Vermont Business Magazine Today, AARP Vermont announced that five organizations around the state will receive 2022 Community Challenge grants totally more than $54,000. The grants are part of the largest group of grantees to date with $3.4 million awarded among 260 organizations nationwide. Grantees will implement quick-action projects that help communities become more livable in the long-term by improving public places; transportation; housing; diversity, equity and inclusion; digital access; and civic engagement, with an emphasis on the needs of adults age 50 and over.

Vermont Business Magazine As communities across the country grapple with access to health care, and with longstanding disparities negatively impacting the health and wellness of historically marginalized groups, the University of Vermont Medical Center released the findings of its 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment. This year’s report, conducted every three years, was the most inclusive and robust in the organization’s history of conducting the assessment. The top six community health priorities and key findings identified in the 2022 CHNA are: accessible and coordinated care, cultural humility and inclusive health care, food access and security; safe, affordable and healthy housing; mental health and wellbeing; and workforce development.

Vermont Business Magazine Along with more than 100 environmental and community groups around the US, the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) has signed on to a United States Supreme Court brief in a case that will determine which waters will receive protection under the Clean Water Act (CWA), to protect small tributaries and wetlands.  The brief is filed in support of the Environmental Protection Agency in the case, Sackett v. EPA.

by John McClaughry The US Supreme Court’s June 21 decision in the Maine pupil tuitioning case (Carson v. Makin) brings to a head a long-simmering issue in Vermont education. Under what circumstances, if any, may public money find its way into sectarian elementary and secondary schools? Like Vermont, Maine has many lightly populated school districts that do not contain a public secondary school. For over a hundred years Maine and Vermont law has allowed such districts to tuition secondary and sometimes elementary school pupils to schools of their choice, even schools in other states or abroad. In Vermont some 7,000 K-12 pupils benefit from tuitioning.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott announced today an agreement with the federal government cementing Vermont’s role as a national leader in health care innovation. The Global Commitment demonstration increases Vermonters’ access to health care services, strengthens the health care system, and supports health care providers recovering from disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement, which begins July 1 and extends for five and half years, provides Medicaid coverage to 200,000 Vermonters and grants Vermont flexibility in its use of federal Medicaid dollars. This funding is critical to the state’s goal to build a more accessible, equitable, and coordinated system of care.