Current News

Vermont Business Magazine In February Community Bank System, Inc (NYSE: CBU) announced the completion of a balance sheet repositioning related to its investment securities portfolio. The company is the parent of Community Bank NA with branches across Vermont. The company executed the sale of $786.1 million in book value of its lower-yielding available-for-sale debt securities for an estimated after-tax realized loss of approximately $39.6 million. Proceeds from the sale of $733.8 million were redeployed towards paying off existing wholesale borrowings with a spread differential of approximately 320 basis points higher than the securities that were sold. The company said in a press release that it estimates that the loss will be recouped within approximately two years.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Works for Women (VWW) is creating a pathway from incarceration to employment for women in a three-year community-based pilot program. The program, called BEAM: Building Employment and Meaning, offers eligible participants stable housing, immediate employment, and wrap around support from a VWW re-entry services program manager. The BEAM program’s first employer partner is Middlebury College. The program is the first of its kind outside the justice system in Vermont and is mutually beneficial to the participants, for whom employment is a major success factor and contributor to reduced recidivism, and to Middlebury, which like many employers in Vermont has contended with staffing shortages and faced challenges in filling positions.

Public Assets Institute The share of Vermonters who are working has fallen off in the wake of the pandemic and has not regained the levels held for four decades before Covid. From 1981 to 2019, two-thirds of Vermonters 16 and older were working each year, on average. That percentage dropped under 60 percent in the first year of the pandemic and crept up to 61.5 percent in 2022, according to new federal data. During the 40 pre-COVID years, Vermont ranked among the top 10 states in the percentage of the working-age population that was employed. In 2022 Vermont’s position was just 18th. If the state’s employment-population percentage returned to long-term pre-pandemic levels, 20,000 more Vermonters would be employed.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power (GMP) is alerting customers to a large winter storm system that forecasters say will affect the Northeastern US including parts of Vermont starting Monday evening. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for parts of Vermont due to the likelihood of heavy, wet snow starting Monday evening and continuing throughout Wednesday morning. Large amounts of heavy, wet snow are forecasted in higher elevation areas of Central and Southern Vermont.

by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine Today, the Vermont Department of Labor reported that the seasonally adjusted statewide unemployment rate for January was 2.9 percent, according to household data. This reflects a decrease of one-tenth of one percentage point from the prior month’s revised estimate. The comparable US rate in January was 3.4 percent, a decrease of one-tenth of one percentage point from the revised December estimate. The annual adjustments effectively raised the state's unemployment rate, which is now tied for 12th lowest in the nation. For instance, the state's December rate was originally reported as 2.6% (sixth lowest in US) and now adjusted to 3.0% (which would have been tied for 14th).

Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) announced today that Champlain Community Services (CCS) has begun initiating operational control of Green Mountain Support Services (GMSS), a Specialized Services Agency (SSA) based out of Morrisville, Vermont, providing Developmental Services, Adult Family Care, and Brain Injury Services to 122 Vermonters. This action by CCS comes after DAIL issued a notice of SSA de-designation to GMSS on February 27, 2023. All SSAs are required to meet certain criteria and undergo periodic review by DAIL to ensure that the SSA designation criteria are met. DAIL’s most recent re-designation review of GMSS identified multiple deficiencies requiring corrective action.

Vermont Business Magazine The LoveYourBrain Foundation’s co-Founder and Executive Director, Adam Pearce, has been named a 2023 CNN Hero, a year-round initiative that honors everyday people for their selfless, creative efforts to make the world a better place. In 2010, Pearce stepped away from his career to provide full-time care to his brother, professional snowboarder Kevin Pearce, who suffered a near fatal traumatic brain injury (TBI) while training for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Adam Pearce, like so many millions of caregivers across the country, played an integral and ongoing role in supporting his brother’s healing journey, which was documented in the 2010 film by Lucy Walker, ‘The Crash Reel’.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on Sunday issued the following statement on Silicon Valley Bank. California's banking regulator on Friday took possession of Silicon Valley Bank due to inadequate liquidity and insolvency, appointing the FDIC as receiver of the startup-focused lender. SVB is the second-largest bank to fail in US history ($212 billion in assets) next to Washington Mutual ($300 billion) in 2008. SVB was the 16th largest bank in the US prior to its demise.

Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets The Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center (NE-DBIC) is working to build resilience and capacity in the region's dairy supply chain. One critical aspect of this work is investing in regional processing. To that end, NE-DBIC has two dairy processing grants that are open now: $12 million in funding is available to help processing facilities located in the Northeast expand utilization of regionally sourced milk, with a focus on acquiring specialized equipment needed to increase processing capacity through volume expansion and existing product line expansion. Open to dairy processors in the Northeast, there are three tiers of funding available to accommodate processors of all scales.

Vermont Business Magazine New England’s annual capacity auction closed with sufficient power system resources to meet peak demand in 2026/2027, and preliminary results indicate the clearing price was among the lowest in the auction’s history. Nearly all of the new resources securing capacity supply obligations were wind, solar, energy storage, or demand-reducing resources. ISO New England Inc. runs the auction each year to procure the resources needed to meet consumer demand for electricity three years later. Held this year on March 6, the 17th Forward Capacity Auction (FCA 17) closed after four rounds of competitive bidding.

Almost 750 MW of new renewable energy, energy storage, and demand-reducing resources secured obligations in FCA 17.

by Joy Choquette, Vermont Business Magazine Sprawling down the eastern side of Vermont, Windsor County boasts a variety of industries in its 977 square miles. As the pandemic winds down, area business leaders and association executives weigh in. Bob Flint, executive director of Springfield Regional Development Corporation, said that demographics and workforce participation are “ongoing challenges” that the county faces. “There needs to be continued work on barriers to sustainable employment,” said Flint, “as well as investments in education and training.” He noted that this comes in the form of career and technical education, both for secondary students and adults. Alongside the Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation, the SRDC is collaborating with the Working Communities Challenge projects.

by Kelly Nottermann "If you look online, you can find Chinese food, Italian food and so many ethnic cuisines, but not African,” said Damaris Hall, co-founder of Global Village Foods. “So, we thought, ‘Why not?’ We will be the pioneers of African cuisine, and we’ll do it from Vermont.” A trained chef in Kenya, Hall emigrated to the United States in 1991 with her now-husband and business partner, Mel. The couple settled in Quechee, with dreams of starting their own business. “We always talked about what kind of business we would open,” said Mel. “Even before we left Kenya, we knew that’s what we wanted to do.”