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The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) loaned $837,212 in the 3rd quarter of 2014 to Vermont's small businesses, community facilities, child care programs and developers of affordable housing. These loans have created or preserved quality jobs, affordable homes, quality child care and other essential services for Vermonters throughout the state.

“VCLF’s ability to work closely with our borrowers, to provide not just the financing but the supporting services they need – we’re needed now more than ever before. The impacts of VCLF’s work are improving the health of our communities and the quality of life for hundreds of Vermonters,” said VCLF Executive Director Will Belongia.

Projects financed include:

Since its inception forty years ago, the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA) has approved 7,395 separate economic development financings totaling over $2.07 billion for Vermont businesses and farms. Created by the Vermont General Assembly in 1974, VEDA’s financing approvals through June 30, 2014 include direct commercial loans of over $352 million, agricultural loans exceeding $261 million, and since 1987, small business loans totaling almost $65 million.

These and other measures of the Authority’s contributions to Vermont’s economy over the years will be presented today at VEDA’s 40th Annual Meeting in Burlington. Governor Peter Shumlin will speak at the event, as will UBS Investment Bank Senior Investment Strategist Brian Rose.

VEDA’s 2014 Annual Report is available for viewing online at www.veda.org.

On Monday, AutoSaver Group presented a check for $20,000 from the company’s ‘Drive for a Cure’ campaign to the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. The donation was the largest gift Making Strides Against Breast Cancer has received this year from a new partner in Vermont.

AutoSaver Group partners – Ronney Lyster and Abel Toll – presented the check to staff members of the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer in Vermont as well as local survivors at the Capitol City Kia dealership in Montpelier.

“Corporate partners like AutoSaver Group have made breast cancer a priority by supporting Making Strides,” says Susan Rowell, one-year breast cancer survivor. “The American Cancer Society commends such partners that continue to raise funds to help finish the fight against breast cancer and help make an impact within our community and beyond.”

Vermont Business Magazine The US is still slowly recovering from the staggering loss of jobs during the Great Recession, but some cities and states are rebounding faster than others. Vermont is once again in the bottom 10 for 2014 as it was in 2013. Vermont did not suffer as much during the recession as several other states, and therefore has less to rebound from, but the state is also showing stagnant results in labor force and total employment. Research Professor Lee McPheters of the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University provides rankings and analysis of the winners and losers for states and metro areas across the country, based on the latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics through the the third quarter of 2014.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org Vermonters receiving premium subsidies through the state’s health insurance exchange will have an additional form to file with their income tax returns, and the state is preparing to help. This is the first year that the Affordable Care Act will affect tax returns, and state officials are expecting a good deal of confusion. Those below the federal income tax filing threshold of about $10,000 for an individual or between $14,000 and $20,000 for a family won’t be affected because they won’t have to file a return. People above the filing threshold must report that they had health insurance or they will owe a penalty, known as the shared responsibility payment.

National Life Group has improved its environmental conservation efforts in several key areas, as well as invested more heavily in the communities it serves, according to its newly released 2014 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Through greater efficiency and increased production of its own power, the company has driven down its electricity use per employee over the past four years. This spring, construction began on a new 500 kilowatt solar energy field. A biomass heating plant continues to decrease total emissions to 1,366 tons in 2013 from 4,078 in 2010.The company has also increased its recycling and continues to successfully encourage the use of alternate transportation.

Vermont Legal Aid has received a three-year Fair Housing Initiatives Program Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue the Housing Discrimination Law Project’s work to ensure Vermonters’ access to housing and to challenge both individual and systemic discriminatory practices. The $975,000 grant will be disbursed over three years to fund Vermont Legal Aid’s statewide systemic and complaint-based testing project, fair housing counseling, representation in enforcement actions, education, and land use planning and policy advocacy with state and local officials.

The Project’s most recent report on rental housing discrimination in Vermont, published in May 2014, found that discrimination was a factor in nearly half of the rental housing market tests conducted. The Project's testing consistently shows high rates of discrimination in rental housing based on race, color, national origin, having minor children, and disability.

Green Tree Servicing, LLC, a national servicer of residential mortgage loans, will pay Vermont consumers a total of $55,250 for the company’s debt collection practices and late payment of property taxes. Green Tree will also pay $176,750 to the State. According to Attorney General William Sorrell, the settlement is the first in Vermont to focus on mortgage-related issues since a series of multistate and federal settlements with national banks and servicers.

“We must ensure that home mortgages, which are so central to the financial well-being of Vermonters, are serviced in accordance with the law,” he said.

by John herrick vtdigger.org Brandy Ofciarcik-Perez pointed from her lawn to a sharp bend in the road as a flatbed truck carrying granite slabs overshot the center line in its trajectory down the hill toward her home. “People fly through here,” the 40-year-old dance instructor said, holding one of her three children by the hand. “I used to actually put up barriers.” Traffic is just one of the concerns raised by residents of Graniteville Road about an asphalt plant operating at the Rock of Ages quarry. More than two dozen neighborhood residents also say the plant is noisy and pollutes the air. Many landowners in the self-proclaimed Granite Center of the World have posted signs in their yards saying “stop the asphalt plant.”

Campaign for Vermont, a non-partisan citizen driven advocacy organization, has requested that Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer review the accuracy of “equalized pupil” and “education spending” calculations used by the Agency of Education and local school districts. These two highly obscure terms are defined in Vermont’s statutes and play a central role in setting local education property taxes, reallocating students from among school districts, and penalizing school districts with seemingly high spending levels per pupil. No other state utilizes these terms when managing their education funding system.

For fiscal 2014, the application of the legal requirements associated with “education spending” and “equalized pupils” resulted in the following:

Danforth Pewter and Gardener’s Supply Company, two nationally recognized Vermont-based specialty companies, have turned to the sun for emission-free solar power. The two companies will share the output of the newly installed Vermont solar array. The 144 KW system, constructed on the Pulling Farm in Addison features dual axis AllSun Trackers, manufactured nearby in Williston by AllEarth Renewables and a Power Purchase Agreement by SolarSense, LLC, a provider of clean, reliable and affordable power.

Danforth Pewter is a family-owned fine pewter crafter based in Middlebury, Gardener’s Supply, headquartered in Burlington is an employee-owned company providing environmentally friendly gardening products and information through its website, catalogs, and retail stores.

Vermont’s groundwater will now be better protected from pollution discharged into underground wells. Today the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued new Underground Injection Control Rules, replacing less protective 1982 standards. The rules regulate waste below ground through Vermont’s Underground Injection Control Program, authorized under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

“This new rule provides a strategic and targeted approach to increasing protections for Vermont’s groundwater,” said DEC Commissioner David Mears.