Energy Electric Inc. to lay off 44

Joppa Illinois' coal-fired power plant will shed nearly four dozen jobs in the next two months. Energy Electric Inc. President Bill Sheppard says 19 of the 44 job cuts will be management personnel. 

25 union workers in the company with about 233 employees will be laid off Aug. 11. Sheppard says the reductions are fallout from the struggling economy and wholesale supplier prices that had fallen by 60 percent in 2008 and an additional 15 percent last year. He says drop-offs in the price of natural gas also are a factor.