The Vermont Treasurer’s Office announced Wednesday that a program aimed at expanding retirement account options for small employers is now open for enrollment. 

Vermont Saves is a retirement savings program that operates like an employer-sponsored individual retirement account with automatic payroll contributions similar to a 401(k).

State Treasurer Mike Pieciak said an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Vermont workers don’t have access to a retirement account through their employer. The program, created by law in 2023, is intended to expand access to workplace-based retirement accounts, especially for small employers.

Organizations with at least five employees that do not already offer retirement options must enroll in Vermont Saves by February, according to a press release from the Treasurer’s Office. The program also allows other Vermonters, such as self-employed workers, to sign up independent of a workplace. 

“Research shows that you’re 15 times more likely to save for retirement if you have a workplace-based retirement plan,” Pieciak said in an interview. “Even though it might seem like, to some, a relatively small financial barrier or knowledge barrier to go to a bank and get a Roth IRA, it’s enough of a barrier that it keeps a tremendous amount of people out of the retirement savings systems that we have in this country.”

There are some eligibility requirements: Participants must be 18 years of age or older and have at least 500 hours of taxable wages from a Vermont employer. Participants who enroll separately from their employer must also provide bank account information, according to David Kunin, a spokesperson for the Treasurer’s Office.

Asked if those requirements might exclude certain Vermonters, such as undocumented workers, Pieciak said there may be some workers without retirement accounts who remain ineligible. But, he said, the “vast majority are people that simply work for a small nonprofit or small business that can’t afford to offer a workplace retirement program,” typically because of the administrative costs. 

Vermont has joined Colorado, Delaware and Maine in creating an interstate consortium called the Partnership for a Dignified Retirement to save on administrative costs, according to the press release. 

Here are a few things to know about the program. More details are available on the frequently asked questions section of its website.

How would this program differ from other types of retirement accounts? 

Conventional employer-based retirement programs, such as 401(k) accounts, allow employees to automatically move a percentage of their pre- or post-tax income into an investment account, which could include stocks, bonds or other investment options, according to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Employers can also choose to contribute to the account. 

By contrast, a Roth IRA allows a person to contribute post-tax income to an account separate from their employer, operated by a bank or other financial institution. Those have lower contribution limits than 401(k) accounts, according to the IRS. 

Pieciak said the Vermont Saves accounts are essentially Roth IRAs, except they allow for automatic payroll deductions on post-tax income. 

Vermonters might also choose to enroll in the Vermont Saves program because of the low fees compared to other IRA providers, or because they have more trust in a state-based system, according to Becky Wasserman, director of economic empowerment at the Treasurer’s Office. 

How does the program work through employers?

The Vermont Saves program is free for employers, according to the program’s website. They must register their organization and coordinate how to send contributions through their payroll provider. 

The program defaults to an automatic deduction of 5% of wages for first-time enrollees, rising to 8% over the course of several years, Wasserman said. However, employees can choose to deduct a higher or lower percentage of their income, up to the federally mandated IRA contribution limits. 

Pieciak said those defaults were picked to “balance” how much someone needs to save to have a sustainable income in retirement with “having money today to put food on the table.” He acknowledged that participants in Vermont Saves are likely to be lower wage earners than the Vermont average. 

“It’s an amount that will have an impact on them and their future retirement, but it’s hopefully not an amount that they can’t live without in terms of their daily life in the here and now,” he said. 

If someone leaves their employer, the Vermont Saves account remains with them like a bank-based IRA would, Pieciak said. They can also take their original contribution amounts out of the account before retirement, but any investment returns would be taxed.

What are the investment options? 

Vestwell State Savings, a nationwide savings platform, is the program’s administrator, but the investments themselves are managed by two companies: State Street and BlackRock. 

The program offers four types of investments: a capital preservation fund, a bond index, an international equity fund and a “target retirement date” fund, which automatically adjusts the mix of investments based on when someone plans to retire. 

Most IRA accounts offer more granular control over investments, but Pieciak said the state wanted to avoid making people “paralyzed” by having too many options. “It sort of becomes complex and hard for someone to make the decision about what’s most appropriate to them,” he said. 

Vermont basketball can point to key injuries as an easy reason for its lackluster performances in the nonconference season.

Longtime coach John Becker didn’t go that route after the Catamounts’ underwhelming, 60-53 defeat to Brown on Tuesday night in front of 2,111 at Patrick Gym.

The loss was Vermont’s first at home in 15 games, and just the third on Tom Brennan Court over the last four seasons (48-3).

“It’s another game we struggled to score the ball, struggled to rebound, struggled to take care of the ball. Credit to Brown, they played really hard, pressed us the whole game, got on the glass late when they needed to and had the best player on the court,” the 14th-year Catamount bench boss said. “Our injuries really aren’t an excuse because (Brown is) injured just as much as we are.

“We have to be better and that’s on me. Right now, it’s really difficult for us.”

Kino Lilly, Jr., whom Becker referenced as Tuesday night’s best player, drained four 3s and totaled a game-high 23 points, while Landon Lewis racked up a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds to power the Brown Bears (5-3).

Freshman guard Sean Blake scored a career-high 13 points and Shamir Bogues added 11 points and three steals for the Catamounts (5-5), who were without injured starters Nick Fiorillo and TJ Long for a third straight game. Transfer forward Shy Odom (concussion) also missed his second straight contest.

Fiorillo and Long are week to week with their injuries, according to a UVM athletic spokesperson.

The Catamounts made only 5 of 21 3-point attempts and shot 37.9% overall from the floor for the game. Their percentage worsened in the second half at just a 33.3% clip. And the Catamounts’ starting guards went 7 of 30 from field.

“The numbers are atrocious for us offensively. We are struggling to find consistency,” Becker said.

Ahead 31-28 at the break, Brown built a 12-point lead at 47-35 at the 15-minute mark of the second half. The Catamounts closed to within 53-50 on Ileri Ayo-Fale’s 3-pointer with 4:31 to play. Then Lilly responded with a driving layup, a step-back 3-point splash and a pair of foul shots to seal Brown’s road victory.

Redshirt freshman forward Noah Barnett (eight points on 4 of 5 shooting, six rebounds, two assists) was a bright spot, but scored all of his points in game’s first 5:08. The explosive Blake had flashes with strong takes to the rim, finishing 6 of 12 on his field-goal attempts.

Vermont’s inability to play out of the post, the graduation losses of Aaron Deloney and Matt Veretto and, yes, even the injuries have the America East Conference favorites searching to play cohesively on the offensive end.

“We’ve had these stretches early in the year when it looks discombobulated and we figure something out. But I think it’s really difficult when you can’t throw it into the post and play out of the post consistently,” Becker said.

“We have to continue to try and figure it out … but I don’t know what the answer is right now.”

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.

BY MELISSA GOLDIN

Social media users are misrepresenting a Vermont Supreme Court ruling, claiming that it gives schools permission to vaccinate children even if their parents do not consent.

The ruling addressed a lawsuit filed by Dario and Shujen Politella against Windham Southeast School District and state officials over the mistaken vaccination of their child against COVID-19 in 2021, when he was 6 years old. A lower court had dismissed the original complaint, as well as an amended version. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed on Nov. 19.

But the ruling by Vermont’s high court is not as far-reaching as some online have claimed. In reality, it concluded that anyone protected under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP, Act is immune to state lawsuits.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that schools can vaccinate children against their parents’ wishes.

THE FACTS: The claim stems from a July 26 ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court, which found that anyone protected by the PREP Act is immune to state lawsuits, including the officials named in the Politella’s suit. The ruling does not authorize schools to vaccinate children at their discretion.

According to the lawsuit, the Politella’s son — referred to as L.P. — was given one dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic held at Academy School in Brattleboro even though his father, Dario, told the school’s assistant principal a few days before that his son was not to receive a vaccination. In what officials described as a mistake, L.P. was removed from class and had a “handwritten label” put on his shirt with the name and date of birth of another student, L.K., who had already been vaccinated that day. L.P. was then vaccinated.

Ultimately, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that officials involved in the case could not be sued.

“We conclude that the PREP Act immunizes every defendant in this case and this fact alone is enough to dismiss the case,” the Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling reads. “We conclude that when the federal PREP Act immunizes a defendant, the PREP Act bars all state-law claims against that defendant as a matter of law.”

The PREP Act, enacted by Congress in 2005, authorizes the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a declaration in the event of a public health emergency providing immunity from liability for activities related to medical countermeasures, such as the administration of a vaccine, except in cases of “willful misconduct” that result in “death or serious physical injury.” A declaration against COVID-19 was issued on March 17, 2020. It is set to expire on Dec. 31. Federals suits claiming willful misconduct are filed in Washington.

Social media users described the Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling as having consequences beyond what it actually says.

“The Vermont Supreme Court has ruled that schools can force-vaccinate children for Covid against the wishes of their parents,” reads one X post that had been liked and shared approximately 16,600 times as of Tuesday. “The high court ruled on a case involving a 6-year-old boy who was forced to take a Covid mRNA injection by his school. However, his family had explicitly stated that they didn’t want their child to receive the ‘vaccines.’”

Other users alleged that the ruling gives schools permission to give students any vaccine without parental consent, not just ones for COVID-19.

Rod Smolla, president of the Vermont Law and Graduate School and an expert on constitutional law, told The Associated Press that the ruling “merely holds that the federal statute at issue, the PREP Act, preempts state lawsuits in cases in which officials mistakenly administer a vaccination without consent.”

“Nothing in the Vermont Supreme Court opinion states that school officials can vaccinate a child against the instructions of the parent,” he wrote in an email.

Asked whether the claims spreading online have any merit, Ronald Ferrara, an attorney representing the Politellas, told the AP that although the ruling doesn’t say schools can vaccinate students regardless of parental consent, officials could interpret it to mean that they could get away with doing so under the PREP Act, at least when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. He explained that the U.S. Supreme Court appeal seeks to clarify whether the Vermont Supreme Court interpreted the PREP Act beyond what Congress intended.

“The Politella’s fundamental liberty interest to decide whether their son should receive elective medical treatment was denied by agents of the State and School,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “The Vermont Court misconstrues the scope of PREP Act immunity (which is conditioned upon informed consent for medical treatments unapproved by FDA), to cover this denial of rights and its underlying battery.”

Ferrara added that he was not aware of the claims spreading online, but that he “can understand how lay people may conflate the court’s mistaken grant of immunity for misconduct as tantamount to blessing such misconduct.”

Originally Published: December 3, 2024 at 6:42 PM EST