Muphry's Law Meets Montpliers
2024-01-27
Dear friend,
How's it going with you?
By the way, when you call 802-828-2228 and leave a message with the Sergeant at Arms for your legislator, a green-jacketed page delivers us a note that looks like this:
Make it stand out
"She heard on Tiktok that there's going to be a vote in VT to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot. Feels everyone should be on the ballot. Would like to discuss further."
The message shown here went to a fellow legislator, not to me. I'm jealous! Voters, please come to me to fact-check what you've heard on TikTok! I'm here for it.
It's been a long week. I'm tired. Let's have a little fun....
That's right -- it's game show time!
We're calling today's show "Muphry's Law Meets Montpliers."
What's that you say? A typo?
NO SIREE BOB!
My dad used to say that... anyone else's? It's slang dating from the mid-1800s.
As I was saying -- not a typo "Muprhy's law" is a deliberate misspelling of "Murphy's law," which says that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Muprhy's law states, "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."
With that in mind, I present to you -- Roberst' law of legislation: "Any law meant to solve a problem caused by another law will also worsen the original problem."
Here are three issues before the Vermont Legislature today in which, when it comes to fixing past laws, there is reason to wonder if we even know which way is up.
1) Act 127 of 2022
Act 127 passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Scott the year before I was elected, so I've been in the camp of waiting and seeing how its rollout would go. The idea was that distributing state Education Fund money based on a generic pupil weight across the state is inequitable. Some pupils in some areas cost more to educate (examples: rural, non-English-speaking), so pupil weighting was designed to redistribute funds to districts with more of those students. The rural districts I represent in Windham County were imagined to be among those schools benefiting from Act 127.
That's how it started. How's it going?
Well let's see.... the rising cost of education has become one of the signature topics of the 2024 legislative session, and the high costs of Act 127 are a big part of the discussion. As a sampling of how many different opinions there are on this topic, here's a Google news search for "Vermont Act 127."
One reasonable point of view out there is that taxpayers in districts that benefited from Act 127 will see those gains eaten away by the perverse incentive in the bill. It encourages districts in which education budgets are going up 5% to spend more, because budget increases between 5% and 10% will be shared across the statewide Education Fund.
Another point of view is that districts are spending those dollars on needed building repairs and staff positions. "Act 127 and pupil weights are getting thrown under the bus," in the words of one email I received from an informed constituent.
What's true? It's probably too early to tell, but some districts are spreading their education spend out to the whole state with Act 127, which would be counter to the goals of the legislation.
Muphry's Law Meets Montpliers.
Next up in our show today...
2) H.690: An act relating to establishing community restitution as a sentencing alternative
H.690 is a bill that would re-establish some version of what have in the past been known as "work crews" run by the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC).
Work crew is a type of furlough, meaning that the person is technically incarcerated in the custody of DOC, but is serving their sentence in the community. While living in the community under DOC supervision, the offender also has to report to DOC for up to 15 days of community service.
DOC unilaterally ended the work crew program last year, and not everyone was happy about it. Work crews were seen as giving offenders a meaningful chance to give back to their community rather than sitting in a prison.
Now, H.690 would order DOC to offer a new version of the program. Should we pass it?
Between hearing from the Chief Superior Court Judge, a States Attorney prosecuting cases, the Defender General, and DOC, our heads were left spinning this week. (Here's a link to key testimony and discussion.)
We heard that work crews give offenders a meaningful version of restitution while teaching them skills.
Then we heard that no -- mowing cemeteries and weed-whacking state parks might help the owner of the cemetery or the park but is not that meaningful, or instructive.
We heard that showing up for work crew instills accountability and discipline.
Then we heard that no, the offender had to miss doing paying work or family time or a drug treatment appointment to do work crew -- and does that help their life?
But we heard that work crews give the offender a clear choice -- show up for work or go to prison to serve out their sentence.
Then we heard that no, work crews let people off without consequences. As of today, there are 152 active arrest warrants for offenders who skipped work crew and are at large in the community. Corrections officers have had to complete mowing jobs to meet contract obligations when sentenced individuals didn't show up.
But we also heard that with the massive backlog in the judiciary, offering work crew as a sentencing alternative allows prosecutors to clear their dockets of loads of DUI and larceny cases.
Then we heard that while work crew helps the court's workload and keeps people out of prison, there's a 57% recidivism rate across the board and no evidence that work crew prevents offenders from offending again.
Running the program would cost DOC about $4 million next year, they told us.
So -- what do you think? If the goal of H.690 is to support criminal justice, public safety, and reduce recidivism, will it work or will it be.... Muphry's Law Meets Montpliers?
For our third and final topic tonight, I'll ask you to poke holes in a bill that I introduced.
Did you know that which two types of Vermont State employees have mandatory retirement ages?
Judges are required to retire at 90 pursuant to 4 V.S.A. § 609.
And the following "Group C" State Law Enforcement Officers are required to retire by 57:
Employees of the Department of Public Safety, Department of Liquor Control, and Department of Fish and Wildlife assigned to law enforcement duties;
Motor vehicle inspectors;
Deputy sheriffs paid by the State of Vermont whose primary function is transports;
The Capitol Police force;
Certain investigators employed by the Criminal Division of the Office of the Attorney General, Department of State's Attorneys, Department of Health, or Office of the Secretary of State; and
Full-time firefighters employed by the State of Vermont.
This mandatory retirement is historically based on concepts of physical fitness.
I introduced H.832 with the goal of improving public safety by expanding the eligible workforce of public safety officers.
Vermont State Police has about 40% of its positions vacant.
My constituents are letting me know that they are concerned about public safety.
In my experience, an honest performance evaluation is a better way of assessing someone's fitness for duty than an arbitrary cutoff.
I believe that H.832 would would enhance public safety, but I'm not going to pretend that Muphry's Law doesn't apply to my bill. I'd love to hear what flaws you see.
And if you think it's a good idea, please contact members of the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs to encourage them to take it up!
***
Thanks for tuning into Muphry's Law Meets Montpliers. How's your week been?
with love and appreciation,
Rep. Tristan Roberts
Vermont House of Representatives
P.S. What does work in criminal justice? According to Defender General Matt Valerio, the most reliable factor in turning a repeat offender into a a peaceable person is age. Forty-two is the magic number, he says.
Also, treatment: "If you get them treatment and services, their recidivism rate goes down," Valerio said. And finally, "Lack of affordable housing is the biggest single issue that drives the mental health problems, the minor crime stuff that you see."