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D-200 schools going digital
LOCAL CONGRESSMAN VISITS MATHEWS COMPANY
Program to start at elementary level By STEPHEN Di BENEDETTO sdibenedetto@shawmedia.com
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Fred P. Hochberg (left), chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank; Ed Johannesen, director of operations at Mathews Company; Joseph Shulfer, president of Mathews Company; and Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Winfield, take a tour Wednesday of Mathews Company, a family-owned global manufacturer of quality, innovative agricultural equipment in Crystal Lake.
Rep. tours CL business Hultgren pushing for extension of federal export bank By JEFF ENGELHARDT jengelhardt@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – Joseph Shulfer’s Crystal Lake business could lose millions of dollars in exports if Washington does not reauthorize a hotly debated federal bank. On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Winfield, visited Shulfer’s agricultural equipment manufacturing complex to let him know he would do what he could to keep the Export-Import Bank of the United States operating to help small manufacturers like Shulfer have more opportunities to sell products abroad. “At its core, the fight to extend the Export-Import Bank is about growing and keeping jobs,” Hultgren said. “Many Illinois and 14th District businesses rely on the bank to ensure their exports reach their customers. Without the role of the bank, the jobs provided by these businesses would be severely curtailed.” Shulfer’s business, Mathews
Company, exports millions of dollars worth of agricultural equipment. At its peak, Shulfer said 40 percent of Mathews Company’s total business came from exports, primarily in Russia and Ukraine. But with business slowing because of unrest in those countries, Shulfer said the credit insurance and security the Export-Import Bank can provide is needed when pursuing other foreign markets. Hultgren said the Mathews Company is one of many in Illinois that the bank has assisted. Since 2007, the bank has supported nearly $6 billion in Illinois export sales from 301 exporters, including 204 small businesses. “Just knowing that for a fee, these small businesses can have confidence they will get payment for things they deliver overseas, is helpful. Many companies never have to use the guarantee, but it’s there,” Hultgren said. “It’s also research and connections with these other countries Ex-Im can provide to these manufacturers.” Critics claim the bank provides
a form of corporate welfare as big manufacturers still use the resource to benefit from better interest rates and other financial gains. Less than 1 percent of small businesses use the bank and critics say there is more than enough opportunity in the private sector to help businesses in export transactions. Hultgren said the Export-Import Bank should be closely examined, but it would hurt too many businesses to eliminate it with no alternative in place. He said the problem is that there are no private sector alternatives, and countries such as China are more than ready to swoop in and take that business if small American manufacturers lose their share of the marketplace. “I would love it if there truly was a free-market approach, but I just don’t think there is,” Hultgren said. “This really is Plan B ... but Plan C is China is willing to take over. If there is a free-market replacement I’m all for it. But the worst thing would be a straight drop-off without a plan in place.”
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At its core, the fight to extend the Export-Import Bank is about growing and keeping jobs. Many Illinois and 14th District businesses rely on the bank to ensure their exports reach their customers. Without the role of the bank, the jobs provided by these businesses would be severely curtailed.” U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren R-Winfield
Illinois gets just 1 bid in online sale of planes The ASSOCIATED PRESS SPRINGFIELD – An auction to finish selling half of Illinois’ fleet of airplanes didn’t take off with bidders. Just one of five planes received a bid in an online auction that ended Wednesday afternoon. A four-seat 1978 Cessna got a bid of roughly $66,800, topping the minimum price required to be sold, according to the state’s surplus equipment bidding website iBid. Former Gov. Pat Quinn said last year that Illinois planned to sell the planes and that the state could save as much as $7 million by cutting the fleet. Some lawmakers have said the state shouldn’t be paying to main-
tain multiple planes, and some have campaigned on the issue. The Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises newspapers reports only two smaller planes were sold in a September online auction. The highest minimum price in the latest auction was roughly $2.5 million for a 1999 Beechcraft King Air 250, which didn’t receive a bid. Illinois Department of Central Management Services spokeswoman Meredith Krantz said before the auction ended that Gov. Bruce Rauner is committed to selling the planes. The administration plans to look at other ways to get rid of them. “Maybe iBid is not the best platform to sell them,” Krantz said.
AP file photo
An Illinois state-owned aircraft is seen within sight of the state Capitol as it prepares to take off Sept. 24, 2007, from the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield.
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WOODSTOCK – Next school year, Olson and Mary Endres elementary students will be the first to use new laptops to learn literacy, under a two-year, $1.143 million digital classroom initiative at Woodstock School District 200. The initiative sets up a broader digital transformation at the district, Superintendent Mike Moan said. Over the next two years, district administrators will put Chromebook laptops and tablets in the hands of all elementary students to learn a new digital literacy program called ReadyGEN. District officials shuffled existing dollars in the budget to create the program, eliminating district spokeswoman Carol Smith’s administrative position and reallocating funds from its curriculum budget. Moan praised Smith’s work at the district, but he said the district had a greater priority to students. “The only statement we are trying to make is that our number one concern is in the class“The only room,” Moan said. “We want to put our statement we resources there, and are trying to we needed to find the make is that our number money somewhere. That’s how we choose one concern to do it. It’s not a re- is in the classflection on Carol.” room. We The district also is want to put using a state loan to our resources bankroll the new digthere, and ital curriculum and we needed devices during the to find the two-year rollout, estimoney mated to total $1.143 somewhere. million. That’s how The loan from the we choose to Illinois State Board of do it. It’s not Education’s technoloa reflection gy revolving loan proon Carol.” gram covers $650,000 of the cost. Smith’s salary and benefits – estimated at $135,000 annually – covers the cost to purchase the ReadyGEN literacy program over the two years. Mike Moan The district’s cur- District 200 riculum budget resuperintenallocation, totaling dent $223,450, covers the remaining cost, according to district figures. District board members recently authorized the two-year rollout. The ReadyGEN program covers all aspects of literacy, from speaking to writing, and builds upon anchor texts that align with how the district teaches literacy, Moan said. It will come loaded on the students’ devices and features more interactive content than older digital textbooks available on the market, he said. It also begins a one-to-one digital transformation at the district, as many school districts across the country look to incorporate technology into the classroom and give each student a device for learning. Students in grades one through
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