Business
The unemployment bill formerly known as S.10 – Business owners had their most challenging year in memory. Many hoped that the legislature, knowing this, would have sought to offset their challenges. Unfortunately leveling unemployment tax rates was considered by some to be too much help.
One of the most contentious negotiations of the session centered on the formula that determines the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance. Recent years unemployment rates are entered into the calculation, and many experts felt that 2020 was an anomaly and should be removed from the formula given the pandemic. Without 2020 in the equation, the balance required would be $600 million, and with 2020 it would be $1 billion (by all accounts too much).
[co-author: Jessica Griswold]
Legislative Chess
It’s the time of year when the legislature plays chess. Sometimes it even plays speed chess, with programs, initiatives, and tax code changes flying in and out of bills as they move back and forth between chambers. Each chamber attempts to position its priorities to its best advantage, sometimes by holding the other chamber’s priorities as hostage.
A House committee may remove a section of a bill that its Senate counterpart spent months discussing. And vice versa. A committee may also attach one of these pieces to a different bill, using it as a “vehicle” to shore up its chances of survival. In non-COVID times, legislators play a version of three-dimensional chess, with players sitting on different floors in the Statehouse working their own individual chess boards.
Unlicensed Vermont fight promoter issued top fine for child fighting, pandemic violations
Modified: 4/22/2021 10:11:18 PM
RUTLAND An unlicensed fight promoter in Rutland has been ordered to pay $22,500 after promoting fights between children as young as 6 years old and violating the governor’s COVID-19 executive order.
Lauren Hibbert, director of the Vermont’s Office of Professional Regulation, said it was the largest administrative penalty she has ever seen.
Randy Felion, who has used the business names “Fight Night Promotions” and “VTBeefs,” is not registered as a fighter or promoter with the state or the National Boxing Registry, but he has held a total of eight mixed martial arts events between May 2019 and June 2020.
Tue, 04/20/2021 - 2:00pm tim
by Devon Green, Vice President of Government Relations, VAHHS Last week, the House Government Operations Committee took testimony on S.48. The Interstate Nurse Licensure Compact is an important health care workforce initiative and a key recommendation from the Rural Health Services Task Force 2020 Report. Under the compact, nurses can apply for a license in one compact state and have access to all the other compact states without applying for separate licenses, which is an appealing option for new graduates. Maine and New Hampshire are currently compact states and New York and Massachusetts have bills pending in the legislature.
Mark Faith File photo
When Hyde Park resident Deanna French died in November, she was cremated and her family displayed her urn under the Christmas tree.
In January, they brought the urn to birthday parties for her great-granddaughters.
It wasnât until February that the family learned the horrifying truth â the ashes in the urn were not Deannaâs.
âSo, Mom was there for the birthday balloons and all this stuff and it wasnât mom at all,â Deb French, Deannaâs daughter, said. âThis woman was really being cared for, and loved and looked at every day. Weâd kiss our fingers and touch her urn. And it wasnât mom. It was this other lady.â