Instead of sitting in plush chairs around a committee table, representatives on the House Corrections and Institutions Committee found themselves facing a razor wire fence under a gray sky in the courtyard of the state’s prison in Springfield on Wednesday.
The lawmakers — some in jeans, others in suits — stood in the small field of green picnic tables among a volleyball net and basketball court as men in blue jumpsuits and orange coats flooded the sidewalks around them, rushing toward the cafeteria.
It was lunch, which everyone called “chow time.”
Southern State Correctional Facility, the newest prison in the state, opened in 2003 and has beds for about 380 people. It’s where the Vermont Department of Corrections often holds men with the most complex health needs, as it’s the facility with the largest infirmary and a hospice unit.
Corrections committee members write laws that govern the corrections department and can provide legislative oversight of its operations. How legislators perceive state prisons might inform the decisions they make.
The department didn’t allow press to attend a similar committee visit two weeks ago, but offered an invitation to a tour on a later date. Today, this reporter was able to attend.
Before walking into the courtyard, lawmakers saw the prison’s main building, which has a visiting room, a cafe, a gym, classrooms and doctors’ offices.
In the prison’s colorful cafe, three incarcerated men in yellow T-shirts sat at tables drinking coffee, while two others worked behind the counter. Men held in the prison can both work for, and buy from, the cafe.
Rep. James Gregoire, R-Fairfield, bought a cinnamon roll, which he begrudgingly split with Rep. Will Greer, D-Bennington.
In the prison’s gym with high ceilings and a full-size basketball court, Gregoire and Greer said they were shocked at the size of the gym, which was — by their account — about three times bigger than the gym in the state prison in St. Albans they toured two weeks before.
It was also a stark contrast to the women’s prison in South Burlington, Greer said. In the women’s prison in December, the gym’s entire floor was covered with temporary beds due to overcrowding in the facility, Greer said.
Walking down the Springfield prison’s bright hallways with shiny floors, Gregoire said it felt like a school. By contrast, he said, the St. Albans prison felt dark and cramped.
In living units, lawmakers shook hands and spoke with incarcerated people who were free to roam in their unit under supervision of a guard. In one unit, a man raved about the delight of his day-old vanilla coffee from the cafe.
In the honors dorm, men live in cells that are unlocked and can roam the unit without supervision. A man named Richard was reading a copy of The New Yorker, which his friend sends him every week. Richard pleaded guilty to killing someone more than a decade ago and is set to be released in 2028. (VTDigger is only identifying him by his first name in accordance with the terms by which the Department of Corrections facilitated the tour.)
Although mental illness once consumed him “like a cancer,” Richard said he has learned a lot and has found great support through peer counseling at the prison. Through counseling, he’s reflected deeply on his mistakes and come to terms with the harm he caused, he said. Now he said he writes poetry and prose.
In the know
Gov. Phil Scott issued his first veto of the 2026 legislative session Wednesday, though it’s not over any real disagreement with the bill in question. Scott said in a press release that he had rejected S.183, which would adjust how violations of Vermont’s home and land improvement fraud laws can be prosecuted, because the bill contained a minor drafting error.
“With several weeks remaining in the legislative session, there is time for the Legislature to make the appropriate correction, either as a new bill or as an amendment to a bill that is still currently under consideration,” the governor said.
“To be clear I support this bill’s intent and look forward to a version I can sign.”
— Shaun Robinson
The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved its version of a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts in July. Its $9.4 billion proposal, which advanced unanimously Tuesday, would make a number of changes to the plan the House drafted and passed last month. The bill, H.951, is set to be considered on the Senate floor next week.
Together with this year’s tax rate-setting bill that cleared the Senate Finance Committee on Friday, the Senate is proposing to use $101 million to “buy down” property taxes in the upcoming fiscal year.
That’s slightly lower than the $105 million that Gov. Scott has proposed for property tax reduction. However, senators followed Scott’s lead in proposing to use their full earmark in the upcoming fiscal year. The House, in its bill, proposed squirreling away half of that same $105 million for the year after to offset property taxes, or for another purpose.
The Senate’s plan would result in a statewide average increase of 3.8% to property tax bills, which is slightly higher than the 3.6% average increase Scott’s plan would result in, one of the Legislature’s economists, Julia Richter, told Senate Appropriations on Tuesday. The House plan, however, would lead to a 6.7% average increase in bills.
Read more about what’s in the Senate’s proposed budget here.
— Shaun Robinson
On the move … literally
Every year, legislators consider a bill loaded with minor technical changes to laws they have approved in years past. One tweak in this year’s version of that bill, H.927 — which the Senate passed on Wednesday — has piqued legislators’ interest for its highly specific terminology.
The bill updates a reference within a statute about fuel additives to the definition of a “sports car event.” That’s an event “in which one motor vehicle at a time competes over a defined course against a set standard, including standards as to time, distance, and performance,” the definition states. It also clarifies that “sports car events include rallies, gymkhanas, hill climbs, and performance trials.”
Gym-what? remarked Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, presenting the bill on the Senate floor on Tuesday. A “gymkhana,” according to website HowStuffWorks, “takes the typical one-way track and adds in obstacles like cones, barrels, barriers, puddles and sandy sections.” Drivers might also have to reverse at certain points, criss-cross the track and drift around corners, the site explains, among other maneuvers that are probably described as “sick” or “tight.”
Clarkson noted that state law also distinguishes between a “sports car event” and a “race.” The latter is defined as “a contest on an oval track … involving a motor vehicle at which prizes or other consideration is awarded to participants or admission is charged to spectators.”
She wondered aloud, then, if the technical correction bill’s focus on “sports car events,” rather than “races,” would prompt a veto from Vermont’s stock car racing Gov. Scott.
— Shaun Robinson
