Officials tell Judiciary committees Chittenden accountability docket cleared cases and linked defendants to treatment; plan county convenings to adapt model

At a joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, judiciary officials, the defender general and Agency of Human Services (AHS) staff described the Chittenden County 3B accountability docket pilot as effective at clearing dockets and connecting justice-involved people to treatment, and outlined plans to convene counties to assess how the model might be adapted elsewhere.

Chief Superior Judge Tom Zona said concentrated judicial time, coordinated services and a “warm handoff” to treatment providers produced tangible improvements: “when you put these intensive services in that community, you can get real benefits,” he told the committee. Zona and other judiciary officials said the model can be adapted to local needs rather than copied exactly from Chittenden County.

Why it matters: Witnesses said the pilot addressed backlog and public-safety concerns while increasing access to treatment for people with substance-use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions. Committee members pressed witnesses on data, scalability and costs as they consider whether to expand the approach in counties with fewer local resources.

Key outcomes and evidence

- Tom Zona told the committee Chittenden’s year-end docket backlog was about 110 and rose to about 169 in January; he said the pilot reduced backlog and cleared cases though long-term recidivism data are not yet available.

- Jake Pershing Johnson, legal counsel to Governor Scott, said data analysis shows “something like an over 300% clearance rate” during the project period, and credited both the focused resources and the cross-agency collaboration for that result.

- Defender General Matt Valerio described the defender office’s operational role and a short-term contract for social-work services: “We got extra judge time. We got an extra prosecutor,” he said, adding that his office contracted a social-work organization for $47,500 over three months to support the docket and that the arrangement helped resolve hundreds of dockets.

AHS care model and partner roles

Nicole D’Sazio, director of federal policy and strategic initiatives for AHS, outlined the clinical and care-coordination approach the agency used in Burlington. AHS standardized screening, convened weekly care-team meetings and ran daily clinical huddles so people referred by the court could be assessed and connected quickly to housing, medical care and treatment. “The goal that we came up with was just to provide a structured pathway, from court involvement into treatment, housing, and stabilization in the community,” D’Sazio said.

AHS identified partner organizations and services used in the pilot, including the Burlington Community Justice Center, Burlington Police Department, Chittenden County Public Defender’s Office, the State’s Attorney’s Office, Community Health Center Burlington, Department of Corrections (DOC), Howard Center, Pathways Vermont, Therapeutic Works, the Vermont Chronic Care Initiative, Division of Substance Use programs, Valley Vista and Serenity House. AHS reported early placements and linkages including at least five residential substance-use treatment stays, two residential mental-health placements, 26 community-service linkages, two placements in Pathways supportive housing (with two additional people awaiting placement) and multiple participants working with treatment courts.

Operational lessons and limits to scaling

Speakers emphasized that Chittenden’s success reflected both resources on hand (treatment beds, clinics, local transports) and rapid, consistent scheduling that brought people back to court frequently. Maria Godleski and probation staff described how promising timelines and active case management increased engagement; in one period the accountability courtroom produced roughly 30 people placed on supervision and numerous direct referrals to treatment.

But officials warned the model will not translate identically to all counties. Valerio, AHS and judiciary witnesses said rural counties with small public-defender rosters, sparse treatment capacity, limited transport options and no spare courtroom space will require tailored approaches and additional resources.

Other issues raised

- Embedding social work: Several committee members and witnesses discussed whether social workers should sit in defender offices, in AHS, or be contracted; witnesses said the defense-attached model helped clients trust services, but community capacity and billing rules complicate scale-up.

- Transports and logistics: Officials cited transport planning and local sheriff cooperation in Chittenden but said rural transport could be a bottleneck; the administration described a phone-tree concept using emergency management to coordinate transports when needed.

- Budget and sustainability: Witnesses said general-fund contracts were used in the short term and that some activities may be billable under Medicaid or other funding; a longer-term budget and staffing plan is under study.

Next steps

Committee members said they will take up a bill on pretrial supervision the next day and recommended convening stakeholders in each county to identify what adaptation or resources would be required. Judiciary and executive branch witnesses said they will begin county-level meetings to assess feasibility, resource gaps and potential pilot rollouts.

The hearing produced descriptive early results rather than new legislative action; committee members closed by thanking witnesses and scheduling further work on pretrial supervision and pilot expansion.