Vermont officials say staffing and legal limits stall work‑zone camera pilot

Vermont public safety officials told a legislative committee on April 30 that they cannot implement a pilot program to issue citations from work‑zone camera footage this construction season because of staffing shortfalls, administrative requirements and a legal barrier related to the Soldiers' and Sailors' relief protections.

Mandy Wooster, executive director of policy development for the Vermont Department of Public Safety, told the committee the administrative review process for each recorded incident — confirming deployment logs, examining images for workers, checking compliance documents and reviewing plate and speed data — is more complex than some testimony suggested. "This is not the end of the process," Wooster said, noting the statute requires that a Vermont civil violation complaint (VCVC) be "issued, sworn and affirmed by a law enforcement officer who inspected the recorded images and data." Wooster used a routine traffic stop to illustrate: she said a mundane stop can require roughly 7 to 10 minutes of officer time to complete paperwork and database entries.

That arithmetic led Wooster to highlight resource implications if vendor estimates of up to 1,000 incidents per…