Vermont Business Magazine Secretary of Administration Kristin Clouser today released Vermont’s revenue results for February 2023. For the fifth month in a row, both the General Fund and the Transportation Fund ended with revenue above target. The Education Fund bounced back from its prior month miss to surpass the February target by $1.3 million. Year to date, all three funds remain ahead of their respective targets as adopted by the Emergency Board at its January 17, 2023 meeting. The state’s General Fund, Transportation Fund, and Education Fund receipts in February were a combined $203.6 million, or 15.4%, above monthly consensus expectations. This continues the trend of the first eight months of the fiscal year, where combined revenues across all three funds were 6.3% above the consensus target set at the July 2022 Emergency Board meeting.

Goddard College is deeply committed to the well-being of its UAW (Local 2322) Union staff and respects the right of the Union to engage in concerted activity, including the right to strike. However, we are disappointed by the decision by the UAW Staff Union to strike on Friday (March 24, 2023) as we believed that the Union and the College had made significant progress in negotiations over the past week and seemed very close to a final settlement. Goddard College had been working closely with the Union to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement since the Spring of 2022. The existing CBA eventually expired on June 30, 2022. The College offered a 3% salary increase to take effect January 1, 2023, but the Union was unwilling to agree to language regarding management rights that is standard in almost every CBA in the United States. The College has also repeatedly invited the Union to use the facilitation of a federal mediator to settle our differences, but the Union has consistently refused.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas held the first meeting of the newly reconstituted Town Clerk Advisory Committee (TCAC) at the Hartford Municipal Building in White River last Tuesday.  Reconvening the committee, which has not actively met for over a decade, was a priority for the secretary as she settles into her first term in office. The committee make-up aims to be representative of clerks across the state. The 13 clerks that sit on the committee hail from both big and small municipalities and include both veteran clerks and those new to the office. 

Vermont Business Magazine The US Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee (HELP), chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), released the following report by its majority staff: "Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged an aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign. That campaign has been directed and led by Howard Schultz, the multi-billionaire CEO and founder of Starbucks. Under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks has adopted an aggressively anti-union stance that is reflected in Schultz’s public statements, the company’s communications to workers, and its scorched-earth approach to blocking unionization activity."

by Joyce Marcel, Vermont Business Magazine The Holstein is the perfect cow, says the Holstein Association USA, Inc the nonprofit membership organization that has anchored the south end of Main Street in Brattleboro since 1903. There are Holstein Associations in other countries throughout the world. Holstein Association USA is a member of the World Holstein Friesian Federation. However, the U.S. is generally recognized by other countries as having sought-after Holstein genetics. The association, which has been in Brattleboro for 137 years, is dedicated to managing the genetics and improving the profitability of the Holstein cow. They like to say they're “The Ancestry.com for Holsteins.”