Court backlog.
The phrase has defined a malaise that’s permeated the Vermont Legislature’s work on public safety initiatives in recent years. When Covid-19 slowed down the judicial system, criminal cases piled up, leading defendants and victims to wait years for resolution.
Enter the Chittenden County accountability docket. Proposed by Gov. Phil Scott last fall, the pilot project dedicated court time and staff to expediting hearings for people with five or more pending criminal cases, sometimes called dockets.
On Wednesday, some of the key leaders of the program reported the project had been a success. But its future — whether in Chittenden County or expanded across the state — is uncertain.
Since October, the special court or “docket,” which focuses on lower-level offenses, has resolved almost 400 cases of the nearly 900 under its purview, according to data presented by Jaye Johnson, the governor’s counsel, to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions.
Having recently spent a day observing a Burlington courthouse, Rep. Brian Minier, D-South Burlington, summed up the special program’s effectiveness. In a “regular” courtroom, hearings were scheduled three months out. But in room 3B — the designated space for the accountability program — the judge met weekly with defendants.
Tim Lueders-Dumont, who leads the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, said the promise of the pilot hinged on the excellent collaboration between the special prosecutor, designated defense attorney, the judge and human services staff.
It’s been “successful,” he said, but “we’re not going to say mission accomplished.”
The Burlington-based initiative is scheduled to phase out in the beginning of February. Rutland County is a possible location for a next version of the program, the leaders hinted, but they stressed that Chittenden County’s model won’t work everywhere. Conversations have begun to figure out how every county might create designated time for resolving cases involving defendants with numerous dockets.
And that model makes sense, according to the data. Statewide, cases involving people with five or more pending dockets make up 28% of all dockets, according to Lueders-Dumont. Those with three or more make up about half.
— Ethan Weinstein
In the know
Vermont Foodbank CEO John Sayles updated the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry on Wednesday morning about his organization’s Vermonters Feeding Vermonters program, which spent hundreds of thousands in public and philanthropic funds purchasing food from local farmers in 2025. But after Act 34 created a grant program for the initiative last year without guaranteed funding, state budget writers approved just a fraction of the backing Sayles — and the agriculture committee — sought.
“One of the key provisions of our food security roadmap is making sure our agriculture community is strong,” Sayles said in his testimony Wednesday.
In addition to a $1.5 million budget increase to this year’s $500,000 grant for Vermonters Feeding Vermonters, the Foodbank will request a total of $5 million for next year to fully fund the program again, and shore up the organization’s ability to meet emergency need in “natural and man-made disasters,” Sayles said.
Though food assistance is a priority for legislative leaders, many have said this session’s financial pressures — both from federal cuts and an apparent dip in state revenues — may make grants to individual organizations significantly more competitive.
— Theo Wells-Spackman
On the move … or not?
“It’s pure bullshit.”
That’s what Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, told reporters Wednesday about the notion that there isn’t enough support in the House this year to advance a charter change bill that would ban guns from bars in Burlington.
Baruth is the measure’s primary backer. Since the bill, S.131, passed the Senate last April, it got a lukewarm reception in the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee and stalled there. The proposal also has a powerful opponent: Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who has said repeatedly he’d veto it, should legislators send it to his desk. (Charter changes must get approval in Montpelier before they can take effect locally.)
Baruth, Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and City Council President Ben Traverse held a press conference Wednesday at the Statehouse to drum up support for the measure and call on the House to pass it. During the presser, Baruth suggested that if the government operations committee wouldn’t move the bill, an individual House member should stand up on the floor and ask that gov ops be relieved of it. From there, the member could ask that it be directed to a different committee. (Such a procedural move would require majority support to succeed.)
House gov ops heard some testimony on the charter change Wednesday morning, though took no action on it. Rep. Matt Birong, D-Vergennes, the gov ops chair, said his panel planned to discuss the bill further in the coming weeks but was not sure yet whether he would bring it up for a committee vote.
— Shaun Robinson
Above the law
The Senate Judiciary Committee briefly discussed Wednesday some of their unique and ancient protections. State law prohibits legislators and many statewide elected officials from being arrested on their way to and from their work at the Statehouse, except for felonies, treason and breach of peace. That includes traffic tickets on the way to work, apparently, according to Sen. Chris Mattos, R-Chittenden North. But they can be sent those tickets later. Careful on 89.
— Ethan Weinstein
