At least one Woodstock business, if not more, are included among 75 Vermont employers who will get a financial break from the impacts of Tropical Storm Irene. These funds will come out of an unemployment insurance trust fund.
The Governor’s announcement Wednesday is the result of a Vermont bill created with the Department of Labor to offset the financial impacts of changes in unemployment “ratings” for businesses whose employees were laid off after Irene and who then filed for unemployment benefits.
We understand it is similar to changes the might occur to your car insurance if you are in too many fender-benders or crashes. Businesses maintained flooding was not their fault and they should therefore not be penalized.
Woodstock Early Bird has been in touch with the Vermont Secretary of Labor Annie Noonan who says the list of businesses and amounts they are to receive is confidential.
This confidentiality was explained as the funds come out of a paid-into employer Unemployment trust fund (not taxpayer monies). So we can’t tell you which businesses stand to benefit nor how much they will get in funds.
However, we did get confirmation that at least one Woodstock business will get relief. We also tried to speak with Rep. Alison Clarkson who worked on the bill but were not able make contact.
We note Woodstock Farmers Market owner Patrick Crowl has been a public advocate for such relief for Vermont businesses such as his, having maintained that he stood to take a future financial loss by having his near-perfect rating for unemployment claims ruined by the destruction of Tropical Storm Irene. As the numbers of laid off employees filing go up, so do businesses costs and required contribution/taxes into the fund.
Below is the announcement from Governor Shumlin’s office about the Umemployment Fund relief:
MONTPELIER – Gov. Peter Shumlin was joined today by business owners and lawmakers to announce that $5 million in unemployment insurance relief will be provided to 75 Vermont businesses – impacting about 300 employees – hit in 2011 by three natural disasters, including flooding in April and May, and Tropical Storm Irene in August. The Governor said the new law is another step in the state’s efforts to help Vermont businesses recover from natural disasters and prepare for those in the future.
“We recognized that businesses already struggling to recover from these natural disasters were facing added unemployment expenses,” said Gov. Shumlin. “Together, working with business owners and legislative leaders, we adopted disaster relief provisions to ensure that the approximately 75 employers from across Vermont who applied for help will get some relief from these costs.”
The severe weather in 2011, particularly the tropical storm, forced many businesses to shut down for extended periods of time and involuntarily lay off employees. While these layoffs were not the fault of many employers, their unemployment experience rating was affected and their unemployment assessments increased significantly.
To assist these companies and get Vermonters back to work, the Vermont Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a bill implementing Disaster Relief Unemployment Insurance Provisions that grant up to eight weeks of retroactive state unemployment tax relief for affected employers.
The credit will be applied to the next UI bills, which are issued quarterly, and because the rates are set – based on experience – through 2014, rates will be adjusted to reflect the change through that final billing cycle. The new law also provides up to four weeks of relief in the event of future disaster events.
Working with the Department of Labor, the Legislature determined that the state could afford to put approximately $8 million toward employer relief without weakening the UI Trust Fund.
The program is projected to cost approximately $5 million, significantly less than originally anticipated, ensuring that the Labor Department can grant relief to employers without negatively impacting the fund’s stabilization.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 