Current News

Vermont Business Magazine In a letter sent Tuesday to the CEO of pharmaceutical company Mylan, 20 senators, including Senator Patrick Leahy (D) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I), expressed their concerns about the company’s recent significant price hikes for the life-saving EpiPen Auto-Injector.  The letter comes on the heels of an earlier letter to the firm, a letter headed by Leahy and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) – the two leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- with several queries asking for information related to the extraordinary price hikes.

Vermont Business Magazine The new math and English standardized test scores for Vermont were released today and showed better results in nearly every category versus last year. However, the state Education secretary is downplaying any apparent improvement because the testing is only in its second year and she wants to use the new scores as the baseline going forward. As they were last year, the English scores showed greater proficiency among Vermont students than the math scores, except for the youngest students, with the discrepancy generally growing over time.

Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe announced the statewide results from the 2015-16 Smarter Balanced Assessments, a set of computer adaptive English language arts and mathematics tests developed by a national consortium currently made up of 15 states, the US Virgin Islands, and the Bureau of Indian Education.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin announced today that starting September 1, individuals with outstanding traffic tickets that have led to license suspension may be eligible for a reduced fine through a statewide Driver Restoration Program. The Vermont Judicial Bureau and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) are rolling out a three-month Driver Restoration Program. From September 1 through November 30, people who have an unpaid fine for a traffic ticket for which judgement was entered prior to July 1, 2012 may apply to the Vermont Judicial Bureau for a reduced fine of $30 per ticket.

“We’re helping Vermonters clean up their driving record so they can get back to work, driving their kids to school, and getting their lives back on track,” Gov. Shumlin said.

Vermont Business Magazine Dr Sarah Scarpace Peters, PharmD, MPH, BCOP, gave the keynote address at the Vermont campus of the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPHS) white coat ceremony for incoming Doctor of Pharmacy students last week. Peters was among the 300 individuals invited by the Office of Vice President Joe Biden to participate in the Cancer Moonshot summit held earlier this year in Washington, DC. In addition to her faculty role at ACPHS, she is President of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA), a national association that seeks to optimize the care of individuals affected by cancer.

Vermont Business Magazine Following on Governor Shumlin's order from last week that a heroin overdose drug be made available across Vermont without prescription, Kinney Drugs announced that starting today, August 30, it will offer patients Naloxone, also known as Narcan, an opioid antagonist medication that counteracts the effects of an overdose from opioids, in both Vermont and New York.

“We believe that it’s important to offer this medication without a prescription to patients who are in need. By doing this, we hope to not only prevent opioid overdose deaths in Vermont, but to also help individuals with their recovery process,” said David Adsit, director of pharmacy operations for Kinney Drugs.

Vermont Business Magazine After seven months of construction, Rutland Regional Medical Center has completed phase I and has begun work on phase II of what is to be an expected 18-month long construction and renovation project involving the hospital’s Emergency Department. The first phase, which was completed just last week, involved the creation of 1,840 square-feet of new construction and partial renovation of the existing 13,657 square-foot area of the Emergency Department. This new construction resulted in five brand new mental health/medical exam rooms. Phase II involves the closure of the existing Emergency Department main entrance area and temporarily shifting the entrance to the southeast corner of the hospital. Work began Monday, August 22 and is expected to last approximately six months with a completion goal of February 2017.

Vermont Business Magazine Darn Tough Vermont has generously donated 300 pairs of socks to the Way to Go! Challenge this year. Individuals who sign-up will be automatically entered to win a pair of these battle-tested socks, which are Guaranteed for Life. The Way to Go! Challenge will take place between September 26 and October 7.

by John McClaughry Gubernatorial candidate Sue Minter, a Democrat, is an ardent believer in the idea that human –caused emissions of carbon dioxide will ultimately cause catastrophic “climate change” – “historic drought, fires, storm surge and seal level rise.” Accordingly she promises that her government will drive down CO2 emissions (“carbon pollution”), and make Vermonters rely on 90% renewable energy by 2050, no matter what.

The most straightforward way of doing that is to get the legislature to levy increasingly burdensome taxes on all fossil fuels, until people can’t afford them anymore and switch to something else (or move away). That is the promise of the carbon tax, and it’s urgently advocated by a coalition named Energy Independent Vermont, shepherded by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG).

Vermont Business Magazine Pico Village Water Corporation, which operates a local water supply system in Killington, has agreed to pay $37,000 in civil penalties to the State of Vermont, to settle violations concerning the management and operation of a water supply system that services approximately 90 individuals in Killington.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin has reappointed Charlotte Dennett of Cambridge and Kerry Secrest of Brattleboro to serve on the Vermont Commission on Women (VCW). Both will serve additional four-year terms.

Vermont Business Magazine Nearly 200 Vermont businesses completed the latest semi-annual economic survey in July regarding the outlook of Vermont’s small- to medium-sized businesses. The survey, presented by Davis and Hodgdon Associates CPAs and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, revealed that while business owners do not see improvement in the Vermont and US economies, they are less pessimistic than they were in January. The survey also revealed that health insurance costs (60.1 percent) was the top issue, ahead of taxes (49.4 percent) and finding qualified emplolyees (48.9 percent).

​Vermont Business Magazine US Senate candidate Scott Milne sent the following letter to Senator Leahy today in response to Leahy’s rejection of his debate and clean campaign challenge. In it, Milne said it exposes Leahy’s hypocrisy on these issues by pointing to Leahy’s own words supporting the very proposals Milne has offered.