2023 Vermont Statutes › Title 28 - Public Institutions and Corrections › Chapter 3 - Administration of the Department › § 105. Caseload capacity

§ 105. Caseload capacity
(a) Corrections officers designated to work exclusively with offenders in the community who are 21 years of age and younger shall have caseloads of not more than 25 youths.
(b) The Department shall review the severity of offenses and assess the risk to reoffend of all offenders older than 21 years of age under its jurisdiction in the community and assign one of the following levels of supervision to each offender:
(1) Risk management supervision, which shall mean supervision at a level of intensity that includes case planning and measures to reduce risk of reoffense.
(2) Response supervision, which shall mean monitoring of the offender’s compliance with conditions of probation or parole, including staff responding to violation behavior.
(3) Administrative supervision, which shall mean monitoring of the offender’s address and compliance with the law.
(c) An offender may be reassigned to a lower supervision level after a reassessment of the offender’s risk.
(d) The Department shall establish the following caseload ranges for offender profiles:
(1) All listed offenders requiring risk management shall be supervised at not more than 45 offenders per corrections officer.
(2) All nonlisted offenders requiring risk management shall be supervised at not more than 60 offenders per corrections officer.
(3) All offenders requiring response supervision shall be supervised at not more than 150 offenders per corrections officer.
(4) All offenders requiring administrative supervision may be supervised on caseloads consistent with the capacity of automated status reporting systems as established by the Department.
(5) When there is a mixed profile caseload in which a single corrections officer supervises offenders with different supervision levels and at least one-third of the offenders require a more intensive supervision demand than the other offenders, the caseload shall be supervised at the lowest level of offender-to-staff ratio.
(e) If the caseloads established in subsection (d) of this section are exceeded for longer than 120 days, the Commissioner shall be authorized to designate community correctional officers to partially augment staffing caseloads. If such designation does not remedy the excess caseloads:
(1) The Commissioner shall report to the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee the causes for the excess and proposals for addressing them.
(2) The Department shall have the authority, if the Commissioner believes that the excess will not be eliminated within 60 days, to hire persons from the positions drawn from the State’s vacancy pool as limited service employees for an initial period of up to one year. The initial period may be extended for up to two more years if the Department deems it necessary.
(f) Each time a position is established under subdivision (e)(2) of this section, the Commissioner shall report it at the next meeting of the Joint Corrections Oversight Committee. The costs for each position shall be presented in the Department’s budget adjustment proposal and, if the positions are necessary for an ongoing period, in the Department’s annual budget request. (Added 2007, No. 179 (Adj. Sess.), § 6; amended 2019, No. 131 (Adj. Sess.), § 281.)