Bryer sex case reveals secrecy, flaws

Putting kids at risk?

Teacher abuse case reveals secrecy, flaws

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Friday, September 25, 2009 3:42 PM EDT

How could former teacher Shaun Bryer allegedly abuse children undetected over a period of years? And how was he so easily able to find another job after being forced to resign in March from Morristown Elementary School?

Only the most cynical people might think that school officials, social workers and the state teachers’ union don’t have children’s safety and best interests in mind.

However, they do have separate, sometimes conflicting agendas, and the Bryer case has made that evident.

Bryer, 28, pleaded not guilty last week in Lamoille District Court to 17 counts, 15 of them felony charges. Bryer faces 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault on a minor under age 16, five counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, and two counts of disseminating pornography to a minor.

He is accused of molesting two boys over the span of several years, and police are investigating whether there could be more victims. Bryer could spend the rest of his life in jail.

As the Stowe Reporter reported last week, rumors had swirled for years about Bryer’s behavior with students. Based on documents provided by school officials and other sources, here’s is what’s known:

• Bryer met with then-Morristown Elementary School Principal Frederika French during the 2004-05 school year to review concerns about Bryer’s inappropriate interactions with students.

• Bryer had met with then-Superintendent Alice Angney about concerns that Bryer was acting inappropriately with students.• Bryer met with current Superintendent Tracy Wrend on May 21, 2008, about concerns that Bryer was acting inappropriately with students.

• During a meeting in November 2008, Bryer acknowledged to Wrend he had given two students rides to school on a daily basis, had sleepovers with the two students, had helped them with homework at his house more than once, had driven the students to events unrelated to school, had text-messaged the students, had brought them Chinese food, and showed them other “preferential treatment.”

• Wrend formally reprimanded Bryer in writing on Nov. 10, 2008.

• On Nov. 14, 2008, Wrend submitted a report about Bryer to the Vermont Department for Children and Families, citing inappropriate behavior with the two students.

• The Department of Children and Families wrote back Dec. 1, 2008, stating there was not enough evidence to warrant an investigation.

• Wrend wrote Bryer a letter on March 26, 2009, placing him on administrative leave while an investigation was conducted.

• Wrend and Bryer met April 16, 2009, at which time Bryer evidently offered to resign. The investigation of Bryer was suspended.

• Bryer and Wrend signed an “employment resignation and release agreement” May 11, 2009, in which Bryer agreed to resign, and he and the Morristown School Board jointly pledged, if either made “any public comments on the resignation, that such comments will be positive.” The board also agreed to write Bryer a letter of recommendation, and pay him full salary and benefits until June 30, 2009. The investigation was removed from his personnel file and given to the board’s attorney to be hidden away for six years. Bryer and the board agreed to say Bryer resigned for “personal reasons.”

• On May 19, 2009, Bryer wrote a memo to Morristown officials, trying to clear the air. “There are many rumors circulating throughout the community right now that are simply not true,” he wrote. “My resignation is for personal reasons, not for any wrongdoing.”

• Just before this school year began, the Colchester School District hired Bryer to teach fifth grade. Superintendent Larry Waters has said he didn’t know about the investigation, or about Lamoille South’s concerns with Bryer’s behavior with students.

The key questions

How was all of this allowed to occur?

How did Colchester not know of Bryer’s past problems?

Why did the Department for Children and Families fail look into the school district’s concerns about Bryer?

Why did a Vermont teachers’ union attorney help draft a separation agreement that has built-in provisions to make it difficult for future employers to learn about his troubled past?

Why didn’t Morristown fire Bryer after the second or third time he failed to comply with requests to stop acting inappropriately with students?

Why weren’t school administrators candid with Colchester officials?

Those troubling questions are explored below. However, the answers raise problems of their own, and point to a need to re-examine how the state deals with child-abuse reports and problem teachers.

Agency did little

As a school employee, Lamoille South Superintendent Tracy Wrend is obligated by law to report to the Department for Children and Families anytime child abuse or neglect is suspected.

In November of last year, Wrend called the department to report Bryer’s inappropriate behavior.

“I know my obligation as a legal reporter and I complied with that,” Wrend said in an interview. “We make reports (to DCF) as we become aware of things of concern, and we trust our community partners to do what they can by law.”

In this case, it seems the department did very little.

When a report of suspected abuse or neglect arrives at the department, it is fielded by one of six social workers. They are required to “promptly determine whether it constitutes an allegation of child abuse or neglect as defined” by state law.

“There is a definition of child abuse and neglect,” said Steve Dale, commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, an interview. “The dilemma in this situation is there have to be enough facts to cause us to say that there may be a case here for neglect or abuse. If someone calls with a general concern … it’s generally not enough.

“In this instance, the call concerned the nature of a relationship. The school was uncomfortable because the teacher was … alone with kids when (he) was not supposed to be and those kinds of things. Those things are all concerning behaviors, but they are not items identified by the state as grounds to investigate sexual abuse.”

As a result, the person taking the call and a supervisor jointly concluded that the allegations against Bryer did not warrant an investigation.

The department did not contact Bryer, the school district, the parents, or the children about the complaint. After a brief background check into Bryer, the case was simply set aside.

On Dec. 1, the department wrote to Wrend that “this incident does not rise to the level of child abuse/neglect.” The response implies some inquiries were made, but Dale made it clear that no investigation took place — which is not uncommon.

Last year, the department received 13,434 reports from concerned citizens who suspected abuse. Of those, 2,896 —just over 20 percent — were accepted and investigated.

But, as Dale said, “whether we are legally able to follow up on a call … in no way indicates that the behavior is fine. It is still clearly concerning and needs to be addressed.”

House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democratic state legislator from Morrisville, said Tuesday he hadn’t talked to Dale specifically about the Bryer case or his department’s procedures, but “it does raise serious concerns to me if a report was made and no investigation was done. Certainly, I would expect the Legislature to hold a hearing if this is true.”

During the 2007-08 legislative session, the Legislature revised state laws on child-abuse investigations, Dale said.

“I would not be surprised, in light of this situation, that there will be ongoing debate about the statutes,” Dale said. “We need to be careful to not see this as an easy issue. Having the state investigate general concerns with no indication of any abuse is moving to a difficult place with lots of unintended consequences.”

He continued: “It is important not to see government intervention as the only solution. Expanding government roles does not guarantee a certain outcome. But anytime something horrible like this happens, we have to ask ourselves what we can do better. There is no easy answer.”

The state budget, passed by the Legislature in June, cut up to $425,000 in grants and contracts for the Department for Children and Families.

Did the cuts affect the department’s ability to take on cases?

“Absolutely not,” Dale says. “That has nothing to do with it.”

Dale added: “This is one of the most important functions of government, and we should not be deciding child-abuse policy based on tough economic times.”

Teachers tough to fire

Just as state law influenced the decision by the Department for Children and Families not to investigate the Bryer case, it played a role in keeping school officials from firing Bryer when they may have wanted to.

Under the law, once hired, a teacher has a legal right to his or her job, unless the school district can prove he or she doesn’t deserve it.

And not following orders — such as repeatedly disobeying directives to stop having sleepovers — is not necessarily firm legal grounds to fire a teacher, says Bob Luce, attorney for the Morristown School District.

According to Luce, there are only two ways to get rid of a problem teacher. One is to place the teacher on leave, get the school board to vote to fire the teacher, then rely on an arbitrator to deem the firing justified. The second is to ask the teacher to resign, which usually means granting concessions like the sort Bryer received, which includes silence.

Once a school board votes to fire a teacher, the teacher more than likely will appeal, and by contract the teacher has the right to have an arbitrator hear the case. Almost always, a teacher in that situation is represented by a union attorney.

“It is an expensive legal process and the arbitrators typically have a pretty high standard you have to meet before discharging a teacher,” Luce said. “It is a risk to go through the arbitrator. If you lose, you have to reinstate the teacher and it is very expensive. You’re spending money that you could otherwise use to educate kids.”

Luce once represented a school district that tried to fire a teacher who had just been convicted of a third drunken-driving charge. The teacher’s responsibilities at the school included teaching a unit on drug and alcohol abuse.

“The police caught him weaving all over the road, drunk in plain daylight on a Saturday afternoon,” Luce said. “The arbitrator concluded that disciplinary action was warranted, but firing him was too harsh for the behavior, because it did not happen in school.”

The teacher was reinstated and the school district was out a significant sum of money.

A school’s other option is to ask the teacher to resign on his or her own terms. That often includes a separation agreement, which always includes provisions that the school is not allowed to say anything negative about the teacher. If it does, the school becomes susceptible to defamation lawsuits, Luce said, because the teacher has not been allowed to make a defense against the allegations.

“The union will typically require as part of the agreement that the school not discuss the situation that led to the resignation,” Luce said.

So, every school has to weigh its options and decide whether it has a good enough case against a teacher to win an arbitration battle.

If not, as was the case with Bryer, it must settle the matter with the teacher and the union attorney. That approach promotes secrecy, and leaves administrators in the position of speaking in code when discussing past bad employees with each other.

The reference letter

“The administration did and said what it could,” Wrend said in an interview. “We did not support or recommend Shaun’s candidacy” to teach at Colchester. “The letter he received had no evaluative or recommending language, and we notified Colchester of his leave.

“It’s sad that (Colchester) was deceived by Mr. Bryer. I can assure folks … that our process has safeguards in place that allow our district to find out if a teacher has been disciplined in another setting.”

Wrend says it’s standard practice in Lamoille South to ask all potential employees if they have been disciplined, discharged or asked to resign by another school district. If they lie, a provision in the contract allows for immediate termination, Wrend said.

Colchester Superintendent Larry Waters has said he didn’t know Morristown had conducted an internal investigation on Bryer, or that his reference letter had been part of an employment resignation-and-release agreement.

He did admit he knew Bryer did not finish out the school year in Morristown.

According to the Burlington Free Press, Bryer told Waters “he got done early for political reasons because he’s on the select board and he was not in agreement with the district’s direction.”

Waters did not question Bryer’s claim.

Morristown’s staid recommendation letter — which lists Bryer’s responsibilities at the school and is devoid of any adjectives, good or bad — should have been a serious red flag for Colchester, Luce says.

“That letter of reference contains no evaluative terms. It doesn’t say ‘We recommend,’ it doesn’t say anything like that,” Luce said. “When another district calls up and asks ‘What do you think of this teacher,’ you tell them ‘I’m not saying anything other than what’s in the document. You have the letter, you can rely on the letter.’ That is supposed to speak volumes.”

Luce said that, for a forced resignation, Morristown’s handling of the situation was standard procedure for any school district.

“I’ve been practicing law in this state for 30 years and that (kind of reference) is the code every school district looks to,” Luce said. That should have signaled Colchester officials that they needed “to do more investigation on their side. They needed to probe further.”

That raises the question: Do people want school administrators to be legally forced to speak in code to each other about former employees? To make important decisions that affect children without being able to speak honestly?

“I think we need to take a look at this to see if there is anything we can do within the law to allow employers to be more frank and honest about teachers,” Armando Vilaseca, the Vermont commissioner of education, said in an interview Wednesday. “We’re talking about student safety, and that is the most important thing.”

Vilaseca said he plans to meet with human relations employees and top lawyers in the coming days to learn more about the problem and draft informative materials to send to school administrators.

“I think we need to provide the school districts with some guidance,” Vilaseca said.

Documents related to Bryer's dismissal are provided below.

Legislature asks: Is DCF doing enough?

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Thursday, October 1, 2009 12:15 PM EDT

The Shaun Bryer sexual assault case has raised concerns about whether the state government is doing enough to protect Vermont children.

Bryer, a Morristown schoolteacher, faces 17 charges, alleging he abused two boys over a period of years. Worried school officials alerted the Vermont Department for Children and Families, but the agency decided not to investigate.

Last year, on an average day, the Department for Children and Families fielded 38 reports of child abuse. Of those, only eight were actually investigated, and fewer than two were substantiated.

Overall, in more than 95 percent of reports made to the agency last year — reports from school officials, doctors, social workers, police and citizens — no evidence of actual abuse was found.

Not every abuse call is legitimate. Some people lie or exaggerate; some people have grudges or are overly suspicious.

But why did the department investigate only 20 percent of the 13,400 calls it received last year, and why were only 5 percent substantiated?

“What I am surprised about is the number of cases (the department) doesn’t even bother looking at. I would have thought (the Bryer report) would have been a red flag,” said state Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, who was instrumental in the Vermont Legislature’s move last year to pass tougher sex-crime laws and improve the sex-offender registry.

The number of child victims of neglect and abuse has dropped a staggering 40 percent since 2002, the agency says, though reports of suspected abuse have risen.

According to information compiled by Prevent Child Abuse Vermont, 811 Vermont children were sexually abused in 1992. In 2008, there were only 292 cases of sexual abuse on children in Vermont, a 64 percent drop over 16 years.

Optimists say prevention and education programs have worked wonders, but others say the numbers raise serious questions about whether the department should be applauded, or bolstered.

Are children really being abused less often, or is the department just not investigating as often or as thoroughly as it once did?

The Bryer case, which was tossed in the not-enough-evidence pile, reinforces the suspicions.

Lamoille South Superintendent Tracy Wrend reported Bryer to the Department for Children and Families last November, citing his inappropriate behavior with two students.

The department set the case aside without contacting the children’s parents, the school, or Bryer, nor did it make any attempt to talk with the kids themselves.

Later, it came out that Bryer had allegedly been molesting the two boys over several years at his Morrisville apartment. He faces 15 felony counts of sexual abuse, plus two misdemeanors, and could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

How many other reports of suspected abuse did the department miss?

Money worries

In 2007, the federal government evaluated DCF’s performance.

It said the department needed to react faster in investigating reports of child abuse, to improve its services for families, and to improve protection of children.

The evaluation also raised concerns about a heavy workload on the agency’s employees.

Overall, the agency needed to do better in 27 of the 45 categories examined, the federal report said.

One involved “the state’s criteria for accepting and substantiating reports of abuse and neglect.”

Agency employees, parents and other people with a stake in the outcome told the federal government that “criteria for accepting and substantiating reports, when the incidences involve child neglect or domestic violence, are not well understood in the community. … Stakeholders suggested that the existing criteria can result in some children being left at risk of harm.”

The report also found fault with heavy caseloads, and lack of training for employees.

The federal report “said we needed to beef up the number of support staff,” said state Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, a candidate for governor and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Since then, though, state budget cuts have wounded the agency.

In an interview last week, DCF Commissioner Steve Dale said budget cuts “have nothing to do with” his department’s handling of the Bryer case.

He also said his department has not been compromised by the budget cuts.

Bartlett says otherwise.

“I find it hard to believe that a reduction in state government does not have an impact on state government,” Bartlett said. “Here in Lamoille County, we don’t even have a full-time (DCF) regional director anymore. Whoever is in charge of that office also has a full caseload. You can’t tell me that’s good for state services.

“I heard Commissioner Dale say there was no impact, but I think it’s impossible to say there has been no impact, considering the downsizing we’ve been doing.”

Last year, the Department for Children and Families’ budget was just a hair under $300 million, according to Jim Giffin, the chief financial officer of the Agency of Human Services. However, legislators slashed $4 million from the department during rescissions last year to deal with budget shortfalls.

In fiscal year 2010, the Legislature budgeted $338.9 million for the department — bolstered in large part by $26.5 million from the federal stimulus bill, Giffin said. Since then, $4.5 million has been rescinded from the budget, however, it’s still nearly a $40 million more in funds than the department received last year, Giffin said.

Recent improvements

The department should be applauded for its efforts, says Linda Johnson, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Vermont — a nonprofit dedicated to preventing child abuse and neglect; she’s also on the DCF advisory board.

“I believe Steve Dale and his crew are doing everything in their power to protect children,” Johnson said.

The department has made vast improvements in the past year, she said, despite dwindling funding.

For instance, it has centralized its operations. Abuse reports used to stream into 12 different offices; now they all come to one location, staffed by six social workers.

In the year since centralization, the number of calls accepted for investigation has increased 40 percent, Dale said, and the department’s handling of cases has become more consistent statewide.

This summer, the department also began giving more attention to families reported for abuse, but where abuse could not be substantiated. Now, if an investigation turns up no abuse, the social worker won’t simply go away; instead, the worker will try to enroll the family in programs that can help improve the situation.

“Instead of just walking out the door, they work to engage families in getting meaningful help in order to redirect what could be an awful outcome three months later,” Johnson said.

Despite those successes, Johnson and other child advocates admit deep concerns about budget cuts in recent years.

“They have lost over 100 positions; it’s very disturbing. More cuts could really endanger children,” Johnson warned.

But, so far, “they have been able to continue to support the front lines.”

Bartlett says she has talked with Dale and thinks meaningful procedural changes could benefit the department. There may not even be any need for new legislation.

“How do we set up better procedure? Better screening? I think that’s what it comes down to with DCF,” Bartlett says. “I think we need better protocols so if a teacher or superintendent or district has concerns, but can’t pinpoint it, what are the other things they can do, what authority do they have to do something like call parents? …

“Those professionals spend their whole lives dealing with children and families and I think we should allow them … to get and supply more information to DCF — and if they do that, DCF should check those calls out immediately.”

The facts

Vermont had 292 child sexual-abuse cases in 2008, far below the peak of 811 cases in 1992.

Although the percentage of child sexual-abuse offenders under age 20 remained constant (43 percent), the overall number of offenders dropped 31 percent from 1990 to 2003.

Number of sexually abused children

1990..... 768

1992..... 811

2007..... 322

2008..... 292

Child victims of abuse/neglect

2000..... 1,104

2001..... 1,061

2002..... 1,263

2003..... 967

2004..... 1,048

2005..... 942

2006..... 866

2007..... 757

2008..... 737*

*Number of victims has dropped 41.6 percent since 2002.

Newspaper disclosure raises ethics questions

Newspaper’s disclosure raises ethics questions

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:12 PM EDT

The Morrisville-based News & Citizen newspaper revealed last Thursday that reporter Mickey Smith had been a roommate with sexual-assault suspect Shaun Bryer and another man from January 2006 to July 2007.

Smith, who has worked at the paper for several years, has played a large role in the newspaper’s coverage of the case since news of Bryer’s arrest broke Sept. 14.

However, in the month that followed, the newspaper made no formal disclosure of Smith’s relationship to Bryer, and allowed the reporter to continue reporting the story.

Bryer, 28, has pleaded not guilty to 17 felony charges —10 counts of aggravated sexual assault on a minor under age 16, six counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, and one count of possessing child pornography. He has also been charged with two counts of disseminating pornography to a minor. If convicted, Bryer faces life in prison.

In an editorial published Oct. 15 in the News & Citizen, Smith wrote that he had a very close relationship with Bryer.

“During that time and since then, I considered us friends and we did the type of things friends would do … socializing, helping each other out around our respective homes, going out to dinner, and the like,” Smith wrote. “I can count on one hand the times I saw Shaun with the original two victims in this case. In none of those situations did I see anything I would have considered strange or troubling.”

A police affidavit, filed in Lamoille District Court by Detective Lance Burnham, said the alleged sex assaults on the two boys happened at Bryer’s apartment in Morrisville.

Bryer’s relationship with the victims began about five years ago; Bryer allegedly began watching pornographic movies with the victims about three years ago and the physical assaults allegedly began about two years ago, the affidavit said.

One of the boys told investigators the alleged assaults occurred after school and before Bryer’s roommate came home from work at 6 p.m.

The affidavit did not indicate whether the roommate was Smith, or the other man.

Individual rules

Unlike other industries, newspapers and other news media do not face formal regulation, nor is the industry self-regulating, with official or legally binding ethical guidelines such as lawyers, doctors and accountants have.

Newspapers are free to make up their own minds about the right way to do things.

Still, while there is no evidence that Smith’s reporting was compromised, media experts agree that failure to disclose a reporter’s close relationship to an alleged criminal in a case that reporter is covering crosses some serious unspoken ethical boundaries.

“This is a grievous ethical lapse by the newspaper. And it’s no more excusable because it’s a small-town paper,” said Walter Robinson, a journalism professor at Northeastern University and leader of The Boston Globe team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. “Of course, there are times when reporters and editors find themselves wrestling with stories because those stories involve people they know. That’s true at The Boston Globe. It’s even more true at small papers in small towns.”

However, in this case, “the conflict is so obvious here that … disclosure alongside the first story would have been insufficient,” Robinson said. “On a matter of such importance and urgency to the community — the safety of children from predatory adults — Mr. Smith should not have been allowed anywhere near the story.”

Traci Griffith, who teaches media law and ethics in the journalism department at St. Michaels College in Colchester, says the News & Citizen “did not violate any hard and fast ethical rule,” but did give readers a reason to question its credibility.

“There is already a perception that the news media has a bias one way or the other and we certainly don’t want to feed into that,” Griffith said. “Being transparent is the best way to go. You have to give the readers all the information that’s out there, and this was a big chunk of information that was left out.”

Tyrone Shaw, director of the journalism department at Johnson State College, agrees.

“It’s really an unfortunate situation for a number of reasons,” Shaw said. “Readers should have been informed from the beginning about the nature of the relationship between the reporter and the main subject of the story. Because, when people eventually find out about a pre-existing relationship, however unfairly, they are going to question the previous articles.”

News & Citizen Editor J.B. McKinley said he knew from the beginning that Smith and Bryer had been roommates and friends.

Asked why the paper did not disclose Smith’s close relationship with Bryer earlier, McKinley said, “I guess that we felt like (last week) was the time to disclose.”

McKinley would not comment further, saying, “Mickey said what he wanted to in last week’s article and we’ll leave it at that.”

Smith said the editorial staff considered disclosing the information earlier, but decided against it.

“I guess it wasn’t thought of as being an important piece of news,” Smith said of his relationship with Bryer.

The editorial staff set up a system so the stories would not be compromised — for instance, laying out separate responsibilities and double-checking work, Smith said.

“We said, ‘Let (reporter) Amy (Kolb-Noyes) do the community reaction pieces and I’ll do the criminal pieces.’ That’s the decision the three of us made at the very beginning,” Smith said. “My stuff was on the criminal aspect, using the police records. There is a paper trail for everything I wrote. It’s all in the police record, so people know where I got the facts I got.”

Charitable giving is up despite economy

Giving is up, despite the economy

Katrine Phelps and Sara Babcock fill trays Wednesday morning at the Lamoille County Senior Center in Morrisville for the Meals on Wheels program. Despite the weak economy, donations to the program have risen. Photo by Glenn Callahan

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 12:21 PM EST

A lot of Lamoille County residents have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Despite hard economic times in the last 12 months, charitable giving in this county has actually gone up.

“It shows how caring this community is that, when times got tough, people came out and stepped up their efforts,” said Brynn Evans, executive director of Meals on Wheels, which prepares and delivers thousands of meals a year to seniors in need.

The organization sends two annual mailings per year, seeking donations from the community. This year, it received more than $34,500 in donations, about $4,000 more than last year, and about $12,000 more than in 2007.

“It’s not what you would expect,” given the sour economy, Evans said.

The same is true at the United Way of Lamoille County and a statewide nonprofit group, the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger.

For the fiscal year that began July 1, 2008, the United Way set its fundraising goal for the year lower than normal.

“We always try to make a realistic goal, because you don’t want to make it too high and be disappointed,” said Dawn Archbold, executive director at the county United Way. “We lowered the goal from the previous year by $10,000 because of the economy — we didn’t think we could make that goal again.”

But it did. In fact it raised $189,000, more than it had raised the last several years, and more than in the years before the economy went kaput.

This year’s campaign is promising to be even better. Year to date, the Lamoille United Way has received already $7,500 more than it did during last year’s very successful campaign,

“I was extremely surprised. But I guess when it comes to Lamoille County, I should never be surprised, because to capacity to give here is amazing,” Archbold said. “Even though the economy has hit everyone, people are still donating as much or more. … We’re really surprised and fortunate; we really have no idea why this is.”

It’s not happening everywhere. According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, an industry newspaper, the nation’s largest charities anticipate giving will decline this year by a median of 9 percent.

All over the nation, college endowments, arts organizations and similar groups report huge drop-offs in contributions.

“Colleges and arts institutions are the hardest hit during an economic downturn,” said Marissa Parisi, executive director of the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, a statewide nonprofit. “Organizations like mine and Meals on Wheels have seen many donors shift their philanthropy to basic human needs. … As homelessness, poverty and hunger have gone up, we’ve seen the community really rise up to meet the need.”

The Vermont Community Foundation, based in Middlebury helps affluent donors invest large amounts of money and distribute it to causes, charities and organizations of their choosing. As of last year, the foundation had more than 500 separate charitable accounts and managed more than $100 million.

Stuart Comstock-Gay, president and CEO of the foundation, said that, while he isn’t seeing many new funds being opened, existing funds are steering a lot more of their money to help people in need.

“We’ve seen people from late 2008 (when the recession hit) through the first three quarters of 2009 giving at a very high rate, because they see a bigger need — especially for basic needs,” Comstock-Gay said.

To date, donors have spent 17 percent more than they did last year on charitable giving, Comstock-Gay said.

“We see people wanting to be more generous with what they have. They’re stretching their generosity as much as they can,” he said.

Money is being redirected to combat hunger, homelessness and human needs issues, he said.

“I think the arts organizations understand that food and shelter come first. You have to live. Yet, with no art, you’re in a bad place, too,” he said.

Never enough

Despite receiving more donations than in the past, Meals on Wheels did little better than break even this fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. Because the need for help increased, the money went out almost as fast as it came in.

The organization served a record 43,216 meals to seniors in Lamoille County last fiscal year, and Evans expects that number to keep increasing.

“A lot of people are coming to us because of the economy — their incomes have not grown because a lot are on Social Security, but food costs have gone up,” Evans said. “This year, we are projecting even more meals served; it makes me nervous. I don’t know if people can continue this, or if they gave all they could this year.”

The same is true at the Lamoille United Way.

“A lot of people have come in the last two years who had never come in for help before,” said Archbold, the director. The United Way helped 4,000 people directly last year alone, and also helped fund local social services, including Meals on Wheels.

Unfortunately, all the giving doesn’t mean things are rosy for nonprofits and charities.

“Even though there were increases in generosity, there is always a need to make more, because the need is so great and growing,” said Parisi, of the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger. “This is going to be a tricky next few years.”

Guard call up is biggest since WWII

Guard call-up: 1 per 500 residents

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Thursday, December 3, 2009 12:10 PM EST

On Tuesday, President Obama outlined for an anxious public his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

Among other things, the president announced the United States will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to help stabilize its frail government and build the infrastructure and institutions necessary to ensure Islamic extremists don’t regain control of the country.

It’s unlikely Vermont will be asked to increase its already heavy burden; the state is already committed to deploying more than 1,200 Vermont National Guard members at the beginning of 2010.

“As of now, there is no indication that our mission has changed,” Col. Lloyd Goodrow, public affairs officer for the Vermont Guard, said Wednesday in an interview. “We are working with the same numbers as we have been the last 18 months.”

Most of the 30,000 additional soldiers the president is asking to go to Afghanistan will be combat troops. The Associated Press reports that the Army brigades most likely to deploy are those from Fort Drum in New York, Fort Campbell in Kentucky, and Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Even without having to call up more Vermont soldiers, the current deployment is the largest for Vermont Guardsmen and women since World War II. A few towns in Lamoille County are especially hard hit.

Thirteen Morristown residents will leave their families, jobs and civilian responsibilities to fight in Afghanistan early next year — about one in 395 residents. Jeffersonville, a tiny village of fewer than 600 people in the town of Cambridge, is sending 11 citizens to Afghanistan, a staggering one of every 51 residents. Tiny Elmore, with a population of just under 1,000, is sending three citizens to the Middle East.

All told, 48 men and women from Lamoille County will be deployed, about one per 500 county residents. That almost exactly matches the Vermont average.

Stowe and Belvidere are the only towns in Lamoille County not sending any residents to Afghanistan, according to the Vermont National Guard. The Guard does not disclose the names of the soldiers being deployed.

Towns with high deployment rates will likely face big challenges in the coming year, Goodrow said: “When you deploy a National Guard member, you’re also deploying a valuable member of the community.”

“People who tend to join the National Guard are also those who tend to be very involved in community service: the Little League coaches, the church leaders, the volunteer firefighters.”

Most of those Guard members are also leaving jobs that their employers must figure out how to fill. By law, Guard members are entitled to be rehired after their deployment. In the meantime, the employers can hire temporary help, but it can be difficult to find a qualified person to fill the void right away.

“There is a pretty severe impact on civilian employers,” Goodrow says. “We ask them to make a big sacrifice.”

But that’s nothing compared to the sacrifice of families. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives and husbands are all leaving for a year.

A statewide program helps families with mental and financial support, as well as the arduous task of sifting through insurance and other documents. Centers have been set up in each county to help Guard families. The closest Family Assistance Center is at the Berlin Armory in Berlin.

Home for now

Most of the Vermont men and women scheduled for deployment are home now, after a month of training session at Fort Polk in Louisiana.

However, later this month, waves of Vermont soldiers will start leaving to train at the Camp Atterbury mobilization center in Edinburgh, Ind. Two groups will leave in December and two more in January, Goodrow said.

A short break in the training schedule will allow the soldiers to come home to their families in Vermont in late December. The government won’t pay to get the soldiers home, since the soldiers will officially be “on leave,” not on active duty, Goodrow said.

“It would be an inappropriate use of federal funds,” Goodrow said.

So, Vermonters mounted a very successful campaign called Operation Holiday Homecoming; it has raised more than $175,000 to rent coach buses to bring the soldiers home.

The trip is expected to cost just under $100,000. The extra money will go to the National Guard Charitable Foundation to support Guard families during the deployment.

After the holidays, the soldiers will go back to Camp Atterbury and will begin leaving for Afghanistan in early 2010. The military will not say exactly where the Vermont soldiers are headed, but most will be helping to rebuild an Afghanistan that has been torn apart by decades of nonstop conflict.

“The mission is working within the civilian infrastructure and law enforcement,” Goodrow said. “To help them, and put them back on their feet.”

At home, Vermonters will help their friends, neighbors and families who need help of their own, staying on their feet while their loved ones are gone.

Central Vermont

Central Vermont will be especially hard hit by the upcoming deployment. Sixteen soldiers from Waterbury are leaving to fight in Afghanistan early next year. In Duxbury, two soldiers are being deployed; in Moretown, five; in Warren and Waitsfield, three each.

All told, 146 men and women from Washington County will be deployed, about one for every 400 county residents, which is higher than the state average.

Waterbury, Barre, Montpelier and Northfield are all sending many more troops per capita than the state average. In Waterbury, about one of every 300 town residents will be deployed. In Barre, it’s one for every 175 residents. In Northfield, it’s one for every 200.

Guard deployment in Lamoille County

Morristown: 13 soldiers (1 in 395 people)

Jeffersonville: 11 (1 in 51)

Johnson: 9 (1 in 363)

Hyde Park: 5 (1 in 588)

Elmore: 3 (1 in 283)

Cambridge: 2

Eden: 2

Wolcott: 2

Waterville: 1

Belvidere: 0

Stowe: 0

County total: 48 (1 in 500)

*Population figures based on 2000 census.

•••

Want to help?

• Donate a calling card to help keep service members in touch with their families: www.operationuplink.org.

• E-mail a greeting to a soldier through Operation Dear Abby at http://anyservicemember.navy.mil or www.OperationDearAbby.net.

• Sign a virtual thank-you card at www.defendamerica.mil/nmam.html.

• Donate to the Operation USO Care Package at www.usocares.org.

• Donate to Cell Phones for Soldiers, a program started by Massachusetts teenagers who wanted to help soldiers overseas call home. You can donate a cell phone, money or calling cards at www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com.

• Support the American Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Services at www.redcross.org/services/afes.

• Volunteer at a Veterans Administration hospital. Visit www.va.gov/vetsday.

• Help the American Legion provide service members’ families with support and Blue Star Banners, which hang outside the house to indicate they have a family member serving overseas.

• Simply reach out to military families in your community, especially those with a loved one overseas.

Vermont state government looks to reinvent itself

Budget turmoil is top issue

Government looks to reinvent itself

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:15 PM EST

Fasten your seat belt for one of the most fascinating, important and historic legislative sessions in Vermont history.

It starts Jan. 5.

A year from now, it’s possible that the state government as it’s existed for decades will be sharply altered. State departments will be streamlined and modernized; budgets will be slashed; school, court and health-care systems will likely be revamped. The state’s energy situation could look much different.

Facing a $150 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, and another sizable deficit the year after, nearly all the key players in Vermont government agree: The status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable.

Early next week, lawmakers will receive a secret, unprecedented plan to restructure state government. The plan was developed this fall by a private, out-of-state consulting firm called Public Strategies Group, which worked with a public committee of legislators and Douglas administration officials.

According to Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, the plan calls for sweeping change and restructuring of many state agencies. The proposal will save $30 million in the next fiscal year, and significantly more in the years to follow, said Bartlett, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“We’re starting over from scratch; this is exactly how we fix this,” Bartlett said Monday in an interview. “I think folks understand how serious this is. We need to exhale and lead by example. If we do not make big structural changes this year, programs will die — strangled by a lack of money.”

The restructuring plans are bold but logical, and have been kept very close to the vest by people developing them, Bartlett said. Only a handful of legislators and other state officials have seen the draft. Bartlett’s appropriations committee won’t even see it until next week, just a day before it’s announced to the public.

Those who have seen the plan take deep breaths, Bartlett says.

She expects the Legislature to work quickly to adopt the changes so department heads can start making the changes required.

“My sense is that Vermonters understand that we need to make the hard choices, and they are looking for people willing to do that,” Bartlett said. “I’ll be pushing for those structural changes; hopefully the (restructuring) bill will get through real fast, or I’m afraid it will completely bog down.”

A reinvention

House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, and Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, agree that cutting around the edges won’t get the state government out of its fiscal plight.

“We’re in real trouble, and it’s going to be very difficult, given the position we put ourselves in last year,” Scheuermann said, referring to the 2010 state budget. “What I hope for is that we look at state government … strategically, across the board. We need to cut programs that don’t work and fix departments that are inefficient.”

Scheuermann said the Commission on Judicial Operation — which went through the entire court system and found structural inefficiencies that, if fixed, could save millions — is an example “of how the process needs to work.”

Smith said he expects the court commission, the Education Transformation Policy Commission — which is looking at improving education while slashing costs — and the Public Strategies Group plan, and others, to be part of the broad plan to cut state spending.

With the thousands of people potentially affected, and Montpelier’s notorious tortoise-like pace, can all this be done in 2010?

“As with any instance where you have to make fundamental changes that cut against the status quo, we’re going to meet significant resistance,” Smith said in an interview Monday. “But my colleagues in the House see these challenges as an opportunity to move Vermont forward on a financially stable path.”

“There will be pain,” Bartlett said bluntly. “Revenue is (projected to be) the same as 2005; that means spending needs to be what it was in 2005. You have to look at every school, every hospital, every agency and say, ‘Spending needs to be what it was in 2005 — if you can’t do it, we will, because the money does not exist.’”

People feel effects

Bartlett says the Public Strategies Group plan will save about $30 million and a hike in the federal Medicaid reimbursment will reduce the budget shortfall by $40 million to $50 million. But even so, the state still needs to save an additional $70 million to $80 million to balance its next budget.

“It’s going to be challenging … but one thing we have to remember is we don’t provide services in isolation. Services touch individual people,” Smith said. “When we talk about reductions, we’re talking about people possibly not receiving as much health care, not as much mental health services, affordable housing, or education. That money we spend touches real people. We need to keep that in mind. …

“At the same time, we realize that we have finite resources and we need to allocate them the right way.

“I expected my two-year term as speaker to be difficult and challenging, and I haven’t been disappointed.”

Scheuermann said that, while restructuring is badly needed, so is economic growth .

“We need concentrated economic growth. Every bill should be analyzed on how it will either create more jobs or put more jobs in jeopardy,” Scheuermann said. “We failed on both counts last year.”

Next week: Local lawmakers look at energy and health care.

Vermont farm culture vanishing Part III in series

Vermont farming culture is vanishing

Workers out in the field at Percy's Farm in Stowe this week. For a slideshow of images scroll to the bottom of the article. Photo by Nancy Cohn

By Jesse Roman

Published:

Thursday, August 27, 2009 2:25 PM EDT

“Congress bailed out the Wall Street banks because they were ‘too big to fail.’ If we don’t act now to support our dairy farmers, aren’t we saying they are ‘too small to matter’?”

Vermont Rep. Peter Welch posed that question recently to news outlets around the state. His answer is clearly no, dairy farmers are not too small to matter. And you won’t find many people on Capitol Hill — or any other place, for that matter — who would disagree.

The dairy crisis is a human story of physical and financial sacrifice, of big corporations bullying the little guy, of the loss of an iconic and traditional way of life.

But when you remove those personal elements and look at it through a harsh capitalist lens, should we care that Vermont dairy farms are disappearing at a rate of one every five days?

Will the average Vermonter even notice if dairy farms continue to disappear? Have you?

Vermont produces only 1.5 percent of the national milk supply. Of that, only about 5 percent stays in Vermont.

Farms in California, Canada and the Midwest would be all too happy to fill the void, and consumers would barely notice a difference at the supermarket. The milk market is already oversaturated and experts agree production needs to be cut. Eliminating farms is the most effective way to do that.

Dairy economists see the writing on the wall and know most farms won’t survive this recession, which for months has pushed milk prices well below the cost of production. That trend is estimated to continue well into 2010, and that timetable will likely cripple most farms.

“It’s a personal preservation decision. Most farmers will probably decide they are better off getting out,” concedes Dr. Bob Parsons, a farm economist at the University of Vermont. “They have to preserve what equity they have in the farm, the animals, the equipment; they can’t continue to lose money.”

But what is Vermont losing?

Vermont’s landscape

When farmers talk about selling, people like Alex Wylie get nervous.

Wylie, a former dairy farmer, is the agricultural director at the Vermont Land Trust, whose goal it is to preserve the state’s working landscape.

The effort is a race against time. Since 1982, Vermont has lost about 400,000 acres of farmland, or 625 square miles. That is more than 7 percent of the state’s total land area, switched over from farming to something else.

“We are very concerned about what’s going on,” Wylie said. “I am hearing stories that are very dire. It’s sickening.”

What’s particularly troubling for the land trust, and for others who like open land, is that even as farms are folding at higher rates, the number of calls to the land trust office hasn’t increased.

“If you are conserving your property, you’re most likely going to continue farming or sell to another farmer,” Wylie said. “If the farming future doesn’t look so good, (farmers) hesitate to conserve.”

Selling an easement to the land trust means your hands are tied; the land can’t be developed. The move dramatically lowers the value of the land — helpful if you want to sell to a relative or another farmer — but also gives farmers a one-time financial boost in exchange for simply continuing to farm.

It’s a good deal if you have no intention of quitting anytime soon. However, when debts are piling up and the future is uncertain, why would you take any of your options off the table?

“For all that open land in Vermont, what is the alternative use if not used for dairy farming?” Parsons asks rhetorically. “Our seasons are not long enough to grow small grains or corn. We don’t have the season for high-yielding grains. … The answer is breaking it up for vacation homes. This area can only support so many organic veggie farms.”

Now, about 170,000 acres of Vermont farmland is conserved, according to Wylie, which is just less than 15 percent of the total farmland left in the state. That means 85 percent of it is still unprotected.

According to statewide surveys, “97 percent of Vermonters say they want to maintain a working landscape in this state, and farming is a major part of that,” says Roger Allbee, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Agriculture. “Without that working landscape, Vermont would be a much different place today.”

The loss of farmland to developers isn’t just an aesthetic problem; it could be an economic one, too.

“A big reason people come to Vermont is the rural character. That would change dramatically without working farms in the future,” Allbee said.

According to the Vermont Department of Tourism, about 80 percent of visitors to Vermont report participating in a “cultural/learning” activity. More than a third of those people visited a farm.

Of the 60,000 people who requested a vacation packet from the Department of Tourism last year, about 8 percent listed visiting a farm or trying specialty products (usually from farms) as one of the three activities they are most interested in doing during their trip.

“We have found that visiting farmers’ markets and farm touring have grown in popularity over the last 10 years,” says Greg Gerdel, chief of research at the Vermont Department of Tourism. “It’s impossible to quantify the impact of farms, but there’s no doubt they play a big part in how we see ourselves and are a big piece of our brand.”

According to the most recent industry data, about 14 million people visit the state each year, and spend more than $1.5 billion here. More than 55 percent of tourism revenue comes from summer and fall months. Visitor spending supports more than 37,000 jobs, about 12 percent of all jobs in the state.

Direct impact

While there are indirect economic consequences to the loss of dairy farms, grain dealers, tractor dealers, hardware store owners, veterinarians and others will tell you there are also people affected directly by the farmers’ plight.

“The optimism of the people who walk through our doors is tied to the milk price,” says Tom Wood, a former dairy farmer, now the sales manager at Riverside Tractor and Equipment in Berlin.

While the store has a diverse customer base, many of the non-farmers who visit the store do a lot of business with dairy farmers.

“A lot of the peripheral people who are tied to the dairy industry, I can tell by the way they’re spending money that they’ve been impacted — many have curtailed their spending,” Wood says. “As dairy goes, so does the local economy. The first thing dairy farmers do when they get money is spend it. They are always at the local hardware store or at the dealer getting parts. But now they are in survival mode, just buying essentials like food, electricity and diesel.”

“The real economic impact if dairy farms go out of business is if cows leave the state … you lose that part of the economy,” said Parsons, the UVM economist. “The farm equipment, the feed and the fuel supply sectors. If farms disappear (in great numbers), you may have to drive 100 miles to get a John Deere part. … Feed dealers operate on volume; once the volume is gone, they’re gone.”

In Vermont, the climate is not suited to grow the type of corn, soy oil and canola oil mixtures needed to supplement cows’ diets, so most farmers have to buy feed. On average, a farmer spends about $1,100 per cow per year on grain and supplements, Parsons said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are about 140,000 cows in the state, making grain a $154 million-per-year industry in Vermont.

But now and in the foreseeable future, farmers just don’t have the money to buy things like grain — at least not as much of it.

“The cash is not there,” Parsons says. “They cannot afford to buy inputs, and you can only borrow so much. It’s a rolling snowball and nobody knows how to stop it.

According to the Vermont Department of Agriculture, revenues for the average farmer in this state will drop almost $108,000 from last year.

In Lamoille County alone, the total drop in income from last year to this on the county’s 42 farms is a staggering $4.5 million.

Statewide, 2009 farm revenue will be almost $113 million less than in 2008.

Those discrepancies are huge enough to have significant implications for the economy as a whole. The Department of Agriculture estimates that, when the book is closed on 2009, the state’s economy will have suffered to the tune of $225.5 million — all due to a sharp decline in milk prices and farm revenue.

“I spend about 80 hours of 120 per week working on this issue, and my time has only increased,” says Allbee, the agriculture commissioner. “This is an issue that keeps me up at night.”

A farming culture

Tom Wood says he has no regrets about trading in his dairy farm for a job selling Kubota tractors at Riverside Tractor and Equipment in East Berlin. He said he stopped farming about 10 years ago, and “I’m glad I did.”

“It doesn’t take Nostradamus to figure out you’ll walk away with better health and more retirement” if you give up farming, Wood says.

Still, it’s clear he’s more than a little sympathetic to the plight of the customers who walk into his store. And he, like many Vermonters, seems saddened by the passing of one of Vermont’s most iconic industries. It’s not just about the sad personal stories of financial turmoil, or the thought of disturbing the open landscapes; it’s about the culture that farming has shaped.

“When I was a kid, no matter where you lived, you could find a farmer within walking or biking distance and ask if he needs help haying or with other odd jobs on the side. There was always the opportunity to work if you wanted to work and get paid for it,” Wood said. “Now these teenage kids have nothing to do but sit around and play video games.”

When Wood ran his farm in Enosburg, he paid his kids and their friends $6 an hour, “gave them lunch, worked ’em hard and got the haying done.”

Now, he says — with the number of Vermont farms cut by more than half in the last 20 years — the only connection most kids have with the dairy industry is the lukewarm milk at the lunch counter.

“They are further away from the product and further away from the problem,” he says. “Now, if you walk around the street, you can’t find anyone who knows much about dairy farming. Twenty years ago, you could run into at least one person who has wrapped their arms around a 90-pound hay bale.”

Welcome

Thank you for viewing my blog. I am an award winning writer and editor covering news in the Stowe, V.T. area. My aim is to make this a space where I can easily share my work with friends, employers, and anyone else who's interested in reading about central Vermont.
A little about myself:

• Named 2008 Vermont Rookie Reporter of the Year by the Vermont Press Association.
• Chosen by the New England Press Association as one of six finalists for the 2008 New England Journalist of the Year Award.
• Won six writing awards in five categories at the 2008 New England Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest including: best sports story (first and second place), best transportation story (first place), best human interest feature story (second place), best social issues story (third place) and best environmental story (third place).