Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Child Welfare Services topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee seeks one-time backfill for statewide supervised-visitation coordination, flags transportation and restrictive-placement costs
Summary
Members told Human Services staff that $30,640 is needed to sustain supervised-visitation coordination and that rising transportation and restrictive-placement costs require deeper review; fingerprinting backlogs were cited as a cross-cutting staffing constraint.
Members of the House Appropriations Committee's Human Services panel on Feb. 12 identified a set of urgent family-services issues, recommending a one-time backfill to sustain statewide supervised-visitation coordination and urging further analysis of transportation contracts and plans for restrictive youth placements.
A presenter told the committee that the Center for Crime Victim Services had been funding statewide coordination of supervised visitation, which allows children to have monitored contact with a parent when unsupervised contact is judged unsafe. The non-state grant funding can no longer support the coordinator; members recommended backfilling $30,640 one time from a special judiciary account as a stopgap and asked for joint Judiciary and AHS language requiring a sustainability plan next year.
The committee supported paying anticipated increases in transportation contracts for children in care but requested more data from the department to ensure contracting practices and contractor capacity had not backslid. Members said if the department's forthcoming data show problems, they will ask for annual reporting language.
Committee members also discussed juvenile restrictive placements and the proposed youth campus. Presenters said the campus planning has carryover funds and is likely to appear in the appropriations budget (not as a capital request) under a lease-to-build model; the committee said it has incomplete information about final costs and timing and is considering recommending that some carryover funds be used to maximize capacity in existing, less-restrictive placements where staffing allows.
Several members raised the fingerprinting backlog at the Vermont Criminal Information Center (VCIC) as a barrier to hiring for shelters and treatment providers. Panel members said delayed background-check processing is slowing onboarding and could be a limiting factor on using existing beds; they suggested coordination with Judiciary or Government Operations to address capacity at VCIC.
The committee recorded no formal votes at the Feb. 12 meeting on these items but directed staff to obtain updated data from DCF and Judiciary and to prepare language for sustaining supervised-visitation coordination and for reporting on transportation contracts.
