Current News

Helen Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center has been recognized as one of the 2009 recipients of the Step I National Quality Award presented by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL). This year 664 nursing and assisted living facilities from across the nation applied for the quality award at this level. Awards will be presented during AHCA/NCAL’s 60th Annual Convention and Exposition, October 4-7, 2009 in Chicago.
“We applaud Helen Porter for having passed this first step that demonstrates their intention to begin a rigorous quality improvement program, and look forward to their moving forward to pursue the requirements for the Steps II and III awards in the coming years,” stated Bernie Dana, Chair, AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Board of Overseers, one of the nine members that oversee the program.

Continuing a tradition of renewable energy innovation that goes back decades, Central Vermont Public Service has proposed a variety of projects to further clean energy development in Vermont. The CVPS proposals, filed with the Vermont Public Service Board, include seven renewable projects and studies at a total cost of about $350,000. In a letter to the PSB, CVPS noted that the Vermont Department of Public Service, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Renewable Energy Vermont, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Biomass Energy Resource Center support the company’s proposals.

U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) today announced $6.7 million in federal grants for home weatherization projects in Vermont, with another $8.4 million to come later.
The funds, secured in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, will help weatherize more than 1,800 Vermont homes, cutting energy costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating green jobs across the state.
The funds will be directed through the Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity to five local organizations to provide services across the state. Funding will be available to families making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level – or about $44,000 a year for a family of four. Up to 20 percent of the money will be available for job training.
After demonstrating successful implementation of the first phase of funding, the state will receive an additional $8.4 million, for a total of nearly $17 million.

All employees at Twin State Valley Media Network, which includes the daily Eagle Times in Claremont, NH, the weeklies The Message for the Week out of Chester, Vermont, the Connecticut Valley Spectator out of Lebanon, NH, and The Weekly Flea, received an email Thursday, July 9 at 3:32 p.m. telling them that when the doors closed at 5, everyone was to leave their keys, take their stuff, and they were all laid off.
Owner Harvey Hill took his media network into Bankruptcy Court on Friday morning, the day the last issue of the Eagle Times was published. The employees will get next week's paycheck, all accrued vacation time, and health insurance through the end of the month.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and U.S. Representative Peter Welch (D-Vt.) announced today nearly $10.3 million in funding to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) to spur development of affordable housing in Colchester, Montpelier and Windsor, Vermont. The funding, made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will allow the VHFA to provide sufficient equity funding to complete ongoing construction projects in Windsor, Colchester and Montpelier. The ARRA investment will help create 130 affordable housing units and an estimated 175 jobs by leveraging over $20 million in construction funding.
VHFA will use the funding to provide credit to the following projects:

Effective today, small businesses that would otherwise have difficulty securing private equity or venture capital may find funding easier to get as a result of changes made as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Investment Company program.
“The Recovery Act expands SBA’s venture capital program to increase the pool of investment funding available to the Small Business Investment Companies licensed by SBA,” said SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills. “We believe those companies will be better equipped by these changes to help sustain and grow small businesses for their next important growth steps.”

Late Thursday night Red Cross Disaster Services volunteers responded to Main Street in St Johnsbury to meet the needs of at least 9 families displaced by a late night, four-alarm fire that raged through the residential/commercial building where they lived. The responding personnel are all members of the Northern Vermont Chapter s Disaster Action Team program. The fire appeared to have started in a convenience store on Main Street before spreading to three other buildings. There were no injuries reported.

US Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) on Thursday introduced legislation that would index to inflation Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) Program payments to dairy farmers.
The Dairy Fairness Act of 2009, which is co-sponsored by eight Members of Congress, would amend the Farm Bill to tie MILC payments to the Consumer Price Index, thereby increasing payments to farmers each year. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
We are in the midst of a dairy crisis like Vermont has never seen. Throughout the state and throughout the Northeast, dairy farmers are struggling to hang on as the disparity between the price of milk and the cost of production shows no sign of easing, Welch said. While this legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress, I will continue to do everything I can to raise awareness about this devastating situation and educate my colleagues about the importance of saving our prized Vermont dairy industry.

Today, Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz announced a new program the Guard Card Project to provide free Verizon telephone cards to all deployed Vermont National Guardsmen and women. In partnership with the Vermont National Guard, the USO (United Service Organizations) and Verizon, the Office of the Secretary of State has created a program to engage students in service learning projects that will help guard families by putting a free, 100 minute calling card in the pocket of every soldier who is deployed as a result of the mobilization order announced by Adjutant General Michael Dubie last week.

With Mississippi as the highest and Vermont the third lowest, the TransUnion Credit Risk Index, a statistic developed to measure the changes in average consumer credit risk within various geographies, increased 1.98 percent from 124.79 in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 127.26 in the first quarter of 2009. On a year-over-year basis, the Credit Risk Index increased 7.10 percent (from 118.83 in the first quarter of 2008), the largest increase for that time period in this decade. The Credit Risk Index is defined as the weighted average probability of 90-day delinquency or worse among consumers in a given region relative to the nation as a whole.

BioTek Instruments of Winooski, Vermont, has appointed Millennium Science Pty. Ltd., as their official distributor in New Zealand. Millennium now retains responsibility for sales and support of the entire BioTek line of microplate-based instrumentation and software across the Tasman.
"Millennium has a strong focus on applications with expert technical sales and support. They are a natural fit for BioTek as we grow in
Australasia," noted Dominic Herring, Business Development Manager of BioTek Instruments Singapore. "By having dual representation pan-Tasman, our customers will have access to greater levels of support, which is critical as life science and biotech collaborations between the two nations continue to increase."

US Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) on Wednesday voted against a bill that he said would harm Vermont s small businesses by diverting key federal funding to larger, venture capital-backed firms. The Enhancing Small Business Innovation and Research Act of 2009 (H.R. 2965), which passed Wednesday afternoon on a vote of 386 to 41, reauthorizes the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The bill rewrites the definition of small businesses to allow large corporations to compete for this vital seed money, effectively crowding out true small businesses.
Created in 1982, the SBIR program has been highly effective at spurring entrepreneurial innovation, resulting in more than 60,000 patents and launching countless Vermont small businesses. The program funds $2.2 billion a year in research and development.