Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The Burlington International Airport (BTV) announced today that American Airlines will be offering service to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) beginning in July 2021. The new service complements American’s service between Burlington and its hubs in Philadelphia (PHL), Chicago (ORD), Charlotte (CLT) and Washington National (DCA). Service to Dallas/Fort Worth provided by American will be seasonal, with weekly Saturday service beginning July 3rd, 2021.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Housing & Conservation Board has awarded $846,500 in state funding and $2,588,327 in federal funds for projects in Windham, Windsor, and Lamoille Counties. The VHCB awards will help to create and rehabilitate 30 homes and apartments affordable to low- and moderate-income Vermonters and will conserve 270 acres of farmland.

Vermont Business Magazine In 2016, The Vermont Futures Project set a target for 5,000 new and retrofitted housing units per year to meet the critical need for homes across Vermont. This was a need five years ago, and as we strive to recover from the pandemic-caused economic downturn, the health of Vermont’s housing market is under more stress than ever.

Vermont Business Magazine Bob Zider, Director & CEO of the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center (VMEC), has publicly announced his plans to retire on June 30, 2021 after 25 years with the Center.

At a VMEC Board meeting held on April 13, VMEC Assistant Director Patricia Giavara received a unanimous vote of approval to succeed Bob Zider as Interim VMEC Director & CEO effective July 1.

VMEC’s federal stakeholder partner, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), was represented in the April 13 VMEC Board meeting by Acting MEP Director Dr. Rob Ivester and MEP Resource Manager Tom Williams. Patricia Giavara has been part of the VMEC team for more than 18 years, and she has served as VMEC Assistant Director since 2009 while also delivering a range of client services and support in the areas of innovation, growth, process improvement, coaching and more.

Vermont Agency of Commerce & Community Development Out of an abundance of caution, Vermont will be following the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food & Drug Administration and has paused the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to extremely rare instances of adverse reactions. Also, ACCD will host a webinar today, April 14th at 3 pm to answer questions about the Vermont Forward Plan as it relates to business operations, events, and cross state travel.

by Don Turner The last thing you do in the middle of a crisis is kick the can down the road. Yet, that's exactly what the Legislature just did on Vermont's mounting pension liabilities. Earlier this year, State Treasurer Beth Pearce delivered a long overdue message to the Legislature--calling for painful cuts in order to keep the state employees' and state teachers' pensions operation. This comes years after resisting calls for structural reform to the pension system.

by Rob Roper While Vermont public school officials are carping about returning to the classroom post Covid, calling for higher taxes to pay for their pensions, and are otherwise consumed with controversies over mascot names and what flags get to fly on school grounds, Vermont families have been driving an interesting trend – using Vermont’s 150 year old school choice “tuitioning” program to put their kids into independent schools.

“Tuitoning” is a benefit in 45 of Vermont’s school districts (out of 110) that do not have public schools at one or more levels, so parents are allowed to use their child’s per pupil portion of the education fund to pay for access to any public or approved independent school, in state or out. It is very popular in the communities that have it.

Vermont Business Magazine As a football coach who has led his teams to seven national championships, Nick Saban knows a little something about traveling the road to success. And in Saban's eyes, success in football or in business isn't achieved by focusing on the prize but rather by giving attention to all the steps that must be taken on the journey toward winning the prize.

"One of the things I always struggle with," Saban said, "is we live in such an outcome-oriented world. People want to focus on outcomes, and I think outcomes are a bit of a distraction."

Vermont Business Magazine State officials announced Tuesday that — based on the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food & Drug Administration — Vermont has paused the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after six reports across the US of an extremely rare adverse reaction to the vaccine. All Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine appointments scheduled for Tuesday were cancelled. Vermonters who are scheduled for appointments through Friday can be rescheduled at a later date. All two-dose (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccine appointments will continue as previously scheduled. Meanwhile, over 48 percent of Vermont adults have now received at least a first dose of vaccine. COVID-19 cases were down to 73 and there were no new deaths, which are holding at 233. The recent surge in cases in Vermont and the Northeast appears to be ebbing.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on Tuesday issued the following statement after President Joe Biden moved to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by September. “I applaud President Biden for making the brave and right decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and bring an end to the longest war in our country’s history. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to every US and coalition servicemember who has served in Afghanistan since 2001, and we will never forget the over 2,300 US servicemembers who gave their lives there. We also remember the over 100,000 Afghan civilians who have been killed in this war."

Public Assets Institute Vermont’s education funding system is built on fairness for students, fairness for taxpayers, and local control. The statewide tax base supports school spending voted by each community. Each school district in Vermont sets its own budget and spending per pupil on or around Town Meeting Day. And all school taxes go into a single pot, the Education Fund. The Legislature sets a school tax rate schedule that applies to primary residences in all towns, so residents know their school tax rates based on their town’s voted per-pupil education spending.

by Charles Martin, Government Affairs Director of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce While recent news of the cancellation of Montpelier’s hotel project is troubling, those familiar with Act 250 are not surprised. The decision to terminate the project is yet another example of how truly broken our state’s principal land use law is. Montpelier’s current problem is high-profile and outrageous, but don’t mistake it as an outlier. It is representative of what hundreds of permit seekers have gone through and will continue to experience if this law is not updated. To recap, the recently nixed Capitol Plaza project was approved by an Act 250 panel, the Development Review Board, the Design Review Board, and Montpelier voters. The City has invested more than $1 million in the project that will now be paid back in property taxes instead of parking garage revenues, as was originally planned.