Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Northern Vermont University (NVU) and Lyndon Institute (LI) officials, as well as student program participants, joined together today to announce the innovative expansion of the successful early college program, the Lyndon Learning Collaborative. With this expansion, program graduates will now be able to graduate Lyndon Institute with an Associate Degree.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power’s ongoing commitment to deliver innovative storage programs to benefit customers expanded with the announcement of a pilot program with Enphase Energy Systems. As part of the pilot program, customers lease or purchase two Enphase IQ Batteries for their home. Customers agree to share access to the batteries to cut power demand during expensive energy peaks when people are using a lot of energy, which helps lower costs for all.

The Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets has announced the opening of the 2022 Farm to School Vision grant. This competitive funding opportunity is designed to help schools, childcare providers and afterschool programs engage with food system issues through youth education and empowerment. Awards of up to $16,000 are available to support projects that help Vermont youth learn about and engage in issues related to agriculture, nutrition, health, and related fields. We are specifically interested in projects that offer innovative and impactful approaches, can be easily scaled or replicated, and address contemporary issues affecting the food system.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) held a roundtable discussion at the Vermont State House on Saturday afternoon with the student finalists of his twelfth annual State of the Union essay contest. The contest gives Vermont high school students an opportunity to write about a major issue facing the country and propose what they would do to solve it.

by David Coates & Mark Crow Recently the Pension Benefits, Design and Funding Task Force released its final report with recommendations to fix the retirement systems for state workers and teachers.

While the recommendations are a good start, they do not include the systemic solutions needed to make the systems sustainable.

What is the deal? Basically, the state would add $200 million of one-time funding to the systems’ pensions and $67 million to prefund the systems’ retiree health care benefits. The state would also put in $30 million from fiscal year 2024 through fiscal year 2026. and then contribute $30 million annually after that. State workers’ and teachers’ contributions to the pensions would increase and there would be limitations upon cost-of-living increases.

Vermont Business Magazine The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), representing the country’s nearly 3,000 local health departments, has awarded more than $450,000 in funding to six Overdose Response Strategy pilot projects to help address the opioid crisis in their communities, including: Springfield Turning Point Recovery Center, Vermont; $120,000. The Supportive Outreach Project has received funding as an Overdose Response Strategy Pilot Project for the third year in a row following a Planning Grant and Implementation Grant in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The Supportive Outreach Project will continue to build off this work and use the current Expansion Grant to extend the project to additional areas – Windsor and Windham Counties, VT.

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Vermont Business Magazine As Vermont transitions away from the pandemic, leaders who value a strong network of support to move forward will find the greatest success. After such a challenging, exhausting, and at times isolating, two years, there is strength now to be gained from comradery. Strong leadership rooted in the value of peers coming together to work collaboratively and uphold one another is more important than ever.

Vermont Business Magazine Purchase fruit and vegetable seeds and seedlings with your 3SquaresVT benefits to put fresh food on your table all season long. Signs of spring are slowly but surely appearing across the state, which means it’s time to think about which fruits, vegetables, and herbs to grow this season. Vermonters can buy their seeds and seedlings that produce edible foods with 3SquaresVT. 3SquaresVT is Vermont’s name for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides eligible people with money every month to buy groceries.

Leonine Public Affairs The House and Senate held lengthy floor sessions this week as lawmakers held one vote after another on a backlog of bills. The FY2023 budget bill, transportation bill (T-Bill) and capital bill all received floor votes in the House this week as did a major bill relating to workforce development and many other policy bills. The House worked deep into the evening on Wednesday and Thursday to try to clear its calendar so the Senate can receive and start work on the budget and other bills as the final phase of the 2022 legislative session approaches.

Vermont Business Magazine The Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College, in partnership with the Vermont State Board of Education, is offering a free online, on-demand conference on teaching personal finance that will begin on March 28, but will be accessible asynchronously through April 30. The conference was originally offered last spring, when more than 500 registered for the event. Many educators indicated that due to pandemic related reasons they were unable to take this free training and asked that if be offered on more time. The economic sponsor of that 2021 event, Northfield Savings Bank Foundation, has provided funding to our Center so that we can offer this event one more time.

Vermont Business Magazine A record number of University of Vermont students are recipients of prestigious Goldwater scholarships this year. Goldwater scholarships are considered the most prestigious undergraduate scholarship in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering in the United States.

Vermont Business Magazine The Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Hopridge Farms will present the fifth annual Southern Vermont Winter Homebrew Festival on Saturday, April 30th in downtown Bennington, Vermont at the Bennington Sports Center formerly the Catamount School on North Street. The Saturday festival, which was canceled in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, will open its doors at noon to exclusive VIP ticket holders for a private tasting of the best homebrews in the region.