Current News

by Gabriel C Lajeunesse, JD Next week, we observe Labor Day, a celebration of the American worker. You work hard your whole life with the hope that your efforts will ultimately allow you to achieve your financial goals, such as a comfortable retirement. But for that to happen, you may need to apply some of the lessons of the workplace to your efforts as an investor.

So, what are these lessons? Here are a few to consider:

Vermont Business MagazineThe Vermont Department of Taxes continues its outreach with a come-forward program for individuals who may not know what Vermont Use Tax is and when it is due. Use tax is due when a seller does not charge the buyer Vermont Sales Tax on an item that is taxable in Vermont. Taxable items sold over the internet, by mail, by phone, or bought out-of-state and used in Vermont generally qualify. Use tax is not a new tax. It has been in effect since Vermont established a sales tax in 1969. The Tax Department is offering a grace period on penalties and interest until October 31.

Despite many Vermonters making purchases online or other places that do not charge sales tax on taxable items, use tax is not widely understood. Therefore, the department has recently started an educational letter campaign to increase awareness and allow taxpayers an opportunity to pay use tax they owe.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont State Treasurer Beth Pearce today announced that $106.1 million in bonds were successfully sold last week in two separate offerings, generating proceeds of $117 million, including a premium of $10.9 million. Vermont bonds have the highest bond ratings of any Northeastern state. On Monday, August 21, Vermont citizen and retail investors were given first priority to purchase $34.7 million of Series A Vermont Citizen Bonds, sold on a negotiated basis with Morgan Stanley as the senior manager and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and JP Morgan as co-managers. $71.4 million in 2017 Series B General Obligation Bonds were sold by competitive sale on Wednesday, August 23.

Vermont Business Magazine The board of directors of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), a nonprofit trade association that represents ski area owners and operators throughout the United States, named Parker Riehle on Mondayas the new president and CEO of the organization. Riehle—who is currently the president of Ski Vermont, the Vermont Ski Areas Association (VSAA)—will assume the position on January 1, 2018, replacing Michael Berry, who is retiring after 25 years.

“We are excited to welcome Parker to the organization,” said Tim Silva, general manager of Sun Valley and chair of the NSAA Board of Directors. “His industry experience as the long-standing president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association will serve the members of NSAA well.”

by Jack Hoffman Public Assets Institute The governor’s office and the Legislature agreed in mid-August on how to close a $12.6 million budget gap that came to light after the Legislature adjourned its 2017 session. The gap surfaced last month when economists for the Legislature and the administration lowered their estimate of how much revenue the state can expect to collect this fiscal year. The good thing about the plan approved on August 17 is that it includes relatively little in actual cuts.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont PBS is honoring National Recovery Month this September by bringing two poignant local films by Bess O’Brien to air: the award-winning The Hungry Heart, which looks at the often-hidden world of prescription drug abuse through pediatrician Dr. Fred Holmes and his patients, and Here Today, which addresses the ravaging effects of heroin addiction on Vermont families. These films will be part of a network event called The Opiate Crisis: Stories and Solutions, that will utilize these films as a way to convene discussions around the tragedy of the opiate addiction crisis and together with the Vermont community, seek solutions.

Vermont Business MagazineNational Life Group and its employees have mobilized this week to offer assistance to the people of southeast Texas in the midst of the ongoing floods caused by Hurricane Harvey.National Life is based in Montpelier and has a long-establishedoffice in Texas. The company is donating $50,000 to charities in the Houston region that are addressing immediate needs. And many of the 250 employees in the company’s Dallas office have signed up to volunteer in the relief effort, particularly at evacuation sites that have been established in north Texas.

Although National Life’s Texas operations are based in Dallas, the company also has employees and many agents who live in Houston.

Vermont Business Magazine Marathon Health, LLC, a Winooski-based provider of onsite health centers that enable employers to optimize the health of their workforce and business, today announced the addition of behavioral health counseling to its suite of services. The offering will provide mental health and wellness care to individuals, couples, and families at its worksite health centers across the country.

Vermont Business Magazine This past weekend, Governor Phil Scott attended the 41^st Annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG/ECP), an inter-regional, bi-national, trans-border organization between the six New England states and the five eastern Canadian provinces. Governor Scott served as co-chair of the three-day conference alongside Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan, and was joined by his Secretary of Commerce and Community Development Michael Schirling, Secretary of Natural Resources Julie Moore, and Commissioner of Public Service June Tierney. Vermont will host the 42^nd Annual Conference in 2018.

Vermont Business Magazine Mamava, the Burlington-based expert in designs for mamas on the go, creator of the Mamava Lactation Suite for nursing and pumping, has installed banners in the South End celebratingNational Breastfeeding Month. Mamava collaborated with Solidarity of Unbridled Labour, graphic design and brand strategy studio, and The Karma Birdhouse, the community of professional and creative culture at 47 Maple street -- home to 25+ innovative businesses.

Vermont Buisness Magazine The University of Vermont today announced the launch of its new Healthcare Management and Leadership Professional Certificate Program, with the first session of the five-seminar series taking place this fall. The program is designed to prepare health and human services professionals with practical hands-on tools, techiques, and templates to succeed in this dynamic field.

“Informed, innovative leaders are needed more than ever to help identify ways to promote healthcare affordability and ensure that Americans have access to needed care,” said Catherine Hamilton, Ph.D., instructor in UVM’s Healthcare Management and Leadership Professional Certificate Program. “Strong healthcare managers are essential in shaping a better future for all the stakeholders of the healthcare system, and UVM’s Professional Certificate program is a critical resource for leadership and scholarship in the field of healthcare management.”

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Foodbank has released The State of Senior Hunger in America in 2015, a study about food insecurity among seniors in the US produced by Feeding America and released in partnership with the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger (NFESH). The report shows that nationally, 5.4 million seniors age 60 or older (8.1 percent) were food insecure in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. In Vermont, 7.5 percent of seniors were food insecure. Food insecurity refers to the lack of access to enough nutritious food.