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Related Company: Goddard CollegeRobert Kenny has been appointed interim president of Goddard College. The Goddard Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve the hiring of Kenny, according to Board Chair Avram Patt. Kenny officially begins work April 30.
Kenny, a native of Vermont, returns to Goddard after serving as vice president of finance and administration at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, NJ. He had overseen finance and administration as well as academic affairs while at Goddard from 2008 to 2011. Prior to that he served in administrative roles and as a professor of business at St Michael’s College in Colchester.
“We are gratified and excited that Bob accepted our offer to serve the college again,’’ Patt said. “Bob understands Goddard’s unique history and strengths and we look forward to his leadership.”
Kenny graduated from the University of Vermont in 1972 and earned his Master's in Business Administration from UVM in 1981.

Related Company: Goddard CollegeGoddard College is the recipient of a $30,000 Cultural Facilities Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. With this award, Goddard plans to increase the comfort, accessibility, safety, and functionality of the Haybarn Theatre, which is currently a venue for national and international performers, community members, and students.
Specifically, this grant money will renovate the Haybarn’s foyer bathrooms, making them ADA accessible, and add assistive listening devices for the hearing-impaired, energy-efficient LED theatre lighting, and a permanent sound system and acoustic treatment.
“We are overjoyed to have the opportunity to bring much needed improvements to this essential community and student venue,” said Goddard College Event Manager Meg Hammond.

Related Company: Merchants BankStrolling of the Heifers has announced that Merchants Bank will continue as Presenting Sponsor of the upcoming Strolling of the Heifers Weekend, Slow Living Summit and Tour de Heifer.
Stroll Weekend takes place June 6-8, with the world-famous Strolling of the Heifers Parade as its centerpiece on Saturday, June 7, followed by the all-day, 11-acre Slow Living Expo, all taking place in downtown Brattleboro.
The Slow Living Summit, a conference on mindful, artful living and connected, resilient communities, takes place just before the weekend on June 4-6, while the Tour de Heifer, a set of 15, 30 and 60-mile farm-to-farm cycling tours, happens on Sunday, June 8.

Related Company: OpenTempo, Inc.OpenTempo, a healthcare IT company that helps medical practices create efficient staff schedules, has been awarded a bronze-level Governor’s Worksite Wellness Award for 2013.The awards will be presented by the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports and the Vermont Department of Health on Thursday, March 27, 2014, at the Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center in South Burlington. They are part of a day-long event focused on worksite wellness, taking place from 7:30 am to 4 pm.

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org With the exception of Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott, no Republicans or Progressives have raised money for statewide office races. Meanwhile, a conservative SuperPac has more than $100,000 banked for the next election cycle.
March 17 was the deadline for filing the first campaign finance reports for this election season. Only incumbent Democrats who now hold statewide seats have filed reports, which are now posted on the Vermont Secretary of State’s website.
Governor Peter Shumlin reported $320,000 in new contributions since July 16, 2013. He has more than $1 million in cash for the 2014 election, and at this point, the two-term incumbent has no challenger. In 2011-2012, the governor spent $345,000 to win re-election in a bid against Republican challenger Randy Brock, a former state senator who spent more than double that amount.

by Laura Krantz vtdigger.org About three years ago, staff at the Burlington Boys & Girls Club realized how bad the drug problem had become. Teens were afraid to walk home at night, afraid to cross the park, afraid of being assaulted by someone on drugs.
Staff heard from 13-year-olds asked to sell drugs, 15-year-old girls offered money from drug dealers for sex. They heard about guns and gang affiliations.
“These messages are coming from all different kinds of kids — rich, poor, middle class, from natives of Vermont, from places far away,” Boys & Girls Club Executive Director Mary Alice McKenzie told US Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, on Monday afternoon in Rutland.

Mary Alice McKenzie, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Burlington and Col. Tom L’Esperance, director of the Vermont State Police, participate in a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on opiate addiction in Rutland. Photo by Laura Krantz/VTDigger

Skiers and riders rejoiced over major March snowstorm Vulcan last week, but they aren’t the only ones that benefit from snowfall and cold weather in Vermont’s green mountains. Even those that are dreaming of summer in Vermont reap the economic benefits of our official state sports, as they bring in major spenders from surrounding states and generate hundreds of millions of tax revenue dollars.
Vermont’s ski and snowboard industry draws over $700 million in statewide spending each winter season. Think that money just gets spent at the mountains? Think again. Two-thirds of that spending occurs off-mountain in surrounding villages and towns, supporting many local businesses with the ski economy running deep throughout our communities. Those significant winter traveler expenditures generate another $700 million in indirect spending, totaling nearly $1.5 billion in economic benefit for Vermont’s economy.

A landmark clinical trial that studies the effectiveness of the most common spine surgeries has received the ultimate honor in orthopaedics: the 2014 Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation’s (OREF) Clinical Research Award.
The award recipients were Dr. James N. Weinstein, principal investigator for the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), and the D-H physicians, researchers, patient coordinators, and analysts who have conducted the study. The award was announced March 12 at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in New Orleans.
“This is an incredible honor”, said Weinstein, who is CEO and President of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health system and a spine surgeon. “In selecting SPORT, the Foundation has recognized the great work of my colleagues here at D-H and the 12 other participating centers across the country, as well as the contributions of the thousands of patients who agreed to be part of the trial.”

Governor Peter Shumlin and most of the state’s mayors today called on Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to withdraw the FDA’s approval of Zohydro ER, a drug which the governor says is significantly stronger than traditional hydrocodone. “We remind you that our state, and many others, are currently battling an opiate and heroin addiction crisis, doing everything within our power to prevent and treat the dangerous disease of addiction, and strengthen laws to keep these deadly drugs – and the crimes they bring – out of our communities,” the group said in a letter to Commissioner Hamburg. Those joining the Governor on the letter are St. Albans Mayor Liz Gamache, Montpelier Mayor John Hollar, Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon, Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras, Newport Mayor Paul Monette, Winooski Mayor Mike O’Brien, and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.

In a Viewpoint published in the March issue of JAMA, Researcher Jeremiah Brown of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice and colleagues, Hal Sox and David Goodman, question whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ use of financial penalties is the right tack for changing the behavior of hospitals.
The researchers examine the pros and cons of the hospital readmissions reduction policy in the Affordable Care Act as an example of similar CMS initiatives.
“Using financial incentives to change practice is a tried-and-true CMS strategy,” the researchers said. And the penalties worked – more than half of U.S. hospitals reduced their early readmission penalty in less than a year.

Federal regulations for reporting toxic chemicals in consumer products have not changed in decades, but Vermont is poised to join other states to label – and possibly ban – products containing chemicals considered harmful to public health.
Vermont has passed legislation to regulate the use of certain chemicals one at a time, including flame retardants, Bisphenol A (BPA), mercury and lead. But a new proposal would allow the Vermont Department of Health to expand this list every other year without legislative approval.
The bill, S.239, asks the department to create a list of potentially harmful chemicals and require manufacturers to label or remove toxic chemicals from their products – a proposal that has alarmed businesses across the country.

In an analysis by the Public Assets Institute released Monday, Vermont didn’t create as many new jobs in 2013 as reported earlier, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Each February, the BLS revises its data, which are based on statistical surveys. The new numbers show Vermont ended 2013 with 306,300 non-farm payroll jobs. That was nearly 3,000 fewer than originally reported and just 200 more than Vermont had at the end of 2012.
A Growing Workforce
While job growth was essentially flat last year, 2014 got off to a better start, at least as indicated by preliminary figures. According to the BLS, Vermont employers added 3,000 jobs in January, half in the private sector and half in the public sector. Meanwhile, Vermont’s unemployment rate dropped to 4 percent, down from 4.2 percent the previous month. The labor force—people working or looking for work—grew for the first time since late 2011.
Fewer Unemployed