Vermont corrections commissioner outlines priorities: staffing, health care, modernization

Commissioner Nick Dimel of the Vermont Department of Corrections told the Senate Committee on Institutions on Jan. 23 that the department’s immediate priorities are improving staff recruitment and retention, addressing inmate health and substance-use disorders, reducing disparities, and modernizing facilities and technology.

Dimel, who said he has led the department for about three-and-a-half years, summarized the state’s corrections system as a unified, state-run model that houses all detained and sentenced people in Vermont and manages community supervision. "Vermont's correction system is unusual, unique in several ways," he said, noting only five states use a fully unified model.

The memo to the committee emphasized scale and cost: the department employs roughly 1,100 staff, operates six facilities (five male, one female), runs 12 district offices and the corrections academy in Lindenville, and manages roughly a $220,000,000 budget that is “almost entirely general fund,” Dimel said. He told senators the system is operating at about 135% of available bed capacity and that roughly 115 people are currently housed out-of-state under contract.

On staffing, Dimel reported a systemwide vacancy rate near 14 percent and a 17–18 percent vacancy rate for security positions, which he described as the core challenge. "We hit a high watermark… security staff position vacancies in July were 32% vacant. So now we're down to between 17–18%… but it's stubbornly stuck there," he…