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Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.   It was my great pleasure and privilege to participate in another Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Conference (CSG ERC) webinar on Friday and Saturday, this one titled “Carbon Sequestration from the Ground Up: Opportunities in Northeastern Farms and Forests.” This is a topic the Vermont House Agriculture and Forestry Committee has been working on for several years that excites me because it reveals the roles that agriculture and forestry can play in climate change mitigation that, at the same time, may benefit our far...

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.   MONTPELIER — To this point, the focus of revamping the state pension system’s governance and benefits to address its multi-billion dollar unfunded liability has been squarely on the House Government Operations Committee and on House Speaker Jill Krowinski, the lawmakers who took up the complex and emotionally charged issue. That’s about to change. The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday signed off on H. 449, a bill which proposes expansion of the Vermont Pension Investment Committee and a Pension Benefits, Design and F...

Governor proposes $90 million for state capital investment Department of Economic Development Commissioner Joan Goldstein presented Governor Scott's Capital Investment Grant Proposal to the Senate Economic Development Committee this week. The proposal would allocate $90 million over three years for capital investment grants to businesses and non-profits. Regional Development Corporations and Regional Planning Commissions would identify eligible projects. Twenty-five million dollars would be dedicated to outdoor recreation projects. Senators expressed concerns about how the Agency of Commerce ...

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.   Vermonters deeply value our teachers, troopers and state employees. Many of the most active and engaged citizens in small town Vermont are retired state workers and teachers. While these public servants do not make as much as they might in a private sector career, the opportunity to earn a pension and have the guarantee of income in retirement is key to the recruitment and retention of these important workers, and a huge benefit to our local economies. Unfortunately, it has been clear for decades that those benefits paid out to future reti...

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.   The high drama might be over for a while, but pension reform remains a high priority in the Legislature. This week, the House Government Operations Committee is considering a new draft proposal to expand the membership of the Vermont Pension Investment Committee (VPIC) and establish a task force to study possible solutions to the state’s thorny unfunded pension liability problem. This is the other shoe from House leadership’s decision two weeks ago, under pressure from state employee unions, to focus on governance now and study t...