By Xander Landen/VTDigger Vermont lawmakers on Thursday, Feb. 11, approved a plan to use nearly $100 million worth of federal funding to help low-income Vermonters who are struggling to pay their rent during the pandemic. The money comes out of a $200 million pot of funding for housing and utility assistance included in the $1.3 billion Vermont received from Congress’…

The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund through its farm to plate initiative, and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (VAAFM) have released the Vermont Agriculture and Food System Strategic Plan 2021-2030. With over 1,500 Vermonters providing input and helping to shape its content over an 18-month period, the plan lays out a vision, 15…

By Brooke Geery On Feb. 6 at 11:06 a.m. a 911 call was received regarding a snowmobile fire on the River Road Covered Bridge on Veilleux Road in Troy, a small town on the Vermont/Quebec border. Several local fire departments responded, and the Troy Fire Chief, Robert Jacobs, contacted the Dept. of Public Safety Fire…

By Sen. Alison Clarkson Given all that the Vermont Dept. of Labor (VDOL) has experienced with processing the vast numbers of Covid Unemployment claims, it was very discouraging to have the VDOL face a significant data security breach early last week. VDOL had mailed out about half of the 1099G tax forms only to discover…

By Rep. Jim Harrison Under Vermont law, the governor can make certain changes to how the executive branch is structured through an executive order by Jan. 15 in the first year in a new term. The Legislature then has 90 days to intervene if it chooses. If the Legislature takes no action, then the restructuring…

Local Vermont donor steps forward with a new, time-limited fundraising match In just six days, people from across the country raised nearly $20,000 for LGBTQ+ youth! It started when now world-famous Bernie-mitten-maker Jen Ellis gifted Outright Vermont one of three pairs of newly made mitts in a "coming out of hiatus" moment. In a recent…

Vermonters interested in conserving wildlife are encouraged to donate to the Nongame Wildlife Fund on their state income tax form this year, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Dept. stated this week. The fund helps protect some of Vermont’s most threatened wildlife such as bald eagles, lake sturgeon, spruce grouse, and Indiana bats. Donations are leveraged…

Over the past two years, Vermont’s Natural Resources Conservation Districts (NRCDs) installed 14 acres of high-priority forested buffers along approximately 11,000 linear feet of streams and other surface waters through a Vermont Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) grant to improve water quality across the state. According to the department, the ecological and economic benefits of planting…

By Sen. Dick McCormack It requires real effort to focus on anything but Covid and the transfer of power, but life and its lesser concerns go on. A tri-partisan group of senators is co-sponsoring S.17, a bill I’ve introduced to require civics education for a high school diploma. The ideological diversity of the bill’s sponsors…

By Rep. Jim Harrison Last Tuesday, Jan. 26, Governor Phil Scott addressed a virtual joint assembly of the Legislature, to highlight his administration’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year beginning July 1. The plan included use of $210 million of “one-time money” (such as a budget surplus from the current year or extra money…

Joins nearly 100 criminal justice leaders in calling for urgent action Attorney General TJ Donovan has joined nearly 100 criminal justice leaders in urging President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to take all actions within their power to immediately and definitively end the death penalty in the United States. In a letter sent…

By Anne Wallace Allen/VTDigger Among the millions of people who left the U.S. workforce last year, most are women. And nowhere is that more evident than in Vermont, which led the nation with the largest share of unemployment insurance recipients who were women. New research from the Joint Fiscal Office shows that about 73% of the…

By Lola Duffort/VTDigger An unexpected surplus in tax receipts is not just good news for the state’s coffers. It’s a boon to Vermont’s schools and to property owners, whose education taxes might otherwise have skyrocketed next year. With the state’s revenue upgrade in hand, the House Ways and Means Committee last week green-lighted legislation that would raise the average education…

By Brooke Geery Second-grade teacher Jen Ellis’s handmade, upcycled mittens set the Internet ablaze after they were worn by Sen. Bernie Sanders at the 2021 inauguration. Since she is busy and satisfied with her current career, Ellis has opted against going into full-time mitten production. But for those who would love to get a pair…

While the recent Bernie meme and sweatshirt sales have sold out and all proceeds are going toward Senator Sanders' home state of Vermont for the Meals on Wheels programs, we, at the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging (V4A) couldn’t be more ecstatic. Carol Stamatakis, president of V4A and executive director of Senior Solutions,…