Vermont Human Rights Commission warns of staffing shortfall and longer case backlogs in FY26 budget testimony

Jay Hartman, executive director and general counsel of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, told the Senate Committee on Appropriations on Feb. 18 that the commission is facing a staffing and funding squeeze that is lengthening case processing times and limiting preventive outreach. Hartman said the commission currently has seven full-time staff, relies almost entirely on the state general fund, and that roughly 8% of its budget comes from federal funds tied to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contract for fair-housing work.

Hartman said the commission continues to see heavy demand: “We get over a hundred requests a month for new complaints,” he said, and the agency accepted 59 new complaints for investigation in fiscal year 2024. He reported the commission closed 42 cases that year; 33 were brought to a commission meeting and 22 of those were found to have reasonable grounds to believe discrimination occurred. The commission’s average age to close an investigation fell from 649 days in FY23 to 474 days in FY24, but Hartman said that remains far above the HUD target and the timelines the commission would like to meet.

The commission’s nut graf: Hartman said roughly 90% of the agency’s budget pays salaries and benefits, leaving little flexibility to reallocate funds to investigative capacity or outreach. He told the committee that without more investigators and an intake specialist the commission will continue to turn people away and will struggle to reduce delays.

Hartman described personnel turnover and investigator burnout as core drivers of the backlog: “I’ve been with the commission since 2021 and I’ve seen seven people leave in that time,” he said. He said the office currently has three investigators and has proposed adding three investigators (doubling investigative capacity) plus additional positions in a separate memo to the committee and through pending legislation (referred to in his testimony as a bill expected to be considered this year). Hartman said an intake specialist would help prevent complaints from being lost in intake and make the caseload more manageable.

Hartman also warned the committee that federal funding is uncertain. “As we sit here today, we really don’t know what the future of that funding is for the year ahead,” he said, noting press reports that HUD and other federal programs face possible cuts that could affect the commission’s HUD contract funding.

Committee members questioned the commission’s performance relative to HUD expectations. Hartman said HUD considers cases aged at 200 days and expects closures within about 100 days; he acknowledged the commission did not meet the 100-day target for any case in FY24 and that most investigations still average roughly 400 days. He attributed slower timelines to the commission’s more intensive investigative practices (live interviews and comprehensive reports), staff turnover, and insufficient staffing.

Hartman explained a budget-line reclassification for a litigation position that moved costs from an "other personal services" line into salary and benefit lines and flagged a vacancy turnover savings line carried in the budget. He said he had submitted a memo describing eight additional positions requested from the governor’s office that were not included in the executive proposal, and that a separate bill (discussed but not named in the hearing) might include those positions.

Hartman closed by asking for committee consideration of additional positions and operating expenses to support investigators and intake work; no formal committee vote or action on the commission’s requests was recorded during the hearing.

The commission’s testimony included specific data on cases, staffing, average case age, and funding sources; Hartman asked the committee to consider those measures when weighing supplemental or FY26 funding.