Current News

People's United Financial, Inc.(PBCT 14.00, -0.15, -1.06%) today announced net income of $16.0 million, or $0.04 per share, for the second quarter of 2010, compared to $13.6 million, or $0.04 per share, for the first quarter of 2010, and $25.3 million, or $0.08 per share, for the second quarter of 2009. Included in both this quarter's and first quarter's results are pre-tax merger-related, system conversion and one-time expenses totaling $23.2 million and $23.4 million, respectively. Excluding the effect of these items, net income would have been $31.8 million, or $0.09 per share, for the second quarter of 2010 and $29.2 million, or $0.08 per share, for the first quarter of 2010. People's United is the parent company of the former Chittenden Bank.

Merchants Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBVT), the parent company of Merchants Bank, announced today that its Board of Directors declared a dividend of 28 cents per share, payable August 12, 2010, to shareholders of record as of July 29, 2010.

Vermont Secretary of Administration Neale F Lunderville released the June 2010 General Fund Revenues today. General Fund revenues totaled $103.42 million for June 2010, and were +$5.53 million or +5.65% above the $97.89 million consensus revenue forecast for the month. These year-to-date General Fund performance of $1,038.40 million was +$7.50 million, or +0.73% ahead of full year target of $1,030.90 million. June is the final month of fiscal year 2010.
The monthly targets reflect the revised Fiscal Year 2010 Consensus Revenue Forecast approved by the Emergency Board at their January 13, 2010 meeting. Statutorily, the State is required to revise the Consensus Revenue Forecast two times per year, in January and July; the Emergency Board may schedule interim revisions if deemed necessary. The next Emergency Board meeting is scheduled for today, July 15, 2010.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock has again been ranked among the best hospitals in the nation in U.S.News & World Report's 2010-11 Best Hospitals, online at www.usnews.com/besthospitals and featured in the August print issue of U.S. News, available on newsstands July 27.
Best Hospitals 2010-11 includes rankings of 152 medical centers nationwide in 16 specialties. For the fourth straight year and for the eighth time since 1995, Dartmouth-Hitchcock has been recognized for its care in Gynecology.

The University of Vermont of Vermont Libraries has been awarded funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the amount $391,552 to support the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project.
The UVM Libraries will work collaboratively with partners in the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Ilsley Public Library of Middlebury, and the Vermont Historical Society to select, digitize, and make available up to 100,000 pages of Vermont newspapers, published between 1836 and 1922, from the collections of the Vermont Department of Libraries and the University of Vermont. The digitized newspapers will be made freely available to the public via the Library of Congress' Chronicling America database3.

Green Mountain Coffee and Ashoka’s Changemakers have announced the winners of their Revelation to Action Your Place. Your Idea. Your Change. competition. Three overall competition winners and seven state winners – from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont – were chosen among hundreds of creative ideas for strengthening and engaging communities across the Northeastern US.
The Revelation to Action winners were announced at a Celebration Event held yesterday at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston. Each winner was awarded $5,000 and will be featured on www.Changemakers.com/Revelation as one of the best ideas for mobilizing citizens to build a better community.
The three overall competition winners are as follows:

The winners of the 31st Annual Telly Awards have been announced, with Media Solutions International (MSI), a communications strategy and design firm specializing in the healthcare industry, taking home five statuettes for distinctive creative design and execution of website development and videography.
With nearly 11,000 entries submitted from all 50 states and around the world, this year’s competition has been one of the most competitive and successful in the long history of the Telly Awards.
MSI received the Silver Telly Award, the highest designation (awarded to less than 10% of all entries this year) for 'Rehab Microsite Recruitment Video' and 'Surgical Services Microsite Recruitment Video' for Elkhart General Hospital in Elkhart, IN.

For the week of July 10, 2010, there were 733 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance, a decrease of 114 from the week before. Altogether 10,075 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 252 from a week ago and 4,416 fewer than a year earlier. The Department also processed 2,477 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 278 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 1,375 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is a decrease of 172 from the week before. In addition, the Vermont Department of Labor announced on June 30 that it would be discontinuing extended unemployment benefits (STORY) beginning July 10 because the state's unemployment rate has fallen below 6.5 percent (STORY), which is below the federal mandate for such benefits. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/.

Vermont spent $2.2 billion, or 36.7 percent, of public expenditures on education, the highest percentage of any state, though the third lowest total. State and local government spending increased by 6.5 percent in 2008, totaling more than $2.8 trillion, according to the US Census Bureau. Education topped government spending ($826.1 billion), followed by public welfare ($404.6 billion), insurance trust expenditures ($234.6 billion), utilities ($193.4 billion) and highways ($153.5 billion).
These data provide a detailed look at state and local government spending priorities," said Lisa Blumerman, chief of the U.S. Census Bureau's Governments Division.

These findings come from the 2008 Annual Surveys of State and Local Government Finances, which includes data on revenues, expenditures, debt and assets (cash and security holdings) for state and local governments.

Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington and Inter-Lakes Health, Inc., in Ticonderoga, NY, have signed an affiliation agreement that will enable both organizations to work more closely together to meet the health care needs of the Ticonderoga community. Inter-Lakes Health is more commonly known by its historical name: Moses-Ludington Hospital.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation today announced that 22 schools received a total of $1.3 million in Infrastructure Awards through the Agency’s Safe Routes to School program.
Safe Routes to School is a federally funded safety program that is administered through VTrans. The program, which supplies money for bicycle and pedestrian improvements, has a goal of increasing the number of students who can safely walk or ride bikes to school.
‘Safe Routes to School is about kids walking and biking to school regularly, routinely, and safely,’ said VTrans Secretary David Dill. ‘The program is an opportunity to have schools and communities work together to solve some of their pressing safety, environmental and health challenges.’

Residential customers of electric utility providers indicate that their monthly electric bill amounts have declined and power reliability has improved from 2009, resulting in a notable increase in overall satisfaction, according to the JD Power and Associates 2010 Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study released today. Central Vermont Public Service ranked third in the East for mid-sized companies and PSNH ranked eighth.
The study measures customer satisfaction with electric utility companies by examining six key factors: power quality and reliability; price; billing and payment; corporate citizenship; communications; and customer service.