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Deere and Company announces more layoffs

April 1, 2009 By

Deere and Company is announcing more layoffs in Iowa. Employees at the John Deere Ottumwa Works were informed of the layoffs on Tuesday. The company says 40 workers will be laid off indefinitely on April 20th.

The Ottumwa plant, which manufactures hay and forage equipment, has nearly 1,000 workers. Production workers with the least experience will be cut. The company blames "reduced market conditions for the factory’s products."

Last month, Deere announced 325 layoffs in the construction and forestry division, which includes plants in Davenport and Dubuque. 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business Tagged With:

Moratorium on utility shut off ends today

April 1, 2009 By

Those who are overdue on their electric or natural gas bills may lose their service today as the moratorium on cold weather utility disconnections ends April 1st.

Alliant Energy spokesman Dave Koch  says people who are two months behind on their bills need to start putting a plan together to pay their bill. Koch says anyone who is 60 or more days behind on their bills could face disconnection.

They want customers to make arrangements to either pay the bill in full or work out the details of a payment plan. Koch says the number of customers who are behind on their bills is up from this time last year.

The number is up slightly but he says it’s not as much as you’d expect with the poor economy, but it’s about 26,000 customers in Alliant’s Iowa territory who are behind with the total dollar amount owed around $5.5 million.

Koch says if you are behind on your bills and you can’t pay off what you owe, now is the time to start working on finding a solution to the problem.  He says you can call Alliant at 800-327-2708 to work out a payment plan, or you can try to apply for low-income household funds through the federal government and the local community action agencies.

For information about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, funds are available for qualified customers through April 15th. Visit the website " www.dcaa.iowa.gov " and click on Bureau of Energy Assistance.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Linn County begins paying flood tax today

April 1, 2009 By

Most residents in Linn County begin paying a self-imposed tax today that government leaders say will help pay for flood recovery. Voters in all but five cities in the county approved the extra penny-per-dollar sales tax last month. The increase is expected to bring in $18-million  for Cedar Rapids.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Kay Halloran says a nine-member oversight committee will review the council’s decisions on spending the money. "We had a lot of people who seemed to be uneasy about the use of the tax money and at which point it was appropriate and frankly easier to find other people who would be the oversight for those expenditures," Halloran says.

Some 70 people applied to be on the oversight committee. While most business owners will pass the cost on to customers, some say it will be more difficult. Rohollah Hosseini is the owner of the Coin Kleen Laundromat in Cedar Rapids, and says he can’t justify raising prices another quarter to make up the tax.

He isn’t against the tax overall. Hosseni says," If they use it for the right purpose, I’m not against it but I just don’t think it’s fair for the Laundromat to pay the customer share out of their pocket."

He says not passing on the tax increase means the laundromat could lose as much as three thousand dollars per year. The tax will not go into effect in Hiawatha and Marion. Those cities in addition to all of Johnson County will vote on a sales tax increase next month.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters Tagged With:

ISU has experience at quarterback spot

April 1, 2009 By

Iowa State football coach Paul Rhoads has an experienced quarterback on hand as he installs a new offense this spring. Junior-to-be Austen Arnaud passed for nearly 2,800 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2008. Rhoads says the Ames native has the intangibles it takes to be a successful quarterback.

Rhoads says Arnaud is very upbeat and that is vital to an offense’s success. He says Arnaud also understands football and is applying it to the field. Rhoads says while Arnaud has experience he does not have a lock on the job. Rhoads says every position is always open as the minute a player gets overconfident, someone else will step up.

Redshirt freshman Jerome Tiller is trying to compete for the starting job. Rhoads says Tiller is an intelligent young man who is not taking a back seat and being content to be an understudy. Rhoads says Tiller is working on all the skills it takes to be a starting quarterback.

ISU’s spring game is April 18th. 

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State tax collectors back off delinquent collection plan

April 1, 2009 By

State tax collectors are backing off a controversial plan to get money from delinquent taxpayers. Officials in the Department of Revenue wanted to use new software to track down a delinquent taxpayer’s bank account to collect unpaid taxes. The Iowa Department of Revenue’s Victoria Daniels explains.

"It’s something that a lot of states are undertaking — different departments of revenue — on a local level and a national level as well," she says. "We estimate we could bring in $2 to 4 million by implementing this program."

But the banking industry objected and the department has asked legislators to dump a proposal that would have given the agency authority to use new software to tap into bank accounts to collect unpaid taxes.

Daniels says today, it pretty hard to track whether delinquent taxpayers have the money to pay their overdue taxes. "Right now the way we have to do it is a very manual process. We kind of have to guess on where someone might have an account based upon where they live or where they work or other factors," she says. "It would really increase our efficiency if we were able to have an automated data match with financial institutions."

Other states are using that kind of an electronic "data match" system and Daniels estimates her agency could collect up to four million dollars in delinquent state taxes with the system. 

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Vilsack stops short of endorsing mandatory animal ID

April 1, 2009 By

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stopped short of endorsing a mandatory animal identification system Tuesday. Instead, the former Iowa governor told a House agriculture appropriations subcommittee that his office must first work through concerns from those that are against the proposal.

Vilsack spoke with reporters by phone following the meeting. "I want to make sure that I’m clear about this, I think it is very important to the process – whether you do it through a regulatory process or through the passage of legislation – that we do everything we possibly can to incorporate the input of those who have concerns about mandatory I.D.," Vilsack said.

The chairwoman of the subcommittee, Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, and the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, are both pressing the Obama administration to implement the mandatory I.D. system. Vilsack says their concerns about being able to quickly trace sources of food-borne disease outbreaks are valid.

"I’m concerned about the circumstances of not having system that is nationwide and is a reliable system that would…allow us to identify and prevent problems so we can mitigate the damage," Vilsack said. Many livestock producers, large and small, are opposed to an I.D. system because of the cost, privacy concerns and potential for lawsuits. Vilsack says he plans to arrange meetings with groups that are opposed to the plan.

"Right now, there’s a division," Vilsack admitted. "What I don’t want is a circumstance where this is mandated and then people spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how to get around it. That doesn’t do anyone any good."

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is among the groups that supports a voluntary, rather than mandatory, I.D. system. Currently, about 35% of the nation’s livestock producers are enrolled in a voluntary program that was started after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was discovered in 2003.

 

Filed Under: Agriculture Tagged With:

March wetter and warmer than normal

April 1, 2009 By

April may be known for its showers — but state climatologist Harry Hillaker says this March saw it’s share too. Hillaker says statewide precipitation averaged just over three inches — or about three-quarters of an inch above the normal average.

He says almost all of the precipitation in March was in the form of rain, with the statewide average of snowfall not quite an 1 1/2 inches — or about 1/3 of normal for March.

Hillaker says south-central and south-east Iowa saw the most rain. Hillaker says many locations had more than double their average, with Indianola breaking its record with 6.6 inches of rain for the month. Hillaker says all the rain caused some flooding in the state, but says the lack of snowcover kept things from getting severe.

Hillaker says one year ago we had an extremely cold and snowy February, but this year February was much warmer and we had very little snow on the ground heading into March, which allowed the state to handle the rain we did get. Hillaker says the first three months of 2009 are off to a much warmer start than last year.

He says February of this was only a couple of degrees above normal, but about 10 degrees above February of last year, and March was also a couple of degrees above normal, but about six degrees above last year.

Hillaker says February and March broke a long streak of months that were colder than normal. Hillaker says April doesn’t signal an end to the chance for snowstorms, but says things will switch more toward thunderstorms and rain. 

Filed Under: Weather
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