RBJDAILY

Rochester Business Journal Staff//March 26, 2010//

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This is a recap of news reported first on the Rochester Business Journal’s Web site. To receive the Daily Report e-mail, go to staging.rbj.net/dailyreport.

Monro to buy five Pittsburgh stores
Monro Muffler Brake Inc. on Tuesday announced plans to purchase five Import Export Tire Co. stores in the Pittsburgh area.

The independently owned tire stores have sales of $10 million annually. The deal is expected to close at the end of March, Monro officials said. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Separately, Monro revised its fourth-quarter guidance. The company forecasts a sales increase at comparable stores of roughly 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

Monro expects diluted earnings per share of 23 to 25 cents in the fourth quarter, an increase from its previous estimate of 20 to 23 cents.

Harris RF gets $100 million in orders
Harris Corp.’s RF Communications division in Rochester has received orders totaling $100 million from Miami-Dade County, Fla., to upgrade the county’s public safety and public service communications system.

The company will supply a new radio communications system that also includes radio terminals for the county to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s rebanding mandate, officials said.

The Harris RF radio communications system will serve more than 80 agencies and 31,000 users throughout the county, including the Miami-Dade Police Department, Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department and Miami International Airport.

UR increases tuition, room and board
The University of Rochester will increase tuition, room and board for undergraduates by 4.18 percent, bringing the total cost per year to more than $50,000 for the first time.

Undergraduates will pay a total of $51,120 for the 2010-11 academic year. Tuition increased 4.25 percent, from $37,870 to $39,480. Room and board rose 3.93 percent, from $11,200 to $11,640.

The college is increasing financial aid by more than $3.5 million to a total of $75 million, UR officials said.

The tuition rates for 2010-11 in UR’s professional schools are:

$41,400 for the School of Medicine and Dentistry, a 4.28 percent increase;
$51,330 for three semesters at the School of Nursing, a 2.68 percent increase;
$43,020 for the Simon Graduate School of Business, a 4.98 percent increase; and
$35,620 for the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, a 4 percent increase.

Four firms here among ‘most ethical’
Four local companies have been named to the list of the world’s most ethical companies, compiled annually by the Ethisphere Institute.

Xerox Corp., Paychex Inc., Harris Corp. and Wegmans Food Markets Inc. were included on the list of 100 companies, which was organized by sector rather than ranked.

Companies were scored in areas such as corporate responsibility, industry leadership, ethics programs and innovation that contributes to the public well-being.

Xerox has been included in all four years when the institute has published a list of most ethical companies. This is the third time Paychex has been included and the second for both Harris and Wegmans.

Unshackle targets budget provisions
The Unshackle Upstate coalition released a list Thursday of state budget provisions that it said would, if enacted, increase the state’s debt and the taxes imposed on New York residents.

Gov. David Paterson’s 2010-11 executive budget of $134 billion calls for a 12 percent increase in spending, Unshackle Upstate representatives said.

The budget, the representatives said, also calls for:

a 3 percent severance tax on natural gas from Marcellus or Utica shale,
the establishment of a circuit breaker tax credit and a state spending cap instead of a property tax cap of 2.5 percent,
an increase in local utility taxes,
increases in health care taxes and fees, and
the continuation of the waste tire management fee, representatives said.

In addition, Unshackle Upstate called for the repeal of a $10 increase in license plate fees and the repeal of a utility surcharge that raised utility fees to 2 percent from one-third percent for most taxpayers.

FROM THE ONLINE ARCHIVE
Thirteen years ago
The University of Rochester announced that Eastman Dental Center would merge with its medical center.

The Eastman Dental Center-UR merger had been in the works for several months. However, the affiliation of the two institutions dated back decades and had been particularly close-knit since the 1970s, when the dental center built a new facility adjacent to the UR Medical Center complex on Elmwood Avenue.

The UR board’s executive committee approved the merger, allowing the institutions to seek regulatory approval, which was expected by July.

George Eastman envisioned the dental center merging with UR, according to a letter he wrote in 1920, said Jay Stein M.D., senior vice president and vice provost for health affairs at UR.

"With (this decision), I am delighted to see his vision become closer to reality," Stein said.