If you know of a business in Knox, Warren, Mercer or Henderson county which should be nominated for an award, please let us know with the form below.

Small Business Day Nomination Form 2012 (PDF)

Early registration for the luncheon expires onMay 1, 2012, so reserve your seat now!

Small Business Day Luncheon Registration 2012 (PDF)

Lt. Governor Sheila Simon opened the conference and discussed how local communities were doing more with less. Simon stated thatIllinoisis making great progress in the areas of broadband access and local foods and emphasized the need for rural communities to collaborate on solutions to the challenges they face. David Oppendahl from the Federal Reserve Bank ofChicagodiscussed the role of agriculture in the Midwest’s rural economy and David Terrell. Deputy Chief of State for the Lt. Governor of Indiana presented information on the Stellar Communities Program, a multi-agency partnership designed to fund comprehensive community development projects in small communities in Indiana.

Breakout sessions included presentations on the effective use of TIF programs, downtown redevelopment, historic preservation, local foods, and involving youth in community development. Additional sessions featured the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen, a commercial kitchen owned and operated by a center supporting people with disabilities; local foods, connecting rural hospitals with broadband. Don Macke from the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship discussed the use of wealth transfer and community foundations to support entrepreneurship.

“This rural development conference offers an opportunity for elected officials and leaders in small Illinois communities to hear new ideas and approaches. By attending the conference, GREDA showed its commitment to improving areas of quality of life. The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs is proud to provide this opportunity for local leaders to learn from their peers on these important topics.” said Christopher D. Merrett, IIRA director.

For more information about GREDA, please contact 309.343.1194.

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For additional information, contact Karen Poncin, IIRA, (K-poncin@wiu.edu).

Local employers will be asked to provide information about their employee base, including the quality of the workforce, education, skill levels, wages, salaries, benefits, commuting distances, and their experiences when hiring new workers. The results will be used to generate an aggregate report and individual responses will remain confidential.

The report will also be used as an economic development tool to help both existing and prospective new businesses assess the area’s workforce.

The survey will be sent to employers electronically, and it is designed to be user friendly and take approximately 30 minutes to complete. “We encourage all those receiving surveys to participate; higher participation rates will enable us to better identify and address issues that are of importance to our employers” according toGary Camarano, the city of Galesburg’s Global Strategies Director.

GREDA welcomes its newest intern, Tao Zhang. Mr. Zhang is a Knox College senior majoring in Economics and also studying Business and Management and German as minors. As a student at Knox College, Mr. Zhang maintains high academic excellence and participates in a variety of on-campus and off-campus activities. He is currently the Co-president of Chinese club and is also an amateur boxer at Galesburg Youth Athletic Club. Mr. Zhang comes from Chengdu, China and looks forward to gaining some real-world working experience as the Time Bank Coordinator for GREDA until he graduates in the spring. “This is a precious opportunity for me to dive into the Galesburg communities and make an impact on them. I can not wait to work with the diverse population here and make ties between neighborhoods tighter”, says Mr. Zhang.

The Register-Mail

Elected to the state House of Representatives at the age of 26, then narrowly missing out on becoming lieutenant governor when he ran on the ticket with Gov. Richard Ogilvie in 1972, James Nowlan is a respected thinker when it comes to Illinois government. Nowlan, also a professor and a newspaper publisher, looked to the past and future of Illinois’ current budget woes at Thursday’s annual meeting of the Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association.

Nowlan, from the Stark County village of Toulon, began his talk at Soangetaha Country Club with a bit of humor after GREDA President Tom Schmidt read Nowlan’s lengthy list of accomplishments.

“Tom, you forgot to mention I’m also a notary public,” Nowlan quipped.

Nowlan talked about corruption in Illinois government and how that and the perception the state has a poor business climate hurts the cause of economic development.

“I think Illinois is in kind of a funk right now,” he said. “We have increased taxes significantly, but apparently the increase won’t solve our budget problems.”

Nowlan talked of a tradition of political corruption in the state stretching back into the 1800s. He said that 1,776 Illinois elected officials have been convicted of public corruption crimes since 1980.

“We do have a serious concern there,” he said. “The perception of corruption in a state does have a negative effect on economic development.”

Nowlan said that at the end of World War II, the average income of Illinoisans was 126 percent of the nation’s average. Today, it is 104 percent.

Other statistics were equally discouraging. There were 8,000 inmates in the state’s prisons when Nowlan was a state legislator in the late 1960s, there are now about 50,0000. And, beginning to touch on the state’s budget problems, he said there were about 1 million families on state welfare programs in the state in the 1970s. He said changes made by Republicans, such as Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, have reduced that number to fewer than 100,000 families. But the number of people on Medicaid has increased from about 600,000 to 2.7 million over the same period of time.

Nowlan said medical costs, underfunded pensions and the state’s funding of education through property taxes are all weighing down Illinois’ fiscal picture. The state’s deficit in fiscal year 2008 was $3.5 billion. He said the recent tax increase balanced the budget but will do nothing to pay the state’s bills and predicted vendors will be waiting even longer for state payments.

Referring audience members to what he called the “handy, dandy” Pocket Guide to the Illinois State Budget, he noted that the median household property taxes paid in 2006 in many Chicago suburbs was $4,000 or more. That means the same number paid more and the same number paid less than whatever amount the median was in any particular collar county.

“You come down the state, the amount generated by property taxes in Henry, Stark and Knox counties declines considerably,” he said.

For instance, while the median was just more than $4,500 in Kane County, it was $1,844 in Stark County, $1,837 in Henry County and $1,399 in Knox County.

“But even with significant state money (state aid formula), we don’t come close to spending enough money for most school districts compared to what is spent and available in suburban areas,” Nowlan said.

Nowlan predicted recent “temporary” tax increases will be made permanent, negative changes will have to be made to the pensions of state employees “and we’ll probably see health care rationing of some sort.” He said the growth of Medicaid each year is 7 percent, while revenue growth is just 3 percent. He said cutting education or health care will be difficult, but those two areas accounted for more than 63 percent of state expenses in FY 2008.

He said the state has resources, such as water, coal, “if we could ever learn to clean it sufficiently,” location and infrastructure, such as the interstate highway system and railroads but must face its problems. Nowlan said in order for Illinois to stop its slide, “the state has to get its fiscal house in order. The state government clearly needs to settle down, stabilize the government and present an honest face to the rest of the world.”

jpulliam@register-mail.com

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