Vermont Human Rights Commission tells Judiciary committee it needs more staff to address backlog and rising complaints

Big Hartman, executive director and general counsel at the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission, told a legislative Judiciary committee that the agency is facing a rising volume of civil‑rights complaints and lacks the staff to investigate them promptly.

"We are constantly telling people, 'I'm sorry, we just aren't able to help you. We just don't have the staff. We just don't have the resources,'" Big Hartman said during the meeting. Hartman said the commission received about 100 new inquiries a month and that intake now takes three to six months from initial contact to a signed complaint.

The commission has seven full‑time staff, including three staff attorney investigators and a senior counsel who handles litigation, Hartman said. They also have five commissioners who convene monthly to hear cases. Hartman said the office currently has 16 cases in which the commission is a plaintiff and 68 cases under investigation, with about 90 people waiting to learn whether their inquiries will be accepted for formal investigation.

Hartman described the agency's workload and funding mix: its operating budget is just over $1 million, roughly 9% of which comes from a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contract…