Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Working Lands Enterprise Board has announced the opening of this year's grant cycle and the availability of approximately $550,000 in grant funds for the 2016 program year. The grants will fund forestry and agriculture projects that enhance Vermont's communities, economy, and culture. The applicant guide can be found at http://workinglands.vermont.gov/apply/rfp and application information sessions for each investment area will be held October 9th and 14th (see below for details).

Vermont Business Magazine Berkshire Bank Foundation announced that it has awarded $14,100.00 in grants and pledges to ten non-profit organizations in Vermont during their third quarter grants cycle. Some of the organizations receiving support include the Dorset Theatre Festival, You Are Never Alone Foundation, Fletcher Memorial Library, Manchester Riverwalk Association, and the Town of Manchester.

· Dorset Theatre Festival based in Dorset, VT received a grant to support their student matinee performances for local school children.

· You Are Never Alone Foundation based in Dorset, VT received a grant to support their education and awareness programs for homeless individuals.

· Fletcher Memorial Library based in Ludlow, VT received a grant to support their 2015 summer reading program.

Vermont Business Magazine Melvyn Patashnick, President and CEO of Copley Health Systems, Inc. has announced plans to retire in August 2016, after nearly ten years of service with Copley Hospital. “Mel has been a passionate advocate for rural health care and we are grateful for his leadership and dedication to Copley,” said Nancy Putnam, Chair of Copley Health Systems’ Board of Trustees. “Beginning in 2007, he helped Copley move through a period of transition and consolidation, emphasizing Quality Management and collaboration. Under his leadership, Copley has been honored as a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital, a HealthStrong Hospital and one of the Top 50 hospitals in New England based on patient satisfaction. Copley will not be the same without him. He has made Copley better, which is a wonderful gift he has given our community.”

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) says Vermont farmers markets and other outlets will receive five federal grants totaling $581,745 to support local and regional food systems. The grants are part of $42.4 million granted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to states and local organizations throughout the country. Leahy, the most senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was a leading author of the 2014 Farm Bill to authorize funding for local foods and value-added products, under these programs.

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Public Service Department reached agreement today with Vermont Gas Systems to limit the cost to ratepayers for the Addison County Natural Gas Pipeline Project to $20 million less than the company's current cost estimate. The customer costs of the project will be capped at $134 million, according to the Memorandum of Understanding that was presented to the Vermont Public Service Board, which is the regulator and will determine whether the project will go forward. The original cost of the project was $86 million, now it is $154 million. Construction, land and legal issues have driven costs to nearly double just since early 2014.

PSD Commissioner Christopher Recchia issued the following statement regarding the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU):

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont has been ranked among the top 10 schools in the country that are preparing students to land good jobs after graduation and without the burden of excessive loans. UVM ranks ninth out of 1,182 schools, and is the only Vermont college or university ranked in the top 25, in the 2016 outcomes-based Educate to Career (ETC) College Rankings Index. The index is prepared by the California-based nonprofit organization Educate to Career Inc. According to the nonprofit, the index uses a set of metrics to determine the economic value added by each school in the ranking pertaining to the “employability of graduates measured against the total cost of education.”

Vermont Business Magazine In celebration of World Vegetarian Day and Vegetarian Awareness Month, OpenTable, the world's leading provider of online restaurant reservations and part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN), has unveiled the 52 Best Restaurants for Vegetarians in America, including Burlington restaurant A Single Pebble. These awards reflect the combined opinions of more than 5 million restaurant reviews submitted by verified OpenTable diners for more than 20,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont Medical Center is again being counted as a top performer among leading academic medical centers participating in the 2015 University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Quality and Accountability Study, nationally recognized as the most important analysis of its kind. UHC is an alliance of nearly all of the 120 academic medical centers in the United States. Excellent results in patient safety, low rates of complications and readmissions, and overall efficiency of care contributed to the high rankings. The hospital also improved on its own quality scores from the previous year.

Highlights

Vermont Business Magazine The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA Vermont) has been awarded a three-year $247,000 grant from USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). With this funding from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Farmers Market Support Grants, NOFA-VT will work to increase SNAP accessibility and participation at Vermont’s farmers markets, and to support the establishment, expansion, and promotion of SNAP services, known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT, at farmers markets.

“This grant will expand NOFA-VT’s capacity to support limited-income Vermonters to access organic and local foods at farmers markets while strengthening the economic viability of Vermont’s farms,” said NOFA-VT’s Erin Buckwalter, manager of programs to support direct markets and increase community food access at the organization.

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine All three of the major tax funds improved last month. While only the General Fund is now ahead of its year-to-date target, the Transportation and Education made up for losses in recent months by getting back nearly to economists' expectations. Importantly, the vital Personal Income Tax, the single largest line item, showed strength after languishing during the summer and is nearly on target for the fiscal year. The Education and Transportation funds were helped by an increase in the Motor Vehicle sales and use tax (up 21.67 percent), which, like the PI, had underperformed since the start of the fiscal year July 1. September is the third month of FY 2016 and the end of the 1st Quarter. The fiscal year revenue targets were adopted by the Vermont Emergency Board on July 27, 2015.

Vermont Business Magazine A new statewide phone line to support families with young children has been announced by the United Ways of Vermont. Parents and caregivers can now dial 2-1-1 to be connected with trained Help Me Grow child development specialists who can answer questions about children’s behavior and development and connect families to resources and services in their community. The project was funded by the Vermont Early Learning Challenge Grant – a federal grant that supports collaborative systems reform in early childhood across the Agency of Human Services, the Agency of Education, and Building Bright Futures.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont is ranked highest in the nation for econmopic "opportunity," which it has been every year. The fifth annual US Opportunity Index shows that access to opportunity has increased nearly 9 percent nationally since 2011, reflecting a dramatically improved post-recession employment picture, higher high school graduation rates and a significant drop in violent crime, among other factors. Despite these gains, increasing poverty and income inequality combined with stagnant wages continue to impede progress for middle and lower income communities.

As with many other states, while employment is up and crime is down since the Great Recession, median household income and the poverty rate are both worse in Vermont. Typical of measures based on outcomes, states in the Northeast generally did well (see list below) and those in the Southeast did poorly.