By Sen. Alison Clarkson After many long Floor sessions debating and passing bills to the other body, the Legislature has pretty much completed cross over. This is the point in the session where all bills which have any chance of making it into law have to be passed from the House to the Senate or…

By Sarah Mearhoff/VTDigger Rep. Becca White, D-Hartford, is looking for a promotion. The two-term state representative on Monday, April 4, launched her candidacy for one of Windsor County’s three state Senate seats.  Unless any of the delegation’s incumbent senators — Alison Clarkson, Dick McCormack and Alice Nitka, all Democrats — decide to retire, White’s candidacy sets up an unusual…

By Liora Engel-Smith/VTDigger When Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital’s chief executive talks about the challenges facing his organization, housing is near the top of the list. “It’s really astounding,” Shawn Tester, who heads the hospital in St. Johnsbury, said last month. “ We ended up having to rent a dorm from one of our local high schools…

By Fred Thys/VTDigger Senators have offered a compromise to Gov. Phil Scott on a registry of home contractors — an issue that has been holding up a bill, S.226, intended to create more housing. Scott vetoed a contractor registry earlier this year, explaining that he does not think it is needed. He has since indicated that, if the registry…

High prices are here to stay, market was undervalued, experts say By Polly Mikula The average home in Killington sold for over $1 million in the first quarter of 2022 — the highest evaluation ever — and those prices are indicative of the town’s, region’s and state’s growing value, say local real estate agents who…

By Rep. Jim Harrison Last fall I had the opportunity to meet up with our son, Ben, and two of our grandsons, Luke and Graham, for a golf weekend. During round two of the excursion, Ben and I were teamed against the grandsons (12 and 10). Putting aside that their tee box was often 50-100…

By Peter D’Auria/VTDigger On March 1, voters in the Otter Valley School District went to the polls and, by a margin of 60 votes, turned down the budget for the upcoming school year. The unexpected rejection of the $22.7 million proposal, which came amid a steep drop in voter turnout in the district, has thrown…

By Emma Cotton/VTDigger Vermont is experiencing parallel crises: The state needs more development as Vermonters struggle to find and afford housing, and development is also increasingly encroaching on forests and habitats that are important for ensuring the state’s resilience to climate change. Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, said lawmakers sought to address both problems in S.234,…

By Sarah Mearhoff/VTDigger With hardly any debate, the Vermont Senate in a series of votes Friday, March 25, unanimously approved the House and Senate’s newly drawn legislative district lines. If approved and signed into law, the maps would stand for the next 10 years. In the upper chamber, senators debated how to fairly divide representation…

Vermont had the lowest gender-based wage gap of any state in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. But still, women on average were paid $4,600 less than men. Wyoming had the highest gap with men earning on average $21,676 more than women for equal work. Overall, the gender gap in the…

By Peter D’Auria/VTDigger Once they complete the sixth grade, students in the towns of Dover and Wardsboro must leave their school district to attend class. The small River Valleys school district, in rural Windham County like many rural schools in the state, does not operate a high school or a middle school. Under Vermont’s school…

By Christopher Ross/Addison County Independent BRISTOL — It took just six presentation slides by Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer to astonish the audience of a virtual healthcare talk hosted by Bristol Democrats earlier this month. State healthcare costs are soaring, transparency is declining and the University of Vermont Health Network (UVMHN) exerts outsize influence on…

Staff report At-home antigen or LAMP Covid-19 tests will now be provided at state-run testing sites, rather than PCR tests, according to state officials. Health Commissioner Mark Levine said PCR tests — which are administered at the testing site and take longer to produce results — will still be available for certain situations, such as…

By Christopher Ross/ Addison County Independent Roughly 14% of Middlebury College students have tested positive for Covid-19 since arriving for the spring semester last month, but the cases have not been severe or persistent enough to warrant a change in campus policies, officials said. Middlebury currently has 2,626 residential students and has logged 383 cases,…

The v voted Wednesday, March 23, to advance legislation that would set limits on public money going to private and religious schools. The final vote on the bill, S.219, then passed Thursday, March 24. Now the measure moves to the House. Vermont students living in “choice towns” — municipalities across the state that don’t operate…