Current News

Vermont Business Magazine NBT Bank’s President of New England Stephen Lubelczyk announced that Daniel Werme has assumed the position of Regional President of Vermont and Massachusetts.

“During his tenure with NBT, Dan Werme has played a key role in continuing to expand and enhance NBT’s team of talented local financial professionals,” said Lubelczyk.

Werme joined NBT in 2017 as Regional Commercial Banking Manager and has 25 years of banking experience. He is active in the community and serves on the Town of Bristol Revolving Loan Fund Committee.

Vermont Business Magazine The US Small Business Administration is slated to begin accepting applications for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant April 8 and has launched a portal for the much-anticipated critical economic relief program. Eligible applicants may qualify for grants equal to 45% of their gross earned revenue, with the maximum amount available for a single grant award of $10 million. The US SBA also has a new Administrator, Isabella Casillas Guzman. And the Vermont SBA is continuing its regular PPP webinars on Wednesdays at 9 am.

Vermont Business Magazine Vail Resorts, the world’s leading ski resort company and owner of Mt Snow, Okemo and Stowe Mountain resorts in Vermont and Mount Sunapee and Crotched Mountain in New Hampshire, today announced a price reset of its Epic Pass products to continue to deliver on its commitment of Epic for Everyone and to honor the loyalty of its pass holders. The company’s pass prices have been reduced by 20 percent across the board – making it easier for everyone to purchase a pass and, once again, changing everything about how guests access skiing and riding.

by Mark Crow What if you owed someone a substantial amount of money and were making annual payments each year to pay down the debt. However, every year, year after year, the amount you owe and the annual payments you must make increases – significantly. Now, what if at the same time, you owed someone a separate substantial amount of money but there was no schedule to pay it back. You were making some intermittent, smaller payments when the lender periodically asked for them, but there was no plan in place to pay off the entire debt. And, like the first debt, each year, the amount you owe increases – significantly.

Vermont Business Magazine For the ninth year in a row, Champlain College has secured a spot on The Princeton Review’s list of Top Game Design Schools – this year coming in at number 17. Champlain College has one of the world’s most comprehensive game development programs, with six undergraduate majors representing every aspect of the game development industry—including the developers who design, create, and code the games, and the business professionals and entrepreneurs who launch them into the world.

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General TJ Donovan today announced that Vermont joined a multistate settlement with Boston Scientific Corporation to resolve allegations of deceptive marketing of its surgical mesh products for women. The settlement requires Boston Scientific to pay $188.6 million to 47 states and the District of Columbia to resolve allegations that it deceptively marketed transvaginal surgical mesh devices to patients. Vermont’s share of the settlement is $1,106,151.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Health is reporting today 89 new cases of COVID-19 and one more death for a total of 220 statewide. The median age of those infected with the novel coronavirus has fallen to 29. Now that older Vermonters have largely been vaccinated and more than a third of adults in the state have received at least one dose, Dr Levine is urging younger residents to stay with the health protocols and get their shot when the time comes in April. “We are still in a really delicate time, where the virus, and its variants, can and will take advantage of us if we let our guard down. It has the potential to set us back in our efforts, hampering us in the race," Dr Levine said.

Vermont Business Magazine Business organizations, representing more than 200,000 workers, have made their position clear with members of the Vermont Senate, that they oppose S10 because adding $50 million in unemployment insurance costs is unaffordable and will delay Vermont’s progress toward economic recovery. Governor Scott has benchmarked July 2021 as a time when we can look toward fully reopening our economy and S10 will push Vermont further away from that benchmark.

Vermont Business Magazine Speaker Jill Krowinski, Representative Tim Briglin, and Representative Laura Sibilia today issued the following statements after the historic vote to invest $150 million to accelerate deployment of broadband internet for Vermonters across the state. On Friday, however, Governor Phil Scott said that the bill is well short of what is needed and he will present a $300 million broadband plan soon.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont’s revenue results for February 2021 show that General and Education Fund revenues came in above target, while the Transportation Fund came in below target. The state’s General Fund, Transportation Fund, and Education Fund receipts were a combined $32.82 million, or 23.8 percent above monthly consensus expectations.

Vermont Business Magazine The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which has received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, has been administered to more than 1,200 educators and school staff, largely from the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union (SVSU), at Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s (SVHC) COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics the last two Saturdays. They were the first two of three clinics that will be held to ensure that educators and school staff are vaccinated, according to Vermont’s vaccine rollout plan.

Vermont Business Magazine US Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) this week introduced legislation to combat straw purchasing and illegal trafficking in firearms in order to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. The Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2021 would, for the first time, make it an explicit federal crime to act as a straw purchaser of firearms. The bill would also create penalties for anyone who transfers a firearm with reasonable cause to believe that it will be used in a drug crime, crime of violence, or act of terrorism. These reforms would help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and reduce safety risks for law enforcement officers confronting criminals and criminal organizations.