Current News

Attorney General William H. Sorrell is urgently warning Vermonters to be suspicious of any request to send money by wire transfer. Vermonters are currently being targeted for a variety of financial frauds including bogus sweepstakes and lotteries, phony rentals, and calls and emails from scammers posing as friends or relatives. ‘Our office has received reports from Vermont consumers targeted by these wire transfer scams, totaling over $35,000 in losses in the past two weeks alone. If someone contacts you and asks you to wire money for any reason, don’t do it without first calling my office at 800-649-2424.’

SKI Magazine released results from its 2011 Reader Resort Survey naming Sugarbush Resort as the #1 resort in the east for terrain variety. Sugarbush came out on top in a category in which the resort is committed to having a stronghold.
"This ranking really pleases me for several reasons," says owner and president Win Smith. "It underscores the fact that Sugarbush is a place where you can not only learn to ski, but where you can continue skiing throughout your life. You won't ever get bored here."
Sugarbush's #1 ranking in terrain variety is followed by a #2 ranking for overall satisfaction, and a #3 for service. The 1-2-3 punch marks a new high for the resort, which has experienced a steady increase in the survey results over the last ten years.

Layoffs - Budget Cuts - Downsizing.
Every day there seems to be another news story covering the fallout from the current economic downturn.
Today's economy has created an increasingly challenging environment for human resource administrators. If you are the person responsible for the HR functions of your organization, you may know that there are federal and state employment laws that can help you maneuver through these difficult times - but how familiar are you with them?

The Workforce Development Center at Champlain College, in collaboration with HRSentry, is offering a series of online workshops that can answer your questions and give you the skills needed to successfully handle the human resources issues you face every day.

Workshops are delivered 100% online, giving you access to the resources and knowledge you need 24/7, on a schedule that works for you.

Governor Jim Douglas yesterday departed for Japan on the first leg of a 12-day EB-5 trade mission to Asia to help Vermont employers attract foreign investment and create jobs. The EB-5 program is a federal investment program run by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The goal of the program is to incent investment and create American jobs by setting aside a pool of green cards for qualified foreign investors that invest capital into approved EB-5 projects. The Vermont EB-5 Regional Center is run through the Agency of Commerce and Community Development and has raised over $100 million in new capital for companies and projects.
Governor Douglas and the delegation will be traveling to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Vietnam between October 14 and October 26.
Source: Governor's office. 10.13.2010

Larry Sudbay, President and Chief Executive Officer of SymQuest Group, Inc, announced today that SymQuest’s fifteenth annual golf tournament raised $5,000 for Spectrum Youth and Family Services. The tournament was held at the Vermont National Country Club, South Burlington, Vermont, on Monday, October 4.
‘Support like this is so critical to our mission of offering innovative best practice programs and services for youth and their families in need in this area,’ said Mark Redmond, Executive Director, Spectrum Youth and Family Services. ‘We are very grateful for SymQuest’s recognition of the work that we perform and for the funding generated from this memorable event.’

Two Vermont companies are leading a surge in national sales of "fair trade" consumer products. Fair trade generally refers to agricultural products from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South America that ensures that farmers receive market value for their products and social justice for themselves.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has concluded its investigation of a complaint that the Republican Governors Association (“RGA”) and the Friends of Brian Dubie campaign coordinated on campaign expenditures in connection with a video called Vision for Vermont. The Office conveyed its conclusions to the interested parties by letter today.
While the Attorney General’s Office viewed the complaint as a serious matter, it concluded that there is insufficient evidence to warrant an enforcement action against either the RGA or the Dubie Campaign under 17 V.S.A. § 2806 for violation of the $3,000-per-election limit on contributions from political committees to candidates in § 2805(b) as added by 1982 Vt. Acts & Resolves No. 197, §1, and amended by 1988 Vt. Acts & Resolves No. 263, §3.

The Vermont Public Service Board has found that Burlington Telecom is in "wanton" violation of its Certificate of Public Good as related to it borrowing $16.9 million from the City of Burlington and not paying it back, and for its failure to buildout the network by 2008. BT was challenged by the Department of Public Service, which acts on behalf of consumers, and was joined by Comcast. Comcast is BT's principal competitor in the city for high-speed Internet and landline television services. The PSB Order was filed October 8.
BT was found by the PSB to be in violation of four Conditions of its CPG: 2,17,56,60. Condition 2 requires that Burlington Telecom conduct its operations consistent with the CPG. Therefore, if BT is in violation of any condition, it is in violation of Condition 2. Condition 17 refers to its failure to buildout the service to every address by September 2008, which it still has not completed.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Wednesday announced that Vermont’s Boys and Girls Clubs have been awarded more than $1 million by the US Department of Justice to help fund activities and programs administered by the Clubs.
Leahy announced the award during a tour of the Boys and Girls Club in Rutland. The Rutland Boys and Girls Club is one of six active Clubs in Vermont, and it has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the Justice Department. In March, the Club received a merit award for best overall programming among Boys and Girls Clubs across the country with budgets under $500,000. Since 1997, the Rutland Club has received over $1.5 million in grant funding.

Five of Vermont’s health care associations today released a joint report outlining their health care reform guiding principles and recommendations for policy makers. This release coincides with the most recent update to the Vermont Health Care Commission by Dr. William Hsiao, the Harvard-based economist who is developing three health system design options for consideration by the General Assembly.
The associations identified a number of important themes. These include:
1) State health care reform initiatives need to be fully aligned with the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA).
2) Health care professionals and providers should be full partners with health plans and state government in planning for and implementing new payment methodologies, delivery system reforms and insurance reforms.
3) Payment incentives designed to support a re-defined health care system need to promote quality value and improved access..

For the week of October 9, 2010, there were 840 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance, an increase of 162 from the week before. Altogether 7,460 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 198 from a week ago and 1,872 fewer than a year earlier. The Department also processed 2,841 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 240 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 1,493 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is a decrease of 17 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

Vermont has been ranked fifth among states in energy efficiency efforts. Even as Congress failed to take major action on climate and energy legislation in 2010, states across the United States achieved major new strides in energy efficiency, according to the 2010State Energy Efficiency Scorecard from the nonprofit and independent American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
Among the major state advances highlighted in the fourth edition of the ACEEE Scorecard are: a near doubling of state energy efficiency budgets from 2007 spending levels; the adoption or active consideration by over half the states of Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERS) that establish long-term, fixed efficiency savings targets; and a one-year doubling of the number of states that have either adopted or have made significant progress toward the adoption of the latest energy-saving building codes for homes and commercial properties. (See details below.)