Current News

Vermont’s Congressional Delegation ‘ Senator Patrick Leahy (D), Senator Bernie Sanders (I) and Congressman Peter Welch (D) ‘ Friday reported that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is releasing $3.3 million more in home heating assistance to Vermont. The Vermont lawmakers have been pushing for this funding and more, which they say Vermonters will need before the winter’s through.
The grant is part of a nationwide release of $2.68 billion in Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding to help eligible families pay for the cost of heating their homes. The funds are the second installment of regular LIHEAP block grants to be released this fiscal year. Because Congress has not yet approved budget bills for the coming year, initial allocations from the agency were about 40 percent less than last year’s levels.

The Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL) provided today information on the status of the Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation 2008 (EUC 08) program.
While discussions in Congress continue, Congress has still not acted on authorizing new entitlement under the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program. EUC08 has two tiers for which Vermont currently qualifies. Tier 1 provides up to 20 weeks and Tier 2 provides up to 14 weeks of additional benefits. While individuals are still receiving EUC payments under their current Tier, absent Congress taking action, Vermont is not authorized to establish new EUC Tier entitlement. Qualifying new unemployment claimants will still be able to collect regular unemployment benefits of up to 26 weeks.
At this time, the lack of an extension is currently impacting approximately 140 claimants per week who either have or soon will exhaust their regular benefits (26 weeks).

BURLINGTON, VT -- The Champlain College United Way Campaign has raised $31,000 and increased its employee participation rate from 40 to 50 percent this year during its United Way of Chittenden County annual Community Campaign.

The campus-wide fund-raising effort employed a variety of social media, blog posts and special events to get the word out to faculty and staff about the need to support United Way and its 60 programs and 30 member agencies. This year's theme, "We Can't Just Leave It to Beaver," played on the notion that the campaign's keyperson was the college's mascot ‘ Chauncey T. Beaver. See the Champlain College United Way blog at http://champlainunitedway.blogspot.com/

The King Street Center welcomed a surprise gift of $2,500 from FairPoint Communications last week which will be used to enhance the current food offerings to the pre-school, after-school and teen programs at the Center. Michael Smith, Vermont State President, Eric LaChance, Account Executive, Peter Constant, Business Sales Manager, and Sabina Haskell, Public Relations Manager from FairPoint Communications visited the King Street Center to deliver the gift directly to Executive Director, Vicky Smith. FairPoint Communications is also four-year sponsor of the King Street Center Bob Aldrich Memorial Golf Tournament.
Pictured from left to right: Peter Constant, Business Sales Manager,
Michael Smith, Vermont State President, Vicky Smith, Executive
Director of the King Street Center, and Eric LaChance, Account
Executive.

Secretary of State-Elect Jim Condos has selected Brian Leven of Stowe to be the new deputy secretary of state. Leven has spent the last 12 years as an attorney for the Vermont Legislative Council. During that time he has served as counsel for the House and Senate Committees on Government Operations and the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules. These three committees are important committees for legislation pertaining to activities and operations of the secretary of state’s office.
In 2002, he staffed the Senate Reapportionment committee which was responsible for redistricting of House and Senate districts after the 2000 US Census. Reapportionment will again be taken up this biennium with completion of the 2010 Census. And, this past year, he served as counsel to the Government Accountability Committee which is monitoring the progress of Challenges for Change.

eCorp English has announced it will be relocating its global headquarters and IT development center to Middlebury, Vermont in January, creating a projected 35 jobs by the end of 2011 and over 100 by 2013. The company provides online English-language training to the personnel of global corporations including Google, Alcatel Lucent, UPS, HSBC and AXA. The move was made possible in large part due to a coordinated effort involving a wide spectrum of public and private entities in Vermont including Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA), Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET), VT Dept. of Economic, Housing and Community Development, Addison County Economic Development Corporation and Middlebury College. The company received approval of an Initial Application under the Vermont Economic Progress Council’s Vermont Employment Growth Incentive (VEGI) program in August 2010.

Weekly unemployment claims fell last week, offsetting somewhat a recent surge in claims. For the week of December 4, 2010, there were 1,371 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance, a decrease of 424 from the week before. Altogether 11,345 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 1,185 from a week ago and 2,114 fewer than a year earlier. The Department also processed 2,533 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 361 more than a week ago. In addition, there were 682 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is an increase of 58 from the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/. Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at:http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc

In their first conversation since November 2, Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Vermont Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie talked by phone late Wednesday about the future of Quebec and Vermont relations, as Vermont’s Governor-elect Peter Shumlin prepares to take office on January 6, 2011.
Shumlin has asked Dubie to act as his liaison to Quebec.
Dubie said, ‘Premier Charest and I covered all areas of collaboration between Vermont and Quebec: energy, homeland security, Lake Champlain and Lake Memphramagog, cultural exchange, commerce, road and rail transportation, and more.’
It has been nearly eight years since Dubie attended Charest’s 2003 swearing-in ceremony in Quebec City, as the only invited American elected official.

Hoping to ensure crisis heating funds are available to assist low-income Vermonters this winter, People’s United Bank has donated $15,000 to the CVPS Shareheat Fund.
The People’s United Bank donation will go into a pool of funds that will be used to match customer donations to the heating assistance program. Customer donations, along with the matching dollars, are distributed to five community action agencies across the state to assist those in need.
‘People’s United Bank’s generosity will help protect families across our service territory,’ CVPS President Bob Young said. ‘Combined with CVPS’s donation and grants from other Vermont businesses, the matching pool now totals $145,000.’

The following is a statement issued by Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss in regards to Burlington Telecom, following a meeting with the Public Service Board. BT's chief creditor is seeking to repossess some of the municipal telecommunications company's hard assets. BT also owes the city $16.9 million. The circumstances of that financing are being investigated at the state and federal levels.
Mayor Kiss: "At today’s status conference the City had the opportunity to explain its plans for the future of Burlington Telecom to the Public Service Board in Montpelier. It should be made clear that the City is not in default on its Lease-Purchase agreement with CitiCapital. Any and all rental payments the City is obligated to make under the agreement have been made.

by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. At the height of last Wednesday’s surprise windstorm, Green Mountain Power’s call center was hobbled by a coincidental telecommunications network problem that affected some 4,000 calls into the utility’s headquarters in Colchester. Customers calling in to report a power outage could hear GMP’s customer service representatives, but the reps could not hear the customers.
‘Things were getting a little tense around here,’ said Brian Otley, who is in charge of Technical Operations for GMP. He said the call center was prepared for customer calls as the storm developed during the afternoon, but the first warning came in the form of raised voices in the call center. As calls started to come in around 6 pm to report outages, the reps first started talking loudly to customers. Because every rep was doing this, the noise level escalated.
‘They could hear us, we could not hear them,’ Otley said.

Over the past decade Vermont has spent tens of millions of dollars in state tax revenue to subsidize businesses ‘ state and local tax breaks, cash grants, government-financed infrastructure, and other help in exchange for job creation. Yet a government watchdog organization says taxpayers do not know much about what they’ve gotten for their money.
A new report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center based in Washington, DC, seeks to increase the transparency of business subsidies in Vermont and throughout the country.
‘This report is especially important now as Vermont’s elected officials are making tough choices about state spending and revenues,’ said Public Assets Institute President Paul Cillo. ‘There needs to be better public accountability about business subsidies so that Vermonters can know what they’re getting for their money and whether the money might be better spent on other things.’