(Radio Iowa) – Applications are still being taken for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program known as LIHEAP. Jean Logan with the Community Action Agency of Siouxland says the state is working on getting out the funds for this year after the government shutdown ended. “We expected there would be delays in making payments to the vendors, that’s the case,” Logan says. “We should have money out by the end of December, everything takes time.”

Those enrolled in the program are covered by the shut off moratorium, so utility companies can’t shut them off for unpaid bills during the winter. Logan says the program will not pay you entire heating bill. “LIHEAP, or energy assistance is really intended to pay partially what you would need for your utility payments over the winter months. And while it’s nice to have the moratorium, we do encourage people to go ahead and make regular payments,” she says.

Assistance is based on income, household size and other factors. You can sign up for LIHEAP wherever you through your local community action agency. Logan says you should check and see if there is an online signup, as that often takes less time.

(Atlantic, IA) – The Cass County Choral Society will present their annual Christmas concert this Sunday, December 14 at 6:00 pm, in the Atlantic High School Auditorium. The concert will include several solo and duet performances of vocal and instrumental pieces, along with the chorus.

Shown is Director Ray McCalla leading a recent rehearsal with the chorus. (photo submitted)

There is no charge for admission. Free-will donations are appreciated. Community members are encouraged to come and share in the music of the season!

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa farmers are starting to talk with lenders about borrowing money to pay for operations, or to buy land and equipment. The Federal Reserve Bank reports weakness in the crop sector weighed further on farm finances, and credit conditions have gradually tightened. Ty Kreitman, an economist with the Federal Reserve of Kansas City, says while we’ve seen a couple seasons of high costs and low crop prices, it’s too early to draw comparisons to the farm crisis of the 1980s.

“We’re in the second year of losses, but we also have to recognize that the two years prior, 2021 and 2022 and to some extent, 2023, were very strong years for crops, across the ag sector, in fact,” Kreitman says. “So, we had substantial increase in farm incomes during those periods. And so, a lot of operations were able to bolster their working capital.” Kreitman says the situation is bleakest in the crop sector, where farmers have been at or below the break-even mark for the past couple of harvests. He says the number of operations they classify as highly leveraged has been creeping up.

“There’s probably about 20% of farm borrowers who have debt-to-asset ratios, so a ratio measuring leverage of above 40%, and I would say that would be considered high leverage,” he says, “and then obviously distributed throughout that, even beyond that, we’re not quite sure how many would have extremely high leverage.” Kreitman says younger farmers and those who rent most of their land have been the hardest hit by the downturn in the ag economy, because they haven’t built equity like more established operations. He says land prices remain near historic highs, meaning many operations have strong equity.

There have been 18 farm bankruptcy filings in Iowa so far this year, the largest number since 2020.

(Radio Iowa) – A man who was working at an Iowa meatpacking plant will spend four years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to illegally get federal loans during the pandemic that were for business owners.
The U-S Justice Department says Yovny Ciero is a former sergeant in Cuba’s military who’s been living in the U-S for nearly 20 years after illegally crossing the Mexican border. Ciero was working at the meatpacking plant in Algona when the pandemic began, but he is one of over one-hundred Cuban immigrants accused of applying and getting Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020 after claiming to be self-employed, with a six-figure income in 2019.

Court records indicate Ciero was one of six “bundlers” in the scheme that submitted over four-MILLION dollars’ worth of fraudulent loan applications. Ciero got a loan for himself and a person the Justice Department describes as his paramour. Ciero and used the money to buy a pick-up and get a loan for a home in Mason City.

A jury found Ciero guilty of several wire fraud and money laundering charges. Ciero is one of five former Iowa meatpacking plant workers sentenced in this pandemic scheme. Two women and two men pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to less than a year in prison and ordered to pay restitution.

(Radio Iowa) – While some Iowans are grumbling over two consecutive weekends of moderate to heavy snowfall, others are loving it and have learned to embrace all that winter in the Midwest has to offer. Matt Miner is president of the Iowa State Snowmobile Association, based in Cresco. Miner says snowmobiling is a wonderful hobby, as long as all riders follow the basic rules. “We want everybody to have a good time, but we want everybody to be safe. We want them to enjoy the sport, enjoy having fun with friends and family,” Miner says. “We always promote to ride safe and don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in your car. We like seeing the partying and stuff that everybody does, but we don’t want to have it continue on into the sleds and riding when you shouldn’t be riding.”

Iowa DNR photo

Miner says the Iowa Department of Natural Resources offers an online course for new snowmobilers between the ages of 12 and 17. “Just go onto the Iowa DNR website, go under the Snowmobile tab and you can look up the classes,” Miner says. “That’s the only thing we offer right now. We are looking to offer here in the next year or so, hopefully be back into in-person training for youth snowmobiles.” Miner says there are nearly 60 separate snowmobiling clubs in Iowa and each offers its own activities and opportunities to ride the trails. “My home club, we’ve got Snow Fest which will be in 55th year this year, the last weekend in January,” Miner says. “There’s the Winter Games over in Okoboji. We do a thing down in Huxley with spina bifida for the kids with spina bifida. We get them out and have them ride in the snowmobile.”

He says the association has helped to maintain an expansive fleet of trail groomers and a trail system comprising 8,800 miles statewide.

(Creston, IA) – Two people were arrested on separate charges over the past few days, in Creston. According to the Creston Police Department, 32-year-old James Dean Michelson, of Creston, was arrested Friday afternoon, following a traffic stop. Michelson was charged with Driving While Barred Habitual Offender and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. He was transported to the Union County Jail, posted a $2,300 dollar cash or surety bond, and was released.

And, at around 12:10-a.m. Saturday, 19-year-old Caleb Lee Bunner, of Creston, was arrested for Public Intoxication. He was transported o the Union County Jail and held on a $300 dollar cash or surety bond. Bunner later appeared before a judge, pled guilty to the charge, and was released.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State president Wendy Wintersteen is retiring at the end of the year after working there since 1979, and becoming the school’s first woman president in 2017. Wintersteen says she doesn’t agree with the idea that the cost of a college education now isn’t worth it to students. “We see over and over again just the return on investment for our students in terms of the placement rates and the salaries that they are able to earn once they graduate,” she says. Wintersteen says she worries that students who could help fill jobs where there are shortages aren’t coming to college. “I think it’s important to think about that in terms of the future of the country. We have a lot of really smart kids in Iowa that should come get a degree in biomedical engineering, get a degree in electrical engineering and physics, chemistry, get a degree in material science engineering, precision agriculture, animal science,” Wintersteen says.

Wintersteen say 75 percent of I-S-U students get a get a scholarship from a private donor and they are working to increase that. “Forty-four percent of our students graduate without any debt. And so that’s a great number to remember and the average debt at Iowa State is around 28-thousand, 29-thousand dollars, and we have a very low default rate,” Wintersteen says. She says graduates get good jobs and are able to pay off the loans and it raises a question. “Well, how else could you spend that money? So investing in your future. it’s a pretty good way to do that,” she says.

Wintersteen says they require all students at Iowa State to take educational program on what it means to take out a loan and they have to sign a piece of paper that they’ve done that educational training, understanding they have to pay the loan back. Wintersteen retires January 2nd.

(Radio Iowa) – Small Iowa businesses struggling to compete with giants like Amazon might consider what’s called crowdshipping, where customers — who are not store employees — would be asked to deliver merchandise ordered online in exchange for a reward. University of Iowa business analytics professor Jeff Ohlmann is studying the crowdshipping concept and says it seems unconventional to ask a customer to make a delivery, but it could work in some circumstances. “People are always looking for side hustles, and if you can make a little extra money doing very minimal effort, that’s kind of what this is targeted at, it’s that type of individual,” Ohlmann says. “Of course, there’s other individuals who might have a carload of kids and they’re like, ‘No way, in fact, I need a crowdshipper for myself.'”

Customers who make the delivery might be compensated with a gift card or some other incentive, but Ohlmann says they’d first need to be registered and screened.  “The crowdshipping program would have to be done something like somebody who would enroll and be vetted, much like a customer loyalty program, where that store in some sense knows that person and has vetted them,” Ohlmann says. “It’s not just any random shopper who walks into the store and says, ‘Hey, I’ll deliver a package.'”

A recent U-I study looked at how much crowdshipping would be needed to cut delivery costs enough to make it worthwhile. He says it could lower costs and cut delivery times if even five-percent of in-store shoppers agreed to make deliveries that extend their trip home by up to 30 minutes. The idea might make some people uneasy, but Ohlmann says times are changing, and so are traditions. “Currently, we have Door Dashers and Uber Eats and people delivering food that are essentially non-uniformed individuals and so it’s not that much of a stretch, in that regard,” Ohlmann says. “Depending on the scenario, if you’re going to leave a package on a porch and just notify the person, there doesn’t have to be any interaction if you don’t want there to be.”

Crowdshipping isn’t just for mom-and-pop businesses either. He says corporations like Walmart, Target and Home Depot are all trying out similar pilot projects.