Iowa Telecommunications Services Inc. reported an increase in operating revenue and sales for the quarter ended March 31, but a drop in net income from the same quarter last year. The Newton-based company said an increase in revenues to $67.4 million from $61.3 million in the year-ago quarter was due primarily to the acquisition of Sherburne Tele Systems Inc. Iowa Telecom reported net income of $4.1 million, compared to $4.5 million in the first quarter of 2009. Chairman and CEO Alan Wells said the company’s sale to Windstream Corp. for $1.1 billion should close by the middle of the year.

Cedar Rapids-based Rockwell Collins Inc. has declared a quarterly dividend of 24 cents per share on its common stock, payable June 7 to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 17.

Federal banking regulators on Friday shuttered seven more banks in Illinois, pushing up U.S. bank failures to 57 so far in 2010. This compares to a total number of bank failures of 140 in 2009, 25 in 2008 and only 3 in 2007. The seven failed banks together would cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Deposit Insurance Fund about $973.9 million, Zack’s Equity Research reported. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the number of banks on the FDIC’s list of problem institutions grew to 702 from 552 in the third quarter. This is the highest since the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990’s. Increasing loan losses on commercial real estate are expected to cause hundreds more bank failures in the next few years. The FDIC anticipates bank failures to cost about $100 billion during the next three years. The failure of Washington Mutual in 2008 was the largest in U.S. banking history. It was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Crow’s Weekly Market Report reported today that the cost of lumber and panels for construction of a 2,116-square-foot home is nearly double that of year-ago levels. The wholesale cost of lumber and panels for framing an average home has risen from $3,829.98 in April 2009 to $7,088.60 today. In addition, Crow’s noted that when these figures are applied to the March 2010 single-family housing starts number of 531,000, the potential exists for an additional cost to the home building industry of $1.7 billion.

The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) said it surveyed 68 economists working in the private sector and found a majority believe the recovery is picking up steam, but few of them give credit to the $787 billion federal stimulus package, CNNMoney.com reported. About 73 percent of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the Recovery Act, which the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers said is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year. More than half of respondents – 57 percent — said industrial demand is rising, while 6 percent said it was declining. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed forecast that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, will grow more than 3 percent in 2010 and 70 percent expect it to grow more than 2 percent.