Current News
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Related Company: Switchback Brewingby Daniel Monahan The Small Business Administration announced the 2014 Vermont small business award winners today. The highest honor, the Vermont Small Business Persons of the Year, is awarded to Bill Cherry and Jeff Neiblum, owners of the Switchback Brewing Company, for growing their brewery, expanding the brand, increasing sales and employment, and contributing to their local community.
“The SBA has had a long relationship with Switchback,” said Darcy Carter, SBA Vermont District Office Director. “He was able to achieve his dream of opening a brewery with an SBA loan and guidance from his friend Jeff. Over the next 12 years, Switchback obtained several more SBA loans to expand the brewery company, produce more ale and hire more employees.”
Switchback is a brewery based in Burlington. Its flagship beer is an unfiltered ale sold throughout the state and distributed in areas of New Hampshire and Maine as well.
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Related Company: Goddard CollegeThe Board of Trustees of Goddard College announced that there will be no increase in tuition or fees for the next fiscal year beginning July 1, 2014.
“Students everywhere continue to be under great financial pressure as they pursue their education,” said Acting President Avram Patt. “By not increasing tuition or fees for next year, we are making it a little easier for our current students to continue their studies, and for prospective students to enroll for the first time.”
The college also announced the Engaged Artist Award, a new grant that provides up to $2,000 to artists and writers who enroll in the Masters in Fine Arts, MFA in Creative Writing, MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts, or MA in Individualized Studies programs.
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by Morgan True vtdigger.org
The Vermont Senate doesn’t intend to sit on its hands when it comes to health care reform this session. Frustration with the troubled rollout of Vermont Health Connect has undermined public confidence in the state’s ability to execute reform plans, and senators say they are intent on ensuring the same mistakes aren’t repeated in the transition to a universal publicly financed health care system.
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by Morgan True vtdigger.org
The two largest teachers’ unions in the United States have officially jumped into the push for publicly financed health care in Vermont.
The American Federation of Teachers gave $100,000 to a newly formed issue advocacy group, Vermont Coalition for Universal Reform, which will work to build broad-based public support for the state’s planned universal health care program and work to ensure its implementation.
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by John Herrick vtdigger.org
A bill to give towns more say in where solar projects are located died on the Senate floor Wednesday night after lawmakers and environmental groups cautioned the bill would slow renewable energy growth in Vermont.
The Senate voted 21-8 against the bill on second reading.
The Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved S.191, which was later amended to require ground-mounted solar installations (as opposed to rooftop solar projects) to undergo the same town zoning and screening restrictions as other commercial development.
Renewable energy advocates were on guard to stop the bill, but Senate lawmakers were quick to intervene and kill it on the floor.
The state has established a clean-energy target to source 90 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050. Senate lawmakers said the bill could chip away a statewide goal designed to serve the public good.
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Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding and Vermont State Employees’ Association President Shelley Martin announced today that the Administration will implement an Employer Group Waiver Plus Wrap Program for State retirees. The Employer Group Waiver Plan (EGWP), often called “Eggwhip,” is a federal subsidy program for Medicare primary retirees that creates significant savings for the state’s health plans, which in Vermont's case could be over $100 million..
The “Wrap” portion of the EGWP allows the State benefit plan to supplement the Medicare Part D formulary so that the total set of drugs available to these retirees mirrors the benefit plan for active employees in the types of drugs available. The deductible, co-insurance, and maximum out-of-pocket limits will be the same as those for active State employees.
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by John Herrick vtdigger.org An electric vehicle charging station near the state capitol in Montpelier. Photo by John Herrick/VTDigger
Some lawmakers were caught off guard when the state’s energy efficiency utility pitched a plan to go into the business of air-source heat pumps and electric cars – technologies that use more electricity but cut down on fossil fuel emissions.
“What does the future hold in 10 years?” said George Twigg, director of public affairs for Efficiency Vermont, a subsidiary of the national company Vermont Energy Investment Corp. “We don’t necessarily know,” he continued.
Early this session, the utility presented the Senate Finance Committee with a proposal to penetrate the budding industry of electric cars.
“What is an electric car except for a big appliance on wheels?” Twigg said. But lawmakers had little appetite for the proposal to expand the utility’s offerings.
by tim
The US Department of Labor Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance has issued a determination dated March 7, 2014, determining most of the IBM workers who were laid off in June 2013 as being “trade eligible.” This certification for extended unemployment benefits will include the IBM workers who are facing layoff at end of this month.
This was the second filing by Vermont Department of Labor to the US Department of Labor, as the federal Office of Trade Adjustment had not certified all of the 419 workers that Vermont had asked for in the original petition filed in June 2013.
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Related Company: Jasper Hill FarmCabot Creamery Cooperative, IncGrafton Village Cheese Co, LLCVermont cheesmakers won five gold medals at the World Championship Cheese Contest, which concluded Wednesday in Madison, WI. Jasper Hill Farm of Greensboro and Cabot Creamery both won multiple awards with Grafton Village Cheese earning a podium. Jasper Hill also placed two cheeses, their Bayley Hazen Blue and Harbison, among the overall Top 16.
For the grand prize, the international panel of expert judges named a Swiss Emmentaler as the 2014 World Championship Cheese. (See list of category winners below)
Cabot earned the following "Best of Class" recognitions:
1st Place: Cheddar Aged Two Years or Longer: Cabot Vintage Choice Cheddar
1st Place: Pepper Flavored "American" Style Cheeses: Cabot Hot Buffalo Wing Cheddar
1st Place: Cottage Cheese: Cabot Vermont Cottage Cheese
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by John Herrick vtdigger.org A proposal to limit forest fragmentation was thwarted by developers who oppose using the state’s land use and development laws as a tool to keep woodlands intact, according to the lead sponsor of the bill that was gutted on the Senate floor Wednesday.
“There are developers in a certain corner of the state that are very concerned that nothing gets in the way of their planned development,” said Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham.
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by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org A House panel will bring the property tax rate down from an initial 7 cent increase down to 4 cents for residential homeowners. The proposal pushes commercial rates up 8 cents.
The House Ways and Means Committee took a straw poll on the proposal on Tuesday, and lawmakers supported it in a 7-4 vote. Rep. Adam Greshin, I-Warren, voted against the proposal because he said the 8 cent increase is a roughly 5 percent jump in the tax for non-residential taxpayers and it “strains the notion of fairness.”
Though legislators on the panel are still working through a number of details in the committee bill, they agreed to a 98 cent tax on the base rate for homeowners and a $1.52 rate for commercial payers. The base education amount, which is used in the formula for calculating the actual rate property taxpayers are assessed, will go up to $9,382.
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The University of Vermont is among 12 recipients selected for a prestigious 2014 Beckman Scholars Program award recognizing outstanding undergraduate research students in chemistry and biological sciences.