During 2016, visitor spending in Rockford and Winnebago County reached an all-time high of $353 million, directly creating/sustaining 2,888 jobs with $85.51 million in payroll.
Maybe you've got a soon-to-be college student at home, and you've been doing the college visit tour thing with them as you try to decide which institution will best fit your scholar, and more importantly, your budget. Many of us would like to keep our kids at a school somewhat close to home (rather than halfway across the country), and wonder which college or university in Illinois is the right pi
This is the very first year that video gambling has added more to state coffers than casino gambling since Illinois began keeping track of these things in 2012.
I've heard people make the argument that schools should be teaching students life skills like balancing a checkbook, paying bills, or creating/maintaining a savings program. I tend to agree, and seeing where our state ranks among "financially savvy" states justifies that feeling for me.
There's been a lot of ink spilled and voices raised over the topic of budget cuts and their effect on the Winnebago County Sheriff's office. This morning, Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana joined us on the WROK Morning Show to give his thoughts.
The first six months of 2017 have seen an uptick in the number of Illinois traffic fatalities over the same period in 2016, all while the rate of traffic deaths has slightly decreased nationally. Experts say there are several reasons.
There was a lot of discussion yesterday (with a lot more coming in the future) about Illinois' credit this week after Moody's Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings downgraded Illinois credit rating to near junk status. The next part of the discussion will be what effect the downgrade will have on Illinois' jobs market.
Being big supporters of the Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (RACVB) as we are around here, we often salute the efforts of the RACVB to market Rockford as a travel destination to people outside our area. According to some new numbers released this week, we have good reason to applaud.
By now you may have heard that Rockford's Stroll on State, held on November 26th in downtown Rockford, set a new attendance record of 75,000 people. That's almost 10,000 more people enjoying the night than did last year.