Current News
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Vermont Business Magazine When Keith Gallant of East Braintree heard shots one night and discovered his mailbox had been struck by shotgun slugs, he feared that he and his family had been targeted. Gallant learned otherwise, however, when he met with the teenager who had fired the shots. The meeting was part of the teen’s participation in his local Court Diversion program, a restorative justice alternative to the standard court process for youth and adults charged with a crime. As part of the process, Gallant sat with the teen and community volunteers to discuss how the teen would make amends. Gallant told the outcome of this story last night as part of the 40th Anniversary celebration of Court Diversion at the Capitol Plaza in Montpelier.
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Vermont Business Magazine This week, MITRE and the University of Vermont (UVM) released two papers that analyze US financial market dynamics and found more than $2 billion in inefficiencies in 2016, the most recent data available for analysis when the research started. The researchers studied market behavior using Thesys StarMap, the most comprehensive source of publicly available stock market data and the same data used by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for its Market Information Data Analytics System (MIDAS).
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Vermont Business Magazine Encore Renewable Energy announced today the commissioning of a 198-kilowattpeak (kWp) solar array on the roof of the UVM Medical Center on Holly Court in Williston, VT. The project began generating solar electricity in December 2018. UVM Medical Center will receive net metering credits at a discount, along with a steady stream of lease revenue from an otherwise unused rooftop. Together, these will result in approximately $124,000 of total value to UVM Medical Center over the 25-year life of the system.
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Vermont Business Magazine Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) Wednesday night released the bipartisan conference agreement to make responsible investments in border security and finish work on the remaining seven appropriations bills to fund the government. The $333 billion bipartisan package funds the nine remaining federal departments and their agencies, rejects President Trump’s demand $5.7 billion border wall and a deportation force, and makes responsible investments in border security long supported by Democrats. A vote on the deal is expected today.
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Vermont Business Magazine Americans collectively spent $388 billion on gasoline in 2018, averaging to 34 million fill-ups a day. GasBuddy has issued its 2019 Consumer Sentiment on Gasoline Study that finds that the necessity, perception, and price of gasoline adversely impacts Americans across all age groups and income brackets, with a staggering 86 percent of Americans depending on gasoline for their everyday lives. GasBuddy provides real-time gasoline price reports in Vermont and across the US.
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by Eric LaMontagne Nearly two out of every three Vermont residents hunt, fish or watch wildlife. This is second only to Alaska as a percentage of population participation in these activities. In fact, according to a 2015 University of Vermont study, “the most recent national survey of wildlife-related expenditures, Vermont residents and out-of-state visitors spent approximately $685 million a year on hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing (U.S Fish and Wildlife Service 2012).”
Looking at the latest annual numbers from the American Sportfishing Association, fishing in Vermont by residents and non-residents generates $147.1 million in retail sales, resulting in an additional $225 million of economic impact. It supports more than 2400 jobs and $73.2 million in wages and salaries, while generating $15.9 million in local and state tax revenues.
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Vermont Business Magazine Dairy and beef farming requires as much attention to the land as to the animals, and this winter 13 local farms dug into the details of improving their land. Through six weeks of class, farmers have worked to complete a Nutrient Management Plan. The plans will guide their nutrient applications and crop rotations for the coming years, aiming to improve farm productivity, soil health, and water quality.
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Vermont Business Magazine The 2019 Report Card for Vermont’s Infrastructure was released by the Vermont Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) today, giving nine categories of infrastructure an overall grade of “C.” The report assigned the following grades: aviation (C-), bridges (C+), dams (C), drinking water (C-), energy (B-), roads (C+), solid waste (B-), stormwater (D+) and wastewater (D+). A “C” is the same overall grade the state received in the 2014 Report Card for Vermont’s Infrastructure.
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Vermont State Police As the search for a missing ice fisherman continued Wednesday on Lake Champlain in Orwell, Vermont State Police divers at about 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday February 13, 2019, located a body in the water that matched the description of Lee Wiktorski. Crews recovered the remains from the lake, and the body is being transported to the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Burlington to confirm the victim's identity and for an autopsy to determine cause and manner of death.
The investigation into this incident is ongoing.
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Vermont Business Magazine Another perfectly-timed snowstorm swept across Vermont Tuesday and Wednesday, dropping upward of a foot of fresh snow on Green Mountain State ski areas as a perfect refresher ahead of the upcoming Presidents' Week holiday. Ski areas across the state reported between six and 10 inches of accumulation Wednesday morning, with snow continuing to fall during the day.
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by Jack Hoffman, Public Assets Institute Here we go again. As his predecessor did six years ago, Governor Phil Scott has proposed more money to help low-income families pay for high quality child care. It’s a worthy investment, as it would have been in 2013. But repeating the mistake his predecessor made, Governor Scott wants to pay for his proposal by taking from Peter to pay Paul.
The governor’s budget for fiscal 2020 calls for about $11–13 million in new taxes, including a $7 million increase Vermont could get by changing the way it taxes certain internet sales. But sales taxes, as a result of a major reshuffle the Legislature approved last year, are now dedicated exclusively to the Education Fund. So while raising the additional revenue makes sense, and would help to level the playing field for Vermont retailers, skimming money from the Education Fund shifts costs onto the property tax.
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by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine Northern Power Systems Corp based in Barre, a distributed wind company, announced in a press release Tuesday that on February 11, 2019, the company sold its energy storage business, including Northern’s energy storage project pipeline and related intellectual property, to WEG Electric Corp. At closing, NPS received proceeds of approximately $1.1 million and WEG hired eight energy storage focused employees from Northern. Despite the sale of its NPS’s energy storage assets, the company will maintain its distributed wind business and intends to market and sell its distributed wind turbines in a variety of markets, including Italy, the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and Germany.