WAKEENEY, Kan. (AP) Voters in a northwest Kansas county have approved a 1 percent sales tax to help their local hospital meet expenses. The Hays Daily News reports voters in Trego County returned nearly 1,400 of the 2,100 ballots mailed out. A count Tuesday showed the tax to benefit Trego County-Lemke Memorial Hospital in WaKeeney approved with roughly 68 percent of the vote. CEO Harold Courtois says he’s pleased that residents recognized the needs of the rural hospital. He said he favored a sales tax over an increase in property taxes to raise the necessary funds. Trego County-Lemke Memorial Hospital…
Author: KMAN Staff
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A student at the University of Kansas has filed a lawsuit accusing a fraternity of allowing underage drinking, which he claims led to his severe head injury. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Andrew Charles Johnson, 20, of Salina filed the lawsuit in Douglas County court against the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Johnson claims he and other other underage fraternity members were provided unlimited access to alcohol and encouraged to drink during a 2011 party. According to Johnson, later that night another student rammed his head into a concrete wall, causing a “massive closed head injury.” The lawsuit…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A 39-year-old resident of Mexico who was living in Kansas has been sentenced to about five years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing weapons illegally. The Wichita Eagle reports that Guadalupe Burciaga-Alcantar, who is from Ojinaga, Mexico, was arrested in October after a traffic stop in Sedgwick County. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Kansas says deputies found two loaded handguns in the pickup Burciaga was driving. He pleaded guilty in December to the charge of an illegal alien in possession of a firearm. Federal law prohibits people unlawfully in the U.S. from possessing firearms. He was…
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) Olathe officials have approved an agreement that paves the way for Google’s super-fast Internet service to be installed in the southern Johnson County community. The Kansas City Star reports the Olathe City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the Google Fiber agreement. The Olathe deal is similar to other deals in the Kansas City area, where Google has been slowly connecting several neighborhoods with its high-speed service. The deal gives Olathe 5 percent of gross receipts generated by Google selling the service in the Johnson County suburb. The agreement also promises free 1-gigabit-per-second connections to up to…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A former employee of a northeast Kansas credit union has been sentenced in federal court to two years of probation for embezzling $85,000 from the company. The U.S. Attorney’s office says Deborah Bomia, of Enterprise, must also pay $85,000 in restitution to Enterprise Credit Union under the sentence she received Tuesday. Bomia pleaded guilty last July to the crime, which occurred between April 2005 and August 2011. She admitted kiting checks between accounts in her name at the credit union to create fictitious balances. Prosecutors said Bomia would record a large deposit in the credit union’s general…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas House and Senate are set to act on their respective versions of a $14 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The House planned a final vote on its budget bill Wednesday after debating it for more than four hours Tuesday. The measure would spend about $6 billion in general state revenue in the fiscal year that starts July 1. Senators are scheduled later Wednesday to debate their version of the budget, spending roughly the same amounts as the House on public schools, social services and public safety. A final version of the budget will…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas House is preparing for a final vote on a bill that would block tax breaks for abortion providers and bar public schools from using sex education instruction from abortion providers. Approval on final action Wednesday would send the measure to the Senate. The Republican-dominated House has an anti-abortion majority, so the measure was expected to pass. Senate GOP leaders are promising their chamber will consider the bill quickly. The bill would prevent groups providing abortions from receiving tax exemptions or credits that go to other nonprofit groups or health care providers. It would also bar…
On today’s InFocus, Cathy talks with Brad Claussen, Manhattan Building Official, and Kevin Ingram, President at the Manhattan Christian College. [mp3-jplayer]
The Kansas House has given final approval to the chamber’s version of a $14 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, including cuts to higher education. The bill vote was 68 to 55 in favor of the budget on Wednesday morning, which now sends the bill to the State Senate to debate the bill. Kansas House Representative Sydney Carlin of Manhattan voted against the two year budget, citing that the 2015 budget would be $156 million in the red and that it would also include the sales tax (yet to be voted on) that would put the budget under another $300 million. The cuts…
Riley and Pottawatomie counties were in the top five counties for healthiest residents, according to the fourth annual County Health Rankings, released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The County Health Rankings rank nearly every county in all 50 states according to their summary measures of health outcomes and health factors. Health outcomes describe the current health status of a county’s residents and are influenced by a number of health factors, such as high school graduation rates, obesity, smoking, and family and social support. According to the 2013 Rankings, the five healthiest…