Dean Olsen

The final fiscal 2023 budget for Springfield city government includes $6 million to purchase seven new fire vehicles and $10 million to build three new fire stations. City Council members passed 16 amendments in February before finalizing the budget for the 2023 fiscal year that began March 1. The result was a net increase of […]

Kathleen Campbell doesn’t want to see a pipeline carrying pressurized, liquid carbon dioxide – which can cause suffocation – installed underground less than a football field away from her home in rural Sangamon County. “How do you go to bed at night knowing you might not wake up in the morning?” Campbell, a Glenarm resident, […]

State officials have asked Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois to prove that its central Illinois health care network remains adequate for meeting patients’ needs, despite the loss of more than 600 Springfield Clinic doctors and other providers from its network. The Chicago-based insurer sent documents to the Illinois Department of Insurance after the […]

High gasoline prices and inflation worry Marianne Zarndt as the Springfield hotel she runs sees more customers during the latest lull in the COVID-19 pandemic but the traditionally busy summer season approaches. The uncertainty over whether the latest economic factors will depress local tourism is all the more reason lawmakers should support a proposed $250 […]

A proposal to do away with University of Illinois Springfield’s requirements that all students take classes on diversity, inequality and social responsibility may have been defeated, but disagreements remain over how the curriculum should be administered. The March 25 online meeting of the Campus Senate will be the next opportunity for considering solutions to complaints […]

Many students are in shock, while alumni and donors are expressing both sadness and hope, after Lincoln Christian University’s Feb. 22 announcement that it will eliminate most bachelor’s degree programs and focus on graduate-level and undergraduate ministry degrees. The decision of the board of trustees for the 78-year-old college in Lincoln will mean the elimination […]

Increased state funding has helped Sparc bump up hourly pay rates for direct service providers (DSPs), those who care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the Springfield nonprofit’s group homes and in other settings. But the increases in this chronically underfunded segment of Illinois’ human services industry “don’t go far enough yet,” said […]

Stress has caused Amber Shipman to lose sleep and shed tears as her family deals with the fallout of an ongoing contractual dispute between Springfield Clinic and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. The clinic became an out-of-network provider for Blue Cross members in mid-November – a change that affected up to 100,000 central […]

Community leaders who plan to put out a strategic plan this spring for eliminating homelessness in the Springfield area hope to avoid previous failures stemming from neighbors who may want more services for this much-maligned segment of society, but not in their backyards. “We support a comprehensive plan to address homelessness, as long as the […]