By Rep. Jim Harrison Last Wednesday, Jan 9, marked the beginning of the new legislative biennium. Voters returned all statewide office holders, including Gov. Phil Scott, and the Legislature voted to have House Speaker Johnson and Senator Ashe head up their respective chambers again. What is different is the overall makeup of Legislators with majority…

By Sen. Alison Clarkson It is always exciting to begin a new biennium in the Vermont State House. And, the 2019 launch of the first year of that two year legislative period was no exception.  While our leadership remained unchanged – returning Gov. Phil Scott; Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman; Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe…

Courtesy Vermont Fish and Wildlife Jason Lewis of Randolph with the nice 221 pound buck he took in Orleans County during Vermont’s 2018 November deer season. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department’s preliminary numbers show 18,845 deer were taken during Vermont’s 2018 deer hunting seasons, the highest total since 2000. Reports from big game check…

Vermonters filed 5,471 scam reports with the Attorney General’s Consumer Assistance Program in 2018 according to the Attorney General’s list of top 10 most commonly reported scams of the year. This amounts to a 4.55 percent increase in scams from 2017. As new scams emerged, old scams persisted. The IRS scam, which involves scammers claiming…

By Elizabeth Gribkoff/VTDigger Customers of Vermont’s largest electrical utility will see a slight rate decrease on their bills for the first nine months of next year. The rate case drew an unusual amount of public scrutiny last month due to an anonymous letter, and subsequent public comment from a former senior official, claiming that the state…

By Kit Norton/VTDigger As the Boy Scouts of America faces mounting legal battles, the organization has opened multiple scout programs to females and, since June, 95 girls have joined the Cub Scout program in Vermont. The Green Mountain Council, the Vermont chapter of the national organization, has currently enrolled 95 girls in the program that…

By Xander Landen/VTDigger Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Ashe wants to change Vermont’s Constitution. Among the Democratic Senate leader’s top priorities in upcoming legislative session is a push to pass four constitutional amendments. Ashe and other senators say they want to add an amendment expanding gubernatorial terms from two to four years and other amendments that would protect…

By Anne Wallace Allen/VTDigger As chief of the Vermont Department of Labor’s economic and labor market information section, Mathew Barewicz is in charge of collecting and interpreting federal and state employment data for policymakers, job-seekers and the public. Among other things, Barewicz is the researcher on a project partnering with the McClure Foundation aimed at…

By Xander Landen/VTDigger Vermont’s law enforcement agencies would not be able to carry out background checks on private firearms sales, the Department of Public Safety has determined. As part of a sweeping package of gun control measures that became law this year, legislators moved to expand background checks to private gun purchases, in addition to sales at gun…

By Rep. Jim Harrison In addition to the dawn of a new year, we are also on the eve of a new legislative session. The first few days of a new biennium are filled with a number of procedural items. The newly elected legislature will be sworn in on Wednesday, Jan. 9. Gov. Phil Scott…

By Xander Landen/VTDigger The governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission is recommending that before Vermont moves to legalize a commercial cannabis market, the state needs to find a consistent way to test drivers for cannabis impairment. The panel also urges policymakers in its report to pave the way for law enforcement to use roadside saliva tests to determine…

  Beginning Jan. 1, 2019, the state’s minimum wage will increase to $10.78 per hour. Also beginning Jan. 1, 2019, employers will see a reduction in the taxable wage base amount that they pay on unemployment taxes by $2,000. Nearly 22,600 employers remit state unemployment taxes to the Vermont Department of Labor on an annual…

A group of Vermont school districts, community leaders, and citizens will filed an appeal Thursday, Dec. 20 against the State Board of Education, the Vermont Agency of Education, and the Secretary of Education. Attorneys for the appeal say that a preliminary injunction and a stay will also be filed imminently. The appeal is being put…

Vermont ranks No. 2 among states with the highest number of Peace Corps volunteers per capita, according to a recent announcement.  There are 43 volunteers from Vermont currently serving worldwide and 1,622 Vermonters have served in the Peace Corps since the agency’s founding in 1961. Notably, Vermont has ranked as a top volunteer-producing state per…

By Stephen Seitz The tree. The gifts. The parties. The relatives. The travel. That begins to add up. However, there may be money out there waiting for you. Most people are familiar with Vermont’s unclaimed property division, but now a new tool has been added to the lost money finder system: the life insurance policy…