Attorney General briefs Senate Judiciary on criminal-justice budget, asks for pre‑charge diversion to be included in appropriations letter

The Attorney General briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Attorney General’s Office criminal‑justice budget and requested that the committee include funding for the new pre‑charge diversion program in its letter to the Appropriations Committee.

The attorney general said the office’s criminal‑justice operations include roughly “a 50 positions and a hundred lawyers,” and described several distinct units: a Criminal Division that focuses on violent felonies and officer‑use‑of‑force reviews; the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force that handles electronic exploitation of children; and a Medicaid fraud and residential‑abuse unit that investigates provider fraud, abuse, neglect and financial exploitation tied to Vermont Medicaid. The attorney general also described a Community Justice Unit that coordinates restorative‑justice grants and will incorporate elements of the state’s pre‑charge work created in last year’s justice bill.

Why it matters: the office’s work spans public‑safety prosecutions, child‑exploitation investigations and Medicaid integrity cases, and much of the ICAC and Medicaid‑fraud work is funded in part with federal grants. The attorney general told the committee that those grant dollars are a substantial portion of funding for some units and noted how pandemic‑era backlogs in “cyber tips” from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) strained investigators’ ability to respond quickly.

Details from the briefing included the following: • Caseloads: the Criminal Division, the attorney general said, was prosecuting about 120 active cases earlier this winter, “116 felonies and 4 misdemeanors.” • ICAC: the task force includes a commander, four investigators and two canines (the attorney general named the older canine Mojo and the newly trained Kya). The office acquires the canines via grants, the attorney general said. • Medicaid fraud and residential abuse: the unit is staffed with investigators and prosecutors and, the attorney general said, “9 full‑time employees,” including two assistant attorneys general and a senior assistant attorney general in supervisory roles; the unit performs both criminal and civil work. • Criminal litigation: the litigation unit includes six assistant attorneys general (AAG) positions; the attorney general said some of those positions are vacant and are being recruited to fill. • Victim services: a victim‑advocate position supports criminal litigation; the attorney general said funding for that advocate has shifted to grant funding (the grant now comes directly to the Attorney General’s Office), though the position itself was backfilled.

Senator Folks pressed on the risk of losing federal grant dollars. “Is there a concern that those federal dollars may go away? And if so, what wouldn't the hole be that we would be trying to build?” the senator asked. The attorney general replied, “I'm not concerned… certainly not for this fiscal year,” while acknowledging that future congressional budget changes could create uncertainty beyond the current fiscal year.

The one formal request from the attorney general to the Judiciary Committee was that the committee include the pre‑charge diversion program on the committee’s letter to Appropriations. Committee members asked clarifying questions but did not take a formal vote on the request during the briefing.

No formal actions, ordinances or votes were taken at the meeting on the topics discussed. The committee will decide separately whether to include the attorney general’s pre‑charge diversion funding request in the Appropriations Committee letter.