Current News

Green Mountain Care Board Board Members and presenters will participate remotely through Microsoft Teams. Members of the public can attend board meetings by using the links or call-in phone numbers listed below. Wednesday, May 01, 2024: Board Meeting (1:00 pm). Draft Guidance on the Assessment of Affordability in the Review of Rates. AHEAD Model / Global Payment Development Update.

Vermont Business Magazine Ledyard Financial Group, Inc (OTCQX: LFGP), the holding company for Ledyard National Bank based in Hanover, NH, with a branch in Norwich, Vermont, has announced financial results for Q1 2024. The balance sheet growth in the quarter is evidence of the company’s unique approach to integrating its banking and wealth management businesses, and the company remains focused on promoting growth and the pursuit of making life better for its clients, its employees, its shareholders, and the communities it serves. Q1 2024 net income was $463 thousand, up $347 thousand over Q4 2023, and down $1.0 million from Q1 2023. The improvement over Q4 2023 is due in part to higher revenue, primarily related to the wealth management business, while the decline from the prior year can be attributed primarily to the industry-wide compression in net interest margin. Ledyard also announced that a regular quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share will be paid on June 7, 2024, to shareholders of record as of May 17, 2024.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont, Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy, hosted a listening session in Waitsfield with community members and local leaders to discuss how Congress can better support rural communities in Vermont and across America. Senator Welch was joined by local leaders, business owners, and champions for rural development, including Sarah Waring, Rural Development State Director for USDA; Roger Nishi of Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom; Melissa Bounty of Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation; and Adeline Druart of Lawson’s Finest Liquids.  

Vermont Business Magazine Dr. Ansel Augustine, D. Min, an award-winning author and speaker, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Assistant Director of African American Affairs of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, will deliver the Commencement address at Saint Michael’s College to the Class of 2024. Dr. Augustine, a member of the Saint Michael’s Board of Trustees, will speak during the College’s 117th Commencement Ceremony on May 12, 2024, which begins at 10 a.m. Dr. Augustine began his career in ministry more than 20 years ago when he became the youth minister at his home parish of St. Peter Claver in the Treme area of New Orleans, which he later helped rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. St. Peter Catholic Church was run for 30 years by the Edmundites, the Catholic order which also founded Saint Michael’s College. 

Vermont Business Magazine Average gasoline prices in Vermont are $3.64 per gallon, up 2.9 cents per gallon from last week's $3.61/g. The lowest price in the state yesterday was $3.30/g while the highest was $3.79/g, a difference of 49.0 cents per gallon. The national average price of gasoline has fallen 1.9 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.63/g today. The national average is up 8.4 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands 4.3 cents per gallon higher than a year ago.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets has released details for an upcoming Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) grant application. This new, one-time USDA funding will support the middle of the supply chain - meaning everything in between farm production and retail. This includes aggregation, distribution, manufacturing, processing, storing, transporting, wholesale, and value-add. The grant focuses on increasing resilience in the supply chain, supporting market development and new market opportunities, development of value-added products, and fair prices, better wages, and safe job opportunities. 
 

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Women’s Fund, a supporting organization of the Vermont Community Foundation, and the Center for Women and Enterprise are pleased to announce grants from the Rise and Thrive campaign totaling $230,000 to women business owners affected by the July 2023 flooding that caused major damage in Vermont. The Vermont Women’s Fund launched the Rise and Thrive campaign last fall, and with the VT Flood Response & Recovery Fund 2023 of the Vermont Community Foundation raised approximately $400,000. This money was then granted to the Center for Women and Enterprise to be distributed to women business owners directly or indirectly affected by the flooding. The first round of $230,000 in grants will be followed by additional grants later this year. Special appreciation goes out to Carhartt, the workwear and outdoor apparel company, for contributing an initial gift of $50,000 to the Rise and Thrive campaign. Additional funds were contributed by individual donors and companies, nearly all of them from Vermont.

by Norah White, Community News Service Lawmakers are weighing a bill to punish repeat shoplifters who otherwise would only face a string of misdemeanors — a move to discourage rising retail theft and clear court backlogs the state has been facing since the Covid-19 pandemic. The bill, H.534, passed the House last month and is now being discussed in the Senate — one step closer to becoming law, though senators are looking at an alternative way to curb the same problem. Currently, if someone steals less than $900 worth of merchandise from a store, a misdemeanor, they face up to $500 in fines and six months in prison. Someone who shoplifts more than $900 worth of goods, a felony, faces up to $1,000 in fines and 10 years in prison. To avoid risking the felony while still stealing more than $900 worth of merch in a short span, a clever thief could shoplift $899 in goods from one store, then do the same at another.       

Leonine Public Affairs The Vermont legislature entered Week 16 of the session eyeing a May 10 adjournment date. The Senate approved its version of the FY2025 budget this week, and a number of key policy bills either passed out of committee or are very close to being finalized. Outside the statehouse, signs of spring were breaking through. While the legislative calendar and (slightly) warmer temps give a sense that the end of the session is near, there are numerous differences to be reconciled between the House and Senate before they can adjourn in May. Discrepancies between key spending and tax proposals—such as the House's proposal to increase the corporate income tax and the Senate's proposal to tax Vermonters' video streaming services—along with Medicaid expansion and plans to bolster the Judicial Branch, are just a few issues that the two chambers will need to resolve.

Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies Battery cell technology plays a pivotal role in the transition to renewable energy. Lightweight, dense, and rechargeable, batteries efficiently store and distribute power from sources such as solar or wind. But they haven’t always been readily available or locally sourced. Few domestic manufacturers make large-scale lead- or lithium-based systems to support a greening grid. KORE was co-founded in 2018 by Gorrill and Paul Coombs to fill a critical hole in the energy storage market –– and today, they sell to a much wider audience than just electric vehicles (“EVs”). Over the past five years, KORE has expanded to over 125 employees, acquired Vermont-based Northern Reliability Inc. (“NRI”), and broke ground on a two million square foot production facility. In a recent interview with VCET, Gorrill projected optimism about the company’s future.

Vermont Business Magazine This weekly report for April 29 is a list of planned construction activities that will impact traffic on state highways and interstates throughout Vermont. Please remember to drive safely in all work zones. Lives depend on it.

Vermont Business Magazine U.S. Attorney Nikolas P. Kerest will host a press conference at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Burlington. At the press conference, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont, in cooperation with UVM Medical Center, ATF, the Vermont State Police, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, the Vermont Sheriffs' Association, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, Vermont’s Office of the Director of Violence Prevention, the Vermont Agency of Education, the Howard Center, the Vermont Medical Society, and the Vermont Department for Children and Families will discuss how Vermont is promoting secure gun storage and how secure gun storage can help address the many types of gun violence in the state.