The state of Vermont is considering increasing the amount that employers pay into the fund that pays unemployment benefits.
Without the increase, the fund is projected to run out of money within a year.
Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden says it’s a bad time to be increases the charge, but to do nothing would make the situation worse.
Meanwhile, Vermont’s Congressman Peter Welch says a stimulus package now making its way through Congress could deliver between 6 and 15 million-dollars to bolster unemployment insurance coverage in Vermont.
Under the state proposal the amount that employers would pay into the fund would nearly double in a year and increase by 250 percent by 2011.