Illinois College is needing more community entries for its annual homecoming parade.

Community members who would like to place an entry in the parade must register online or by returning the registration form by Friday, October 1^st.

The parade will begin at the corner of Church and State streets in downtown Jacksonville October 9th at 10 a.m.

The parade route will travel east on State Street to the downtown square and return to campus on College Avenue, ending at the Homecoming Celebration Tent on the corner of Edgehill Road and Park Street.

To register online or download a registration form, visit www.ic.edu/HomecomingParade.

If you are wishing to complete a paper registration form instead, submit it to the Illinois College Office of Marketing and Communication and Campus Events, 1101 West College Avenue, Jacksonville, Illinois 62650, by the registration deadline.

Governor J.B. Pritzker extended his deadline for workers in Illinois prisons and other congregate settings to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on Friday.

After pushback from AFSCME and ongoing negotiations with unions representing state employees in congregate facilities, Pritzker pushed the deadline to November 18^th.

Pritzker originally set the deadline to October 4^th for employees to be fully vaccinated and called on their unions to come to the bargaining table to work out details.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Pritzker’s latest order says those who receive either a two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine would have to get an initial dose by October 14th and the second shot by November 18th. Those getting the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine would have to get it by October 14th.

An email to the Tribune from Governor Pritzker’s spokesperson Jordan Abuddayeh on Friday said that negotiations were ongoing and productive but offered no further specifics on why the original deadline could not be met.

Illinois Manufacturers are going to be shouldering more of a burden with utility costs. Illinois Manufacturers Association CEO & President Mark Denzler says that the manufacturing sector is one of the leading consumers on the state’s energy grid. IMA has disagreed with the state’s new green energy law recently passed by the General Assembly and signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker earlier this week.

Denzler says it’s not because manufacturers don’t care about the environment. He says its because a better balance needs to be struck between off lining fossil fuel power plants and bringing renewable energy online: “Illinois’ law doesn’t allow that. It creates a hard shutdown date for every coal and gas plant in Illinois. The problem is that technology doesn’t exist, and we are closing base-load generation, and we don’t have significant or enough renewable energy to back fill it; then, we are going to have to either see rolling brown-outs and blackouts, or we are going to have to buy more expensive energy from other places.”

Denzler characterizes the bill as the largest electric rate hike in Illinois’ history. He says it especially hurts manufacturers because of their massive amounts of consumption for operations. Denzler says it will ultimately effect a business’ decision to locate a factory or office in the state: “Energy was one of the few advantages we have. There are other things – central location, our infrastructure, colleges & universities, a global airport, and a global city. We have a lot of advantages going [as a state], but we have a lot of challenges in terms of high property taxes, income taxes, and workers compensation. Energy was one of our huge advantages. Even the Governor and Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell said in a lot of meetings, we want to preserve that advantage. Unfortunately, we are re-regulating the marketplace and we’re getting away from the energy advantages that we have. We’re going to see a rate increase and lose the competitive advantage because of the low energy prices we had in Illinois.”

Denzler says it will also pose decisions for existing businesses and factories. He says that higher utility bills for manufacturers could be the difference between further capital investment, raises for employees, increasing employment opportunities, and upgrading equipment and facilities. Denzler says he has heard no rumblings of any possible changes or amendments to the bill for upcoming sessions of the General Assembly in regards to considering the increased costs to commercial, industrial, and residential customers.

The Better Business Bureau says people need to be on the look out for being scammed by potential employment offers. Central Illinois Better Business Bureau CEO and President Jessica Tharp says that employment scams have become one of the top problems that pilfer unknowing individuals out of money who are trying to find a job: “A lot of people have transitioned to working from home, and so they are looking for ways to continue working from home maybe with a new employer if they have been put out of work due to the pandemic or what have you. So, they do an interview with a business, and it can even be a video interview we’ve been told, where they actually hear a real person asking them questions about the job and eventually they are offered the job, asked to fill out some employment forms including something for direct deposit. Here’s where the scam comes in. So, you are providing your banking information, your personal information, so that they can direct deposit your paycheck – only unfortunately, we find out that’s not the case. Instead of depositing money in your account, they are in fact, withdrawing money out of it.”

Last year the BBB estimated 14 million victims with $2 billion in direct losses related to job scams. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that employment scams climbed 27% over the last 3 years. Tharp says it’s not the just the typical application pilfering. She says sometimes people are asked to do other things after they believe they have a legitimate job: “People will get a check in the mail, and they have been hired either as a secret shopper or they’ve been told that they need to buy supplies. They get told, ‘Please go buy your laptop. Go buy your notebooks.’ or whatever it is with this check and they are told to keep the rest of the money. Well, in the meantime, the person puts the check in the bank, they go buy all of their supplies, and then it turns out that the check was actually fake.”

Tharp says the best way to combat employment scams is to inform yourself about the company you are applying to. Research them on the Internet is the most common way to determine if the company is legitimate. Tharp says there are a few other things anyone can do to prevent loss of money and identity theft that commonly occurs with an employment scam: “If you have to pay for the job – they are asking you to pay for something up front for training or something – they will always have a legitimate reason seemingly for these things, you should never have to pay to get a job so that’s another red flag. Consider using another e-mail address rather than your regular one when you apply for jobs. That will help you identify employers that you didn’t purposely reach out to. If you receive a job offer from someone that you didn’t apply to, that’s going to help you keep track of job offers that are definitely not legitimate. Work-from-home jobs that involve shipping or receiving packages are likely a scam, which is interesting because we have seen these scams intertwine with other scams.”

You can report employment scams to the Better Business Bureau at bbb.org; the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov; or the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov/complaint.

The Jacksonville Public Library appears on the verge of bringing back live music concerts next month.

Head Librarian Chris Ashmore says he’s one concert away from officially announcing the return of music performances at the library after over a year off due to COVID: “I’ve got it planned. I’m one concert away from publishing a brochure. I’m planning on doing a 2021-2022 season, which would start in October of this year and run through May [2022]. This was all started in the planning stages when it looked like everything was great and before masks came back. We are still planning on it unless something stops it at this point. We will probably let the performer be mask-less, especially if they have to sing. There hasn’t been any restrictions on capacity size yet, so I’ve got 4 of the 5 concerts I want to schedule on the schedule. Hopefully by the end of the month, I will have them all out, but we’ve got people coming in October, November, January and March. I’d like to have a 5th concert before I get it out there, but we are bringing it back. People like it. We might not have big crowds. I know it’s a slightly older crowd sometimes on Sunday afternoons. They might be more hesitant, I understand, but we are going to provide them [again].”

We will provide more information on the schedule once it becomes available.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security will be reopening all of its job centers this week.

As of today, all 18 offices around the state will reopen. IDES Director Kim Richards says people must call and make an appointment to come in: “We would just encourage anyone seeking assistance, particularly those individuals that are looking for employment services, assistance finding a job, updating their resume, using a resource room in order to access the computer. Those locations are available for their use. At an IDES office you can receive assistance registering for Illinoisjoblink.com, which is a powerful labor exchange tool that posts job openings across the state. You can receive assistance documenting your work search activities in order to maintain eligibility for unemployment insurance.”

To make an appointment, call the IDES Hotline at: 217-558-0401. You can also start your own job search and find others resources online at illinoisjoblink.com.

Three Central Illinois school districts have been prohibited from requiring masks for students without a formal quarantine order from the local health department.

According to WMAY, a Montgomery County judge handed down that order Friday against the Hillsboro School District, in the latest legal challenge to the state mask mandate brought by attorney Thomas DeVore. Similar orders were handed down earlier in the week against schools in Carlyle and Teutopolis.

DeVore began filing suits against the mandate back on August 9^th shortly after Governor J.B. Pritzker signed an executive order for the mask mandate.

On Tuesday, West Central and Bluffs Superintendent Kevin Blankenship, released an opinion-editorial signed by 82 districts and regional offices of education from around the state questioning why local school boards are even elected now with what the letter characterized as severe overeach by the mandate and the Illinois State Board of Education’s ability to strip recognition status due to the mask mandate.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office is reviewing the rulings in the Central Illinois Courts and may appeal.

A village in Cass County hopes to get redevelopment in its business community.

The Ashland Village Board approved a Tax Increment Financing District for its Downtown Rehabilitation Grant Program.

The Cass County Star-Gazette reports that the village board is hoping to distribute property-tax generated funds for the purposes of assisting businesses either come to the area, or current businesses redevelop or improve their property. The proposal came from the village’s TIF board.

For businesses, wishing to apply for TIF funds, contact Village Hall at 217-476-3317 or email ashland@casscomm.com during business hours Monday through Friday.