WVTK Local & State News February 10, 2010

The Pittsford Select Board will ask taxpayers if they want their money back at town meeting.

An accounting error caused the town to overcharge taxpayers by $353,000 last year. An item on the town meeting ballot asks voters if they want to use that money to buy down the tax rate.

Meanwhile, the Select Board has level-funded the general fund budget and the highway budget at $948,613 and $822,171 respectively. Those are identical, down to the dollar, to the amounts to be raised by taxes voted last year.

A Rutland city police officer is at the center of a child porn investigation. Child porn websites, pornographic photos and DVDs were just some of the items discovered during a search last fall at the Rutland Police Department. Investigators say they found a rack of 20 pornographic DVDs and three more DVDs containing teen porn in a Rutland city cops office when Vermont State Police searched the police department last fall. Court documents, released Tuesday, don't name the officer but they do detail a search carried out after 150 child porn images were found on the officers laptop. The officer claimed pornographic websites started popping up while he was researching hidden cameras for the department.

A New Hampshire company that makes organic pizza crusts has acquired the rights to a Vermont frozen pizza brand. Rustic Crust of Pittsfield is acquiring the rights to the American Flatbread brand. The agreement allows Rustic Crust to more than double its natural and organic pizza business in 2010-2011. Rustic Crust's bakery will expand to include a hand-built, wood-fired earthern oven similar to ones used by American Flatbread for its frozen flatbread pizzas. The agreement does not affect the Vermont-based American Flatbread restaurants.

State education chief Armando Vilaseca says Vermont needs to cut the number of school districts to help the state save money. Vilaseca is among those testifying before a House panel today on a proposal that would begin laying the groundwork for district consolidation.

Governor Jim Douglas is pushing to dump dozens of state boards and commissions, saying the move could save the state nearly $700,000. Douglas says some of the panels have been inactive for years. He's proposing abolishing 45 panels and having six others modified or consolidated.

School officials and teachers in Burlington remain far apart as they talk contract. The district is pressing teachers for a 5 percent pay cut next year and then 1.5 percent raises for the two years after that. The Burlington Free Press reports teachers are looking for raises of more than 5 percent each year of the deal.

Family and friends are calling a miracle the rapid recovery of a West Rutland high school student after he was hit by a car late in December. The Rutland Herald reports doctors had told Josh Scaralia he wouldn't be able to return to Mount St. Joseph Academy because of his brain injury but he's already gone back to school.

Five Vermont farmers are taking on new roles, helping guide the work of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency in Vermont. The appointments to the agency's state committee were announced Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who's visiting Vermont this weekend. The committee is an advisory body that will guide the Farm Service Agency in conservation, loans, disaster relief and financial programs in Vermont.

The five, who were nominated by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, are:
John D.E. Roberts, of West Cornwall;
Amanda Ellis-Thurber, of Brattleboro;
K. Michael Howrigan, of Fairfield;
Beth Kennett, of Rochester;
Brendan Whitaker, of Brunswick have been appointed to the agency's state committee.

The Vermont House has voted to give the canteen at the Vermont State Hospital a reprieve. The cafeteria had been slated for closure under cuts called for by the state Department of Mental Health. But its supporters say it is an important part of therapy for many patients. They say it provides socialization that can help patients prepare for return to the community, and that access to it is a privilege that can be used as an incentive for good behavior. On Tuesday, the House voted 115 to 6 - against the wishes of the Appropriations Committee - to join the Senate in giving the Canteen until March 15 to come up with a plan to become revenue neutral. It cost the state about $80,000 to run it last year.

Vermont's top health official says it's reasonable to assume a radioactive substance leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is reaching the Connecticut River. Officials previously have said measurable levels of tritium have not shown up in the river. But Dr. Wendy Davis, the commissioner of the Department of Health, says the volume and direction of flow of tritium-tainted groundwater makes it clear it's reaching the river. A Vermont Yankee spokesman says the plant agrees. Davis says she's in regular contact with health officials in New Hampshire and Massachusetts about the situation at Vermont Yankee. Davis says she's also briefing health commissioners from around New England on the situation in weekly conference calls.