Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Two Vermont military families were selected anonymously to be the recipients of Davis & Hodgdon Associates CPAs’ 2018 holiday gift drive. The families, from Georgia and St. Albans Vermont were selected on the basis of need, and each family includes at least one parent who is currently deployed overseas. Staff from Davis & Hodgdon offices in Rutland and Williston provided unwrapped gifts for the family’s children, as well as donations in the form of holiday breakfast baskets and grocery gift cards.

“In past years we have enjoyed participating in various state-wide holiday gift drives”, said John Davis, managing partner at Davis & Hodgdon Associates. “It was especially satisfying for our staff this year to be able to give back to military families who have sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice, so much on our behalf.”

Senator Patrick Leahy Today marks the eighteenth day of the Trump Shutdown. For more than two weeks now, the President has held the paychecks of over 800,000 Americans hostage in order to extort Congress into funding his border wall — a wall for which he promised the American taxpayers, over and over again, that Mexico would pay.

Vermont Business Magazine In response to the crisis in agriculture and rural communities, Sterling and The Berry Center have announced that they will collaboratively launch The Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College in Henry County, Kentucky, a no-tuition undergraduate sustainable agriculture degree program, inspired by the lifework and writing of farmer and environmental activist Wendell Berry. The $2.5 million grant and challenge, once met, will provide a total of $3.5 million for operation of the program through 2024. Sterling College is based in Craftsbury Common.

Vermont Business Magazine Burlington-based Howard Center, Inc and Local #1674 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 93, AFL-CIO jointly announced today that on Monday, December 31, 2018, their respective negotiating teams reached a tentative agreement on a three-year renewal to their collective bargaining agreement which expired June 30, 2018. Details of the tentative agreement will not be released pending ratification by the Union’s membership and Howard Center Board of Trustees.

Bargaining for this new agreement commenced in May of 2018. Negotiations continued through the summer, fall and early winter, assisted at the end by Federal Mediator Annie Rutsky of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

Vermont State Police An arrest warrant has been issued for an Arlington man who was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with two Vermont State Police troopers early Monday morning outside his home. Matthew Novick, 40, of 535 Red Mountain Road in Arlington, faces charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a weapon.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) will deliver a response to President Donald Trump's address to the nation (Tuesday night at 9 pm). Sanders' response will be live streamed on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter following the official Democratic response.

by Scott Giles, VSAC Nearly every conversation about the economic future of our state begins and ends with the need for greater workforce development and for Vermonters to get the education and training required for the available jobs today and the ones coming down the line. Economists project that by 2020, nearly 7 out of 10 jobs will require education or training beyond high school.

Vermont Business Magazine Public Safety Commissioner Thomas D Anderson and Tax Commissioner Kaj Samsom announced today that a tax examiner employed by the Department of Taxes has been arrested by the Vermont State Police on suspicion of embezzling more than $15,000 from the state of Vermont by altering a single taxpayer’s return information in fall 2018.

Vermont Business Magazine Representative Peter Welch (D-Vermont), Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) and nine House colleagues today introduced bipartisan legislation that would require the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors enrolled in the Medicare Part D program. When the Part D prescription drug benefit was authorized by Congress in 2003, then House Majority Leader Tom Delay, at the behest of the drug lobby, carved out a sweetheart deal that prohibits the federal government from leveraging the enormous purchasing power of the millions of seniors now enrolled in the program to negotiate lower drug prices and save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Vermont Business Magazine The State of Vermont licensed 25 new captive insurance companies in 2018, according to data released by the Department of Financial Regulation. The new licenses were made up of 12 pure captives, 4 risk retention groups (RRGs), 3 sponsored captives, 2 industrial insured captives, 2 special purpose financial insurers, 1 branch captive and 1 affiliated reinsurance company (ARC). The newly formed ARC is the first of its kind and comes less than a year after Vermont passed legislation establishing this new type of captive structure.

“I am extremely proud of the outstanding performance of our captive team and the leadership that Vermont continues to deliver for this industry,” said Governor Phil Scott. “2018 proved to be another great year for captive insurance in Vermont.”

Vermont Business Magazine After the holiday season, packed with gifts and giving, some of us settle back into our routines with that post vacation glow, while others of us are reminded of the harsh, cold months ahead. Winter isn’t easy in Vermont, with temperatures frequently dropping below 0 and fuel costs rising, many Vermonters make difficult choices when budgeting their family’s basic needs.

Vermont Business Magazine Howard Center recently appointed Katherine Connolly, Michael Couture, Brandon del Pozo, and Hanneke Willenborg to its Board of Trustees for three-year terms. Kathy Connelly has lived in Vermont since 1979. Following a career in the insurance industry, she volunteered in the Burlington Community as a park commissioner, a city councilor, and a school commissioner. Kathy is a former Howard Center board member and previously served as a past president of the Howard Center Board. Kathy lives in Burlington.