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Committee hears bill to centralize criminology reports, funds $25,000 for FY27
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Summary
Legislative counsel told the House Appropriations Committee that H.410 would create a new chapter in Title 13 directing annual criminology reports to the Vermont Statistical Analysis Center and repeal an older recidivism definition; Joint Fiscal noted a $25,000 FY27 appropriation (ongoing thereafter) to fund the reports.
Legislative counsel told the House Appropriations Committee on March 17 that H.410 would create a new chapter in Title 13 to centralize criminology measures and reporting.
Michelle Childs, legislative counsel, said the bill “creates a new chapter in Title 13 for criminology measures” and adds a plain‑language definition of recidivism as a later conviction for a separate crime. The draft prescribes standard measurement points (including three‑ and five‑year lookbacks) and directs the Vermont Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) to compile and submit annual reports to relevant House and Senate judiciary and institutions committees.
The measure specifies four report streams: annual bail statistics (including hold‑without‑bail and posting amounts by county); an annual recidivism report using the defined lookbacks; arrest and clearance rates organized by NIBRS crime categories; and an aggregated report on the 20 crimes with the largest number of convictions statewide, including counts, sentence lengths and combined probation/incarceration years. The bill requires cooperating agencies to provide demographic information when available (race, gender, age and other fields).
Chris Root of the Joint Fiscal Office summarized the bill's fiscal impact, saying, “This appropriates $25,000 for the four reports from the general fund in FY27.” Root noted the reporting obligation is annual, so the appropriation creates an ongoing budgetary obligation beyond FY27 unless the statute or funding is changed. He recommended drafting language to appropriate the funds to the Department of Public Safety so they may grant the money to the SAC in keeping with current administrative practice.
Members raised operational questions about data completeness and duplication. Representative Karen Dolan, the bill reporter to the committee, said H.410 is intended to create a sustainable, narrowly focused annual product that builds on an existing triennial report created under Act 40 of 2023: “We’re starting with this because we really wanted to find that balance of what is the key data that we need, but we don’t want to collect all of it because we know each report comes with a price tag.” She and other members stressed the need to ensure consistent data definitions across courts, corrections and law enforcement so SAC can aggregate comparable information.
Committee members also discussed the existing contract with the SAC contractor (referred to in testimony as CRG) and the Department of Public Safety’s role in channeling funds. Committee testimony noted an existing DPS contract of roughly $147,000 per year for statistical services; the $25,000 in H.410 would be an additional amount, which witnesses characterized as modest relative to the expected utility of the reports.
Procedurally, members asked Legislative Council to draft a short technical amendment clarifying the appropriation routing so the committee could consider voting if the amendment arrived in time. No committee final vote on H.410 was recorded in the transcript; members indicated willingness to vote once the routing language was prepared.
The committee paused H.410 pending that technical amendment and moved on to other business.
