Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Gas announced Wednesday that it now provides service to over 50,000 families, businesses and institutions in Chittenden and Franklin counties. The company is celebrating its 50^th anniversary of service in Vermont this year. “It is an honor to provide the choice and opportunity of cleaner, more affordable natural gas to more than 50,000 Vermonters,” said Don Rendall, President and CEO of Vermont Gas. “Our customers are saving money and reducing carbon emissions as compared to oil and propane heat and we are excited about extending service to more Vermonters in the coming year.”

Will Metro, of Williston, recently converted his four-unit apartment building in Colchester to natural gas.

by Tom Pelham Governor Shumlin’s recent budget speech is a vain attempt to craft a legacy of fiscal responsibility. But, it’s too late for that; the damage is done to both Vermont’s fiscal standing and the governor’s legacy. Some housekeeping is in order. Governor Shumlin points a finger at former Governor Douglas for the state’s fiscal woes; but state fiscal records reveal otherwise. Governor Douglas vetoed the fiscal 2010 budget not because it spent too little, but because it spent too much. It was Senate President Pro Tempore Shumlin and House Speaker Smith who in June 2009 lead the veto override and henceforth set Vermont on its current unsustainable spending trajectory.

Vermont Business Magazine Comcast Business has introduced WiFi Pro for SMBs and enterprise branch locations in Vermont and nationwide. Offering features previously only available to headquarters and other large office locations, WiFi Pro was built to enable a wide range of businesses to serve both guests/patrons and employees as the demand for WiFi grows. WiFi Pro is a comprehensive Wi-Fi solution that includes cloud-based controls, marketing tools and other advanced capabilities.

by Ron Miller Last year, the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)  launched the Vermont Climate Change Economy Initiative. Organizers believe that making a deliberate, planned effort to guide economic activity in the state toward climate change mitigation and adaptation can “build national reputation, create jobs, and attract youth and entrepreneurism.” At a daylong summit attended by more than 400 business and community leaders, science and policy experts, and other citizens from around the state, VCRD gathered dozens of ideas and a clear sense of direction about how to proceed, and appointed a Vermont Climate Change Economy Council to draft a comprehensive plan. This group held three public forums around the state in the past year to further explore possible approaches.

Vermont Business Magazine As Iowa voters gear up to decide whose vision for America they support, six organizations, including Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, were honored with the Allstate/Atlantic Media Renewal Awards for innovative local approaches to pressing issues affecting communities across the country. The awards will were presented Tuesday at a summit on social innovation at Drake University. The six winners, who were identified after a year-long national search and through the Atlantic Media editorial series, represent some of America’s best social innovators. Their efforts confirm a recent National Journal/Allstate Heartland Monitor Poll that found 69 percent of Americans believe that solutions to the country’s biggest economic and social challenges will most likely come from state or local institutions.

Vermont Business Magazine Today, Lisa Ventriss, President of Vermont Business Roundtable (VBR) and Jeffrey Carr, President, Economic & Policy Resources (EPR), announced the Q4 2015/Q1 2016 results of their joint initiative, the VBR-EPR Business Conditions Survey. The survey, which is conducted quarterly, provides both a look back at the previous quarter and a predictive index going forward. The data for both the backward and forward-looking questions are weighted to the Vermont economy by sector employment and turned into “diffusion indices”.1 These diffusion indices provide a tool for analyzing and presenting insight into the Vermont economy over time through the sentiments of the Roundtable members.

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine Vermont once again is 49th (second worst) in the 2015 ALEC "Rich States, Poor States" report, which was released last week. New York ranked 50th (Vermont and New York have occupied the last two spots in each of the reports eight years). Meanwhile, Utah was first, North Dakota was second and Indiana third best. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, as usual, took a beating in the report, despite having many of the highest-income states.

Public Assets Institute Warm weather and a lack of snow took a toll on Vermont’s tourist industry in December. The accommodation and food services sector lost 2,200 jobs from the previous month. With gains elsewhere, Vermont netted a loss of 2,100 jobs. Accommodation and food services jobs dropped significantly in December 2014 too, also thanks to rain and warm temperatures. Typically this sector sees a change of only a few hundred jobs from November to December.

Vermont Business Magazine Are you part of, or do you know of, a Vermont nonprofit or community organization in need of a small, year-round, sustainably-built and -operable, permanent or portable structure? Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Waitsfield seeks a client-partner for its fall 2016 Semester in Sustainable Design/Build program and offers pro-bono design and construction services for a building to serve an organization’s programmatic, mission-related operation. Yestermorrow’s structures are known for evocative design, energy efficiency, and quick completion.

Vermont Business Magazine The Green Mountain Care Board recently approved an amended Certificate of Need for an expansion and renovation of the Emergency Department at Rutland Regional Medical Center. The project will begin in February and is expected to take up to 18 months and will include 1,840 square-feet of new construction and partial renovations of the current 13,657 square-feet area. The Emergency Department will remain open during the entire project.

The number of emergency treatment rooms, currently 19, will be increased to 26 with the new addition designed for five behavioral health treatment rooms and two isolation rooms that can be converted to behavioral health rooms. In addition, the lobby area will be secured for the safety of patients, visitors and staff by creating a controlled access to public waiting areas. A new security office will be added along with enhanced security measures. Total estimated project costs are just over $6 million.

by Rob Roper This week (January 24-30) is national School Choice Week, celebrating the great steps forward school choice has made in states around the country. Confronted with many of the same concerns Vermonters are facing about the high cost and quality of their schools, sates from Florida to Texas to Wisconsin to Nevada have expanded options and access to resources for parents to choose the best educational setting for their children. Sadly, Vermont is heading in the other direction, throwing away a national leadership position we have held on school choice for a century and a half  -- by accident! At least that’s what our legislators are saying, and most seem to be sincere.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Richard Sears (D-Bennington) today detailed legislation to "cautiously and deliberately" legalize marijuana in Vermont. The move comes after the governor announced in his State of the State Address that he and Senator Sears would work to draft common-sense legislation to better regulate and eliminate the black market for a substance that over 80,000 Vermonters – almost one in eight – already report using on a monthly basis.