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Vermont Business Magazine Vermont’s nonprofit hospitals filed budget requests with the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) on Friday for the coming fiscal year, kicking off the annual hospital budget review process. The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS), which represents the system of hospitals, called these budgets “recovery budgets,” after years of financial challenges intensified by COVID-19. Hospitals experienced significant loss of revenue when they were forced to shut down elective procedures beginning in mid-March. At the same time, hospitals incurred substantial unplanned but lifesaving expenses in response to the pandemic such as retrofitting space, creating new staffing models and purchasing expensive and hard-to-find protective equipment. While extremely disruptive and costly, this work, in which hospitals collaborated with state and community partners, has been lauded as a model for the nation.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power (GMP) is urging safety for customers as forecasts call for heavy rains and strong winds as Tropical Storm Isaias moves up the East Coast Tuesday. Meteorologists call this a fast moving storm that will weaken as it moves over land, yet still is forecasted to possibly cause flash flooding with rains of one to four inches as it sweeps over Bennington County and heads northeast and over the Connecticut River valley in Vermont starting Tuesday.

Vermont Business Magazine Last Friday, the Vermont-based hospitals of the University of Vermont Health Network – Central Vermont Medical Center, Porter Hospital, and the University of Vermont Medical Center – submitted a collective fiscal year 2021 budget to the Green Mountain Care Board that charts a path to recovery, while meeting essential patient care needs and supporting employees with a slim, combined margin target of 2.2 percent. Vermont's community hospitals were required to file their proposed budgets to the GMCB by last Friday.

Vermont Business Magazine In response to uncertainties facing the Vermont high school class of 2021 as they plan for the future amid COVID-19, the Community College of Vermont (CCV) is giving students an extra month to enroll in its Early College program. Early College, supported by the Flexible Pathways Initiative created by Act 77, allows high school seniors to complete their last year of high school and first year of college simultaneously and tuition-free. CCV will now accept applications for fall 2020 until September 1st, a full month beyond its typical August 1st deadline. The new date is intended to provide students and families with more time and flexibility in making decisions for fall.

Vermont Business Magazine As summer continues, families across Vermont are looking to their own backyards to safely get outdoors, taking to the road to see and stay in new nearby destinations that they may not have otherwise thought to discover. Along with providing a responsible way to enjoy a change of scenery, these local trips are ensuring that even more Vermont communities can benefit from tourism. In Vermont alone, Airbnb hosts statewide earned nearly $1.7 million from welcoming guests living within 300 miles during the month of June, and in many destinations, hosts have earned more welcoming local guests than they did in June 2019. The top trending destinations for local travel in Vermont -- with percentage increases in host income from nearby guests -- include: Killington (68%), Stratton (52%) and Stowe (32%).