Funding aimed at making a struggling Williamstown farm more resilient has been paused. A program that distributes local, free food has been canceled. The Department of Environmental Conservation is missing $10.7 million for clean water quality projects. 

In the last few months, the new administration of President Donald Trump has pulled back federal funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, climate change and the Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022 by his predecessor Joe Biden. 

Around Vermont, those funding changes are affecting farmers and the organizations that support them, prompting alarm and confusion. Altogether, the federal government has paused or canceled tens of millions of dollars in funding for agricultural programs across the state. 

“Farmers thrive on predictability,” said Anson Tebbetts, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. “But we’re not in that space right now. So I think everyone is taking it day to day.”

The most recent axe fell last Friday on two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that support local farms by paying them to provide food for specific local markets.

One supported 80 local farms, which in turn produced food that was distributed to people experiencing poverty in 13 Vermont counties through free CSA programs, pop-up markets and food shelves, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. The other focused on getting more local food into schools and child care centers. 

The state agency learned on March 7 that the two programs — the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement, respectively — would be canceled in 60 days. 

Nationally, the programs cost about $1 billion, and in Vermont, the USDA will no longer award roughly $1.7 million that it had previously pledged, the agency said.

“It was a successful program, because it was essentially doing two things,” Tebbetts said. “It was supporting farmers. They were growing or producing something, and that was being distributed to cafeterias, homes, etc. So it was a great program because it was helping our farmers, but it was also getting that local product to a bigger audience.”

The Intervale Center in Burlington distributed about $45,000 of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program funding to around 700 families, according to Kristen McDowell, food hub manager at the Intervale. 

The people who receive the benefits are often Black, Indigenous, people of color, single-family households and elderly people who “don’t have access to federal benefits, like Snap or EBT, so they’re technically on the benefits cliff,” she said. 

While the organization already distributed free food for people in need before the assistance program started, the federal funding allowed them to continue it in the winter months. Without the funding, the program will likely be restricted to only summer months, McDowell said.

Kayla Strom, the Farm to School Program manager at Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, or NOFA, said in an email the organization was “devastated” to hear that the Local Food for Schools and Child Care program was canceled. Vermont had worked to convene “dozens of partners to determine the most effective use of these funds.” 

The cancellation comes at a time “when food costs are expected to rise, and the funding would have expanded local purchasing, supported Vermont farmers, and strengthened our farm to school programs,” Strom said. 

Plug pulled

After Bear Roots Farm, located in Williamstown and Barre, experienced floods and prolonged wet weather in 2023, farmers Jon Wagner and Karin Bellemare were looking for financial resources to recover. 

Before the flood, they had borrowed money to grow crops, only to have those crops wiped out by a torrent of water. The pandemic, flooding and rising expenses have contributed to unmanageable costs for the farm, and debt that’s becoming increasingly unwieldy. 

“Almost every year there’s some extreme thing that’s going on,” Wagner said. 

Last spring, the farmers sat down with staff at NOFA to develop a new business model “that would help us rebuild, and sustain us through future environmental impacts, like flooding,” Wagner said in an interview. 

They planned to construct a nursery, which would be more weather resilient, and put up a fence to keep deer out. 

After helping the farmers think through big-picture questions about the future of their business, NOFA assisted in putting Bear Roots Farm on a path to receive roughly $60,000 through a program called Climate Smart Farming and Marketing. 

The program is funded directly through the federal Inflation Reduction Act and distributed through the Agricultural Marketing Service, which is part of the United States Department of Agriculture.

The program was intended to help “farms mitigate the risks of climate change” and
“analyze the vulnerabilities in their business,” said Eric Boatti, who manages the program for NOFA. 

“The verbal communication was, ‘We don’t have the funds until April 1. They need to be signed off on.’ But the plants are all on sale in the winter. You have to buy them now,” Wagner said.

They bought the plants, which put the farm in a tight financial position. They expected to be reimbursed, and they needed the money. 

Then, Wagner received notice from Pasa — an organization that doles out the funds to farms from Maine to South Carolina — that the federal government had paused the program. While there hasn’t explicitly been a stop-work order, Pasa has been filing reimbursement requests that haven’t been fulfilled.

“I’ve got a long list of expenses coming up, and I’m kind of scratching my head and saying, ‘Well, I guess I can put it on a credit card,’” Wagner said. 

Some contracts with Vermont farms had already been finalized when the freeze started, and those farmers have been able to move forward with projects, Boatti said. But around 40 to 50 farms needed an environmental review, a process that takes more time, and now they’re stuck in limbo, he said. In addition, the federal government has terminated a contract with the company that performed the environmental reviews, the Clark Group. 

According to Pasa, 12 Vermont farmers have already received almost $117,00 in funding through the program. Over the next three years, the organization estimates that almost $1.5 million would be available through the program to Vermont farmers, the organization’s director, Hannah Smith-Brubaker, said in a memo about the funding freeze. 

The technical assistance and business planning side of the Climate Smart Farming and Marketing program can still exist without the funding, Boatti said, but it won’t offer farms the same opportunities. 

“We can go out and do risk assessments and help farms make adaptation plans, but this funding was allowing us to then pay them for the implementation of those adaptation practices, and that is now no longer an option, with this funding being pulled,” he said. 

That has left Bear Roots Farm facing an even more precarious financial future. 

If the grant hadn’t been available in the first place, Wagner said, the farmers would have figured something else out, or pointed their business in a different direction. 

“But to set us up and then pull the plug, that’s put us in a much worse situation,” he said. 

Support for farms

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, too, recently received notice that a $10.7 million grant to assist farmers with installing often-expensive water quality projects, has been paused. It was also funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The program was set to deliver $8 million directly to farmers for water quality and flood resilience projects ranging from no-till practices to stream restoration to forest management plans that can help stop soil erosion, according to Marli Rupe, the agricultural water quality section chief at the Department of Environmental Conservation. Another $2.7 million was going to be directed toward technical assistance programs for the farmers. 

While farmers had already applied for the funding, the money had not yet been awarded, Rupe said. 

The projects are “also really good for their farm sustainability and their ability to be financially sound,” Rupe said. “Not having these funds is definitely going to have an impact on what they can do.”

The agriculture industry is the largest contributor to Lake Champlain’s water quality problems, but farmers have also been responsible for more success in water quality restoration than any other sector, according to a recent performance report from the Department of Environmental Conservation. Farmers are required to adhere to certain statewide water quality practices, and the resulting projects are often expensive and difficult for farmers to take on without financial assistance. 

“The (loss of the) Inflation Reduction Act money is going to start seriously impacting the ability of organizations like Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, like the Department of Environmental Conservation, to actually help farmers get practices on the ground that protect water quality and that do this work,” said Michelle Monroe, executive director of the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts.

Her organization, too, is waiting for $500,000 in already-awarded funding through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal program that funds water quality projects on farms. That money, which partially comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, funds salaries for several Natural Resources Conservation Service employees whose responsibilities span both organizations, she said. 

Previously paused

The federal government previously froze some money that is now thawed and flowing to farmers and supporting organizations. 

Some money that was already contracted to farms through the Natural Resources Conservation Service for on-farm conservation programs was stopped, but is now flowing again, according to Monroe. 

Some farms had invested “a lot of money” to employ practices on their farms that are “good for the environment and good for their farm,” Monroe said, while expecting to be reimbursed.

“For some farms that did a lot of projects, it was a real financial burden to have this money frozen,” she said. But now that the money is flowing again, the Natural Resources Conservation Service “has been approving those (reimbursement requests) as quickly as they can,” she said. 

Separately, federal funding going to the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center — which pays for all six of the center’s staff members, along with their programs and contracts — had been paused, according to Laura Ginsburg, who leads the center. The paused money totaled more than $9.5 million, she said.

The center is funded through the USDA, and it stopped processing payments after Jan. 19, Ginsburg said. The center’s staff never received any communication from the federal government “about the funds being unavailable or frozen,” Ginsburg said.

“The only response we would get when we asked for a status update was, ‘We are awaiting further guidance,’” she said. 

Four similar organizations exist across the country, all funded through the farm bill. They each represent a region, and though they all operate a bit differently, “the core” of the programming “is to provide grant funds to dairy businesses, and for us, that means farmers, processors and technical assistance providers,” Ginsburg said. 

“We do lots of different kinds of grants, from processor expansion and modernization to food safety and marketing and branding to farm focused grants for farm modernization, for milk handling and storage and for technical assistance and research as well,” she said. 

In early March, the center learned that the funding was unfrozen. 

During the time the center could not access the funding, Ginsburg said farmers experienced “a lot of anxiety” and “a lot of uncertainty.”

“There were a few teary phone calls that we had with recipients who just didn’t know what they should do,” she said. 

For many farmers, she said, this specific uncertainty came on top of many others: paused Natural Resources Conservation Service funding, a lack of communication from local USDA offices, questions about potential tariffs and the increased prices or supply chain issues that might arise as a result. 

“It’s just a lot for one person to try to figure out how to navigate, especially when they have tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line,” she said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont agriculture community reels from federal funding changes .

Vermont Frames, a Starksboro-based timber framing company, uses Canadian wood in many of the handmade frames it builds for homes and barns across New England.

Each year, the company imports about $350,000 worth of Douglas Fir timber from Canada, representing approximately a third of its wood supply, according to Kevin Moyer, the company’s owner.

With 25% tariffs on Canadian goods expected to take effect Tuesday, Moyer is preparing to pay a premium for that timber, which he said would eat into his already thin margins. 

“There are certainly going to be headwinds. We won’t be able to grow as much. I won’t be able to hire as many people as I want to,” Moyer said. “It hurts. It didn’t have to be this way.” 

Moyer is one of many Vermont business owners bracing for the impacts of President Donald Trump’s trade policy, which officials have said could dramatically shake up the state’s economy. Canada is Vermont’s number one trading partner, and the state imports over $2.5 billion in goods from its northern neighbor each year, according to the Canadian consul general in Boston. 

But as of late Monday afternoon, just hours before the levies were expected to take effect, Vermont officials and business leaders were still grappling with uncertainty over exactly which Canadian goods would actually be subject to tariffs.

“All of this is happening so quickly and in a way that’s not consistent with past practice,” said State Treasurer Mike Pieciak. “You worry that the uncertainty itself is going to bring about an economy that is not as confident and therefore not growing as robustly.”

Trump initially threatened to impose 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada and Mexico beginning on Feb. 4, with fuel imports from Canada receiving a lower 10% levy. 

After deciding to postpone the tariffs for 30 days, the Republican president last week announced that they would proceed as scheduled and take effect on Tuesday, potentially sparking a trade war with two of the U.S.’s closest trade partners, both of whom have threatened to declare retaliatory tariffs.

But since then, the Trump administration has yet to offer much in the way of specifics, Pieciak said, making it hard to parse the potentially sweeping impacts the tariffs could have on Vermont’s economy. 

“When things aren’t done with a scalpel but are rather done with a sledgehammer, then that has a broad impact,” said Pieciak, who formed a taskforce in January to assess the potential economic consequences of Trump’s policies. 

One area of the economy that could see a big impact is Vermont’s energy sector, which relies heavily on Canadian imports, purchasing about $775 million of electricity and $420 million of fossil fuels from Canada per year, according to the Canadian consulate general. 

But it remains unclear how much of those imports would be subject to the 10% tariff on Canadian energy.

“There are lots of questions on our mind that we need answers to before we can understand the implications for us,” said Rebecca Towne, CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative. 

According to Towne, the cooperative imports about 40% of its electricity from Hydro-Quebec, a Quebec based supplier of hydroelectric energy. Last month, Towne told VTDigger that the cooperative could see up to $2 million in extra costs in 2025. 

But on Monday, one day before the tariffs were expected to take effect, Towne said there was still too much uncertainty surrounding the policy to determine any real impact on price increases for consumers.

“We still have to wait for more clarity from the federal administration to understand how this would work,” Towne said. “Like, we’re not even sure what entities are responsible for paying the tariff and how that would be measured and how we would report and pay.”

Vermont Gas Systems, the state’s only natural gas distribution company, gets almost all of its gas from Canada, according to public affairs director Dylan Giambatista. The levies could lead to price increases for more than 50,000 customers that rely on the company.

But Giambatista said that Vermont Gas still had more questions than answers about how the tariffs may impact gas imports.

“We are waiting for Federal guidance that will determine how these import tariffs will be applied, at which time we will be able to estimate rate impacts and address them through the regulatory process,” Giambatista said in a written statement.

Alison Hope, the executive director of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association, said that, despite the uncertainty surrounding other sectors, the state’s sugaring industry was primed to take a hit from the tariffs. 

According to Hope, the tax threatens to raise costs on imported equipment for local sugar manufacturers even as it makes imported maple products themselves more expensive.  

“It’s all so intertwined that I don’t see in the long run how a 25% Canadian tariff could be favorable,” Hope said. “It’s going to have an impact in a number of different ways.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: As Trump forges ahead with tariff policy, Vermont braces for a trade war.

A year to the day that record rains flooded Vermont in July 2023, Lyndon Town Clerk Dawn Dwyer learned the federal government had approved her community’s request for cleanup reimbursement.

Then came the anniversary shower.

“It wasn’t raining money,” Dwyer said of the July 2024 replay storm.

Lyndon thought its 2023 damage tab of $500,000 was steep. But the 2024 deluge has required the town, population 5,491, to take out a $15 million line of credit — twice the amount of its $7.4 million annual budget — to repair roads, the municipal office building, water and sewer plants and a historic covered bridge.

“We’re not really sure if that’s going to be enough,” Dwyer said of the borrowing limit.

As Vermont prepares for March Town Meeting voting, Lyndon isn’t the only flooded community with lingering pools of red ink — and a cloud of questions about whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency will uphold past promises to cover 75% to 90% of cleanup costs amid President Donald Trump’s call for cuts.

Sutton, population 913, paid off a $500,000 line of credit for 2023 damage after requesting and receiving FEMA funds, only to see 2024 downpours require a $1 million line of credit — a figure slightly higher than the town’s annual budget — as local leaders seek another round of government help.

“We are struggling financially due to flooding,” said Patricia McClure, Sutton’s town clerk and treasurer.

Moretown, with 1,753 people and a $1.9 million annual budget, reports a collective $9 million in damage from 2023 and 2024 storms. But the town so far has received only about $750,000 from FEMA.

“It’s been really rough,” said Cherilyn Brown, Moretown’s town clerk and treasurer. “We’re in a waiting game.”

Bolton, with 1,301 people and a $1.7 million annual budget, continues to await reimbursement for road damage totaling $300,000 in 2023 and $3 million in 2024.

“The 2024 flooding destroyed pretty much everything we had repaired in 2023,” said Michael Webber, Bolton’s town clerk and treasurer. “In a good year, you never knew how long FEMA would take. Who knows what’s going to happen now?”

To date, FEMA has awarded Vermont more than $100 million for 2023 flooding and $10 million for 2024 damage, its website reports. But the agency won’t provide specifics about individual municipalities “for privacy reasons” and adds only that reimbursement timelines “will vary by weeks or months” depending on the complexity of an application, according to a statement.

Trump doesn’t have the authority to end FEMA, as such a move would require congressional action. Presidential threats aside, Lyndon is one of several Vermont communities still receiving weekly check-ins from agency officials — a fact some local leaders view as a good sign.

“My assumption,” Dwyer said, “is if there wasn’t going to be any money, we wouldn’t have to do any of this paperwork.”

Others aren’t so sure. Middlesex, population 1,779, has a $1.8 million annual budget, yet about $7 million in debt from 2023 and 2024 flooding, said Town Clerk Sarah Strohmeyer Merriman, who is retiring in March after 12 years.

“All of the above is why,” Merriman said of her departure. “We’ve been reassured from FEMA time and time again we’re done, only to get an email with more questions. Now we’re worried we can’t count on that money ever coming through.”

That sentiment can be heard statewide. Cavendish, population 1,392, had approved an annual municipal budget of about $2 million when the July 2023 storm caused an equal amount of damage. A year and a half later, the town has received only about $400,000 in FEMA funds for debris cleanup and emergency spending, with reimbursement for everything else — including $82,000 in loan interest that’s eligible for federal repayment — still outstanding.

“They send back requests for more details and documentation,” said Diane McNamara, Cavendish’s town clerk and treasurer. “People think the flood is over, but for those of us who are dealing with the paperwork, it’s not.”

Barnet, population 1,663, reports about $2.7 million in 2024 damage — a figure slightly higher than its annual budget — and a resulting $1.5 million line of credit.

“We may have to borrow more,” said Benjamin Heisholt, Barnet’s town clerk and treasurer.

Nearby St Johnsbury, population 7,364, has calculated that road damage from last year’s storms almost equals its annual $3.9 million in highway spending. Still awaiting FEMA money, leaders have juggled regular incoming revenue so as to limit borrowing to $1 million from a $4 million line of credit, said Stacy Jewell, town clerk and treasurer.

Bridgewater, with 903 people and a $1.5 million annual budget, reports FEMA has reimbursed about half of some $6 million in 2023 damage. The town is set to vote March 4 on a plan to refinance existing loans “to seek a lower interest rate to save the town monies while awaiting funds,” its ballot states.

“I do feel optimistic,” Bridgewater Treasurer Melissa Spear said. “We’re beginning to see some money come in.”

Back in Lyndon, local leaders are preparing to hold Town Meeting voting in the municipal office building that flooded last summer. Dwyer notes there’s still a crack in the floor from water damage, so she’ll cordon it off “just so nobody can stumble.”

“We are small peanuts, but that’s a lot of money for a little town,” the clerk said in a community with a $15 million line of credit. “We are definitely gun-shy about this July. Heavens to Betsy if something happens again.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Flooding long past, many Vermont municipalities are still swimming in red ink.

Federal authorities in Vermont have charged a former Coventry resident with making false statements to buy firearms that were later used in a shootout last month that killed a border patrol agent in the same Northeast Kingdom town.

Michelle Zajko, 32, allegedly provided a false address when buying three firearms from the Last Frontier gun store in Mount Tabor in February 2024, according to charging documents filed Tuesday in federal court in Burlington. 

According to the filings, two of those guns were later traced back to Teresa Youngblut, of Washington state, and Felix Bauckholt, a German national, who were involved in the Jan. 20 shootout on Interstate 91. Bauckholt and David Maland, a border patrol agent, were killed in that incident.

That afternoon, after Maland pulled over a Toyota Prius with North Carolina license plates, according to court documents, Youngblut came out of the vehicle and opened fire. Bauckholt, a passenger in the car, also drew a gun, court records stated, but was killed before firing a shot.

Youngblut has since pleaded not guilty to federal firearms offenses in connection with the shootout and has been held in custody without bail. Youngblut has not been charged directly in Maland’s killing and the FBI has declined to answer questions about who fired the shot that killed the border patrol agent.

Following the incident, the court records stated, Youngblut was found in “direct possession” of a Glock .40-caliber pistol and Bauckholt had a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield .380-caliber pistol in a holster on his waistband — both guns that Zajko had purchased in February 2024.  

A third gun that Zajko allegedly purchased from the gun shop in Mount Tabor was a Ruger pistol. James Loomis, a task force agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, wrote, “To my knowledge, law enforcement has not recovered that firearm to date” in the charging document. 

Loomis also wrote that the Vermont address Zajko provided to the Mount Tabor gun shop when she purchased the three firearms was false, since she had moved out of that residence prior to buying the guns.

That residence is a house in Coventry, although it has an Orleans mailing address.

The charging documents do not describe how the guns got from Zajko to Youngblut and Bauckholt. 

But according to data from license plate readers in New York state, a car registered to Bauckholt — the same one that Maland pulled over in the fatal traffic stop last month — was recorded driving north on Interstate 87 on Feb. 13, 2024 and south on the same road three days later.

That data “would be consistent with Bauckholt’s vehicle being driven towards southwestern Vermont” the day before Zajko bought the Glock and the Smith & Wesson pistols, and “being driven away from Vermont two days” after the purchase, according to the court documents.

“Michelle Zajko may have returned to Vermont specifically to purchase the firearms using her still-valid Vermont Driver’s License that bore the address of her previous residence,” the court records read.

A day after the shooting, the ATF sent an alert to federally licensed firearms dealers asking them to contact ATF if they had “any information about transfers or attempted transfers” of firearms to Zajko.

Zajko was one of three people arrested over the weekend in Maryland and linked to a series of violent acts across the country.

Zajko, Daniel Arthur Blank, 26, and Jack Amadeus LaSota, had separate bail hearings late Tuesday morning in the District Court of Maryland for Allegany County.

Zajko, Blank and LaSota, who is also known as “Ziz,” appeared remotely for their court hearings Tuesday from the jail where they have been held since their arrests Sunday.

_{Clockwise from left: Jack Lasota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank. Photos courtesy of Allegany County Sheriff’s Office}

Judge Erich Bean, who presided in each of the bail hearings, ordered all three individuals held without bail as the cases against them proceed, according to court documents. Their next hearings are set for March 24, the filings stated. 

Allegany County State’s Attorney James Elliott, whose office is prosecuting the cases, did not immediately return phone and email messages Tuesday seeking comment. 

The three individuals have been linked by court records, acquaintances and media reports to multiple killings across the U.S., including a 2022 double homicide in Pennsylvania of Zajko’s parents, the January murder of a Vallejo, California landlord, and the shooting in Coventry, Vermont.

LaSota, Zajko and Blank were taken into custody Sunday after a resident of Frostburg, Maryland, contacted Maryland State Police reporting seeing three “suspicious” people on his property with two white box trucks, according to charging documents.

Responding officers found Zajko, Blank and LaSota in the box trucks parked on the resident’s land, the filings stated. All three were uncooperative and refused to provide their names, according to the charging documents, and were eventually taken into custody. 

Both Zajko and LaSota were wearing gun belts with ammunition and a handgun was seized from Zajko’s front waistband, the filings added. 

“All of the subjects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country,” charging documents say. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Former Vermont resident faces federal firearm charge related to killing of border patrol agent.

Hundreds of Vermonters joined a protest against the Trump administration on the steps of the Statehouse on Wednesday — part of a national movement to resist President Donald Trump’s policies since he came into office two weeks ago.

The protest movement, titled 50501, is a decentralized initiative to bring protests to every state capitol in the nation. Vermonters arrived at the Statehouse in Montpelier with signs, flags and chants, despite the blustery 13-degree weather.

The themes of attendees’ signs ranged from objections to Elon Musk’s involvement in the administration to supporting LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights and the Palestinian cause. If any thread unified the protesters, it was the desire to push back against what they said was Trump’s anti-democratic approach to his presidential power and harm to marginalized people.

Several state legislators attended the protest, joining in on chants and speaking to folks in the crowd. Among them were Rep. Mari Cordes, D-Lincoln; Rep. Saudia LaMont, D-Morristown; and Rep. Jubilee McGill, D-Bridport, who told VTDigger the Trump administration had been front-of-mind for them, not only as individuals but also as representatives of a small state likely to be heavily affected by Trump policies such as his proposed tariffs.

This story will be updated.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermonters join national movement to protest Trump administration policies.

Updated at 5:35 p.m.

President Donald Trump signed executive orders Saturday imposing steep tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, a move that state officials and business leaders said could disrupt supply chains and raise consumer prices in Vermont for some goods and energy products.

Citing national security concerns, Trump placed 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, and 10% tariffs on goods from China. He also declared a 10% tax on energy imports from Canada, including electricity and natural gas. 

The taxes levied against Canadian goods were expected to go into effect on Tuesday, but posts made by both Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media late Monday afternoon indicated that the policy would be postponed for at least 30 days. Mexican leaders had reached a similar agreement with the Trump administration earlier in the day.

As of Monday evening, the tariffs against Chinese goods were still expected to take effect Tuesday.

The tariffs, especially those levied on Canadian goods, could have far-reaching impacts on Vermont, a state whose economy relies heavily on its neighbor to the north. Canada is Vermont’s largest international trading partner, and the state imports about $2.6 billion in goods each year from Canada while exporting $680 million worth of goods in return, according to statistics from the Canadian consulate general.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who hosted a roundtable with Vermont business leaders last week, said Monday morning that Trump was “creating enormous administrative havoc” and “great uncertainty” for Vermont companies.

“These tariffs are a really bad idea for our businesses and our economy and our consumers,” Welch said. 

Amy Spear, president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said that regardless of whether the policy was adopted, the confusion clouding the decision-making process was in itself a stumbling block for the state’s economy.

“Policy predictability matters,” Spear said. “Businesses thrive on stability, and volatile trade policy creates uncertainty, making it difficult for businesses to plan for the future.”

For years, Burlington-based ski brand J Skis has produced its skis at Utopie MFG, a manufacturer based in Quebec. But with the potential of a steep price hike on the imported product, Jason Levinthal, the founder of the company, said he’s concerned about how to plan for the new trade policy. 

“Going to another factory — that couldn’t happen for another two years,” Levinthal said. “And by then, I have no guarantee that these tariffs are still going to exist. I don’t even know if these tariffs are really going to exist now.” 

But whether or not the tariffs go into effect, Levinthal said, he still has to worry about navigating a new regulatory environment. 

“I need to make real time real life business decisions based on what I know now,” he said. “If I don’t, I’m going to be screwed later.”

Should it be enacted, the tax on Canadian energy also threatens to escalate costs in a state that depends on fuel and electricity from there, importing about $775 million of electricity and $420 million of fossil fuels from Canada per year, according to stats from the Canadian consulate general. 

“We’re very concerned,” said Rebecca Towne, CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative. 

According to Towne, the VEC gets over 40% of its electricity from Hydro-Québec, a Canadian supplier of hydroelectric power. Towne said it was still unclear how exactly the tariffs would apply to imported electricity but a preliminary estimate indicated the cooperative could face up to $2 million in extra costs for 2025 — a cost that would likely get passed down to consumers.

“Our power supply costs are ultimately paid for by our consumers,” Towne said. “We’re a non-profit. That’s how it trickles down.” 

Meanwhile, Vermont Gas Systems, the state’s sole natural gas distribution company, gets almost 100% of its natural gas supply from Canada, according to director of public affairs Dylan Giambatista. 

Giambatista said there’s still “a ton of variability” and uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the tariffs, but Vermont Gas, a subsidiary of Canadian energy giant Energir, is expecting to see dramatic cost increases.

“That 10% tariff on Canadian energy is certainly going to have a direct rate impact on our customers,” he said, noting that any rate increases would likely not take effect until this spring. 

Imports from Canada and China also play a large role in the Vermont construction industry, which depends in part on imported timber, steel, aluminum and other commodities.

Sarah Mearhoff, communications director for the trade association representing Vermont’s construction industry, said tariffs on these items could threaten to increase homebuilding costs at a time when Vermont is already seeing sky-high housing prices.

“You can imagine that a lot of framing for homebuilding is done with timber, and a lot of that in Vermont’s industry specifically comes from Canada,” Mearhoff said.

“Because housing prices are already so inflated, because the cost of constructing a single unit of housing is already at a record high…our members can’t just eat a 25% tariff,” she said. “They are not making the profit margins necessary in order to just absorb that cost. That cost is going to be passed on” 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. said in a statement that the tariffs were “most likely illegal and definitely harmful.” 

“Given Vermont’s long-established economic ties with our Canadian neighbor, the impact on our state will be even greater,” Sanders said. “We need a rational and well-thought-out trade policy, not arbitrary actions from the White House.”

Carly Berlin contributed reporting for this story.

Disclosure: Sarah Mearhoff reported for VTDigger from October 2021 until December 2024.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont businesses and consumers face uncertainty over shifting tariff policy.

Children’s mental health in Vermont and across the U.S. is in crisis!

In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) declared a National State of Emergency in Children’s Mental Health, highlighting the widespread challenges facing children and adolescents. This declaration was reinforced by the U.S. Surgeon General, who also recognized children’s mental health as a national crisis. More recently, in August 2024, the Surgeon General issued an advisory addressing the impact of parental stress and mental health on society and the economy, underscoring the urgent need for policymakers and advocates at all levels to prioritize the well-being of children, adolescents, and their families and communities.

“In addition to the traditional challenges of parenting – protecting children from harm, worrying about finances, managing teenagers who are searching for independence – there are new stressors that previous generations didn’t have to consider. These include the complexity of managing social media, parents’ concerns about the youth mental health crisis, and an epidemic of loneliness that disproportionately affects young people and parents, just to name a few.” (From Parents Under Pressure: U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-being of Parents. Online at: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/parents/index.html)

Of the Vermont youth responding to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023, 23% or about 3,589, reported cutting or burning themselves without intent to die. On the same survey, 14% or 2,184 youth reported making a plan to kill themselves in the past year. LGBTQ+ youth are three times more likely to report making a plan to kill themselves. 

Several factors contributing to the current crisis include the isolation youth experienced during COVID and the dramatic increase in divisiveness and intense conflict in our communities. Such conflict, alongside feelings of loneliness and social disconnectedness, contributes to the acuity of stress in the community and especially for youth. This creates a social context in which chronic stress is becoming more widespread, which interferes with youth development and overall wellness. Efforts to destigmatize mental health and trauma are key strategies to break down barriers that prevent youth from seeking help. 

Complexity and Acuity

The challenges facing youth today are not only growing in scale but also in complexity and acuity. Increasingly, more teens require crisis stabilization, and many present with significantly heightened levels of depression and anxiety compared to previous years. As highlighted earlier, suicidal ideation is alarmingly common among teens, with a growing number acting on these thoughts. The most frequent method of suicide attempts involves medication, ranging from over-the-counter remedies to prescriptions intended for themselves or family members. Tragically, these attempts often occur in moments of impulsivity during periods of intense emotional distress.

Firearms further exacerbate the risk. Easy access to lethal means, particularly during acute emotional crises, dramatically increases the likelihood of fatal outcomes. It is crucial for adults to recognize the severity of these risks and proactively limit access to both medications and firearms within their homes. By taking these preventative steps, we can help safeguard youth as they navigate the complexity and challenges in their lives. 

Resources to Meet the Need are Falling Short 

Workforce challenges across the state in schools, designated and specialized service agencies, and other youth supporting organizations are significantly impacting our ability to support our children and youth. The workforce challenges are in large part due to chronic underfunding as well as increased acuity. Consequently, any child-serving program or school may either serve fewer children or maintain the same level of service as before. As is the case for everyone, when our issues are not effectively dealt with, they become more pronounced and for youth this often means they need more intense services. The idea is to prioritize investment in more affordable, community-oriented services to prevent dysfunctional processes and address potential issues early on. This is called moving services up stream.

These workforce challenges, coupled with the growing need for upstream services, highlight a critical gap in Vermont’s ability to provide sufficient support for its youth, particularly in the foster care system. Throughout the COVID pandemic and now, Vermont is experiencing a serious shortage of foster families. Vermont has historically relied heavily on foster families for youth who can’t stay at home for a time. The staffing shortage also means that fewer staff are available for community-based in-home services. Many youth with intense needs can be successfully served in these programs instead of going to a children’s residential treatment program. Without adequate staffing of children’s community-based services and foster care, however, more youth are being referred for children’s residential care. 

It is especially challenging to retain and recruit staff for children’s residential treatment programs. Potential staff can be put off by working the evenings, nights, and weekends, or with kids who need intense support and who may become emotionally and/or behaviorally dysregulated. Several children’s residential treatment programs have closed in the last few years. 

Some programs, despite facing staffing shortages, have managed to keep serving certain children by limiting services to just five days a week or by closing for certain periods. However, these adjustments reduce access for youth, particularly for those who lack family support during the days the program is closed or operates on a limited schedule.

Northeast Family Institute (NFI)

NFI, one of the Vermont Care Partners network agencies, is a statewide non-profit specialized service agency providing intense mental health services and special education through several programs across Vermont. Some NFI programs provide intensive outpatient services, others include psychotherapy and consultation, in home community-based wrap around programs, community-based residential programs, and licensed independent schools. 

NFI has two hospital diversion programs for adolescents ages 13 to 21 years old who are experiencing a mental health crisis. These are alternatives to an acute inpatient psychiatry treatment program for youth. Each program serves a maximum of 6 youth. Due to a lack of funding and staff vacancies, they have only been able to serve a portion of the 6 youth in each program. The average length of stay remains at 7 to 10 days. Referrals and admissions continue to demonstrate a high need for crisis stabilization services. Most youth are referred due to self-injury and/or suicidal ideation or attempts. 

Of the 381 hospital diversion program discharges last year, 85% reported suicidality as a primary reason for admission. In addition, 83% of the youth accomplished at least 75% of their treatment goals and 97% were discharged back to a lower level of care. These are extremely high rates of success for youth in acute mental health crisis served for only 7 to 10 days. Years after leaving, NFI hears incredible success stories. One graduate is an officer in the armed services, another is a trained engineer, and each one represents the future of our state.

NFI also operates Crossroads Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), providing group and individual therapy several hours a day, 5 days a week, which is often an alternative to inpatient treatment and accepts referrals from hospital emergency rooms. NFI Crossroads started with an adult program and added an adolescent and a Transitional Aged Youth Program for emerging adults ages 18 to 29 years old, at 45 San Remo Drive in South Burlington. All Crossroads use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which is an evidence-based practice, and assists adults and adolescents with urgent mental health needs. Referrals are from the emergency departments and inpatient units, as well as less acute settings and the public. Of the adolescents served by Crossroads, 90% report suicidality as a major concern and 100% of Transitional Aged Youth report suicidality.

“In discussing race, everyone deserves to be safe, and no one should be comfortable.”

Dr. Ken Hardy, Acclaimed therapist, presenter, and author on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

NFI extends its commitment to evidence-based practices and urgent mental health needs by prioritizing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion across its programs and community. As a trauma-transforming organization, NFI collaborates with Dr. Ken Hardy of Drexel University, who has led impactful discussions on race and systemic differences, attended by over 400 professionals, including therapists, attorneys, and educators. Dr. Hardy provides frameworks to understand systemic racism, our roles within it, and actionable steps to foster greater justice and equity. 

Vermont Care Partners Network Agencies

VCP network agencies serve children and families struggling with anxiety, depression, self-harm, as well as behavioral challenges resulting from trauma and other adverse childhood experiences. Across the state, agencies practice with a family-centered approach, meeting families where it works best for them – in schools, homes, and other community settings. In calendar year 2024: 

• Agencies served nearly 12,500 children and youth and provided over 700,000 services
• Each child/youth received an average of nearly 60 services 
• 85% of children and youth stated they received services that were right for them
• 85% said they received the services they needed
• 91% said that staff treated them with respect

Action Needed

Vermont must take action to address the crisis in children and youth mental health. Providers, state officials, schools, and other youth involved organizations must focus on both short-and long-term services and solutions working together to ensure Vermont’s children and youth are safe and healthy. To achieve this we must: increase resources for children and families; establish a taskforce to establish comprehensive solutions; reinstate and fund best practices that we know work; address the erosion of community-based services by committing to sustainable and predictable funding that enables robust programming; support Success Beyond Six; align the crisis continuum with supports for children and youth; invest in the workforce serving children and families; and at large, place a greater focus on prevention and early intervention.

Children are complicated with many different needs and there are multiple effective solutions. Preventing issues and intervening early are not only the humane thing to do but also are extremely cost effective. Prevention and early intervention, often called upstream services, reduce future mental health and substance use challenges and decrease future costs.  Children’s upstream mental health services are community-based and of less intensity. Easy access to effective upstream mental health services diminishes the need for residential mental health services, juvenile justice services, substance use services, youth homelessness, and incarceration rates. 

Unfortunately, chronic underfunding and subsequent limited community-based options result in needing more intense services, often decreasing options as youth move into adulthood. Our youth need our support. The VCP network agencies have effective evidence-based programs that will help our youth succeed but we need sufficient resources to hire, train and retain skilled staff to do the work of providing access to quality services that every Vermont family deserves. Schools need sufficient funding that includes ensuring adequate resources for upstream mental health services. We all need to talk with the children in our lives with the goal of understanding how they are doing. It is essential to a child’s well-being that they know the adults in their lives care about and understand them. 

Our children are our future. Last year, the House Healthcare Committee in Vermont conducted hearings on mental health services. During a session focused on children’s mental health, a Representative urged his colleagues to engage in conversations with the children in their lives – whether family or friends. The representative shared a deeply unsettling conversation he had with children in his own extended family. He asked the children how they were coping, and the concerns they shared left him alarmed about the well-being of children both in his family and across the state. They spoke of overwhelming anxiety about various matters, including their future. These children came from a loving, supportive family. In his passionate address, the Representative urged his fellow lawmakers to talk to children they know, stressing the urgent need for more action. As he passionately stated, “They are our future!” And they are.

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This article is part of a series, collaboratively produced by members of Vermont Care Partners, a statewide network of sixteen non-profit, community-based agencies providing mental health, substance use, and intellectual and developmental disability supports.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s child and youth mental health crisis.

Mimi Brill, Windham County’s supervising public defender, remembered one remote court hearing that neared catastrophe. 

The arraignments were proceeding as normal, moving briskly from one incarcerated person to the next, she recalled. As is typical, the hearings were held from prison, and some people were expected to be released, while others would remain behind bars.

The judge called a man’s name, Brill said, and he appeared virtually from a cinderblock room. But as the brief hearing was wrapping up, the man interjected. 

“At the end he spoke up and said, ‘Wait, that’s not me,’” Brill recalled.

The person on the screen was expected to remain incarcerated. The one whose name the judge called would later be released. The mix-up almost sent the wrong man back onto the street, and kept a mistaken man in jail. 

“That was really concerning,” Brill said. “That could’ve been a disaster had he not been this honest fellow.” 

The incident is an extreme example of the pitfalls of Vermont’s remote court hearing system. 

Expanded during the Covid-19 pandemic, remote access allows defendants and others to participate in certain court hearings from home or prison, depending on their circumstances. 

Stakeholders on all sides of the judicial process — attorneys, judges, sheriff’s deputies and corrections staff — agree that remote access is useful for some hearings, particularly those that deal more with procedure than substance. In-person hearings are still the norm for trials and hearings involving evidence. 

But five years in, virtual hearings now make up about half of all hearings, according to the Vermont Judiciary, which oversees the administration of the state court system. And the prevalence of remote proceedings is wearing on those involved. Its critics say the system, designed to ease access to the courts, is in fact doing the opposite. 

“It’s a huge shift in our court system,” Isaac Dayno, the Department of Corrections’ executive director of policy and strategic initiatives, said in an interview. “It’s a more Orwellian form of justice.”

‘Neither effective or efficient’ 

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Vermont’s court system had experimented with some remote hearings. But as the state went into lockdown, remote access became a necessity. 

And long after emergency pandemic measures came to an end, the practice has persisted. 

An overarching set of civil rules governs remote hearings in Vermont, and judges can set “standing orders” that fine-tune operational procedures in specific courtrooms, creating nuances that vary from county to county. A notice of hearing, which schedules a court date, typically specifies whether the hearing will be held in person or remotely. 

There is broad support among both prosecutors and defense attorneys for using video for hearings involving procedure and scheduling. The remote option can save travel time and facilitate access for people without transportation or who can’t risk missing work. It can also be helpful for crime victims, prosecutors say, who might not want to see a perpetrator in person. 

Joshua Bedard is incarcerated at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield. He said he likes remote court hearings because they prevent the corrections department from shuffling him between facilities for court dates.

“DOC would have shipped me all over the state from SSCF to Newport and back to SSCF,” he said. 

But public defenders have argued that remote court interferes with their ability to form relationships with clients and drags out the early stages of court cases. And corrections officials say the remote format often makes it challenging for defendants to actually understand what’s happening in a hearing. 

Matt Valerio, Vermont’s defender general, said he periodically surveys lead public defenders across the state about their top priorities. At a recent meeting, the group spoke unanimously.

“The number one thing of every single office is, ‘Do away with regional video arraignments,’” he said. “It’s neither effective or efficient, and the quality is awful.”

Arraignments are the first court appearance for someone charged with a crime. At such a hearing, a defendant may be released on bail or held in prison. Sometimes, they may choose to plead guilty, bringing the case to a swift end. Historically, arraignments are a defendant’s first opportunity to review the case against them, in coordination with their attorney.

Now, criminal defendants often beam into the courthouse from prison using a software called Webex, seeing the judge on a screen, hearing their charges for the first time through tinny speakers. 

During these initial hearings, defendants face the court virtually, often without ever having talked to their attorney. Their lawyers don’t know their client’s housing options, mental health issues, connections to a community or other factors that impact the first steps in a case. In contrast, in-person arraignments allow opportunities for attorney-client communication before and during a hearing.

“It’s almost a meaningless proceeding,” Valerio said of remote arraignments. “There is no establishment of an attorney-client relationship.”

Dan Stevens, a Windham County public defender, described the mess of trying to reach a client before and during remote hearings from Southern State Correctional Facility. 

“There’s one phone at Southern State for this,” he said. “There’s eight or nine attorneys fighting over this phone.”

The haphazard process means decisions that once took one hearing now require multiple court appearances, and incarcerated people are relying on prison staff to explain what’s going on.

“It’s difficult to hear. It’s difficult to understand,” said Nick Deml, the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, describing remote court hearings held in the state’s six prisons. “We’ve heard very troubling stories from our staff who are reporting this stuff.”

Those stories can sound dystopian: defendants asking prison staff to explain the outcome after a hearing is already over; courts mistaking one person for another, in one instance forcing an incarcerated person to ask prison staff, “Why were they calling me by a different name?”

Preston Lawson, who is incarcerated at the Newport prison, found himself on the wrong side of one of those mixups. 

Lawson was supposed to attend a hearing related to his grandfather’s estate. Instead, prison staff brought a different man named Preston.

“I didn’t find out about it until a month later,” Lawson recalled. 

Lost in the system

Adding to the complication, arraignments are now often done regionally, based on where someone is held instead of where they were charged. The Springfield prison, located in Windsor County, might facilitate remote arraignments virtually in Windsor County or Windham County court, even if the charges were filed elsewhere. Sometimes that means a defendant will be assigned one attorney at their remote arraignment but then be handed off to a public defender somewhere else in the state for the rest of their case. 

In some cases, Valerio said, defendants have languished in prison without being assigned an attorney due to the hand-off process. 

The defender general said he was aware of about a dozen times defendants “got lost” in the system. The additional logistics of moving from one attorney to the next increase the potential for human error. In these rare circumstances, that hand-off from lawyer to lawyer never occurs, according to Valerio, meaning people remain in jail without an attorney — up to 10 months, in one instance he recalled. 

Remote court, Valerio and colleagues said, also risks diminishing the gravity of judicial proceedings for people charged with crimes. The power of looking a judge in the eyes, or walking past one’s mother while in shackles, can’t be replicated through a screen. 

The physical distance makes the judicial process “very impersonal,” said Louis Tobin, who is incarcerated at Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. 

“Makes you feel like you don’t matter at all,” he said.

Prosecutors have also taken issue with remote court, though their experiences differ from county to county. 

Erica Marthage, Bennington County’s state’s attorney and leader of an executive committee of Vermont’s top prosecutors, said remote hearing can be useful for the state’s southwesternmost county. For example, a defendant held in the state’s only women’s prison in South Burlington might spend 18 hours in shackles being transported to Bennington and waiting in the courthouse. 

Remote access is also useful for people who aren’t incarcerated, Marthage said. Some of these Vermonters don’t have transportation, or might have to miss a day of work to come in person, she noted. 

Marthage said she thinks the defense attorney and defendant should decide whether specific hearings should be held in person.

“If a defendant says they need to be here, then we need to do that,” she said.

Marthage also pointed out that in some family court hearings, people held in prison aren’t provided any access at all, neither remote nor in-person.

“Here’s a new one. If you are incarcerated and the state has taken custody of your children, you will not be transported to court for hearings on that case unless it is actually at the point of terminating parental rights,” Marthage said. “Why are we letting DOC off the hook and saying, ‘Well, you’re incarcerated, so you don’t get to appear even remotely to hear what’s happening with your case.’”

The total lack of access, the prosecutor suggested, opened the state up to potential litigation.

Marthage acknowledged a lack of staff and resources for the Department of Corrections was causing the problems but said the state needed to figure out a better path forward.

‘All of that burden has shifted’

Since the pandemic, the corrections department has effectively operated its own courtrooms. Its leader, Deml, is among the remote system’s most forceful critics. 

Prison staff have facilitated remote court hearings without receiving additional resources, according to corrections leadership. Those new duties are typically undertaken by caseworkers, who traditionally help incarcerated people prepare for release. Instead, they’re serving as quasi-court clerks, with their offices, or other valuable prison space, turned into satellite courtrooms. 

“All of that burden has shifted to the correctional system,” Deml said. “We didn’t have extra staff sitting around looking for something to do.”

At the Newport prison, a room typically used for volunteer programming is now holding remote hearings, limiting when the space can be used for its designed purposes.

Caseworkers’ new roles have brought hiccups, according to Zoey Paradis, who is incarcerated at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. 

Paradis, who’s filed a number of civil cases against the Department of Corrections, said she’s missed or been late to hearings due to technical difficulties. 

“They recently upgraded these fancy monitors for court and none of (the prison staff) know how they are used,” she said, referring to the telecommunication technology used for virtual court hearings. 

And with the new set of responsibilities, caseworkers and other prison staff have stopped performing some judicial-related functions they once took on, like printing and sharing court-related documents with incarcerated people. 

While on paper those omissions might sound small, some fear they affect liberty interests of people charged with crimes.

If a person is arraigned from prison for example, they might not immediately receive the charging documents associated with their docket, limiting their ability to understand the state’s case against them. 

“When you have a hearing and there’s an order that’s generated, you want to be able to provide that to the person right then and there,” said Teri Corsones, Vermont’s state court administrator.

With the corrections department no longer printing, faxing and emailing documents like plea agreements and consent forms, public defenders sometimes have to drive hours across the state just to receive a client’s signature. 

Both Marthage and Valerio agreed it was an issue.

“That means (public defender) Fred Bragdon from Bennington, who has, you know, way too many cases, has to drive all the way to Rutland to talk to somebody about a plea agreement,” Marthage said. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Not only do the changes place more burden on defense attorneys, but Valerio said it slows down cases.

“I think it’s actually overall contributed to the backlog, because cases can’t resolve as quickly because of all the hoops you’ve got to go through logistically to get the simplest thing done,” he said.

‘We had to set some boundaries’

Deml, the corrections commissioner, said remote court duties are “majorly impacting” the ability of caseworkers to do their jobs. 

As a result, the department has started to push back against the judiciary, limiting the hours that prisons will hold hearings, reducing the types of family court hearings they will facilitate and declining to use prison electronics for telecommunications.  

“We got to a place where we had to set some boundaries,” Deml said. “There needs to be a major burden shift back to the judiciary.”

While different stakeholders agree on a number of the problems caused by remote court hearings, the solutions are more contentious.

With the function of the judicial system reliant on not just court employees, but prison staff and sheriff’s deputies for transport, the parties are involved in something of a standoff over who should do what.

Judiciary officials, for their part, say remote hearings expand access to justice and generate efficiencies for costs like transportation, saving money in the process. The judiciary is always open to feedback, leaders said, and has a collaborative relationship with not only the Department of Corrections, but also the defense bar, prosecutors and sheriff’s departments. 

“As we understand it, (corrections’) position is they don’t have adequate staffing to be able to fully run the Webex hearings, provide access to the parties for paperwork, (and) there’s issues at times with communications we understand between counsel and their clients,” said Chief Vermont Superior Court Judge Thomas Zonay. “This is not a situation of the stakeholders not trying to work together.”

According to Zonay, the powers granted to judges allow for flexibility to address some of those challenges as they arise. A judge can virtually “step off the bench” to allow for confidential communication between an attorney and client, and in the middle of a remote hearing, a judge can decide all parties need to instead come to court in person, he said. 

As for remote court adding to the Department of Corrections’ workload, Corsones, the state court administrator, suggested additional resources could assuage the issue. 

“We certainly understand and appreciate and sympathize with the correctional facilities saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have positions that are, you know, designed for this,’” she said. “It is a burden that’s being placed on the correctional facilities that I think should be recognized and responded to.”

But Deml doesn’t see the situation as a money problem. Instead, he suggested the state could create more transportation resources — in addition to sheriff’s deputies and corrections staff already involved in transportation — to get more people to court in-person. He also argued the new responsibilities on prison staff need to be shifted back to the judiciary.

Across Vermont, 24 state transport deputies bring people to criminal hearings and court-mandated medical treatment. 

The system is more complex than it sounds, according to Annie Noonan, labor relations and operations director for the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. Historically, corrections staff have on occasion transported incarcerated people between facilities to create shorter drives for sheriff’s deputies, and court staff inform deputies of when transports to courthouses are needed. 

“Is the judge giving enough notice to the court operations manager? Is the court operations manager giving us enough notice? Are we giving corrections enough notice? It all goes like this,” Noonan said. “It’s really pretty intricate.”

For various reasons, including limited corrections staffing and less than perfect communication between court employees and transport deputies, that system isn’t working like it used to pre-pandemic, according to Noonan.

“These little pieces have to be kind of woven back together properly, or the system isn’t going to work,” she said. “We’ve had situations where the transport team is like, ‘We’re already on a transport, and you know, you just sent this court order out, and we’re not here to do it.’ And then, like, the judges’ heads are exploding, and we’re like, ‘Okay, well, this is not on us.’”

But the situation is collaborative, too. Zonay said the Department of Corrections and the judiciary were able to compromise on what types of hearings prison staff would facilitate remotely. Prisons have also been flexible about the time parameters set for when remote hearings will be held, according to the judge. 

“Each of the stakeholders that are part of this equation have separate and unique challenges, oftentimes dealing with adequate staffing,” Zonay said.

Facilitating remote court, he indicated, is not the jurisdiction of the courts, just like the judiciary doesn’t transport people to and from courthouses. 

“They have challenges, and we can work better together by keeping open the lines of communication and trying to facilitate the timely administration of justice in a way that works for everyone,” Zonay said. “The judiciary does not control DOC.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Wait, that’s not me’: Lawyers say remote court hearings can threaten integrity of Vermont’s justice system.

The Winooski school district is considering creating a “sanctuary school” policy to better protect immigrant students and families as the nation heads into a second Donald Trump presidency.

Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria has prepared a draft policy that calls for restricting immigration agents’ access to school grounds and prohibiting school staff from collaborating with immigration authorities. He expects the school board to take it up at its meeting next week.

Chavarria, who said he has heard from parents worried about whether their children will get detained and deported while at school, said the policy would act as “a formalized message” to help reassure the district’s immigrant families.

During Trump’s first term in office, a number of municipalities — including several in Vermont — as well as school districts declared themselves “sanctuary cities” or “sanctuary schools” in an effort to protect undocumented immigrants by refusing to cooperate with immigration enforcement. The Trump administration responded by waging legal challenges and attempting to withhold federal funding from those places — something his new “border czar” Tom Holman has again pledged to do.  

But the threat of retaliation hasn’t deterred Winooski’s superintendent. The effort comes in Vermont’s most diverse city as immigration lawyers and activists nationwide brace for a potential immigration crackdown involving mass deportation of undocumented residents, as per Trump’s campaign promise.

“It says to our communities, this is on our minds and we are willing to spend board meeting time and thinking to really plan on how we will support you and ensure that we do not become complicit in the creation of that culture of fear,” said Chavarria. 

The objective of the proposed policy is to provide education “free of barriers, regardless of a child’s or family member’s immigration status,” and to create a safe place for students and families facing fear and anxiety about immigration enforcement efforts, according to the six-page draft document shared by Chavarria.

Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver, a teacher at Winooski High School, said students, in discussions at school, have talked about experiencing anxiety in the aftermath of the presidential election.

Some of the reactions she has documented include students saying, “I’m so glad I have papers. Everyone else like me without papers is going home” and expressing anxiety on behalf of friends or family who are not citizens.

A volunteer task force of educators and advocacy organizations have helped draft the policy, which is modeled after one first developed for K-12 schools in California.

Alyssa Chen, coalition coordinator for the Education Justice Coalition of Vermont, which worked on the draft document, said the policy is “really important in this moment” to ensure that immigrant students are protected. 

“We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen but we know that fear is going to increase in the new year and that that may interrupt the ability for students to show up to school in an emotional space to learn,” Chen said. 

 A couple of school districts in southern Vermont and in the Upper Valley are also having preliminary discussions with equity advocates exploring the sanctuary schools effort, according to Chen.

The policy prioritizes thinking about the social and emotional well-being of students, said Monica Nachemja-Bunton, a longtime Vermont educator now at the Upper Valley Educators Institute in New Hampshire, a regional teacher training program.

“We don’t want our students to be traumatized. We don’t want students and families to be scared of coming to class in case (immigration or federal) agents show up. We don’t want families to be scared about bringing their children to school,” she said. “So this is a policy where our intention is to remove that trauma, to remove that fear and instead support access to schools and access to learning and access to safe spaces.”

In addition to restricting immigration agents’ access on school campuses and prohibiting staff from collaborating with them, Winooski’s draft policy would also limit the sharing of student and family information and provide resources about legal rights for immigrant students and their families.

“Having specific policies in place is going to have a huge impact — so there’s not this sort of dark cloud hanging over students and families,” said Nachemja-Bunton.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Winooski to consider ‘sanctuary school’ policy to protect immigrant students.

Earlier this year, a consultant issued a report recommending sweeping changes to the state’s health care system — proposals that ranged from building more housing to cutting certain services at specific hospitals.

At a meeting of lawmakers and state health officials late last week, Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, questioned Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster and Secretary of Human Services Jenney Samuelson on that report.

Of the scores of recommendations, Lyons, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, asked what would be the simplest for the Legislature to implement: “Which is the low-hanging fruit?” she said at the Friday meeting.

The officials’ answers — which included proposed reforms to hospital regulations, state emergency medical services and electronic medical records — now seem poised to form key planks of the health care agenda in the upcoming legislative biennium.

As Vermont’s population has aged, the state’s health care system has appeared increasingly unsustainable. Private health insurance premiums are among the most expensive and fastest-growing in the country. Many hospitals and other health clinics are operating at a loss. Appointments for primary and specialty care can be few and far-between.

Those challenges and others were brought to the forefront by the 144-page report issued in September by the New York-based consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The report issued a series of recommendations that amounted to a broad redesign of the state’s health care apparatus. Hospitals should consolidate services at different regional locations, the firm recommended, and the state should invest in housing, emergency medical services and internet connectivity in rural areas of the state.

Now, legislators say they hope to follow through on at least some of those recommendations.

Lawmakers are already working on legislation to simplify the approval process for new health care facilities, Lyons said in an interview. That process, by which providers must apply to the Green Mountain Care Board for what’s called a certificate of need, is notoriously costly and time-consuming.

“There is a bill,” Lyons said. “I’m working on it with another senator. So we will have that.”

Lyons said she also expects to examine another problem identified by the consultant’s report: that hospitals’ and clinics’ electronic medical records systems are not always compatible with those used by other providers.

“I’ll probably put a bill in that gets the discussion started there,” she said. “Nothing that causes an explosion, I hope.”

Lawmakers are also planning to examine the state’s emergency medical services, a subject that was a topic of legislation in the last legislative session, said Rep. Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, the outgoing chair of the House Health Care Committee.

Last spring, Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill that bolsters emergency medical services training and increases funding for Medicaid reimbursement for EMS services.

So some reforms to the state’s emergency medical services system are already “in process,” Houghton said in an interview. But in the upcoming session, the topic is “something we’ll also focus on and see if we can make the transformation go quicker,” she said.

Houghton, who was recently elected House majority leader, will no longer chair the health care committee come January, due to longstanding practice that prevents majority leaders from being chairs. “But I think I can speak to what is going to be on the table,” she said.

The speaker of the House will appoint chairs once the legislative session begins in January, so it’s not yet clear who will lead the House’s health care committee. But Houghton mentioned Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex, the committee’s ranking member, as a possible successor.

Black declined to comment Tuesday, saying, “I have no knowledge that I want to pass on.”

The “low-hanging fruit” currently under consideration does not cover many of the recommendations from the consultancy’s report, however. Some of the report’s proposals — such as limiting how much hospitals can bill for care and ending certain procedures at some facilities — are either outside of the Legislature’s purview or would likely entail fierce and lengthy Statehouse battles.

Devon Green, a lobbyist for the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, expressed support for many of the proposals from Lyons and Houghton, including investments in emergency medical services and streamlining the certificate of need process. Some Vermont hospitals are already making changes in response to the report, Green said.

“Hospitals are here doing the work, and we want to work in partnership with other healthcare providers and our state leaders,” she said.

Lyons, of the Senate health committee, also wants to reexamine how health care is regulated in the state, echoing a bill she backed in the 2024 session that would have shifted some of the oversight powers of the Green Mountain Care Board to the Agency of Human Services.

“We’ll probably see some discussion about authority, regulatory gaps. You know, who’s in charge of what, where and when?” she said. “I don’t want to go back to the bill that I had put in (this year), but it’ll be a discussion.”

And as the cost of providing and paying for health care has grown increasingly unsustainable, Houghton said, the legislature needs to understand whether earlier health care initiatives, such as mental health urgent care and the Blueprint for Care program, for example, are actually paying off.

“There’s going to be a concerted effort to call people in and say, this is what we’re doing: We need to really understand how these programs are working, and then fixing them or changing them or scrapping them if they’re not working,” Houghton said.

But both Houghton and Lyons acknowledged that there is little the Legislature can do that will make care and insurance more affordable for Vermonters in the short term.

“I don’t have a silver bullet,” Lyons said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: In wake of landmark hospital report, Vermont lawmakers look toward health care reforms.