Dear Dave,
I went to medical school, and now I have $70,000 in debt. I just started a three-year residency making about $50,000 a year, while my wife makes $40,000. The student loans represent our only debt. Do you think we should be paying this off or investing in a Roth IRA? — David
Dave Ramsey
Dear David,
If I were in your shoes, I’d work on paying down the student loans. That means you may never be in a Roth, but there are other things you can invest in and grow wealth.
I realize this may not seem right mathematically, but I don’t always make financial decisions based exclusively on math. Many times I do things based on changing money behaviors—stuff like paying off debts from smallest to largest because it actually works. Personal finance is 80 percent behavior, and only 20 percent head knowledge. So sometimes you have to go with what actually works best overall, in spite of what the technical math shows.
In your case, I think it’s going to be very valuable to have no student loans by the time you complete your residency. With three years to go, and living on a $90,000 a year income, you can do it. Then, when you come through the other side as a full-fledge doctor, you’ll have the great income and be sitting there debt-free. Not a bad place to be, right?
I understand the Roth seems like a pretty good idea right now, but my advice is to stick with becoming debt-free as quickly as possible. Once that’s done, you and your wife will be able to invest, save, and build wealth like crazy! —Dave
Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He’s authored four New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover and EntreLeadership. His newest book, written with his daughter Rachel Cruze, is titled Smart Money Smart Kids. It will be released April 22nd. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 6 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.
One thing about the tea party Republicans in Congress is that they do know who butters their biscuits. Several have recently rushed forward with an anguished plea in defense of Wall Street barons, CEOs, and billionaires: Stop the vilification of wealthy people!
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker.
I’m concerned about those poor rich people too. Especially the very richest.
Did you know that the wealthiest one-hundredth-of-1-percenters rake in an average of $30 million every year?
Wow, how do they manage to spend those 30 big ones?
Their penthouse, Lamborghini, dinner every night at Masa, etc. still leaves some $20 million to play with. Luckily, The New York Times has answered this question for us commoners in an article headlined: Wealthiest Americans Go House-Hunting Abroad.
It seems that there are bargains to be had on old castles in the Irish countryside. So now, lots of super-rich Americans are buying a piece of the old sod for themselves.
Parisian townhouses and wine country chateaus are always in vogue, so why not have one? Or how about two?
But the big action for American swells is in the Caribbean, where a five-bedroom villa on St. Barts, for example, can sop up $14 million of your spare cash.
The article tells us, however, that the latest trend is not simply to buy a fabulous house overlooking the pink sand beaches of some resort island — but to buy your very own Caribbean island. What cachet.
One popular option is the Exuma Cays, a cluster of 360 islands in the Bahamas. For instance, there’s one 47-acre island with a 3,000-foot airstrip and seven white sand beaches that can be had for just over $15.5 million.
As an online dealer in private islands notes, buying one is not about the beauty of the place, but about the majestic image it bestows on the buyer.
“They want to be steward of their own little piece of the world,” he marveled.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. OtherWords.org
TOPEKA — Nichole Hulaether has been a foster parent for 17 years. She’s cared for dozens of children.
“I consider myself to be a fierce advocate for the children in my care,” the 41-year-old Topeka woman told a panel of legislators today. “That’s my role, that’s my job.”
Former State Sen. Barbara Allen, was among those who testified in support of Senate Bill 394, which some call the “foster parents’ bill of rights.” Photo by Dave Ranney, KHI.
Hualaether, who spent a year in foster care herself when she was 12, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the state’s foster care system is broken.
Foster parents, she said, are “treated like babysitters,” allowed to have little or no say in what happens to a child in their care and are told keep quiet about the system’s shortcomings.
Foster parents who complain about being left out of the decision-making, she said, are punished for speaking out.
“I have a boy in my home now that has had four case managers in nine months,” she told KHI News Service later. “I won’t say anything about the latest (case manager) because he’s new, but the other three were worthless.”
Hulaether said when she complained to the third worker’s supervisors and directors, the worker arranged to have her monthly payment reduced by $300.
“She did it without talking to me, without telling me she was going to do it,” she said. “Keep in mind, this was for a child that I was paying a tutor $35 an hour for because when I got him, he couldn’t read or write.” The child, she said, was 8 years old.
Many foster parents, she said, fear similar punishment.
“I had 30 foster parents that were supposed to be here today,” Hulaether said. “And almost none of them showed up because they said they were afraid of what would happen if they spoke out. There’s this constant fear of retaliation” from the state’s foster care contractors or subcontractors.
‘Bill of rights’
Hulaether testified in favor of Senate Bill 394, which she and other supporters called the foster parents’ bill of rights.
Included in the bill are provisions for ensuring that foster parents:
• Have access to “all pertinent information” about a child placed in their care;
• Are allowed to participate in determining when a child should be returned to a parent or family member’s care;
• Can know what happens to a child after being removed from their care;
• Receive 30-days advance notice when a child is to be removed from their home, except in emergency; and
• Receive “appropriate preferential consideration” for being allowed to adopt children who’ve been in their care.
The bill also would create an eight- to 10-member board for advising DCF on foster care and adoption issues.
“This bill is designed to give foster parents a voice,” said Lori Ross, executive director at the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association, a group that represents more than 400 foster and adoptive parents in Kansas and Missouri.
Kansas privatized most of its foster care system in 1996.
Kathy Armstrong, DCF staff attorney in charge of prevention and protection services, said most of proposed “rights” in the proposed legislation already are spelled out in DCF policy.
“We value and appreciate the role that foster parents play in the lives of kids who, for various reasons, have been removed from their homes,” she said.
Armstrong said she wasn’t aware that some foster parents were afraid to challenge caseworkers’ decisions.
Complaints of that sort, she said, would warrant case-by-case investigation by DCF.
Most of the state’s foster care services, she said, are provided by two non-profit contractors: KVC Behavioral Health and St. Francis Community Services. Both agencies, she said, rely on several sub-contractors.
Armstrong said DCF was neutral on the bill.
Representatives of KVC and St. Francis attended the hearing but did not testify.
Shared frustration
Barbara Allen, a former legislator who became a foster parent four years ago, said she shared Hulaether’s frustration with the system.
Allen, an attorney whose husband is a district court judge in Johnson County, said she was being denied information on the whereabouts of a baby girl that had been in her care for about three months.
The child, she said, was moved to an unidentified relative’s home on Tuesday.
“I have no idea where she is or with whom she’s been placed,” Allen said. “Was it in our foster baby’s best interest to be moved to a relative placement? I don’t know because I don’t know anything about the placement.”
Allen said she felt like she and her husband had been taken for granted by the system.
“I’m an attorney, my husband is a judge,” she said. “If we feel this way, I don’t know that any of us can say we’re surprised when foster parents who’ve been doing this a while decide they don’t want to do it anymore.”
TOPEKA — A program that provided oral health care to kids in Head Start before being effectively terminated by KanCare is nearly set to resume, officials say.
Working as part of the Kansas Cavity-Free Kids program, dentist Joe Ferguson performs an on-site exam of a child’s teeth at Clay Center Head Start in 2008. Photo by KHI.
Before the launch of KanCare, Kansas Cavity Free Kids had for five years helped more than 7,000 children in 41 rural counties get regular cleanings, fluoride varnishes and sealants from dental hygienists in Head Start classrooms.
But the program was effectively shut down when day-to-day management of the state’s Medicaid program was turned over to three for-profit managed care companies on Jan. 1, 2013.
UnitedHealthcare, one of the three KanCare contractors, chose to not authorize payment for teeth cleanings performed at Head Start, a decision that effectively put the entire program on ice.
Timothy Spilker — president of United’s Kansas health plan — told KHI News Service that the company has been working for the last three months to resolve the problem and that work is nearly complete.
“We’ve revised all of our payment policies and the codes will be consistent with what was covered prior to KanCare,” Spilker said. “All of that should be effective here in the next week or two — mid-March at the absolute latest.”
Kathy Hunt, the Head Start official who coordinated Kansas Cavity Free Kids, said that it would then take some time to get the program back on its feet.
“Once the fix is in place, we’ll talk to the Head Start programs that were involved and they can work on rebuilding the system that they weren’t able to continue,” Hunt said. “It will take time. It’s been a year and the folks they had in place, of course, moved on to other things.”
Even so, Hunt said the glitch in the program may prove to be a good thing in the long run.
“Not only are they putting in this fix, but they want to work with the Head Start Association in other avenues, too, like helping promote oral health for pregnant women and finding other ways that we can help each other out,” Hunt said. “In the long run, I think this might have been good. It may be the start of a partnership that might not have come about otherwise.”
TOPEKA (AP) — A Kansas House committee is considering a bill that would allow state residents to renew their driver’s licenses for eight years, rather than the current six years.
Members of the House Transportation Committee were supportive of the idea Thursday, saying it was partly in response to long lines at driver’s license offices in the state.
The bill also would allow drivers over 70 to renew their licenses every five years, rather than four years currently required by state law.
However, The Topeka Capital-Journal reports committee members were open to keeping the four-year requirement for older drivers, and to the possibility of 10-year licenses.
RUSSELL — The Russell Senior Center offers great meals at a great price. For folks ages 60 or older, the recommended contribution per lunch is $3.25; for those under 60, the recommended contribution is $6.
To guarantee your place at the Russell Senior Center lunch table, call (785) 483-2008 a day in advance. Also, did you know, the Russell Senior Center prepares the food for the centers in Hays, Lucas, Luray, Gorham and Bunker Hill? They also prepare the meals for individuals who are unable to leave their homes.
Paul Johnson, lobbyist for the Kansas Rural Center, and Eileen Horn, sustainability coordinator for Lawrence and Douglas County, listen during Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on a bill to create a state Local Food and Farm Task Force. Photo by Jim McLean
By Jim McLean
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — Lawmakers are looking at creating a task force focused on increasing demand for locally grown foods and lowering market barriers for the farmers who produce them.
The proposal has support from the Kansas Rural Center, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and Douglas County.
“While Kansas agricultural exports lead the nation, here at home farms capture less than 5 percent of the food dollar spent on fruits and vegetables in our state,” said Julie Mettenburg, the rural center’s executive director. “With $767 million spent each year on produce alone, that represents a significant economic opportunity that we are leaving on the table.”
Mettenburg said one of the aims of the task force would be to increase demand for so-called specialty crops, including fruits and vegetables, and encourage more farmers to grow them.
She said local food producers could use help marketing to large buyers such as school districts, hospitals and restaurants.
Senate Bill 380 would create the Local Food and Farm Task Force and charge it with developing a plan for “expanding and supporting local food systems and for assessing and overcoming obstacles necessary to increase locally grown food production.”
The task force would then submit its plan, which presumably would call for some changes in state policy, to the agriculture committees in the House and Senate at the start of the 2016 legislative session.
‘Conventional agriculture’
A lobbyist for the Kansas Livestock Association, which represents ranchers and large feedlots, said the group is neutral on the bill for now. But KLA would oppose it, he said, if it appears the measure is a vehicle to provide subsidies to local food producers.
“Our members believe in a free-market system,” said Aaron Popelka, KLA’s vice-president for legal and governmental affairs. “KLA is opposed to ag policies that pit one industry group against another or distort market signals.”
If the task force is formed, Popelka said, the livestock association would scrutinize its recommendations to make sure they don’t disparage “conventional agriculture.”
“There are a lot of hard-working Kansas farmers and ranchers that have decided to adopt a conventional view of agriculture to not just feed their neighbors but the entire world and we shouldn’t criticize them to promote local (agriculture),” Popelka said.
Sen. Tom Hawk, a Manhattan Democrat and the main legislative backer of the bill, said he would try to add language to the bill to assure that locally grown meat would be among the foods promoted.
Seeking to avoid conflict
Eileen Horn, sustainability coordinator for Douglas County and the City of Lawrence, said the bill’s supporters want to avoid conflict with the KLA and other large-scale agriculture groups. She said smaller, local producers and commodity growers that sell to national and international markets should be able to coexist.
“We have talented commodity producers who are feeding the world and then we have really talented small producers who can sell to more local and regional markets,” Horn said. “They are functioning at such different scales that I think the state can support them both. I don’t see a conflict in that.”
Horn is overseeing a feasibility study on a possible regional food hub in Lawrence that would coordinate the growing and marketing of local foods throughout northeast Kansas. The study should be complete in June, she said.
Mettenburg said the list of agencies and organizations that the bill would guarantee a seat on the task force should be adjusted to include more producers and purchasers of local food and more people involved with public health.
Currently, the bill would let the governor appoint two members. The state health and agriculture secretaries and the secretary of the Department for Children and Families would each get to appoint a member. The Kansas Farm Bureau, the Kansas Farmers Union and the rural center would each be represented. Kansas State University would send representatives from its college of agriculture and departments of agricultural economics and horticulture, forestry and recreational resources. In addition, the secretary of agriculture would appoint two members to represent farmers’ markets.
Sen. Marci Francisco, a Lawrence Democrat and a member of the committee, suggested that the Kansas Department of Education also have a task force seat given that school districts are among the largest purchasers of local food.
Hawk said there was no assurance the committee would work the bill but he said several members are farmers that seem open to supporting it.
“I think we’ll just have to see how this bill fits into the priorities of leadership, but I think it’s really a nonpartisan effort to try and create jobs and make the economy better for local Kansas people,” he said.
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president has given in to pressure from European diplomats and is offering concessions to defuse the crisis that has divided his country and left scores dead.
Photo by Abayomi Azikiwe, flikr
After all-night negotiating in Kiev, President Viktor Yanukovych announced early presidential elections and promised to bring opposition members into the government, though he didn’t say when. He’s also promising constitutional reforms that would trim presidential powers, which has been a key demand of protesters.
Despite the concessions, the capital remains tense today. Shots rang out near the protest camp and skeptical members of the opposition massed in central Kiev, divided over what to do next.
One lawmaker allied with the opposition tells the Associated Press the deaths of 77 people yesterday in clashes between police and protesters “changes the stakes,” and nothing short of Yanukovych’s immediate resignation will satisfy the protest movement. She says protesters will not abandon occupied buildings until after the constitution is changed.
Robert Moser, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment -photo KHI news
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — State health officials say this year’s flu season is winding down in Kansas, and this season won’t be as severe as last year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports Kansas has gone from having widespread flu to regional flu.
Robert Moser, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, says the flu was the direct cause of death of 25 people so far this year. That compares with 58 Kansans last year.
The Wichita Eagle reports deaths with flu or pneumonia as a contributing factor also dropped, from 919 last season to 477 this season. And deaths attributed soley to pneumonia dropped from 469 last season and 258 this season.
Bringing attention to sensitive topics such as domestic abuse usually requires a somber attitude and an eye for tact and sensitivity. Sometimes, however, it simply needs frat boys walking around the student union and campus wearing women’s shoes.
Fort Hays State University’s fraternities will host the sixth annual “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event to raise awareness for the victims of sexual and domestic abuse. Proceeds will go to Jana’s Campaign and OPTIONS Domestic and Sexual Violence Services, two local organizations dedicated to fighting and exposing domestic abuse.
The pageant will be at 6 p.m. March 3 at FHSU’s Memorial Union and will feature speakers from Jana’s Campaign and OPTIONS before the culmination of the night — when men from FHSU Greek Life, student organizations, faculty, staff and athletic teams literally will walk 1 mile in women’s shoes.
Registration to walk is $15 and includes a T-shirt. Attendance is free and open to the public. For more information or registration information, contact the FHSU Center for Student Involvement at (785) 628-4664.
Hays Area Children’s Center will have free development screenings for children age birth to 5 on March 7 at Hays United Methodist Church, 305 W. Seventh.
The screenings help parents assess speech, language, vision, hearing, self-help, height and weight, thinking, behavior, and motor development.
Appointments can be made by calling Kathy or Debbie at (785) 625-3257 or emailing [email protected]. The HACC is located at 94 Lewis Drive.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka couple and their new family are stranded near the violence that has erupted in Ukraine.
Don and Lisa Jenkins went to the Ukranian capital of Kiev to bring home four children they have adopted. However, they can’t leave until they receive final paperwork so the children can receive their visas. The violence has closed down many government offices.
Dan Jenkins told The Topeka Capital-Journal that he, his wife and the children are holed up in an apartment less than a mile from the violent protests. He says they can see smoke from the scene of clashes between protesters and the government.
The children are three teenage girls and a 9-year-old boy. Jenkins says they don’t when — or if— they will get the necessary paperwork.
