Iowa's Radio News Network
Portable electronic credit card readers are being used by the Salvation Army for donations.
The Salvation Army’s annual red kettle fundraising campaign is underway again, and at some locations you can now pull out your plastic instead dropping paper money or coins in the kettle.
The development director for the Salvation Army in central Iowa, Arvid Huisman, says some of their kettles are using machines that allow you to swipe a credit or debit card to make a donation.
They’re best known for making license plates and furniture, but state prison inmates are testing a new product line — toilet paper. Inmates already produce toiletry products like shampoo and body wash, making toilet tissue one more manufacturing skill they can eventually use on the outside.
Roger Baysden, director of Prison Industries, says Iowa inmates will be making their own T-P by the middle of next year. “Work is vital in prisons for inmate control,” Baysden says.
”We have been testing prison-manufactured toilet tissue for six months. It’s manufactured in a Missouri prison. Six months and we’ve had no complaints.” Iowa’s 9,000 offenders use a million rolls of toilet paper a year and if they start making it themselves, the state would save ten-cents a roll. Baysden says — that will add up.
“There is no manufacturers of toilet tissue in Iowa so we aren’t competing with any manufacturing company,” Baysden says. “It’s a $100,000 a year savings.” If all goes according to plan, inmates would begin making toilet paper by mid-2011, mostly likely in Fort Dodge or Mitchellville.
Initially, the commercial grade tissue will be used in Iowa’s nine state prisons, but the savings could be extended to other agencies, even the state capitol.
A Clear Lake manufacturer is planning to layoff workers next year. Larson Manufacturing officials say they’ll be shutting down the plant’s second shift indefinitely starting in January, impacting about 60 workers at the storm door manufacturer.
Larson C.E.O. Jeff Rief said in a statement that the stagnant economy has not shown clear signs of improving and they need to bring capacity down to meet the size of the market demand. The company plans to work with state and local officials and agencies to help those impacted by the announcement find new opportunities.
By Bob Fisher, KGLO, Mason City
Turkeys Giblet, and Feathers await their pardon from the governor.
Governor Culver today pardoned two Iowa turkeys in ceremony with a little different twist.
A male turkey named Giblet and a female named Feathers were turned loose inside the state capitol building as freezing rain forced the pardoning ceremony indoors. It’s an annual event the Culver and other Iowa governors have held for years.
U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is among those urging congress to vote yet this year to extend tax breaks for soybean-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol. The tax break for biodiesel expired at the end of 2009. “It is important for us to renew the biodiesel tax credit because when it was allowed to elapse we lost 50 percent of our biodiesel production and 12,000 jobs,” Vilsack says.
The tax advantage for ethanol is set to expire December 31st. Vilsack says rural America benefits from the biofuels industry, as not only farmers reap financial benefits from higher-priced commodities, but the plants that produce the biofuels employ thousands. However, two key Republican senators — one from Oklahoma, the other from South Carolina — are pushing their fellow Republicans to allow the ethanol tax break to expire, arguing the government subsidies for ethanol have increased food prices and have been bad for the environment because of decreased efficiency in vehicles which run on ethanol-blended fuels.
Vilsack, a former two-term governor of Iowa, supports giving ethanol producers a tax break. “It’s important for us to continue to renew the ethanol credits — in one form or another — so that we recognize this is a maturing industry, not a mature industry,” Vilsack says. “It needs a little bit more additional help for it to expand nationwide which is what we’re hopeful to be able to do.”
Vilsack expects a debate about the tax breaks for ethanol and biodiesel to be part of the discussion in congress over extending the Bush-era tax cuts.
Deere and Company, the world’s largest ag equipment maker and Iowa’s largest manufacturing employer, achieved record profits for the fourth quarter. The Moline, Illinois-based company is reporting earnings of $1.07 per share for the quarter ended October 31st.
That compares with a loss of 53 cents per share a year ago, but reversed fortunes this year, fueled in part by “highly favorable sales” of large farm machinery, like combines. The company continues to record weak sales of its construction equipment, however net sales of all its equipment increased 39% worldwide in the last quarter.
For fiscal year 2010, Deere says earnings were $4.35 per share, up from $2.06 in 2009. C.E.O. Samuel Allen says despite weakness in some regions and business sectors, the strong performance for the fourth quarter and the year reflect a disciplined approach in executing Deere’s business plans.
The company is expecting profits of $2.1 billion in fiscal 2011, an increase of more than 10 percent from this year.
By Phil Roberts, Davenport
See the complete Deere financial report here: www.deere.com/en_US/ir/financialdata/2010/fourthqtr10.html
A man from Mexico who was living in eastern Iowa will spend a year and a half in prison from entering the country illegally. In 2006 Jose Salazar-Flores pleaded guilty to a felony, attempted grand theft from a person in Los Angeles, and he was deported.
In June of this year he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and charged with illegally re-entering the United States. Salazar-Flores had been living in Cedar Rapids. In August, he pleaded guilty to the charge of illegally reentering the country and this week he was sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison and he’ll be deported after he’s served his time.
O.KayHenderson.com