Parole, probation braces for cuts
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By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: October 9, 2009
MONTPELIER — Deep budget cuts at the Department of Corrections could force officials to slash the number of frontline officers overseeing nearly 8,000 people on either probation or parole in Vermont.
Probation and parole positions have so far been largely spared despite a series of cutbacks that whittled department staff by 9 percent.
Commissioner of Corrections Andy Pallito warned lawmakers Thursday, however, that frontline positions will likely be on the chopping block as the state seeks to trim another $100 million from its Corrections budget.
"There's no good option going forward," Pallito told the Corrections Oversight Committee. "… There are going to be cuts in community-level (probation and parole) positions. That's the only place we have left."
In previous cutbacks, Pallito said, the department eliminated all nonessential administrative staff and reorganized department functions to minimize the number of people needed for office and supervisory duties.
More than half of the department's approximately 1,100-person work force is comprised of uniformed officers working in prison facilities — jobs the department is prohibited from cutting.
Pallito said that means the savings must come from a pool of about 500 managers, supervisors and boots-on-the-ground probation officers responsible for keeping tabs on offenders serving their court-ordered sentences in the community.
Rep. Martha Heath, a Westford Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said the coming cuts in probation and parole reflect a new reality with which Vermont residents must come to grips.
As the state looks to reconcile severe revenue shortfalls in its fiscal year 2011 budget, Heath said, essential public safety personnel that had until now been held harmless might no longer be sacrosanct.
"I think people are going to need to start coming to grips with the fact that it … may mean we cannot have a full complement of state troopers," Heath said. "We're not going to look like we look today when we cut $80 million in fiscal year 2011 and another $50 to $100 million in fiscal year 2012."
Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon, long a proponent of increased probation and parole resources for his own city, said additional cuts are unacceptable. Barre boasts one of the highest per-capita populations of supervised offenders of any municipality in the state, according to Lauzon, and needs more help from the state, not less.
"The path they're on now is a train wreck, plain and simple," Lauzon said.
Lauzon rejected the notion that citizens need to acclimate to new fiscal realities by accepting cuts in public safety services.
"People have proven time and again they're willing to pay for public safety," Lauzon said.
And by eliminating probation and parole positions, Lauzon said, the state only passes the buck to municipal police forces and local property-tax payers.
"It simply shifts the pressure," he said.
Sen. Dick Sears said that however the department goes about budget reductions, it needs to ensure proper supervision over the riskiest offenders. Caseload ratios mandated in an anti-sex-crimes bill passed during the last session must be adhered to, Sears said, lest the state invite another tragedy of the kind that spawned the legislation in the first place.
"What we learned a year ago has a lot to do with (the new laws)" said Sears, referring to the rape and murder of a 12-year-old Braintree girl whose alleged killer was formerly under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. "I think we should look at field staff who have direct contact with offenders just as importantly as uniformed state police in terms of protecting citizens."
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