include less spending than in previous years.
The administration “did the best we could under the conditions of the money we have. We have to live within our means,” Scott told reporters. “We can have conversations about adding those positions, adding to the cost of government. But it has to come out of some pocket. It’s got to come out of somewhere else.”
The governor said he was open to hearing lawmakers’ ideas about where such money could come from. Speaking in an interview Thursday, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said the nine positions were critical.
“It’s a tough budget year, yes,” Krowinski said. “But this is something that (House leaders) are prioritizing, because we know that it can make a difference.”
Scott’s administration asked the state’s attorneys and sheriff’s department to hold its 2025 budget increase to 5% over current spending levels — higher than many other organs of state government, said Jaye Pershing Johnson, Scott’s general counsel.
But even with that increase, the department said it needs to find about $945,000 in cost savings heading into the 2025 fiscal year in order to meet the governor’s targets.
That works out to nine prosecutor positions, Annie Noonan, the department’s labor relations and operations director, told House lawmakers earlier this week. She said the department already operates on a slim budget and that there is no other area where it could make substantial cuts.
“It’s crushing,” Noonan said. “When you don’t have money to pay people, the expectation is that you will do a reduction in force of your staff — which of course for us would just be very, very difficult to do.”
The department currently has one vacant deputy state’s attorney position, Noonan said. Overall, she noted, the department employs about 60 deputy prosecutors statewide in addition to the elected state’s attorneys in each county.
In fact, Tim Lueders-Dumont, the department’s legislative and assistant appellate attorney, said it needs at least 10 additional deputy prosecutors to make meaningful improvements in how quickly many cases are resolved. The department also asked for 10 new victim advocate positions, and 10 new administrative support positions, which did not make the governor’s proposal, either, officials said.
Scott’s budget also falls short of meeting all of the needs the Vermont Judiciary has identified for 2025, lawmakers said this week. The Judiciary requested 15 new positions intended to aid the courts in their work, including 10 judicial assistants, four information technology analysts and a database administrator, none of which are included in the governor’s proposal.
The governor does support funding two new superior court judge positions, as the judicial branch has asked for, officials said.
Moreover, Vermont Defender General Matt Valerio told lawmakers this week that the governor’s budget proposal falls about $2 million short of what his department — which provides defense attorneys to people who do not otherwise have a lawyer — needs just to continue operating at the status quo.
In an interview Thursday, Rep. Martin LaLonde, a South Burlington Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that finding the money to support all of these requests — as well as the many other issues facing the state this year — will be a challenge.
But he said that prosecutorial and judicial leaders have been adamant that they need resources in order to make progress on dealing with existing cases before the state makes policy changes that increase consequences for offenders.
“I know that the governor said, ‘Yeah, I’m being hard on crime — the alternative is being soft on crime,’” LaLonde said, referring to Scott’s press conference. “I think our approach is that we’re being sensible on crime and in our approach to this issue.”
