The City of Newton will get a 250-thousand dollar grant from the Department of Labor to make plans to help the workers put out of a job by the closing of the Maytag plant. Whirlpool bought the Maytag appliance company and then decided to shut down its operations in Newton. Newton Mayor Chaz Allen talked with the city council about the grant.

Allen says they’ll use the planning grant to work with other areas, like Baxter, Kellogg, Altoona, maybe Pella to develop a region and keep the workers in central Iowa. Allen says the city has done a lot of planning already, and that paid off with the grant.

Allen says Newton is the first community to get such this type of federal grant as the guidelines were changed. He says this grant sets them up for a possible future workforce development grant. Whirlpool has been slowly phasing out the operations at the Maytag facility.