Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) announced today the promotion of longtime aide Kathryn Becker Van Haste to fill the role of State Director. Van Haste began working for Senator Sanders in 2013 in Washington, D.C. where she served on both his Senate Veterans Affairs and Budget Committee staffs. Most recently, she has worked in the Vermont office on health care and veterans' issues.

Vermont Business Magazine Effective, May 5, 2020, in accordance with Governor Phil Scott’s order, Rutland Regional Medical Center will resume outpatient surgeries and procedures, in-person physician clinic visits, and diagnostic imaging services. These services will come back on-line in a controlled and phased way while following strict protocols from the Centers for Disease Control and Vermont Department of Health.

Vermont Business Magazine Effective May 5, 2020, Rutland Regional Medical Center will now provide laboratory services at the former Affiliated Lab Services location at 65 Allen Street in Rutland. Northern Light Laboratory, the parent company of Affiliated, which is based in Maine, ceased providing lab services in Vermont on May 1, 2020.

“As soon as Affiliated alerted us about their plan to pull their operations out of Vermont back in February, we began to do the work to transition the space to a Rutland Regional Lab Draw station,” said Jonathan Reynolds, Vice President of Clinical Services at Rutland Regional Medical Center. “We have hired the majority of the Affiliated staff, so the same familiar faces will be in the lab, and we’ve acclimated Rutland Regional lab techs to the space as well.”

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General TJ Donovan announced today that he secured from Comcast a donation of 250 Chromebooks to a Vermont school district in need. As Vermont school children have shifted to remote learning, some pupils in the Orange-East Supervisory Union (OESU) did not have reliable access to tablets or computers. The Chromebooks were delivered on Monday.

Vermont Business Magazine US Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Monday that agricultural businesses are now eligible for SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and EIDL Advance programs. SBA’s EIDL portal has reopened and is accepting applications from agricultural businesses only as a result of funding authorized by Congress. The legislation provides additional funding for farmers and other agricultural businesses affected by COVID-19. Also Monday, Governor Scott issued an amendment to Addendum 3 to his executive order, allowing limited elective health care procedures to resume. Outpatient clinic visits and diagnostic imaging can resume immediately if providers demonstrate they are adhering to physical distancing and relevant CDC guidelines. Providers may also begin to perform outpatient surgeries and procedures that have a minimal impact on inpatient hospital bed capacity.

by Joshua T White, MD, Gifford At 3 pm Wednesday, April 29, the Vermont Department of Health was reporting no new COVID cases in Vermont for a 24-hour period. This is a stunning accomplishment, and one that I would not have imagined possible. On the same day, New York reported more than 4,500 new cases and Massachusetts just under 2,000 new cases. And here we were at zero. This is particularly incredible given that a number of Midwestern states are now in the unfortunate position of realizing that a rural environment is not a guaranteed defense against widespread disease. Vermonters should be proud.

​Vermont Business Magazine YES! Now that Governor Phil Scott has made the decision to open up doctor’s offices to non-emergent care, the leadership of Vermont Orthopaedic Society (VOS) want to let you and your family know that it is safe to go see your orthopedic surgeon. The physicians of the VOS have met and put into place required safety measures.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Representative Ro Khanna (Calif-17) unveiled on Monday the Emergency Medical Supplies Procurement Act to mobilize the federal government to close the gap in the production of health care equipment. "Outrageously," they said, nearly three months after the first known COVID-19 death in the United States, health care providers across the country are continuing to report supply shortages. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has failed to utilize the full powers of the federal government, including special authorities like the Defense Production Act (DPA), to respond to the urgent needs of states and communities to save lives.

by John McClaughry A year ago Vermont State College Chancellor Jeb Spaulding circulated a white paper on the future of Vermont’s five-college system (not including UVM). A month ago he reinforced the worsening facts spelled out in the white paper in a letter to the Governor and key legislators. On April 20 he went public with the recommendation that the VSC Board consider closing down three of the VSCs colleges: Vermont Tech at Randolph and Northern Vermont University at Johnson and Lyndon.

Not surprisingly, a furious resistance sprang up. The Board accepted the Chancellor’s resignation, and the future of the VSC system vaulted to center stage. What to do?

First, let’s return to the white paper’s analysis. Here (condensed) are six unavoidable facts.

1. Steadily declining numbers of Vermont high school graduates, and overbuilt colleges.

2. Bottom ranked state support (49^th among the 50 states).

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports presents the 2020 Vermont Business Wellness Leadership Award to Michael Nobles, President and CEO of Union Mutual Insurance Company. The Business Wellness Leadership award, traditionally presented at the Worksite Wellness Awards ceremony, recognizes one Vermont employer who demonstrates exemplary efforts to promote a healthy work-life balance for their employees. Nobles’ strong leadership and generous service to the community make him a role model in sustaining a culture of well-being.

Vermont Business Magazine The LoveYourBrain Foundation has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the Daniel E Offutt III Charitable Trust, which will help LoveYourBrain provide its evidence-based Yoga program for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and establish a new fund designed to empower the TBI community. Offutt resided in Weston, Connecticut for more than 30 years and passed away in 2016, unmarried with no immediate survivors. Richard Orenstein, Trustee, said of Offutt, “Dan was a thinker ‘out of the box,’ and this sort of innovative approach to supporting TBI would have been right up his alley.”

Vermont Business Magazine But Why, VPR’s podcast for curious kids, will broadcast a live, interactive educational program for elementary school students on Fridays at 1 pm May 8 through June 19. The programs will cover a wide range of topics related to natural science, poetry, space, history and civics. Students are invited to call or write in with their questions during each show, which will be answered by expert guests. The first program on Friday, May 8 will focus on bats with guest Barry Genzlinger of the Vermont Bat Center.