Current News

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.

Vermont Business Magazine The CDC has issued a pause in the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine for COVID-19 "out of an abundance of caution" related to possible but rare blood clots. Vermont also is pausing its use of the J&J and the VDH will contact those who already have a scheduled shot to offer them to either get the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines or wait until the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is once again cleared for use.

Vermont Business Magazine BETA Technologies and Blade Urban Air Mobility today announced a binding agreement through which Blade will secure up to 20 BETA Electric Vertical Aircraft (EVA), becoming the company's first passenger service customer. Today's news comes on the heels of last week's announcement by UPS that it would buy up to 150 BETA EVA aircraft, plus charging stations, as part of that company's long-term solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Vermont Business Magazine The COVID-19 pandemic affected low- and moderate-income Vermonters disproportionately, impacting service and hospitality jobs and increasing the time – and energy – many Vermonters spent at home. Efficiency Vermont responded with a range of programs designed especially for income-qualified Vermonters, to help make energy efficiency measures more accessible and drive down energy costs for those with the highest energy burdens.

Vermont Business Magazine Springfield Hospital’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Robert S (Bob) Adcock, MBA, FACHE, of Wildwood, MO, has been named its new Chief Executive Officer. Adcock most recently served as an independent contractor providing administrative consulting services to West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc, and as CEO of Fairmont Regional Medical Center in Fairmont, WV.