Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Howard Schultz, who helped lead Starbucks for more than forty years and most recently served as CEO of the company, will on Wednesday, March 29 at 10 am ET appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) at a hearing entitled, “No Company Is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks.” Since the first store successfully voted to unionize in Buffalo in December of 2021, workers at more than 350 Starbucks in nearly 40 states across the country have held votes to unionize. Over 80 percent of these elections have resulted in a union victory leading to nearly 300 unionized Starbucks coffee shops throughout the country.

Vermont Business Magazine MVP Health Care and Age Well today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership to offer older Vermonters free access to a walking and wellness program called Striders. The program, led by a certified fitness instructor, will be held at the University Mall and is intended to support health and well-being by providing participants with an opportunity to get moving, socialize with others, and improve their overall health. As an MVP Strider, participants will move through strength and balance exercises, participate in a walking group at their own pace, and learn new ways to increase mobility. Participants will also receive an MVP Striders Walking kit, which includes items like a pedometer, a mini first-aid kit, a t-shirt, and more. This is the first time that the MVP Striders walking club is being offered in Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF) announces the selection of the Energy 2023 cohort of the Vermont-based DeltaClimeVT climate economy business accelerator. Eight early-stage energy companies from across the U.S. and Canada will work directly with Vermont utilities to contribute to Vermont’s 90% renewable by 2050 and Burlington’s Net Zero by 2030 goals over three months of intensive work sessions, including two online and two in-person intensive sessions (each 2-4 days in duration), weekly assignments and bi-weekly webinars as well as frequent 1:1 engagement. The first in-person sprint starts April 3 in Burlington, VT at Burlington Electric Department and will wrap up with an awards ceremony in Burlington June 15.

Vermont Business Magazine Long-time employee Tracy Zschau has been named Interim President of the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) by the organization’s Board of Trustees. She takes the role after serving VLT for over 25 years, first as a conservation project lead in the Northeast Kingdom then later as Vice President for Land Protection. She will retain her role as Vice President while also serving as Interim President. Zschau will serve as the Interim President until new leadership has been established. She succeeds Nick Richardson who served as VLT’s President and CEO from September 2017 to March 2023.

Vermont Business Magazine Champlain Housing Trust announced today that it has financing available for a second round of applications for its Farmworker Housing Repair Loan Program. This program provides a loan up to $30,000 for farmers to make essential repairs and necessary improvements to their farmworker housing. The loan is forgiven over ten years so long as the housing is maintained for farmworkers. The program’s purpose is to preserve this important affordable housing resource and to help improve the health and welfare of the farm workforce. When the program opened last year, CHT received 45 applications seeking $1.8 million. The $500,000 available during the first round allowed loans to support just 15 of the applications. For this second round, CHT received an additional $774,000.

Public Assets Institute The number of children in Vermont dropped by almost 1 percent a year between 2006 and 2021. According to the latest Census data, more than 133,000 children under 18 lived in the state in 2006, compared with just over 116,000 in 2021. Of those, 69 percent were living in married-couple households, a similar share to 15 years earlier. At the same time, the share of children in single-parent households dropped. How can this be? A category recently created for unmarried couples helps explains the difference. Prior to 2019 single-parent households were described as “no spouse present.” Now the category is male or female householder with “no spouse/partner present.” As newly defined, single-parent families decreased. But about 11 percent of Vermont children were counted as living in households of cohabiting couples, a group not tracked before 2019.

Vermont Business Magazine Mt Ascutney Hospital and Health Center (MAHHC), a member hospital of the Dartmouth Health system, saw more than 58,000 primary care, specialty and inpatient visits, about 20,000 therapy visits, nearly 6,000 emergency department visits and over 930 hospital admissions in 2022. MAHHC President, CEO and Chief Medical Officer Joseph Perras, MD, presented the year in review during the organization’s recent annual meeting. According to data from the Vermont Department of Health, Mt. Ascutney earned the highest scores in the State in 7 of 10 categories included in the 2022 Hospital Report Card. When asked “How well do patients rate the hospital?”, 83% of respondents gave the hospital a rating of 9 or 10 (out of 10), the top score and well above the statewide average of 75%, and the hospital similarly scored first when 87% percent answered “Always” when asked, “Would patients recommend the hospital to friends and family?” exceeding the statewide average of 74%.

by John McClaughry The Vermont House is struggling to deliver a Clean Heat Standard bill to comply with a carbon dioxide emission reduction mandate that the legislature itself declared in 2020. In that year, in the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), the legislative majority mandated that Vermonters take large, painful steps to drive down their carbon dioxide emissions by eighty percent just 27 years from now. That reduction would be Vermont’s share of the global reductions enthusiastically agreed to by President Obama and 193 other nations in Paris in 2016, to combat “climate change”. In December 2021 the GWSA- created Vermont Climate Council – our climate government within the government – produced its Climate Action Plan. It proposed urgent steps to drive down emissions from transportation and heating, that together constitute around 75% of emissions. The 11-state Transportation and Climate Initiative was supposed to tax gasoline and diesel fuel to stimulate people to switch to electric vehicles. That grand scheme soon collapsed when the governors involved learned that businesses and motorists would not accept a hefty and rising carbon tax on motor fuel.

by Michael Del Trecco, President, VAHHS I had the honor last week of attending a health care roundtable with Senator Peter Welch and United States Department of Agriculture undersecretary for rural development Xochitl Torres Small. Representatives from Senator Bernie Sanders’s and US Representative Becca Balint’s offices also attended, as did leaders from Vermont’s health care community. We came together to celebrate recent Emergency Rural Healthcare Grants (ERHC) and Community Facilities (CF) funding for hospitals and health centers, most recently Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital (NVRH) and Copley Hospital.