VSEA.org

Several news outlets published stories this week about the results of a recent State Human Rights Commission investigation into allegations of patient-to-employee and employee-to-employee racial discrimination and harassment at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin. The findings were disturbing, to say the least.

In response, VSEA President Dave Bellini is sending the following statement to VSEA members today as part of the union’s weekly email update "Week In Action"

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The House and Senate Appropriation Committees are holding hearings around the state on Monday, February 12, to take public comment on Gov. Phil Scott’s FY2019
budget proposal.

The hearings begin at 6:00 p.m.* at the following locations:

Seven Days reports today that former DOC Commissioner and AHS Secretary Con Hogan returned to the State House recently to blast the Scott Administration’s ill-adivsed proposal to allow CoreCivic to set up shop in Vermont.

From Seven Days Fair Game Column: 

"Hogan’s testimony was a thorough, point-by-point takedown of the plan. Vermont’s corrections system works because it’s spread around the state, he said, while a ‘campus’ would be isolated from community. Prisons ‘are schools of crime; large facilities are even better schools of crime.’ Large projects are prone to cost overruns. Putting mental health patients in a prison complex is a bad idea. Building beds for federal detainees, simply to harvest revenue, is also a bad idea. Demographic trends indicate a likely decline in inmate populations. Reducing the number of inmates "should be our first priority, not building more beds." And "private prison corporations cannot be trusted." 

Well said Mr. Hogan. Thanks