(25 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paxton, Illinois – 09 May 2024
1. Wide of wind turbines operating
++PARTIALLY COVERED ++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Denny Kingren, chief, Paxton Fire Protection District:
"The farm that come in here, it really was quite the benefit. I think our annual budget was somewhere around 120,000 dollars. After they was up and operating, we got an additional 42,000 the following year. And to this date, we’re still receiving money from the windmills. I think it was a big uplift for all of us to realize, well, some people may not like to look at them, but it’s benefiting people and it’s also benefiting us through the taxes, because it takes a lot to make a fire department operate. The smaller the department, the harder it is.”
3. Tight of wind turbine operating
4. Pan up of firehouse interior
5. Various of uniforms inside Paxton fire house
6. Wide of firehouse garage doors closing
7. Medium of Denny Kingren raising American flag outside fire house
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Piper City, Illinois – 09 May 2024
8. Medium of Scott Saffer directing students in class
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Scott Saffer, gifted coordinator, Tri-Point School District:
"For us it’s made a huge difference. These towns wouldn’t be here. These towns just wouldn’t be here like they are. The economy is would not be here like it is. To focus my energies more on, you know, doing the thing rather than having to attract all the funding, makes a big difference. We get quality staff, they tend to stick around. We don’t have to worry about a lot of little stuff and focus more on the teaching. And that’s a real gift.”
10. Tight of student cutting strawberries during a cooking class
11. Various of Scott Saffer teaching a cooking class
12. Various of school bus outside school
13. Wide of students running to school bus at end of the day
STORYLINE:
An Associated Press analysis of county tax data across three states — Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska — found wind companies rank among the biggest taxpayers in many rural communities, with their total tax bills at times outstripping that of large farms, power plants and other major businesses.
Local officials and school superintendents, fire chiefs and community college administrators number among the people who are often first to see the economic benefits of wind development. But most people don’t ever learn about the tax implications for their county unless they enter a leadership position.
Denny Kingren, the fire chief of Paxton, Illinois, says he had neither positive or negative feelings about wind development to start off with — he’d just seen them crop up throughout Illinois.
Then about 13 years ago, came the funds: about $40,000 a year since then, which has since gone toward new trucks, new equipment and more on-call firefighters.
This year in Ford County, Illinois, where Paxton is located, nearly 200 wind turbines owe the county $3.8 million, representing about 10% of the property taxes due to the county. AP’s analysis found wind farms there are three of the top four taxpayers in the county.
In Scott Saffer’s science classroom in Piper City, Illinois, kids bake cookies in a decked-out kitchen, care for fish, turtles and a snake, and have access to a workshop full of tools. As the gifted enrichment coordinator at Tri-Point School District, Saffer is living his teaching dream, one he knew he’d need money to accomplish.
Saffer called those sorts of moves a "community decision,” one that school districts watch closely, knowing they need the money, but can’t interfere with.
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Author: AP Archive
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