Corrections commissioner warns facilities are understaffed and women's prison is overcrowded

John Murad, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections, told the Senate Judiciary committee that staffing and facility capacity are the department’s top budget concerns and that these shortfalls have operational consequences.

Murad said DOC is roughly 12% understaffed across the agency, with more acute gaps at the CO1 and CO2 facility ranks that do frontline supervision. “We are currently understaffed by about overall 12%,” he said. The shortage, Murad said, constrains the department’s ability to operate consistently and increases overtime pressure.

He flagged CRCF, the state women’s facility, as a site of particular concern: the facility was housing about 185 women in recent weeks despite a best-practice target closer to 105 beds (approximately 80% of general population bed counts). “We are currently at 185 women in a facility that really should only have 105 if we were to obey best practices,” Murad said, and warned that female-population pressures spill over into other facilities.

Murad described several mitigation and programmatic efforts: DOC is rolling out enhanced substance-use-disorder treatment tied to a Medicaid 1115 waiver (initially at Northwest and CRCF), expanding pre-trial supervision pilots that began in Caledonia and Essex and were extended to Burlington as part of a 14-point plan, and pursuing a long-term replacement plan for CRCF because of building deterioration and capacity constraints.

Ryan Mat, DOC’s executive director of finance, provided budget detail: salary and benefit increases, higher internal service charges, Wellpath (contracted healthcare) increases tied to higher average daily population, and $4.1 million budgeted for out-of-state beds covering roughly 150 people (contract capacity up to 300). Mat said the governor’s recommended total DOC budget aligns with those drivers and showed adjustments to target other services, software and staff positions.

Murad and Mat defended a measured vacancy-savings target negotiated with AHS (the department of Agency of Human Services), and said federal detainee contracts are roughly revenue-neutral and small in number. In questions, Murad described recruitment and retention efforts—including facility-level recruiters and stronger social-media outreach—and acknowledged persistent regional hiring challenges, particularly at Newport’s Northern State facility.

Why it matters: DOC staffing and capacity directly affect daily operations, programming availability and safe housing conditions. The committee will consider whether the governor’s recommended budget and any legislative adjustments sufficiently address staffing gaps, treatment program expansion and facility needs.

Murad offered to provide additional survey results and staffing details to the committee on follow-up requests.