Current News

People's United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: PBCT) announced today it will host a conference call onThursday, April 19, 2012, at8:00 am Eastern Timeto discuss its first quarter 2012 earnings announcement. People's United Financial will release its first quarter financial results onThursday, April 19, 2012at approximately7:00 am Eastern Time.

The call will be broadcast live through the company's Internet site,peoples.com. It is accessible by selecting "Investor Relations" in the "About People's United" section on the home page, and then selecting "Conference Calls" in the "News and Events" section.

The call will be archived on the site and available for retrieval for approximately 90 days.

Teachers of the Rutland Southwest Supervisory Union will strike today (Wednesday, April 4) after the union and the local school boards failed to reach agreement on a new contract.
The NEA, which is the largest teachers union, said the boards walked away after teachers agreed to the boards’demands on salary; agreed to the boards’demands on three of a possible four years on health insurance premium co-pays; agreed with the boards to halt step-increases in the event a contract expires without a successor in place; and agreed with the boards to allow distance learning in the system.
For its part, the RSWSU said on its Web site that after over six hours of mediation, the school boards presented the union with a four-year proposal to settle all issues. This settlement proposal, it said, would increase teacher salaries by an average of 10.5 percent (on an average of 2.6 percent per year). The Fact Finder recommended an average of 2.6 percent per year for only two years.

CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released its February Home Price Index (HPI)report, the most current and comprehensive source of home prices available today. Vermont is in the top five states with the greatest depreciation, excluding distressed sales, with -4 percent.

Overall, excluding distressed sales, month-over-month prices increased 0.7 percent in February from January. The CoreLogic HPIalso showed that year-over-year prices declined by 0.8 percent inFebruary 2012compared toFebruary 2011. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The report also shows national home prices, including distressed sales, declined on a year-over-year basis by 2.0 percent inFebruary 2012and by 0.8 percent compared toJanuary 2012, the seventh consecutive monthly decline.

by Alan Panebaker vtdigger.orgIn a filing Tuesday afternoon with the Vermont Public Service Board, Entergy Corp. agreed to comply with the requirements in its existing license while the board considers whether to grant the company a new certificate of public good to operate the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
In a one-paragraph letter to the board, the company said it agreed with the Department of Public Service that Vermont law allows the plant to continue operating while the proceeding continues.
The plantâ s state license expired March 21, but it continues to operate, with all of the power generated being sold out of state.
The Department of Public Service, which represents ratepayers before the Public Service Board, has pushed for the company to continue making payments to the Clean Energy Development Fund, which funds renewable energy projects. In its filing, Entergy agreed to continue making payments to the state in the interim.

Kilawatt Technologies announced the results for the first six months of the Energy and Environmental Management project with Vermont Public Radio.

The project involved the installation of a series of Energy Management Nodes throughout the building. These nodes provided for full, web based control and data trending for the entire building. Based on the data and control functions, Kilawatt Technologies statistically analyzed energy consumption data and develop sophisticate control strategies.

The results in the first six months of Energy and Environment Management included:

Total Energy Reduction (Million BTU): Reduced by 22.1%
Electrical Energy: Reduced by 14.7%
Natural Gas: Reduced by 38.5%
Propane: Reduced by 27.2%

From Wednesday, March 21to Friday, March 232012, educators from Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont gathered in Norwood for a three-day conference sponsored by the New England Secondary School Consortium.

The conference was held to bring together members of the League of Innovative Schools and other New England secondary schools to learn about strategies for communicating with the media, examine the critical role of local policy development, create a network between schools throughout the five states and share best practices that are transforming learning for students around New England.

Mayor Miro Weinberger today invited all City department heads and other mayoral appointees to reapply for their appointments and share with him their priorities for the next year. At an all-department heads meeting this morning at City Hall, Weinberger provided each city official with a letter stating his goal of assembling a top-notch team ready to tackle the tough, but surmountable, challenges facing our City. In the letter, Weinberger requested that all directors state their intentions regarding continued City service no later than April 30, 2012.
Weinbergerâ s letter stated in its entirety:
â Thank you for your service to the City of Burlington. I decided to take on the challenge of leading this city based on my long-held commitment to public service. I value the role City employees play in making Burlington a strong, vibrant, and well-functioning place to live and work.

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.orgItâ s bill swap time in the Legislature. All those legislative proposals that passed out of the House are now going to the Senate, and vice versa.
And as per usual this time of the session, the House is way ahead of the ball game. Thatâ s because representatives are obliged to tackle the big stuff first ‘the budget, the miscellaneous tax bill, the capital adjustment expenditures and the transportation budget ‘and then move on to the smaller bills.
That tsunami of money proposals will now hit the Senate with some force and for the next three and a half weeks the Green Room will play catch-up.

The chief executives of Vermontâ s leading businesses demonstrated increasing optimism in their economic forecasts for the coming six months, improving on results from the previous survey. The survey, which was completed between March 9 and March 23, was released today by Vermont Business Roundtable Chair Steve Voigt, CEO, King Arthur Flour and President Lisa Ventriss.
Key findings from the first quarter of 2012 over the fourth quarter of 2011 include:

An expected three percent increase in company sales;
An expected three percent increase in capital spending;
An expected six percent increase in stable employment levels

6 Months Forecast

2012 Q1
Increase

2012 Q1
No Change

2012 Q1
Decrease

Quarterly % Change
Increase

2011 Q4
Increase

2011 Q4
No Change

2011 Q4
Decrease

Sales

67%

25%

9%

3%

64%

27%

Vermont saw a decrease in non-current mortgages in February from 9.0 percent to 8.7 percent, as foreclosures held steady and delinquencies fell, but the state still fell from 14th best in the nation to 16th best. Nationally, the mortgage market is getting better as foreclosures work their way through the system. The latest Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc (NYSE: LPS) shows that February foreclosure starts and sales reversed course, declining on a month-over-month basis after January's sharp increase in activity.
Foreclosure starts were down 15 percent from the month prior nationally, with sales down 19 percent for the same period. Foreclosure sales decreased in both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states, dropping 22 and 19 percent month-over-month respectively in February.

by Alan Panebaker vtdigger.orgSome lawmakers say a proposal by the Shumlin administration and the stateâ s two largest utilities to create an efficiency fund is a shell game.
On March 26, the Vermont Department of Public Service, Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service Corp. proposed a memorandum of understanding that would allow the utilities to invest money in measures including weatherization as part of a windfall sharing mechanism.
The idea was to fulfill a requirement that utilities who got bailed out by ratepayers in the 1990s share profits with ratepayers if they are bought for above book value. The $700-million proposed merger meets that threshold.
Rep. Oliver Olsen, a Republican from Jamaica, said the only problem with the deal is the money being invested doesnâ t come from the utilities at all. It comes from ratepayers.

New Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger was sworn in on Monday and delivered his first "State of the City" address Monday evening. While noting that a page has been turned in city politics (he's the first Democrat in 30 years to hold the post), he said he's looking ahead with optimism to meet several challenges facing the city: serious financial problems, not only budgetary but with the city-owned Burlington Telecom; infrastructure repairs; municipal projects, like the Moran plant redevelopment; still-expensive housing, even through the recession; economic opportunities for all; and rebuilding trust between the mayor's office, the City Council and the public, which was frayed most obviously by the problems with BT.
Weinberger said he looks forward to rolling up his sleeves and getting to work. Below is the full text of his speech.
Mayor Miro Weinberger State of the City Address ‘April 2, 2012
"Good Evening.