Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The newly released findings from a Building Bright Futures (BBF) survey give insights into how Vermont’s early childhood system is working well for families, and how the system can do better. From August through October 2022, BBF’s Families and Communities Committee led a survey called the 2022 Vermont Early Childhood Family Needs Assessment that drew responses from more than 600 caregivers of young children across all regions in Vermont. The survey specifically asked about services and supports for children from the prenatal period through age 8. The goal of the survey was to better understand the experiences of families in order to inform policy and programs in Vermont’s early childhood system. It asked families about their experiences with accessing a range of services, including child care, early intervention services, healthy food, pediatric care and transitions between settings and services.

Vermont Business Magazine KeyBank announces today that Business Banking Senior Vice President Joseph R. McGowan has been appointed Market President for Vermont. McGowan will continue to serve the needs of KeyBank’s business clients in Vermont and nearby areas; in addition, he will take on the market president responsibility of overseeing and coordinating KeyBank’s go-to market strategy across its various lines of business and serve as Key’s face and voice to the Vermont community. McGowan joined KeyBank in 2011 as a branch manager for Key’s South Burlington branch, and was later promoted to Vice President, Area Retail Leader overseeing the retail, small business, and mortgage lending teams in Vermont. In 2019, he transitioned to Commercial Banking, managing a commercial lending portfolio, and serving Business Banking and Middle Market clients throughout the state and nearby areas.

Vermont Business Magazine Average gasoline prices in Vermont today are $3.46 per gallon, according to GasBuddy, up 7 cents per gallon from last week. Prices are up 2 cents/g from a month ago and down 59 cents/g from a year ago. The lowest price in the state is $3.15/g in Middlebury, while the highest is $4.29/g in West Bridgewater. The national average price of gasoline has risen 8 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.63/g today. The national average is up 18 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands 44 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

Vermont Business Magazine A ledger documenting the everyday activities of a Black woman living in a segregated neighborhood in Shreveport, Louisiana after World War II is driving research by the woman’s granddaughter – an academic fellow at Saint Michael’s College – and giving insight into how residents of these neighborhoods used education and literacy to work toward attaining liberation. Jolivette Anderson-Douoning, the Edmundite African American Fellow in the Saint Michael’s History Department and a PhD Candidate in the Purdue University American Studies Program, has used the ledger kept by her grandmother to inform parts of her dissertation research.

Statement from Nicole Clegg, Acting CEO, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England “Planned Parenthood of Northern New England continues to offer medication abortion to our patients. We have no plans to change our protocol at the moment. The decision issued Wednesday night ignores more than a decade of scientific and medical advancements in abortion access."

Vermont Business Magazine This week, Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) joined 240 Members of Congress, led by Senators Schumer, Murray, Sanders, Durbin, and Blumenthal and Representatives Jeffries, Clark, Pallone, Nadler, Lee, and DeGette, in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA. The brief supports the Biden Administration’s appeal of federal district court judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s Friday ruling that suspends the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone—threatening access to mifepristone for patients in Vermont and nationwide—as well as FDA’s congressionally-mandated authority and drug approval process.

Representative Becca Balint (D-Vermont) “Like many Vermonters and Americans, I’m stunned and furious by the news that a federal judge has ruled against the personal medical decisions that should be made between a patient and their doctor. This decision sets a dangerous precedent. Mifepristone is safe and effective and has been for more than two decades. What other safe and effective drugs will be removed because of political and ideological extremism? This is an assault on reproductive rights and women’s freedom.

Vermont Business Magazine The message from high school and college students about their future work expectations is loud and clear: they don’t want to work for someone else. In fact, 60% of teenagers are more interested in someday starting their own business rather than work in a traditional job, according to a new survey from Junior Achievement USA. CFES Brilliant Pathways has been hearing the same mantra from its students across the country who want advice on how to launch their own startups. In response, CFES is hosting a new webinar series “Insights from Entrepreneurs,” featuring individuals who started small, medium and large businesses in a broad range of fields.

Vermont Business Magazine The Rutland Regional Planning Commission (RRPC) has announced that the Agency of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Conservation, Water Quality Division has recently awarded RRPC a contract to administer water quality improvement programs to the 11 Regional Planning Commissions (RPCs) in the State of Vermont. The grant is funded through the 604B program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and is intended to promote water quality planning and improvements. Last year’s 604b funding was used to identify and review more than 300 water quality improvements across the state, many of which were high priority projects. These projects were entered into the state’s database and, as a result, are now eligible to receive priority funding under Vermont Clean Water Act grants.