Current News

Vermont Business Magazine As rising energy costs continue to strain our region's households, it's important to remind your friends and neighbors that help is available. HEAT Squad and VLITE have teamed up to help homeowners in Northeast Kingdom reduce their energy bills -- and it all gets started with a $50 whole-house energy audit. Qualifying households can receive 50% off weatherization projects -- up to $4,500, PLUS up to $2,000 off the cost of single zone HEAT PUMP.

Vermont Business Magazine Working Lands Trainings: Supporting farms and forests from whelping to welding, farming to food, supply chain and systems, including manufacturing. Flexible learning available. Upcoming trainings include meat cutting, craft distilling, wetland delineation, tree pruning and ascension climbing, and basic welding.

by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Health today is reporting216 cases of COVID-19 for Tuesday, up from 82 on Monday (23 on Sunday, 79 on Saturday and 153 on Friday). There was one additional death in the 50-59 age range, for 609 statewide. COVID cases now are highest per capita in the last two weeks in Addison, Caledonia Orleans and Orange counties. Addison had been a relatively quiet region until recently with an increase in cases at Middlebury College, which appear now to be waning. Meanwhile, in the Northeast Kingdom, which had been a COVID hot spot earlier in the pandemic, cases increased in the last week even as the rest of the state reports a decline.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is now implementing a new program that enables vehicle inspection stations to print inspection stickers as needed by using a secure Automated Vehicle Inspection Program (AVIP) tablet and a special printer. The print-on-demand process is expected to create efficiencies for the DMV and Vermont Inspection Stations.

“We are taking this opportunity to continue modernization of DMV services,” said Commissioner Wanda Minoli. “The new on-demand inspection stickers will enable our Vermont business partners to issue stickers as needed, creating a more efficient and streamlined process, and reducing burden on small business.”

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont today announced that the use of face masks in all indoor locations will become optional starting on Saturday, March 19. The university cited several factors that led to the decision: 100% of eligible students are fully vaccinated and boosted; 100% of employees are compliant with the vaccine policy and nearly 70% have voluntarily reported receiving a booster; COVID-19 PCR testing remains available for all members of our community, and we have a significant supply of rapid home antigen tests that we will be making available free to faculty, staff and students shortly; Vermont continues to see low hospitalization and ICU rates and the State has ample access to both monoclonal antibody treatments and antiviral drugs.

Vermont Business Magazine Southern Vermont Area Health Education Center has received a $520,000 grant from the Vermont Department of Health to advance health equity in Vermont by expanding and sustaining the Community Health Worker profession as integral to the health workforce. The grant was awarded in conjunction with a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiative to support local efforts to address COVID-19 related health disparities and disparities that persist in lower income communities and communities of color. This 18-month grant is the largest ever received by Southern Vermont AHEC, which said the grant funding will provide the opportunity to establish appropriate training and credentialing to create a career pipeline for expanding the community health worker (CHW) workforce into both clinical and community settings.

Vermont Business Magazine The Windham Regional Commission (WRC) is on tap to receive funding through Congressionally directed spending supported by Senator Bernie Sanders to help towns in southeast Vermont plan Resiliency Zones. This innovative work to increase resiliency in the face of climate change is a collaboration between WRC and Green Mountain Power (GMP). Resiliency Zones are a part of GMP’s proactive climate plan to work directly with partner communities to strengthen the grid, help prevent outages, and bounce back more quickly when severe weather hits.

Vermont Business Magazine Champlain College’s Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity, a world-class laboratory providing digital forensics and cybersecurity services to community-based organizations, is set to receive more than $755,000 from the Omnibus Appropriations bill thanks to a congressionally directed spending request from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). The cybersecurity market—driven by rapidly expanding e-commerce, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, cloud security and more—is projected to grow from $156 billion in 2022 to $376 billion in 2029, a 13% compound annual growth rate.

Vermont Business Magazine At a candlelight vigil Tuesday, Governor Phil Scott signed H.717, An act relating to providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine and announced more than $640,000 of aid will go to Save the Children, a humanitarian organization dedicated to supporting children around the globe. Governor Scott signed the bipartisan bill, which passed unanimously, joined by Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray, Treasurer Beth Pearce, Attorney General TJ Donavan, Secretary of State Jim Condos, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, Senate Pro Tem Becca Balint, minority leaders Senator Randy Brock and Representative Pattie McCoy, legislators from all parties and the people of Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine The Upper Valley MedTech Collaborative is hosting a MedTech Pitch Competition on April 27th at 5pm at the Lebanon Opera House in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The winner will receive $10,000 of non-dilutive funding. Applications are open to all Northern New England-based medtech start-ups that have raised less than $2 million through institutional investment.

by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Health today is reporting 82 cases of COVID-19 for Monday, up from 23 on Sunday. Vermont is averaging 119 cases over the last 7 days. Cases are down 94% since the Omicron peak. An Omicron sub-variant is showing an increase in cases in Europe. And while it is already in Vermont and the US and appears to be more transmissible, cases have not increased nor does it appear to be more dangerous. Fatalities stand at 608 statewide. There have been no deaths since March 5 and hospitalizations have also come down. With low levels of severe disease and effective tools to prevent COVID-19, Vermont health officials announced that starting Monday, March 14, COVID-19 public health recommendations have been lessened to individual discretion.

​by Secretary of State Jim Condos and Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters Every year we join with government transparency advocates from around the country to celebrate Sunshine Week, serving as a reminder that a well-functioning government is built upon the public’s right to know. Good government is open government! Government transparency, through open meetings and public records access, ensures ‘we the people’ have the tools necessary to verify our government officials are acting in our best interests, and to hold them accountable if we believe they are not.