Current News

Comcast held a special reception and ribbon-cutting event Tuesday to announce the grand opening of its interactive Xfinity Store in South Burlington, Vermont. The 3,000 square foot space has been designed entirely around the needs of customers, providing them with an opportunity to explore, learn about and interact directly with the latest Xfinity products and services.

Community leaders came out to help celebrate the opening and tour the new store. Mary Burns, CEO of the Burlington YMCA, was also in attendance to accept a surprise $2,500 donation made by Comcast to the organization.

Vermont Business Magazine After several spikes during the holiday season, new weekly unemployment claims in Vermont are back to about where they were in the fall and less than half where they were just after Christmas. For the week of January 17, 2015, there were 794 new, regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance in Vermont. This is a decrease of 227 from the previous week's total, and 16 more than they were a year ago. In 2014, claims were consistently below 2013 levels on a week-to-week basis.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets is now accepting proposals from Vermont businesses and organizations for vending and exhibiting space in the Vermont Building at the Eastern States Exposition (“Big E”) in West Springfield, Massachusetts. In 2015, the fair will be held from September 18th - October 4th. Nearly 1 million patrons passed through the Vermont Building during the 2014 fair, spending over $1.7 million on Vermont products.

The Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Vermont Business Magazine are accepting nominations until March 6^th for the Deane C Davis Outstanding Business of the Year Award that honors an outstanding Vermont business. The deadline for nominating a business is March 6, 2015. Nominees and applicants are encouraged to complete the 2014 Deane C Davis Award online nomination form: http://events.vermontbiz.com/deane-c-davis-nominations/

Dealer.com was the 2014 winner, presented at the Vermont Business Expo in May. VBM photo.

Lang McLaughry Real Estate, the largest real estate firm in Vermont, with 15 offices, has merged with Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, which has three offices in New Hampshire. Together, they have acquired Vermont Country Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, which has five offices in southern Vermont. The combined entities will operate as Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, with a total of 23 offices and over 220 sales associates across Vermont and New Hampshire.

Staige Davis

by Governor Peter Shumlin The agenda I laid out earlier this month seeks to make life a little easier and more affordable for Vermont families by attacking the two biggest drags on incomes and wages: health care costs and rising property taxes. Addressing those issues alone, however, isn’t enough. If we’re to really make progress for Vermont families, we need to combine increased affordability with expanded job growth and economic opportunity.

Vermont licensed 16 new captives in 2014, according to data released by the Vermont Captive Insurance Division. The new captives were made up of 10 pure captives, two sponsored, two special purpose financial insurers, one association, and one Risk Retention Group. Two new captives were redomesticated from Bermuda and Delaware. Growth in 2014 was down from previous years attributed primarily to the prolonged soft market and added competition by other US states. Despite fewer formations, gross written premium continued to grow with a projected $29.8 billion, up from $27.5 billion in 2013 already the most of any captive insurance domicile.

“2014 was another good year for captives in Vermont,” saidVermont Governor Peter Shumlin. “We welcome all of the new captives to the gold standard of domiciles.”

Now that Governor Shumlin no longer supports a single-payer health plan under current economic conditions, opponents of that and the state's health care exchange are calling for the state to undo its own plan and piggyback onto the federal exchange. They say Vermont Health Connect is still unworkable for many Vermonters and that there is no end in sight to the skyrocketing cost of the VHC. Led by Representative Patti Komline (R-Dorset), and joined by colleagues from across the political spectrum, they are calling for Vermont to transition VHC to a federal-state exchange partnership.

Representative Patti Komline on the floor of the House just prior to the Shumlin-Milne vote January 8, 2015. VBM photo

Nearly 1,000 small businesses renewing their qualified health plans for 2015 used a new online enrollment tool developed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont to allow full employee choice among exchange products. According to the state's largest health insurer, the businesses were among 3,500 small employer groups that enrolled directly through Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The vast majority of the employers completed their renewals by December 10, allowing, it said, for timely processing, billing and distribution of member materials by their January 1 effective dates.

“We promised to ‘see our customers through’ the changes in health care and as part of that commitment we met with hundreds of small employers last fall in community meetings across the state,” said Don George, BCBSVT’s president and CEO.“

by John Herrick vtdigger.org Regulators want to reopen an approved permit for a natural gas pipeline project through Addison County due to an escalation in cost estimates. The Public Service Board will seek a remand from the Vermont Supreme Court for a state permit it approved in December for a 41-mile pipeline from Colchester to Middlebury. The permit is also under appeal by a Monkton landowner.

The board said the latest cost estimate to build the project — $154 million, up from the original $86 million — is sufficiently large to warrant further investigation. The Department of Public Service, which represent ratepayers, also wants to reconsider the costs and benefits of the pipeline.

Governor Peter Shumlin and the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation recently awarded 18 State Historic Preservation grants worth $253,220 to municipalities and non-profit organizations for the rehabilitation of historic civic buildings, centerpieces in Vermont’s landscape.

“Protecting historic buildings in our downtowns, village centers, and rural communities is critical to the preservation of our state’s heritage and economy,” said Noelle MacKay, Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development. “This year’s awarding of $253,220 in matching grants demonstrates that historic preservation is an essential tool for community renewal, economic development, and job growth.”

Casella Resource Solutions and Grow Compost have both been awarded Clean Energy Development Fund grants ($139,000 and $131,549 respectively) from the Vermont Public Service Department (PSD) for two pilot projects to demonstrate the anaerobic digestion of food scraps. PSD collaborated with the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (VAAFM) and the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to design the program and develop the agreements with the two companies. PSD also worked with Green Mountain Power who contributed $70,000 of refunded nuclear insurance monies to allow the PSD to make it possible to support the two projects to advance statewide renewable energy and recycling goals.