House Human Services weighs repeal of S.36 section on public inebriate care as state builds community crisis capacity

Representative Teresa Wood, chairing the House Human Services meeting, opened discussion of S.36’s section 4 — language that would remove the Department of Corrections as a required placement for people taken into protective custody for incapacitation related to substance use. Law enforcement, corrections, mental health and public-health officials told the committee that the state is building mobile crisis and crisis-bed capacity but that gaps and funding limits remain, and that some secure placements will likely still be needed.

The issue matters because the current statute — extended several times under a sunset provision — directs where people who are incapacitated by intoxication may be placed for safekeeping. Chief Peter Hull of the Colchester Police Department described protective custody as “used as a last resort to care for people, who are unable to be safe due to intoxication,” and said emergency departments and hospital screening are often inappropriate long-term options because they lack security and can expose health workers to assaults. Hull said police departments “are not built to hold people for long periods of time, and we do not have the facility or the staffing, to accomplish that.”

The Department of Corrections’ operational view surfaced in testimony from Al Cormier, chief of operations for the Vermont Department of Corrections, who said DOC facilities have been holding incapacitated individuals for decades and that staff perform intake medical screening, pat-downs and alcohol breath testing. Cormier said the DOC is authorized to hold incapacitated persons for no longer than 24 hours and that those people are not entered into DOC custody databases because they are held “as a courtesy,” which complicates tracking. He also described logistical burdens: moving people from more-populous counties to the Saint Albans facility can add several hours to each incident and creates challenges getting people back to their home communities after release.

State mental-health leadership outlined the alternative system that lawmakers are building. Emily Hawes, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Mental Health, described a continuum including the 988 hotline, enhanced mobile crisis teams and mental-health urgent-care sites intended to serve people with co-occurring mental-health and substance-use needs where they are. Hawes said 988 callers are resolved on the phone about 95% of the time and that enhanced mobile crisis teams resolve roughly 80–85% of responses in the community. Hawes said the administration’s goal is to “move as many interactions with law enforcement away from law enforcement if it’s not necessarily indicated or appropriate,” while acknowledging some people will still require secure settings.

Funding and implementation timelines were central concerns. Kelly Dougherty, deputy commissioner at the Vermont Department of Health, told the committee the enhanced mobile crisis expansion is tied to an enhanced FMAP (federal medical assistance percentage) that is time-limited (she and staff cited a 12-quarter window that ends in March 2027). Dougherty also said the administration did not request additional FY2026 general-fund dollars for the first phase of the PIP–crisis-bed merger because the phase will be implemented within existing budgets, but that longer-term rates and funding arrangements still need to be settled.

Local provider experience illustrated the practical effects of program closures. Jennifer Stratton of Lamoille County Mental Health Services described closing her agency’s PIP bed after several years of operating the program at a loss: initial funding of about $230,000 was reduced by the Department of Health to a little over $100,000, and the agency “lost over $100,000” across three fiscal years, prompting a difficult decision to close. Stratton said local law enforcement now must transport people an hour outside the catchment area for PIP assessments, increasing costs and burden on emergency services. She also said some local barriers — notably that Lamoille’s Federally Qualified Health Center is not a Department of Health “preferred provider” for adult substance-use services — have prevented LCMHS from billing Medicaid for certain assessment work.

Committee members pressed officials on several operational points: whether mobile crisis teams are dispatched with or without law enforcement present (responses vary; teams can be dispatched alone or after a 911-to-988 transfer), how many people currently use DOC temporary holding and which facilities bear the greatest burden (DOC staff reported the highest utilization in Chittenden County historically, and that male incapacitated placements now mostly go to Saint Albans), and whether correctional custody includes access to recovery resources (DOC staff said facilities have peer recovery relationships but re-establishing routine, immediate post-hold engagement varied across sites and was disrupted during COVID).

Witnesses emphasized that even with a fully built community crisis system, a subset of individuals would likely still require a more secure setting. “Despite all this work, there will continue to likely be individuals who need a secure setting,” Hawes said, and both DOC and mental-health leaders urged caution about immediately removing DOC as a statutory option until community capacity and sustainable funding are assured. The committee did not take a vote and did not adopt statutory changes during the hearing.

Looking ahead, agencies described a phased implementation plan to merge public-inebriate (PIP) capacity with mental-health crisis beds, starting with regions that are most “ready,” monitoring outcomes and collecting utilization and participant-experience data. Officials repeatedly raised the need to resolve administrative barriers (for example, which providers are designated as Medicaid-preferred for billing) and to secure ongoing funding after time-limited federal enhancements expire.

The committee recessed without voting; members said they would continue reviewing testimony, financial projections and readiness data before acting on the section of S.36 that would remove DOC from the statutory placement list.