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Vermont Business Magazine The US is still slowly recovering from the staggering loss of jobs during the Great Recession, but some cities and states are rebounding faster than others. Vermont is once again in the bottom 10 for 2014 as it was in 2013. Vermont did not suffer as much during the recession as several other states, and therefore has less to rebound from, but the state is also showing stagnant results in labor force and total employment. Research Professor Lee McPheters of the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University provides rankings and analysis of the winners and losers for states and metro areas across the country, based on the latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics through the the third quarter of 2014.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org Vermonters receiving premium subsidies through the state’s health insurance exchange will have an additional form to file with their income tax returns, and the state is preparing to help. This is the first year that the Affordable Care Act will affect tax returns, and state officials are expecting a good deal of confusion. Those below the federal income tax filing threshold of about $10,000 for an individual or between $14,000 and $20,000 for a family won’t be affected because they won’t have to file a return. People above the filing threshold must report that they had health insurance or they will owe a penalty, known as the shared responsibility payment.

National Life Group has improved its environmental conservation efforts in several key areas, as well as invested more heavily in the communities it serves, according to its newly released 2014 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Through greater efficiency and increased production of its own power, the company has driven down its electricity use per employee over the past four years. This spring, construction began on a new 500 kilowatt solar energy field. A biomass heating plant continues to decrease total emissions to 1,366 tons in 2013 from 4,078 in 2010.The company has also increased its recycling and continues to successfully encourage the use of alternate transportation.

Vermont Legal Aid has received a three-year Fair Housing Initiatives Program Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue the Housing Discrimination Law Project’s work to ensure Vermonters’ access to housing and to challenge both individual and systemic discriminatory practices. The $975,000 grant will be disbursed over three years to fund Vermont Legal Aid’s statewide systemic and complaint-based testing project, fair housing counseling, representation in enforcement actions, education, and land use planning and policy advocacy with state and local officials.

The Project’s most recent report on rental housing discrimination in Vermont, published in May 2014, found that discrimination was a factor in nearly half of the rental housing market tests conducted. The Project's testing consistently shows high rates of discrimination in rental housing based on race, color, national origin, having minor children, and disability.

Green Tree Servicing, LLC, a national servicer of residential mortgage loans, will pay Vermont consumers a total of $55,250 for the company’s debt collection practices and late payment of property taxes. Green Tree will also pay $176,750 to the State. According to Attorney General William Sorrell, the settlement is the first in Vermont to focus on mortgage-related issues since a series of multistate and federal settlements with national banks and servicers.

“We must ensure that home mortgages, which are so central to the financial well-being of Vermonters, are serviced in accordance with the law,” he said.

by John herrick vtdigger.org Brandy Ofciarcik-Perez pointed from her lawn to a sharp bend in the road as a flatbed truck carrying granite slabs overshot the center line in its trajectory down the hill toward her home. “People fly through here,” the 40-year-old dance instructor said, holding one of her three children by the hand. “I used to actually put up barriers.” Traffic is just one of the concerns raised by residents of Graniteville Road about an asphalt plant operating at the Rock of Ages quarry. More than two dozen neighborhood residents also say the plant is noisy and pollutes the air. Many landowners in the self-proclaimed Granite Center of the World have posted signs in their yards saying “stop the asphalt plant.”

Campaign for Vermont, a non-partisan citizen driven advocacy organization, has requested that Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer review the accuracy of “equalized pupil” and “education spending” calculations used by the Agency of Education and local school districts. These two highly obscure terms are defined in Vermont’s statutes and play a central role in setting local education property taxes, reallocating students from among school districts, and penalizing school districts with seemingly high spending levels per pupil. No other state utilizes these terms when managing their education funding system.

For fiscal 2014, the application of the legal requirements associated with “education spending” and “equalized pupils” resulted in the following:

Danforth Pewter and Gardener’s Supply Company, two nationally recognized Vermont-based specialty companies, have turned to the sun for emission-free solar power. The two companies will share the output of the newly installed Vermont solar array. The 144 KW system, constructed on the Pulling Farm in Addison features dual axis AllSun Trackers, manufactured nearby in Williston by AllEarth Renewables and a Power Purchase Agreement by SolarSense, LLC, a provider of clean, reliable and affordable power.

Danforth Pewter is a family-owned fine pewter crafter based in Middlebury, Gardener’s Supply, headquartered in Burlington is an employee-owned company providing environmentally friendly gardening products and information through its website, catalogs, and retail stores.

Vermont’s groundwater will now be better protected from pollution discharged into underground wells. Today the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued new Underground Injection Control Rules, replacing less protective 1982 standards. The rules regulate waste below ground through Vermont’s Underground Injection Control Program, authorized under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

“This new rule provides a strategic and targeted approach to increasing protections for Vermont’s groundwater,” said DEC Commissioner David Mears.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is urging Vermont’s dairy farmers to take advantage of US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s decision to extend for a week the signup period for the new dairy farm production price insurance program created under the 2014 Farm Bill.

Vilsack on Wednesday afternoon announced that the signup deadline for the new Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) will be extended to December 5, 2014, and that the comment period for the new MPP-Dairy rule would be extended until December 15, 2014.

The Vermont Housing & Conservation Board has approved $3,657,169 in grants and deferred loans to create, preserve or rehabilitate 152 affordable homes and to conserve 1,198 acres of farmland and working forest. VHCB Executive Director Gus Seelig said, “The Board is please to support these community-driven projects in all corners of the state. Housing developments receiving commitments of VHCB funding are located in Lyndonville, Brattleboro, Bennington, Burlington and Hinesburg, while land will be conserved in the towns of Ferrisburgh, Hinesburg, Hartland, Bridgewater and Reading.”

HOUSING AWARDS:

Heating season is here, and it’s time to button up. Standing before a display of weather stripping, caulking and other heat-saving materials at Montpelier’s Aubuchon Hardware store, Gov. Peter Shumlin recently urged Vermonters to pitch in on the Button Up Vermont Day of Action on Saturday, November 1. “Button Up Vermont is a rallying day for us all to come together and tighten up our homes for winter,” he said. “This is important: it will put money in your pocket, it’s good for the planet and it’s good for our kids and grandkids.”

This second annual Button Up Day of Action is aimed at bookending Vermont’s successful “Green Up Day,” with the goal of motivating Vermonters to do something simple – or significant – to stop wasting heat (and money).