Wind power can be a major source of tax revenue, but officials struggle to get communities on board WPXI [Video]

PIPER CITY, Ill. — (AP) — In Scott Saffer’s science classroom, kids bake cookies in a decked-out kitchen, care for fish, turtles and a snake, and have access to a workshop full of tools. As the gifted enrichment coordinator at Tri-Point School District, Saffer is living his teaching dream, one he knew he’d need money to accomplish.

For a while, due to budgetary concerns in rural Ford County, Illinois, he moved to a neighboring school district. But when wind turbines came to town, Tri-Point had the funding to bring him back without a pay cut. There, he was one of 10 recipients of a prestigious statewide teaching award last year.

“It made a huge difference in our budgets,” Saffer said of the nearby wind farm, which went online about five years ago, that added almost a million dollars to his school’s annual operating funds. “Those kinds of numbers, they’re the …