Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Starting on Thursday, July 1, buying a box of tampons or pads in Vermont will be a slightly less costly proposition.
That's when Act 73 goes into effect. It exempts tampons, sanitary napkins, panty liners and menstrual cups from the state’s 6 percent sales tax.
“Being able to use our taxation system as a means to promote equity, I think, is incredibly important and powerful,” said Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), who sponsored the bill. Hardy said that the law supports gender and economic equity, as well as age equity: those who have the hardest time affording menstrual products are often younger.
Cary Brown, executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women, was part of a group of eight organizations, including the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Planned Parenthood and Vermont Works for Women, that advocated passage of the bill.
“This particular tax was something that hit a particular category of people and not others,” Brown said. “I think that there was a sense that we can do better than that now. Our tax policy can be better and fairer than that.”
Tags: Ruth Hardy , Vermont Commission on Women , menstrual products , period equity , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Five jobs are available in the state for every person who is seeking work, said Scott, and Vermont needs to do everything it can to encourage people to take one. He thinks the extra unemployment insurance money might be serving as a deterrent.
“I think it’s gone on long enough," he said of the federal funding. "We would let it lapse.”
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Monday, June 28, 2021
In late 2020, Phish front man Trey Anastasio’s Divided Sky Foundation purchased the 18-acre property in the Windsor county ski town for $1.7 million, funded largely by viewer donations from Anastasio’s livestreamed concerts during the pandemic. Ascension Recovery Services, a West Virginia-based health care company that manages similar treatment centers across the country, would operate the 40-bed facility, which is tentatively slated to open later this year.
Tags: Trey Anastasio , Ludlow , Divided Sky Foundation , Ascension Recovery Services , opiates , recovery , Web Only , Image
Monday, June 21, 2021
The latest report by State Auditor Doug Hoffer runs the numbers on the first three years of the state’s contract with OneCare and concludes that the start-up and operating costs far surpass any savings realized to date.
“Put simply, at this time the financial costs to run the model significantly exceed any Medicaid savings attributed to it,” Hoffer wrote in a 41-page report released Monday.
Tags: OneCare Vermont , all-payer , Doug Hoffer , auditor , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
The money is part of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant program aimed at improving access to health care for all, including minorities and rural populations. The CDC plans to invest $2.25 billion nationally by 2023.
State officials learned June 3 that the state would receive the award, said Heidi Klein, director of planning and health care quality at the Vermont Department of Health. Klein said she’s been told the state won’t have the authority to spend the money for at least another month or two.
Tags: Vermont , health equity , CDC , grant , health department , BIPOC , rural communities , access , Web Only , Image
Monday, June 14, 2021
Slightly more than 80 percent of all eligible Vermonters have now received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to Gov. Phil Scott, who celebrated the milestone by making good on his promise to lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions.
At a press conference on Monday, Scott said that he was moving Vermont into the final phase of its reopening plan. Capacity restrictions and gathering limits are now lifted, mask wearing is no longer required and most businesses are now under recommended guidance instead of the stringent health mandates that have governed their daily operations for much of the last 15 months.
The announcement comes 464 days after the state identified its first case of COVID-19 and marks a major step toward normalcy, signaling what many hope will be an end to the pandemic in Vermont.
"There are no longer any state COVID-19 restrictions," Scott said. "None. So unless there is a federal requirement in place — like [for] public transportation or long-term care facilities — employers, municipalities and individuals can operate under the same conditions as before the pandemic."
Tags: Vermont , Reopening , Threshold , 80 Percent , Gov. Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
The residential care homes, known collectively as Our House, featured prominently in a Seven Days/Vermont Public Radio series on the industry for similar problems dating back to 2015.
State regulators at the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living stepped in last month following what court filings describe as a spate of “troubling events” at Our House homes in the last year that showed a pattern of understaffing and inadequate training.
Tags: Our House , Paula Patorti , Vermont Department of Disabilities , Aging and Independent Living , Receivership , Eldercare , Residential Care Homes , Worse for Care , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
The state is still gathering vaccination data from Sunday and Monday, but as of Tuesday morning, an estimated 78 percent of eligible Vermonters had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Another 11,346 people need to get vaccinated in order to reach that 80 percent. If 1,000 a day were vaccinated, the state would fully reopen June 11, Human Services Secretary Mike Smith said during the governor’s regular COVID-19 news briefing Tuesday.
Tags: Canada , vaccination , border , Conference of theNew England Governors and the Eastern Canadian Premiers , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 21, 2021
The governor initially set the Fourth of July as the date to lift all restrictions. But he said during one of his twice-weekly COVID-19 news briefings that he hopes to be able to lift restrictions sooner than that. Bars and restaurants, for instance, remain limited in the hours they can operate.
“Vaccines work, and we’re vaccinating faster than I think anyone imagined,” Scott said.
As of Friday, 88 percent of all Vermonters were eligible to be vaccinated. Of that population, 74.9 percent had received at least one dose, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means an additional 27,954 people need to be vaccinated to reach the 80 percent threshold, according to Scott.
The highest proportion of people who had received one dose was 77 percent, in Chittenden County, according to the state Health Department’s COVID-19 dashboard. The lowest was Essex County, with 54 percent.
Tags: Phil Scott , governor , Vermont , COVID-19 , restrictions , coronavirus , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 14, 2021
Vermonters who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear masks or socially distance in many settings, Gov. Phil Scott said on Friday, rules that adhere to new federal guidance.
The governor also relaxed gathering limits and lifted all domestic travel restrictions. The switch comes more than two weeks before the anticipated date of June 1 for the changes. The moves are effective as soon as Scott signs an executive order, which he planned to do later Friday.
The announcements are significant steps toward normalcy as the proportion of adults who have received at least one vaccine dose crosses 70 percent. Nearly 52 percent have completed their vaccine regimen. Children ages 12 to 15 are also now eligible to get vaccinated.
"It's time to reward all the hard work you've done over the last 14 months," Scott said.
Tags: Vermont Department of Health , U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , masking , mask mandate , coronavirus , covid-19 , Web Only , Image