Current News

Vermont Business Magazine At its June meeting, the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board awarded $4,597,550 to conserve nearly 3,260 acres of farmland, recreational land and town forests in 20 towns and to provide for home ownership and housing accessibility around the state. VHCB commitments of state funds will leverage an additional $7.8 million in town funds, local fundraising, bargain sales, donations, mortgage financing and federal dollars. Fourteen of the farm projects include special water quality protections and three projects use federal funding from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, focused on protecting and improving water quality in the Lake Champlain Basin.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) today announced that Vermont has received $2.1 million in AmeriCorps funding. The grants are from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency for volunteering and service programs. See recipient list below.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger with AmeriCorps volunteers in April. Vermont mayors honored AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and other service members. Weinberger joined volunteers at a Burlington waterfront clean-up service event. City of Burlington photo.

Vermont Business Magazine Martin Hahn, Executive Director of Community Capital of Vermont, announced in Community Capital's newsletter today that he is leaving the micro business lender and will become the Housing Director at the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board next month.

by Chris Pearson Voters have been clear they want property tax relief. Crystal clear. Voters also consistently support school budgets, which leads me to believe strong schools are a high priority. These two desires aren’t necessarily at odds and I’m pleased to tell you a solution is underway in Montpelier. The way we pay for schools today burdens low-income and middle-class families more than anybody. That’s because most of us, two-thirds of homeowners, pay under "income sensitivity" which brings our bill down to 3% of our income. This benefit is extended to everyone with a household income up to $135,000.

Further up the economic ladder families are paying just 1.5% or even 0.6% of their incomes to support schools. These are the families who've seen most of the growth in income since the 2008 recession. If most of us can afford to pay 3% of our income to support schools it seems fair to ask wealthy families to pay the same amount.

Vermont Business Magazine A newly released study, conducted by insuranceQuotes.com, compares Vermont’s auto insurance rates for parents of teen drivers to rates in the rest of the US. Vermont ranked ninth highest in the nation. Data shows that teenagers are risky drivers who are very expensive to insure, according to a new report released today from insuranceQuotes. That probably comes as no surprise to most parents, but they may be glad to learn that, on average, rates for insuring teens have come down. It can be helpful to understand why and what specific factors contribute to determining exactly how much your family will pay for adding a teen driver to an auto policy.

The study found:

Millman to be recognized for outstanding dedication to socially responsible business practices

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) is pleased to announce Paul Millman, co-founder of Chroma Technology, as the 2016 recipient of the Terry Ehrich Award for Excellence in Socially Responsible Business. Named for the late owner of Hemmings Motor News and a founding member of VBSR, the award is given to a VBSR member who best exemplifies Terry Ehrich’s commitment to the environment, workplace, progressive public policy, and community.

Vermont Business Magazine The State of Vermont will receive $300,000 from Wells Fargo Advisors as the result of a recent investigation conducted by the Department of Financial Regulation. Commissioner Susan L Donegan announced today that Wells Fargo will pay an administrative penalty of $270,000 to the general fund, $15,000 to reimburse the department for the cost of the investigation and $15,000 to the department’s education and training fund. The investigation stemmed from a customer complaint alleging that a Wells Fargo investment advisor had made unsuitable recommendations regarding investment accounts and that the company’s representatives were not adequately trained or supervised. In addition to the $300,000 paid to DFR, the complainant will receive restitution for all fees and commissions charged.

Vermont Business Magazine In the wake of the Orlando shooting the Vermont Mayors Coalition (VMC) today renewed its call for state action on universal background checks and to take critical steps to increase the efficacy of such checks. Speaking at the Burlington Police Department, where Vermont mayors first gathered over three years ago in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting to call for state gun violence reforms, the mayors together called for critical state action to improve the safety of Vermonters by:

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont consumers who own or lease certain Volkswagen and Audi 2.0-liter diesel vehicles will receive a cash payment from Volkswagen and will have the option of having their vehicle modified or repurchased by Volkswagen under the terms of a settlement announced by Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell today.

“Volkswagen is being held accountable for its total disregard for our consumers and the environment,” said Attorney General Sorrell. “Today’s agreement is a big step towards making Vermonters whole, but there is still much work to be done. My office will continue to pursue this matter so that Volkswagen is also held responsible for the environmental harm it has caused, as well as to deter future acts of orchestrated consumer deception.”

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Governor Peter Shumlin each issued statements on US Senate action days before Vermont’s first-in-the nation GMO labeling law takes effect: “On Friday, Vermont will become the first state in the nation to require GMO labeling. This is a triumph for ordinary Americans over the powerful interests of Monsanto and other multi-national food industry corporations.

Senator Sanders. VBM file photo.

"We cannot allow Vermont’s law to be overturned by bad federal legislation that has just been announced. I will do everything I can to defeat this bill, beginning by putting a hold on it in the Senate.

by Stephanie Yu Young people and rich people are moving to Vermont. If this surprises you, you aren’t alone. You’re more likely to hear that the young and the wealthy are fleeing Vermont for better opportunities. Your neighbors bought a condo and moved to Florida. Your daughter got a good job and took off for Chicago. So yes, people move out of Vermont. But here’s what else is happening: They’re moving in. About the same number of young people move to Vermont as leave the state each year. That’s true of high-income people too.

Vermont Business Magazine OneCare Vermont, LLC and Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc announced Monday a collaboration to provide OneCare Vermont with comprehensive population health data in a system designed to improve data collection and clinical analytics capabilities. To accomplish this, clinical data from the Vermont Health Information Exchange (VHIE) – operated by VITL – will be filtered and transmitted into OneCare’s enterprise informatics platforms. The VHIE collects and indexes clinical data from different electronic health record (EHR) systems across the state. This data is then analyzed by OneCare for the purposes of managing care and meeting its wellness and patient satisfaction objectives. OneCare Vermont is Vermont’s largest accountable care organization and manages care for the more than 100,000 patients attributed to its Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial shared savings programs.