Current News
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Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont State Police early Wednesday morning responded to a call from Chris Recchia, the state's commissioner of the Department of Public Service, of an apparent demonstration at his home in Randolph. Recchia told the group, which he said numbered 11 individuals, that they were trespassing and asked them to leave. VSP reported (see incident report below) that the protesters had left by the time they had reached Recchia's home. The group was apparently an anti-petroleum energy group, but their motivation was not clear. The VSP is asking the public for assistance in gaining further information on the incident.
STATE OF VERMONT
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
VERMONT STATE POLICE
PRESS RELEASE
CASE#: 16D301776
TROOPER: Kelsey Knapp
STATION: Royalton
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Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power rates continue to rank among the lowest of New England’s largest utilities, according to the most recent data compiled by the Edison Electric Institute. Overall, GMP’s rates are the second lowest and 17 percent lower than the regional average, while its industrial rates are the lowest. Residential customer rates are ranked second lowest and commercial rates third lowest of the 14 utilities ranked, which cover the bulk of customers in New England. For March 2016 rates, Vermont had the lowest residential rates (17.11 cents per kwh) and second lowest overall (14.33) to Maine (13.01). The overall US average in March was 10.01 cents per kwh.
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Vermont Business Magazine This afternoon, Matt Dunne submitted over a thousand ballot access petition signatures to the office of Secretary of State Jim Condos, making his candidacy for governor official. Dunne, a former state senator from Windsor County, ran six years ago in one of the most competitive Democratic races in history, which included Susan Bartlett, Deb Markowitz, Doug Racine, and ultimate winner Peter Shumlin.
Dunne said, “I’m humbled by the outpouring of support -- reflected in these signatures -- that we’ve received from Vermonters across the state. This support energizes me as we keep fighting to make our progressive vision a reality here in Vermont.”
Matt Dunne.
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Vermont Business Magazine The 32nd annual Vermont Chamber Business & Industry EXPO will take place Thursday at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center. This is the largest business-to-business trade show in Northern New England. With an estimated 3,000 business leader attendees and nearly 150 exhibitors, this event will create and strengthen B2B connections for Vermont economic growth. Governor Peter Shumlin will announce the winner of the 2015 Deane C Davis Outstanding Business of the Year at 10 am during opening ceremonies in the conference center foyer.
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Vermont Business Magazine The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) has received a Regional Workforce Partnership grant from the Vermont Department of Labor to further support their newest workforce development program, the BDCC Cluster Roundtable Initiative. The grant is for $9,000, and will support the program for the upcoming fiscal year.
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Vermont Business Magazine The Public Service Department through its Division for Telecommunications and Connectivity today announced its second round of grant funding under the Connectivity Initiative to deploy broadband to under-served communities throughout Vermont. Applications for funding from the Connectivity Initiative are open to Internet service providers (ISPs). In 2015, $886,000 was awarded from the Connectivity Initiative to Comcast, FairPoint, and ECFiber. It is anticipated that approximately $556,000 will be available in this first 2016 grant round.
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Vermont Business Magazine At its 2016 Top 100 Supplier Conference Tuesday, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc, a personal beverage system company based in Waterbury, announced the recipients of its first annual Supplier Recognition Awards. Sixteen companies were awarded honors in four categories: Supplier of the Year, Top Performance, Most Improved, and Keurig Values. Touching all aspects of Keurig’s diverse supply chain, the winners were selected through a robust nomination process combined with rigorous evaluations of the supplier’s 2015 performance. Keurig is Vermont's largest privately held business, with $4.5 billion in annual revenues (2015), 2,000 employees in Vermont and 6,000 employees worldwide.
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by Jeb Spaulding, Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges Of the 6,000 or so Vermonters about to graduate from high school, more than 2,000 are unlikely to further their education after June. They will join a growing cohort of young Vermonters who lack the credentials necessary to succeed in our economy. In fact, Vermont has the lowest college enrollment rate in New England. More troubling is that less than 40 percent of our economically-disadvantaged students continue on to college. A recent study by the non-profit Education Trust found that, nationally, 80 percent of young people from middle class families earn bachelor's degrees by age 24, versus only 11 percent of students in the lowest income quartile. The poverty rate is twice as high for those with only a high school diploma compared to a bachelor’s degree.
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Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin today signed into law H.84, legislation that cracks down on online dating scams and provides greater consumer protections in a number of other areas. The legislation was a priority of Attorney General Bill Sorrell. Under the new law, online dating companies will be required to notify members of suspicious activity or when they are interacting with another user who has been banned from the site for potential fraud. Vermont is the first state to pass such protections. The move comes after the Attorney General’s Office investigated a number of cases involving online dating scams that resulted in Vermonters being ripped off for tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Student Assistance Corp and State Treasurer Beth Pearce today announced that $4 million in local investment financing will be directed to lower the fixed rates on Vermont Advantage loans for parents and students, starting at 4.8 percent, the lowest rates ever offered. Nearly 70 percent of Vermonters pursuing a bachelor’s degree have student loans; the average loan debt for a college senior is about $29,000. Education loans are used to fund the difference between the cost of education and the various kinds of financial aid students already may receive.
“Vermont parents and students are shouldering a bigger burden of college costs than anywhere else in the country,” Pearce said. “I can’t think of a better local financing opportunity to invest in than our own Vermonters as they pursue education and training after high school.”
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by John McClaughry The 2016 legislative session is now history, and it’s worthwhile to assess its production. My criteria include preserving fiscal responsibility, advancing liberty, limiting government, and thwarting various hungry special interests. The basic facts are readily available from the thorough reporting by VTDigger.org. First, the Legislature managed to balance the FY2017 General Fund budget, once again by raising taxes and fees by $28 million. Wary of any obvious tax and fee increases in an election year, the tax committees found a convenient target – the mutual fund industry, almost entirely inhabited by out of staters. Hitting it up for $20.8 million closed most of the gap, without arousing Vermont taxpayers.
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Vermont Business Magazine A relatively unknown molecule that regulates metabolism could be the key to boosting an individual’s immunity to the flu – and potentially other viruses – according to research reported today in the journal Immunity. The study(link is external), led by University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine doctoral student Devin Champagne and Mercedes Rincon, PhD, a professor of medicine and an immunobiologist, discovered that a protein called methylation controlled J – or MCJ – can be altered to boost the immune system’s response to the flu.