TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is proposing a big cut in state funding for public radio and TV stations, but he also appears to have abandoned a previous effort to eliminate the funding altogether. Brownback told The Associated Press on Thursday that he tried to draft budget proposals for the next two fiscal years that can pass the Legislature. He added that his administration, in his words, “has a lot of irons in the fire.” Brownback is proposing $600,000 in funding for public TV and radio in each of the next two fiscal years, down 42 percent from…
Author: KMAN Staff
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) The Leavenworth County attorney says he’s still deciding whether to appeal a court order that a woman convicted in her son’s death be given a new trial. The Leavenworth Daily Times reports Tuesday is the deadline to ask the Kansas Supreme Court to review the case of 31-year-old Monica Rivera, who was convicted in August 2010 of involuntary manslaughter and endangering a child. She is serving three years and five months in the 2009 death of her 4-year-old son, Gabriel. He died while Rivera’s fiance, Jason L. Jones, was caring for him. Jones was convicted of second-degree…
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A University of Kansas graduate says he wanted to do something to support a team that has won five national championships and has 14 Final Four appearances. But David Pittaway wasn’t thinking of the school’s vaunted basketball program when he donated $500,000 to the university. Instead, he wanted to honor Kansas’ nationally known debate team. The university says Pittaway’s donation is the largest ever given to the debate team. It will be used to create an endowed professorship for the team’s head coach. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Pittaway is a senior managing director of a private…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Topeka man has been convicted in a double shooting that left one woman dead and her life partner seriously injured. A Shawnee County jury on Wednesday convicted 19-year-old Jimmy Jermal Netherland of felony first-degree murder and five other charges. He will be sentenced March 8. Netherland was one of nine people charged in the July 2011 death of 40-year-old Natalie Gibson and the wounding of 43-year-old Lori Allison. The women were shot in their driveway after returning from a birthday celebration for Gibson. Prosecutors say the suspects drove to the women’s home to steal a TV…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget proposals would hold state spending on its higher education system flat over the two fiscal years that begin in July. The recommendations outlined Wednesday by Brownback would keep total spending on state universities, community colleges and vocational colleges around $2.5 billion for the fiscal year that begins in July and the following fiscal year. Current spending is a little more than $2.5 billion, or about 1.7 percent higher than Brownback is proposing for both of the following fiscal years. But his budget proposals assume less funding for infrastructure projects and don’t include any…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback once proposed closing a state hospital for the developmentally disabled in Topeka, but his latest budget proposals would keep it open through at least June 2015. Proposals released Wednesday by Brownback include a recommendation that the budget for the Kansas Neurological Institute remain roughly the same, about $28 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and for the following fiscal year. The hospital has about 150 residents and serves severely disabled patients. In 2011, in his first month in office, Brownback proposed shutting down KNI within three years and moving its…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas Supreme Court hopes to end emergency surcharges that people pay to file lawsuits and get marriage licenses. The court wants legislators to rely more heavily on state tax dollars to finance the court system. The judicial branch is proposing a 16 percent increase in the tax dollars it receives for the fiscal year beginning in July. The increase would be about $17 million, to $123 million from the current $106 million. The Supreme Court administers the court system. The increase would allow the courts to eliminate $11 million in extra fees. The judiciary’s total budget…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Copper thieves have been targeting pivot irrigation systems in rural Sedgwick County. The Wichita Eagle reports that the thieves are yanking copper wire from the pivots to sell as scrap. Sedgwick County sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Plummer said in a statement that there have been at least six confirmed thefts involving pivot irrigation systems in rural northwest Sedgwick County over the last three months. The thefts have caused more than $18,000 in damage and a loss of copper worth more than $15,000.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Supporters of the way Kansas puts judges on its highest courts hope to persuade legislators to drop a proposal for changing the process. House and Senate committees planned to hear testimony Thursday against changing the Kansas Constitution to give the governor and legislators more power over appointments to the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Backers of the current system of having applicants screened by a nominating commission say it eliminates politics. The commission picks three finalists for each opening and the governor makes the appointment, with no role for legislators. The proposed change would still…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas would use some of its highway dollars to help cover the cost of busing children to and from public schools under Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget proposals. Brownback proposed Wednesday that the state divert $193 million normally set aside for highway projects to school transportation programs during the two years beginning in July. The diversion would be almost $97 million in each of the next two fiscal years. Brownback’s administration said the state still will complete the 10-year, $8 billion transportation program that it started in 2010. When the state has faced budget problems in the past,…