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Vermont lawmakers hear how prison education and job programs aim to ease reentry
Summary
A joint House hearing heard testimony from the Department of Corrections, the Department of Labor and the Community College of Vermont on prison education, Pell funding and reentry job supports, with lawmakers pressing presenters on space, Wi‑Fi, out‑of‑state transfers and identification barriers.
Committee chairs convened a joint hearing of the Vermont House Committee on Commerce & Economic Development and the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions to review efforts that connect people who are incarcerated with education and employment supports ahead of release.
Kendall Smith, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Labor, said the goal of the partnerships is to put people "on the path to having a skill that they can become employed" and to reduce recidivism by linking programming inside facilities with job‑center services after release. Kristin Calvert, deputy commissioner of the Department of Corrections, described DOC's unified system and said education, behavioral health and vocational work are core pillars inside facilities but that aging footprints and limited space constrain programming.
The Community College of Vermont (CCV) described classroom and technology pilots that began before and after the COVID lockdowns; CCV said it now serves roughly 100–150 incarcerated students in any semester — about 10% of Vermont's incarcerated population — and has used a Second Chance Pell designation and a congressionally directed $4.5 million allotment championed by Senator Sanders to establish a stable program runway. "Earning a degree will help me when I am… It changed my life," CCV quoted from a student survey to illustrate the program's impact.
Department of Labor staff outlined job‑center supports, Vermont JobLink case management and a set of employer outreach tools including bonding and work‑based learning supports. Regional managers described quarterly enrichment workshops inside facilities and a pilot job fair inside a corrections facility that brought employers and service partners onto site.
Committee members focused questions on several constraints: lack of robust Wi‑Fi and the cost of initial installation and ongoing network operations (DOC staff estimated a multimillion‑dollar price tag and said earlier funding bids were unsuccessful), limited physical classroom and vocational shop space across older facilities, and the exclusion of short‑stay detainees from programming because their average stay is too brief for enrollment. Lawmakers also raised disruption when people are transferred out of state — speakers said a small number of students moved mid‑semester to a Mississippi facility and that CCV and DOC now flag enrolled students before transfer to reduce academic harm.
Presenters pledged to follow up with specifics lawmakers requested, including precise wage data for incarcerated workers and counts of students moved out of state. The hearing closed with committee chairs thanking agency staff and noting continued coordination would be needed to scale programming, secure infrastructure funding and improve post‑release handoffs.
The committees did not take any formal action at the hearing; members requested written follow‑up on wages, transfer counts and program data and signaled interest in future briefings on funding and scaling.
