Current News

Vermont Business Magazine In its annual ratings, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine has again ranked UVM among the top best-value public colleges in the country. To compile its best value list, Kiplinger’s first ranked schools based on measures of academic quality. It then factored in cost and financial aid measures. Quality criteria account for 55 percent of total points and cost criteria account for 45 percent.

Kiplinger’s draws its list of best value schools from a field of nearly 1,200 higher education institutions in the US. UVM was ranked 13th among all publics on the Kiplinger’s list for its four-year graduation rate. On the overall list, the university ranked 58th for in-state and 94th for out-of-state students among public colleges, respectively.

Vermont Business Magazine A Vermont political action committee will pay a civil penalty of $8,750 on account of reporting violations during the 2012 election cycle, according to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. Campaign finance reports filed by the Democratic Attorneys General Association PAC (“DAGA PAC”) contained inaccurate information and omitted key disclosures, including the source of the thousands of dollars in contributions it received. The complaint in this matter was investigated jointly by the Civil Division of the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and Special Counsel Thomas A Little for the Committee of State’s Attorneys.

Vermont Business Magazine Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded the Burlington Electric Department’s credit rating to A3 with a stable outlook from Baa1 with a stable outlook, representing the first time in more than six years that Burlington Electric has earned an “A” rating. Moody’s cited Burlington Electric’s forward-looking financial policies, diverse and renewable power supply, competitive rates, and strong and focused management as important factors for the increase.

Vermont Business Magazine Katherine McCann, a High School Mathematics Teacher at U-32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier; has been selected as the 2017 Vermont Teacher of the Year (VT-TOY); the Agency of Education announced today. In addition to teaching Advanced Placement Statistics, Geometry, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2; Katherine is also a National Board Certified Teacher (AYA-MATH), Presidential Award winner for Excellence in Teaching Math and Science, and Co-President of the Vermont Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Vermont Business Magazine A small business group in Vermont says Republicans in Congress and President-elect Trump have declared a plan to rush through legislation that would take away health care from more than 30 million people. Main Street Alliance of Vermont believes that the support Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies offer and encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. If the ACA is repealed without a replacement, MSA-VT estimates that 35,000 Vermonters will lose their health insurance.

Vermont Business Magazine An Executive Order signed by Governor Peter Shumlin that gives businesses fighting climate change preference in the state contracting process has been finalized. The new policy applies to any contract over $25,000, which captures at least 97 percent of state contracting dollars. The state of Vermont spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year in contracts. The new policies do not supersede other contracting considerations such as cost or rewarding businesses based in Vermont or that manufacture products in Vermont. However, when all considerations are similar for a given contract, the new policies require that a business that has strong climate change and renewable energy policies will be given preference over one that does not.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power announced today it is the first utility in the nation to provide customers with true energy independence and offer the ultimate in customer empowerment: to go off-grid with a new package of products and services to increase energy independence and reduce carbon emissions by more than 30 percent. GMP stated that the product offering is fully customizable to meet the unique needs of each home or business and can include solar, battery storage, home automation and more.

Vermont Business Magazine Microhospitals, modernization of Emergency Departments, infection control and behavioral health will change both the care and look of health care in the future.  E4H Environments for Health, a Williston-based architecture firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, has  released five predictions for healthcare facility design trends in 2017. With healthcare construction spending expected to double in 2017 from $19.6 billion in 2016 (Architect Magazine), there will be a significant expansion of new facility construction and the renovation of existing facilities. The pace of medical and technological developments, along with shifts in payment models and regulations, are creating fertile ground for key design innovations.

Vermont Business Magazine AARP Vermont has released results of a national study which shows that this is the fourth straight year of double-digit price average annual increases for widely used brand name drugs. Retail prices for brand name prescription drugs widely used by older Americans rose by an average of 15.5 percent in 2015—almost 130 times faster than the 0.1 percent general inflation rate—according to a new AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) report.

Vermont Business Magazine At the recent annual meeting of Washington County Mental Health Services, the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CCPS) program recognized Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont for its collaboration and support of both CCPS’s services and service recipients. This is the second year the Center and its five subsidiary organizations honored valuable community partners.

by John McClaughry Two weeks from now new Governor Phil Scott will give his inaugural address to the legislature, and a week or so later they’ll receive his budget proposal for FY2018, which begins in July. Governor Scott campaigned on the attractive idea that “state budget spending will not grow faster than the economy or your wages.” Exactly what that means remains unclear. Is it General Fund spending, or that plus Transportation and Education Fund spending? Does it also include Federal funds? And whose wages?

Vermont Business Magazine Champlain College's David L Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry in the Stiller School of Business has received a $1 million gift from the Stiller Family Foundation to plan and convene a national Positive Education Summit that will use Appreciative Inquiry to accelerate positive education from early childhood on up.