Current News

Governor Jim Douglas today announced that $300,000 in brownfield grants have been awarded to help revitalize former industrial and commercial properties in Barre, Brattleboro, Burlington, Johnson Village, Springfield and Wells River.
Brownfields are properties where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.
“The brownfield program is a great example of our ability to balance environmental protection and economic development,” Governor Douglas said. “Redevelopment of brownfields properties stimulates local economy by getting unproductive properties back on the tax rolls, strengthening downtowns and creating jobs.”
The brownfield reuse program at the Department of Environmental Conservation has awarded almost $1 million in grants in the last three years to 20 projects across Vermont.
The following projects received grants:

Grafton Village Cheese Co., makers of award-winning, handcrafted Vermont cheddar cheese, announced today it will begin paying its local milk suppliers a special premium while milk prices are below the cost of production. The Company is working in concert with its two milk co-ops Agri-Mark and DMS, both of which have given Grafton Cheese permission to send checks directly to the farmers.
Grafton Village Cheese is a major business of the Grafton, Vermont-based Windham Foundation whose mission is to promote Vermont s rural communities. All of the milk used for Grafton Cheese is from Vermont family farms, located primarily in southern and central Vermont.

President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin will be joined by members of IBM's development team and health care specialists tomorrow at noon to discuss how Vermont can develop a state of the art health care billing system. The system will include health care insurance cards, a health care payment card and an established network where providers and payers can connect via a central hub. This new structure will fix our broken collections system by improving efficiency and saving Vermonters money.
The Senate Appropriations and Health and Welfare committees will hear testimony on the development of this health care billing system tomorrow at 1:30 in the Senate Appropriations committee room.
What: Press conference on the development of Vermont's health care payment system.
Where: Senate Chamber
When: Thursday, April 9 at noon

Award-winning author Andre Dubus III will be awarded an Honorary Degree from Southern Vermont College and will address the graduating class on Sunday, May 17, for the school s 82nd commencement. Dubus is the author of House of Sand and Fog (a Finalist for the National Book Award and an Oprah s Book Club selection which was made into a major motion picture), Bluesman and The Cage Keeper and Other Stories. His most recent and widely acclaimed novel, The Garden of Last Days, dramatically weaves a tale about the intertwining lives of several characters leading up to 9/11.

Visitors to the Green Mountain State spent more than $1.61 billion for goods and services in 2007, according to a recent study that measures the impact of visitor spending on the Vermont economy.
The study, prepared by Economic and Policy Resources (EPR) of Williston, shows that visitors made an estimated 14.3 million trips to Vermont in 2007, an increase of 7 percent from 2005.
Vermont s travel and tourism industry continues to experience steady growth, said Gov. Jim Douglas. Vermont has outstanding brand recognition and is fortunate to have more than 80 million people living within a day s drive.
Visitor spending in Vermont supported approximately 37,490 jobs for Vermont workers and business owners. There are nearly 60,000 jobs in the Vermont hospitality sector, many of which are supported locally.

Week Ending April 04, 2009. There were 1,370 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance last week, a decrease of 191 from the week before. Altogether 18,500 new and continuing claims were filed, 99 less than a week ago and 7,555 more than a year earlier. The Department also processed 1,979 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 24 more than a week ago. In addition, there were 1,184 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program which is an increase of 44 from the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/ Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc

The House Corrections and Institutions Committee yesterday unanimously passed the yearly Capital Bill, which includes $11.8 million for Speaker Shap Smith's Vermont Investment Program jobs package that he outlined on the opening day of the legislative session.
"I'm very pleased with the work of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee to craft a Capital Bill that makes strategic investments in Vermont and creates jobs for Vermonters in these challenging economic times," said Speaker Smith. "On the first day of the session, I said that the number one priority of the House is helping Vermonters and Vermont businesses weather the economic storm, and this bill does just that."

The chief executives of Vermont s leading businesses seem cautious over sales prospects and employment levels for the spring and summer when compared to their fourth quarter 2008 forecasts, and they are unlikely to make broad capital investments. But the attitude of the business community appears to have stabilized. The mood was assessed at the end of the first quarter and released today by Vermont Business Roundtable Chair Bill Stritzler and President Lisa Ventriss.
Interestingly, our members responses appear to be very similar to last quarter, which suggests that employers are in a wait and see frame of mind.With economic stimulus monies and the summer tourism season on the horizon, employers are not ready to commit themselves until they see further developments. Ventriss said.

Vermont s top academic achievers will be honored by the State Board of Education at an event to be held Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 4 p.m. at Mt. Abraham Union High School in Bristol.
The students will be recognized for their achievements in the statewide spelling bee, debate, forensics, Geo Bee, top AP and SAT scores and much more. The event is open to the public.
A complete list of honorees is attached below.

2009 State Board of Education Student Recognition Event April 14, 2009 Mt. Abraham Union High School, Bristol

Recognition

Name

School/Town

Notes

09 ACT Top score (M/F)

Ian F. Rockwell

Mt. Mansfield UHS, Jericho

36 Perfect Score on ACT

Suzanne G. K. Calhoun

Home School

36 perfect Score on ACT

09 SAT Top Score (M/F)

Sarah L. Guillot

Peoples Academy, Morrisville

2340 out of 2400 top F Score in state to date

Matthew E. Garret

More Vermonters are able to take part in Vermont Housing Finance Agency's low-interest mortgage programs now VHFA has approved new income and purchase price limits.
The Agency s Board of Commissioners approved the changes on April 6. They took effect today.
We re always working to give more Vermonters the opportunity to realize the dream of owning a home, said Executive Director Sarah Carpenter. With these new limits, many more Vermonters and Vermont properties have become eligible for VHFA financing.
With today s changes, VHFA now has only one statewide purchase price limit, which applies to all VHFA eligible property types. To be considered for a VHFA loan, the home purchase price cannot exceed: $287,000.
Income limits vary by county and help determine which homebuyers are eligible for VHFA financing. Income limits are ceilings on what households can earn and still qualify for VHFA mortgages.

Vermont Pure Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE: VPS) announced that it has acquired the assets of Blue Hills Spring Water Company, Inc. of Quincy, Massachusetts. Blue Hills is better known by its popular brand Monadnock Mountain Spring Water.
The assets purchased include trucks, dispensing equipment, bottles, and customer lists. Blue Hills' customers will be merged into Vermont Pure's local existing operation creating more density in the Boston market for the Company.
"Blue Hills, through Monadnock, has been a recognized leader in the Boston bottled water market for many years and the acquisition of their customer base puts us in position to be a major player in the largest metro area in New England," said Peter Baker, CEO of Vermont Pure Holdings, Ltd. "We are excited to supply Vermont Pure Natural spring water, as well as our other home and office refreshment products, to Blue Hills' customers," he concluded.

Marsh, the world s leading insurance broker and risk advisor, has appointed Julie S. Boucher as leader of the firm s U.S. Captive Solutions Practice, which currently manages nearly 350 captive insurance companies in seven major U.S. domiciles and has 114 employees.
Ms. Boucher, a managing director of Marsh based in the Burlington, Vermont office, will be responsible for the growth and development of the U.S. captive domicile operations, including Vermont, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii.
Ms. Boucher, who has been with Marsh for 21 years, has held a number of management positions with the firm. Most recently, she was head of the firm s Captive Solutions Practice in Vermont, where she was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the firm s captive management and servicing operations in the state. She also has been involved in establishing Marsh s operations in a number of existing U.S. captive domiciles.