Current News

Vermont Business Magazine $8.5 million in CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Funding is now available to a wide variety of agricultural, food, and forestry businesses and organizations through the Vermont COVID-19 Agriculture Assistance Program (VCAAP) Agriculture and Working Lands Assistance Application.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), locally representing ESGR, a Department of Defense agency, announced that Governor Phil Scott has signed a proclamation declaring August 24-28, 2020 as Vermont Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Week. This proclamation mirrors the spirit and intent of a Presidential Proclamation signed earlier in the week, giving gratitude to our many employers who have provided exceptional support to our citizen warriors.

Vermont Business Magazine FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor has approved Vermont for a FEMA grant under the Lost Wages Assistance program. FEMA’s grant funding will allow Vermont to provide $300 per week -- on top of their regular unemployment benefit -- to those unemployed due to COVID-19. FEMA will work with Vermont Governor Phil Scott to implement a system to make this funding available to Vermont residents. Governor Scott proposed last week to use an additional $20 million in pandemic relief funding in order to add another $100 a week to meet the maximum $400 per week in additional benefits.

Vermont Business Magazine On Monday, former Republican lieutenant governor candidate Meg Hansen announced her candidacy to represent Bennington County in the Vermont Senate. She was nominated by the party committee to run for this position in the November 3 general election. There were no Republican candidates on the primary ballot. Hansen finished second in the primary to Scott Milne. For the state Senate race, she will face off against Democrats Dick Sears and Brian Campion.

Vermont Business Magazine USCIS is currently scheduled to furlough 13,355 (or 67%) of its 19,881 employees on August 30, 2020, including over 1,000 in Vermont. If such furloughs are implemented, they will have a devastating impact on the agency’s ability to provide immigration and naturalization services to American businesses and families for many months, if not years, to come.

Vermont Business Magazine Representative Peter Welch on Saturday voted to pass emergency legislation to protect the U.S. Postal Service from political interference ahead of the November election. The bill provides the $25 billion that the bipartisan Postal Service’s Board of Governors requested to address budget shortfalls caused by the coronavirus pandemic and reverses the damaging operational changes instituted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

“The Postal Service is at the heart of rural life for many Vermont communities and will be a pillar of our democracy this November,” said Welch. “When it comes to our democracy, we cannot trust the word of Donald Trump or his handpicked cronies. This legislation will make sure that the Postal Service has the support and the funding it needs to quickly deliver medicines, unemployment checks and ballots all across America.”

Vermont State Police The Vermont State Police is investigating an apparent drowning reported Sunday afternoon, Aug. 23, 2020, in the town of Moretown. The victim’s body was being taken Sunday evening to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for an autopsy to determine cause and manner of death.

by Olga Peters, Vermont Business Magazine This year, Bob Flint’s “normal” workday changed almost overnight. Flint is the executive director of the Springfield Regional Development Corp. The organization serves 10 towns in southern Windsor County. In February, Flint was still undertaking activities such as trips to Montpelier and holding meetings with community partners. Then the COVID-19 pandemic began.

by Olga Peters, Vermont Business Magazine While other sectors of the Windsor County’s economy struggle through the COVID unknown, real estate seems to be “hot” in the words of many interviewed for this article. The online news outlet The Chester Telegraph published a piece in July where local Realtors spoke about a wave of house sales. They likened it to the uptick in sales after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when a number of people vacated urban centers for a quiet rural life.

by Laura Sibilia & Katherine Sims For the last twenty years, our public education system has overtaxed and underfunded schools in Vermont’s rural and poor towns. According to the Pupil Weighting Factors Report commissioned by the legislature to study equity in Vermont's Education Funding Formula, we incentivize spending less on students who cost more to educate and more on students who cost less to educate. Over the past 20 years, this has resulted in fewer opportunities and increased costs for poor and rural schools and higher taxes for Vermonters.

Public Assets Institute, Montpelier The number of unemployed workers in Vermont dropped by more than 50 percent from April to July. That decline, from nearly 58,000 to just over 28,000, made Vermont one of 10 states where the number of unemployed in July was down by more than half from their peaks. But not all of those Vermonters found jobs. During the same period the number of people employed rose by only 17,600, meaning that the total labor force shrank by over 12,000.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott announced Friday a proposal for an additional $133 million in economic relief and recovery initiatives, using funds from the $1.25 billion the state received from the Federal CARES Act. Funding would support expanded economic recovery grants, targeted relief to tourism and hospitality industries, $150 worth of 'Buy Local' incentives for every Vermont household, and economic development and tourism marketing funding.