(Radio Iowa) – The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience store chain continues pushing toward its goal of adding 150 stores this fiscal year. Senior Vice President of business development, Brian Johnson, talked about it in an investor update on the third quarter. “In the third quarter we closed on a transaction to enter our 17th state in Texas and through the end of the quarter we have built or acquired over 125 stores,” he says.

Casey’s President and CEO, Darren Rebelez, says they like to have a mix of building new stores along with merging or acquiring existing stores. He says acquiring stores is more attractive now as the cost of construction has gone up, so installing or upgrading the kitchen in an existing store is less than the cost to replace the whole store.

“I think we’ve learned how to get our prepared foods into these acquisitions more quickly. Historically this has taken us a long time to do and to the extent that some of these stores that we acquire have some level of kitchen space available our team has gotten really effective at getting equipment in early and getting the food into the stores quicker,” Rebelez says. He says that allows them to gain the advantage from the prepared food sales much quicker than in the past. Rebelez says the acquisitions recently have mostly been competitors with under 100 stores.

“We’re also having discussions on larger potential deals but we just haven’t gotten anything over the finish line yet,” he says. Rebelez says even with the acquisitions, they will still end up building in the neighborhood of 50 new stores this year. Casey’s now has more than 26-hundred stores in 17 states.

[Update 3/16/24 – The victim of the crash was identified as Larry Nielson, of Anamosa]

(Anamosa, Iowa) – A collision between a car and a small SUV this (Thursday) afternoon in eastern Iowa Iowa, resulted in one person deceased and four others injured. The Iowa State Patrol reports the crash happened at U-S Highway 151 and Shaw Road, south of Anamosa, in Jones County.

The Patrol says a 1989 Oldsmobile Delta 88 was traveling east on Shaw Road at around 12:45-p.m., when the driver failed to yield to a 2015 Nissan Juke that was traveling south on Highway 151. The Nissan struck the car on the Highway. Two juveniles and two adults were injured and transported to area hospitals by Anamosa, Mt. Vernon and Monticello Ambulances.

Another adult was transported to St. Lukes Hospital where they died from their injuries. All of the crash victims were wearing seat belts. No names had been released as of the time of this report.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican leaders in the state legislature say they’re open to moving a key deadline for local school officials who are developing budgets for the next school year.

Those budget plans must be done by April 30, but the House and Senate have not agreed yet on how much state funding schools will get or whether to raise the mandatory minimum salary for teachers. The legislature’s unresolved debate over Area Education Agencies is also a factor.

“I understand their frustrations,” House Speaker Pat Grassley said earlier today during a news conference at the House press bench. “….We have frustrations as well that we haven’t been able to move the S.S.A., for example, that we haven’t been able to move that forward.”

S.S.A. is legislative lingo for the general level of state funding for schools that’s calculated on a per pupil basis. Four weeks ago, the House voted for a 3% boost in per pupil funding for students in public and private schools, but the Senate has not advanced its own bill. Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver has indicated some initial decisions may be made next week.

“There’s a lot of money in this budget for schools. It’s in different plaes. I’ts kind of complicated because they’re in different bills and so it’s not as streamlined as I’d hoped,” Whitver said during a news conference in his state capitol office, ” but hopefully we get that resolution soon.”

Senate Republicans may debate their combined plan to restructure Area Education Agencies and raise the minimum salary for first year teachers to around 46-thousand dollars a year. A week ago the House passed a bipartisan plan that addressed teacher pay. It would set a $50,000 minimum salary, give public schools money to raise pay for veteran teachers with salaries below $50,000 and raise hourly wages for other school staff to 15 dollars an hour.

Democrats say Republicans are again failing to follow the state law that requires the legislature to make its decision on general per pupil spending on schools over a month ago.

Tomorrow, March 15, if the deadline for schools to set property tax levies for the next school year. School districts have been holding public hearings about budget plans.