Vermont Business Magazine Castleton University has received notice that the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) has formally accepted its proposal to offer distance education programming. “We’re thrilled that NEASC has approved this proposal which will open the doors for us to offer full programs in an online format,” said Castleton University President Dr Karen M Scolforo.
Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott today issued the following statement early Tuesday. The legislative Special Session, which Scott called for last week, will begin Wednesday. He hopes to renegotiate a new tax plan and sign the budget and be done by Friday. The governor doesn't want any of the tax hikes lawmakers have inserted. Legislative leaders have also dug in their heels and insist that it was Town Meeting voters who set the spending needs for local schools, but it's the state that needs to pay for them, as well as everything else.
Vermont Business Magazine May 15th was an evening of honoring excellent service to our community with the theme “Community – We can’t build a healthy community without u!” Chaplain Alden Launer received a standing ovation when named Copley Hospital’s Employee of the Year for his outstanding service to patients, community members and employees.
Vermont Business Magazine Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) has announced the schedule of activities for Centennial Community Day, a celebration of its 100th anniversary, presented by Mack Molding, Jerome Construction, and The Bank of Bennington. The event is scheduled for 11 am – 4 pm Sunday, June 10, 2018, on the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Campus at 100 Hospital Drive in Bennington.
Vermont Business Magazine The Bowse Health Trust, a Department of Rutland Regional Medical Center, has begun its 2018 grant cycle, with Letters of Intent due by June 15, 2018. Organizations that submit Letters of Intent with program ideas that best address the community’s health needs will be invited to submit a full proposal on September 15, 2018. Grant announcements will be made by December 1, 2018 and the funds will start on January 1 2019.
Vermont Business Magazine The Special Needs Support Center (SNSC) in Lebanon, NH, has received a $5,000 grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The grant will help SNSC further their mission of helping children and adults with special needs, and their families, meet their unique challenges through advocacy and program support.
Vermont Student Assistance Corp. will receive a $20,000 grant from the J. Warren and Lois McClure Foundation to continue its successful initiative in Franklin County to increase student participation in dual enrollment, early college and adult technical education programs.
“We thank the McClure Foundation for its continued generous support and commitment to this community and helping local students be successful and establish a bright future,” said Patrick Leduc, vice president of career and education outreach for VSAC.
The states of Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have received a joint grant of $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) to create an organization called the New England Regional Defense Industry Collaboration.
Over the next eighteen months, these funds will be used by the organization to coordinate the growth of defense-related businesses across the six-state New England region. The primary goals of the organization will be to aid small and medium-sized businesses in meeting new cybersecurity requirements for businesses participating in the defense industry supply chain, as well as to create a trusted supplier network that will make it easier for large defense contractors to locate smaller suppliers that are able to meet their production, certification and process requirements.
Vermont furthered itself as the gold standard for financial services and insurance industries with the signing of H.719 into law on Thursday, May 17. This legislation allows for the creation of an “affiliate reinsurance company” and allows for a more favorable reinsurance alternative for U.S. companies who conduct business offshore.
This legislation capitalizes on an opportunity created by the recent changes to the Federal Tax Code, which created the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) on reinsurance ceded to offshore affiliates. As a result, more than $35 billion previously in offshore jurisdictions will now be looking for a home in the U.S. to avoid this tax. Vermont acted quickly to ensure the state was able to support these businesses with the passing H.719, which creates the financial structures and regulatory environment to accommodate them in Vermont.
Vermont Business Magazine Mobius is excited to announce the start of the 2018-2019 Vermont Mentoring Grants application process. These annual grants are designed to support new and existing mentoring programs in Vermont that match adult volunteers as mentors for youth mentees (ages 5-22) in long-term, one-to-one, quality-based mentoring relationships.
The Vermont Mentoring Grants have traditionally been made possible through support from the A.D. Henderson Foundation, the Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children, and the Vermont Department for Children and Families. During the 2017-2018 grant year, Mobius and its three funding partners awarded 31 grants, totaling more than $333,000, to support more than 100 new and existing mentoring program sites, and more than 1,800 adult-to-youth mentor pairs in communities across Vermont.
Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR) assisted recently with the distribution of portable skidder bridges that were constructed at Fontaine Lumber in East Montpelier. Skidder bridges are portable structures logging operators use to minimize disturbance when transporting equipment and logs over streams. These bridges are being made available to logging contractors as part of the Department’s continued effort to protect water quality on timber harvest sites and to make it easier for logging contractors to do their work responsibly.
Vermont Business Magazine Hartland Elementary School will be celebrating their big Way to Go! School Challenge win from last fall, an AllEarth Renewables Solar Tracker, with a ribbon cutting on May 22 at 1:45. About 9,000 students, faculty and staff participated in last fall's Way to Go! School Challenge from 48 schools across the state. There was a 23% increase in school participation from 2016. Hartland Elementary was one of the schools that met the 50 percent participation criteria to be eligible to win the Solar Tracker.