For decades, Vermont has made a concerted effort to support victims, protect communities, and emphasize accountability in cases of domestic violence. However, domestic violence continues to be a persistent problem in the state. Although Vermont’s overall crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, Vermont experiences substantial rates of domestic violence. However, limitations of publicly available data make the true prevalence of domestic violence unknown. Vermont leaders received a competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance in 2020 to utilize a Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) approach to address these challenges specific to domestic violence. Vermont then contracted with the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center to assess domestic violence responses and recommend improved policies and practices. Though Vermont has historically innovated policies and practices related to domestic violence, disinvestment has been a challenge in recent years. This brief provides an overview of domestic violence trends in Vermont and how they are being addressed through JRI. The study found that as misdemeanor and felony court cases overall have declined over the last decade, the proportion of felony domestic violence cases in Vermont courts has increased, and that Vermont’s rural geography poses challenges to domestic violence monitoring and is associated with barriers to service provision and accessibility.

Compared to their White peers, Black youth are far more likely to be arrested and far less likely to be diverted from court following arrest. Such outcomes, such as getting arrested in adolescence or having a delinquency case filed in juvenile court, damages young people’s future and increases their subsequent involvement in the justice system. Pre-arrest diversion occurs when authorities make a decision not to involve police, not to make an arrest, or not refer a case to juvenile court. Pre-arrest diversion and pre-court diversion can be powerful options for reducing racial and ethnic disparities and improving outcomes in our nation’s youth justice systems. Both types of diversion are used far less than the evidence shows would be optimal. Yet, for most youth, diversion is more effective and developmentally appropriate than court. This report introduces diversion as a crucial, untapped opportunity to address continuing racial and ethnic inequities in America’s juvenile justice systems. It identifies steps that advocates and system leaders can take to grow the use of diversion and ensure that young people, including making diversion a primary focus in juvenile justice reform, appointing an oversight body to review progress and advocate for further reforms when necessary, and adopting policies that reduce subjectivity in diversion decisions.

This report presents the educational and training materials developed by the U.S. Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) to streamline and improve access to historical criminal record data. The DCSA is the federal agency responsible for conducting the background investigations and personnel vetting for 95% of the federal workforce, including current and prospective federal government employees and contractors. However, state, local, tribal, and territorial organizations are often unaware of DCSA's role, responsibilities, and authorities and unaccustomed to criminal history record information collection and federal background investigations generally. To help address this challenge, Congress authorized DCSA to provide training and education assistance to state, local, tribal, and territorial communities in 2020. The objective of these materials is to develop and deepen state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies' knowledge and understanding of their federal statutory obligations to share criminal history record (CHRI) information with DCSA and to facilitate more effective and efficient CHRI sharing. The report assesses the current educational and training needs of state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies, noting that current and past materials have inconsistent branding and contain information gaps that result in confusion or lack of understanding by state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the report presents a new suite of education and training materials with eight components such as a CHRI Sharing Guidebook for DCSA.

Students of color continue to experience disparities in enrollment, retention and completion of postsecondary education — a reality that’s been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of persistent and systemic inequities, policymakers are increasingly interested in exploring funding approaches that support greater access and attainment to postsecondary education for students of color. In recent years, they have focused on increasing state funding for financial aid programs to mitigate inequitable postsecondary affordability. This report includes findings from interviews with postsecondary education stakeholders in four states: Michigan, Oregon, Texas, and Utah. Based on these interviews, the authors recommend the following considerations: 1) clearly define goals and set priorities to address inequities in postsecondary education; 2) prioritize achieving equitable outcomes in postsecondary education funding; 3) consider how financial aid programs interact with equity goals and equitable funding; 4) consider how postsecondary governance helps or hinders equitable funding; and 5) incentivize institution and system actions to support access and achievement for diverse student populations.

This report summarizes lessons learned about how small colleges can fund and sustain guided pathways reforms. Guided pathways is a reform movement that aims to improve college completion and student success by redesigning students' journeys through college. This report is based on activities at three small Ohio community colleges that have made large-scale changes in practice based on the guided pathways model over the past several years. These colleges—North Central State College, Washington State Community College, and Zane State College—have successfully implemented these reforms in an environment that has challenged community colleges, especially smaller institutions. The challenges facing these and other colleges nationally include declining enrollments, decreased tuition revenue, and performance based funding. Despite the challenges created by weak enrollments, lower tuition revenue, and pressure to improve performance, all three colleges have managed to implement major changes in practice that have enriched the experience in and out of the classroom for all entering students, not just targeted groups, including strengthening program onboarding, eliminating prerequisite remediation, and building on-ramps to college and career pathways for high school students, among other institution specific innovations.

A relevant, well-crafted emergency plan can help schools most optimally return to normal following a disaster. During this time, educators find themselves facing unintended responsibilities like operating on the front lines of providing social-emotional support for their students. Researchers conducted 115 interviews with educators impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Matthew in Texas and North Carolina to assess their mental health and their school’s role in returning to normal. The author’s analysis of interview data revealed that both hurricanes resulted in significant disruptions in social-emotional wellbeing for educators. Their results showed that most schools were unprepared to address these needs following the disaster. Educators overwhelmingly addressed the following three themes as reasons for being overburdened and emotionally taxed; (1) the emotional toil they faced outside of school, (2) the unexpected demands from students and the community, and (3) the lack of resources to assist with recovery. The paper seeks to provide insight into the experiences of educators following a disaster and propose elements to consider in revising school emergency plans. Although recovering from a disaster is inherently a stressful situation, people will take on additional roles, ensuring that available resources may help people cope with the situation. However, research found that a lack of a comprehensive emergency plan created spaces for heightened stress and anxiety. The article explains the necessary components of a plan, and how to properly compose one.

This monthly state tax collections report provides data for the following sales taxes; general sales, lodging, alcoholic beverages, motor fuel, tobacco products as well as individual income and corporate income taxes. Data reported for a specific month generally represent sales taxes collected on sales made during the prior month. Tax collections primarily rely on unaudited data collected from existing state reports or state data sources available from and posted on the internet. Secondarily, states report the data via the Quarterly Survey of State and Local Tax Revenue. Data are updated monthly, but due to differing reporting cycles data for some states may lag. The last data release was September 8, 2022 and the tool allows users to compare year-to-year changes for a specific month in tax collections between 2019 and 2022. Between June 2021 and June 2022, general sales tax collections in Florida increased by 9.81%.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review the extent of alignment among the responsibilities of federal agency chief information officers (CIOs), their private sector counterparts, and the overall federal CIO located in the federal Office of Management and Budget. This report examines (1) the responsibilities of selected CIOs in the private sector and how they compare to the responsibilities of federal agency CIOs; (2) the qualifications and tenure of selected CIOs in the private sector; (3) how the responsibilities of the federal CIO compare with those of federal agency and private sector CIOs; and (4) how private sector CIO experiences can be applied to the challenges facing federal agency CIOs. Most of the 71 private sector chief information officers the GAO surveyed reported having responsibilities that align with those of agency CIOs in nearly all key information technology (IT) management areas. One area of responsibility, the statistical policy area, was reported by more than half of respondents as being outside their scope of responsibility. In addition, CIO respondents also reported sharing responsibility with other executives in each IT management area. But, the federal CIO position isn't established in law, resulting in its responsibilities being more limited than those of other types of CIOs. And former agency CIOs reported challenges in achieving meaningful collaboration with other executives. Private sector and former agency CIOs participating in panel discussions reported challenges faced by federal agency CIOs. Specifically, private sector CIO panelists stated that collaboration between the CIO and other senior executives is essential to driving successful business outcomes. Conversely, former federal CIO panelists reported difficulty achieving meaningful collaboration with other managers. Congress should consider establishing the federal CIO position in law, and we recommended that the Office of Management and Budget make collaboration between CIOs and other executives a higher priority, among other things.

Participatory budgeting, or PB, is a form of civic engagement wherein municipal governments and other entities allocate public funds to projects proposed and voted on by residents. Participatory budgeting is often implemented as an annual cycle of engagement and typically follows the following steps: 1) a steering committee that represents the community creates the rules and engagement plan, 2) participants share and discuss ideas for projects through meetings and online tools, 3) volunteer budget delegates develop the ideas into feasible proposals, 4) participants vote on the proposals that most serve the community’s needs, and 5) the government or institution funds and implements the winning ideas. Best practices for PB include dedicating adequate funds to PB projects and to planning for PB activities, prioritizing engaging people with low incomes, people of color, and other historically excluded people, paying people for their time, providing many options for discussion and voting, and to track and monitor your goals around outreach and inclusion.

In 2020, the percentage of adults who had received any mental health treatment in the past 12 months was significantly higher than in 2019. Previous research has found that symptoms of an anxiety disorder or a depressive disorder increased from 2020 through the beginning of 2021, especially among younger adults. This report describes trends in the percentage of adults aged 18 to 44 who had received any mental health treatment, defined as having either taken medication for mental health, received counseling or therapy, or both in the past 12 months by selected characteristics based on data from the 2019–2021 National Health Interview Survey. Estimates for adults aged 45–64 and 65 and over are presented for comparison. The percentage of adults who had received any mental health treatment in the past 12 months increased from 2019 to 2021, among both adults of all ages (19.2% to 21.6%) and those aged 18–44 (18.5% to 23.2%). Among adults aged 18 to 44, women were more likely than men to have received any mental health treatment. From 2019 to 2021, the percentage of adults aged 18 to 44 who had received any mental health treatment increased among non-Hispanic White (from 23.8% to 30.4%) and non-Hispanic Asian (from 6.0% to 10.8%) adults. Among adults aged 18 to 44, the percentage who had received any mental health treatment increased from 2019 to 2021 across large and medium or small metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.

This report presents poverty estimates for calendar year 2021 using two measures, the official poverty measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). This is the first time both poverty measures have been integrated into a single report. The official poverty measure, in use since the 1960s, defines poverty by comparing pretax money income to a poverty threshold that is adjusted by family composition. The SPM, first released in 2011 and produced with support from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, extends the official poverty measure by taking account of many government programs that are designed to assist low-income families but are not included in the official poverty measure. The official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6%, with 37.9 million people in poverty. Neither the rate nor the number in poverty was significantly different from 2020. The majority of demographic groups did not experience significant changes in their poverty rates between 2020 and 2021 using the official poverty measure. The SPM rate in 2021 was 7.8%, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points from 2020. This is the lowest SPM poverty rate since estimates were first published and the third con­secutive decline.