By Dave Ranney

TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback announced Monday his administration’s acceptance of a federal grant aimed at helping food stamp recipients find jobs and exit the program. “Jobs are one of the key ways people can get themselves out of poverty,” Brownback said, addressing a morning press conference at the Department for Children and Families regional office here.

Joining the governor at the press conference was Audrey Rowe, head of the Food and Nutrition Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the nation’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps.

Rowe said Kansas’ three-year, $13.5-million grant will help expand a DCF-proposed initiative, called GOALS (Generating Opportunities for Attaining Lifelong Success), that will train SNAP recipients for living-wage jobs known to be available in their communities and provide case management-type services meant to help them remain employed. DCF currently offers similar services for SNAP recipients in eight counties in northeast Kansas.

The grant is expected to make them available in an additional 35 counties throughout the state. Kansas was one of 10 states chosen to participate in the $200 million grant program, which was spelled out in the five-year farm bill that Congress passed into law last year amid repeated calls for reining in SNAP spending. SNAP cost $74 billion last year, twice what it cost in 2008.

Brownback said he thought the program would be better administered if the federal government were to turn it over to the states in the form of block grants. Such an arrangement, he said, would let “Kansas develop Kansas solutions.”

Rowe politely disagreed, saying “…there are many benefits to a nationwide benefit delivery system, including responsiveness to markets, the stability of funding, and the protection afforded to individuals who participate in the SNAP program.”

She and Brownback agreed on the overarching goal of the grant.

“The most important thing for me is so that every child born in America, regardless of his or her zip code, can look up and see that the sky is the limit,” Rowe said. “We are in this to make sure children and families see the sky is the limit.”

Rowe said that an earlier USDA press release had erroneously reported that Kansas’ grant was for $3.4 million. The release, she said, has since been corrected.

Ruth Arensdorf, a DCF program manager charged with overseeing the state’s SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, called reporters’ attention to a training program in southwest Kansas that successfully trained SNAP recipients for long-vacant “food safety inspector positions” in the region’s meat-packing plants.

The former SNAP recipients from the training program, she said, are now USDA employees and earning a living wage. A newly-trained inspector earns $15.30 an hour, said Paul Kiecker, a district manager within the USDA’s food safety inspection service.

His agency, he said, had learned that it had “a great talent pool” of potential inspectors “sitting in the lobbies at DCF.” Kiecker said the DCF program last year generated 100 qualified applicants for inspector positions that had proven difficult to fill. “I’d say that in the past year we’ve hired 10 SNAP recipients,” he said.

The jobs, Kiecker said, involve inspecting severed heads and internal organs, and making “incisions into the lymph nodes.” Only about one-fifth of the nation’s 48 million SNAP recipients are likely to benefit from job training. The rest are elderly, disabled, children, or already employed.

In Kansas, the average per-person SNAP benefit in Kansas is roughly $125 a month or $4.15 a day. Of the 275,400 Kansans on food stamps in January, almost 132,000 – 45 percent —were children. Generally, U.S. citizens are eligible for SNAP benefits if they are living in households at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, about $2,150 a month for a single parent with two children.

DCF arranged to have Sarah Bloxsom, a former realtor from Lawrence, address the gathering. Bloxsom, a now-divorced mother of four children, ages 3 to 16, shared that she had received SNAP benefits for 18 months after the nation’s real estate market collapsed in 2008.

She later landed a job Heartland Works, a company that helps people on public assistance find jobs, and was able to exit the program. Though she found the job on her own, Bloxsom said she was the “face of poverty in Kansas” because she was skilled and wanted to work but couldn’t “find a match for what I was able to offer.” Her SNAP experience, she said, led to her current full-time pursuit of a master’s degree in social work at Washburn University. She hopes to become a case manager in an employment training program.

 

Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

JIM SUHR, Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court is weighing the conviction and death sentence of a serial killer who stuffed the bodies of some victims into barrels.

The high court heard legal arguments Tuesday involving 71-year-old John E. Robinson Sr. and gave no indication when it may rule.

The Olathe man was convicted and sentenced to die in 2003 in Kansas for the deaths of a Michigan woman and another from Indiana.

He also received a life sentence in Kansas for the murder of a woman whose body was never found. He was sentenced to life terms in Missouri after pleading guilty to five other killings.

Robinson’s attorneys argued Tuesday his conviction should be overturned, citing prosecutorial and juror misconduct. Johnson County prosecutors countered the verdicts and sentences were appropriate.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A bill that would potentially shrink civil service protections for some employees has advanced in the Kansas House.

The chamber voted 71-53 Tuesday to give first-round approval to a bill that would allow state agencies to remove some protections for new workers and employees changing positions.

State employees receive employment protections and benefits not given to political appointees.

The chamber also blocked an amendment that would have reinstated non-discrimination protections for sexual minorities. The body voted 81-42 that the proposal was not relevant to the bill.

The Senate on Tuesday will debate a bill that would eliminate most collective bargaining processes between state agencies and public employees. Agencies would have the power to impose pay and benefit conditions on employees under the bill.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Republican-dominated Kansas Legislature is considering proposals to restrict public employee unions and potentially shrink the state’s civil service.

GOP lawmakers who support the changes up for debate Tuesday argue that they’ll give state agencies more flexibility and allow them to operate more like private companies.

Critics see an attack on public employee unions that often support Democrats.

The House was debating a bill to make it easier to move state jobs out of the civil service, where workers have greater job protections than political appointees.

The Senate was taking up a bill to restrict bargaining between state agencies and public employee unions to minimum pay.

The same measure would bar state and local government agencies and school districts from deducting union dues directly from their workers’ paychecks.

Great Bend Post

ALBERT- A barn was destroyed and two dogs died in a fire in Barton County on Monday.

The Barton County Sheriff’s office reported they were dispatched along with the Albert Fire Department just after 2:30 p.m. to a structure fire in the 100 block of Northwest 120 Avenue.

Tank trucks were also called from the Great Bend Fire Department to bring extra water.

Upon arrival, firefighters and deputies found the barn was completely involved in fire. The fire had also spread to an adjacent creek bed.

The Albert Fire Department was able to bring the fire under control and extinguish the brush fires in the creek.

Investigation at the scene by the Sheriff’s office indicates the property owner had burned yard waste the day before and thought the fire was extinguished.

As winds picked up yesterday afternoon embers from the brush pile were fanned and ignited grass nearby. The fire then spread to the barn, and set fire to the structure.

The fire appears to be accidental according to the Sheriff.

The structure and contents were a total loss. The owner was able to release two horses that were in the barn at the time of the fire but two English Bulldogs perished in the blaze.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has sentenced the head of a former Kansas commune to life in prison for the killing of a commune member 12 years ago.

Fifty-five-year-old Daniel Perez was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder last month in the 2003 drowning death of Patricia Hughes at the suburban Wichita compound where the commune lived. Perez showed no emotion Tuesday when he was sentenced.

He received a second life sentence on a sexual exploitation of a child conviction and nearly 34 more years behind bars for convictions on 26 other counts, including rape and aggravated criminal sodomy, among others.

Prosecutors say Perez received millions of dollars in life insurance payouts following the commune members’ deaths.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The leader of a Kansas commune that received millions of dollars in life insurance payouts from dead members faces will soon learn his punishment for the murder of one of them.

Fifty-five-year-old Daniel Perez faces a life sentence after a jury found him guilty last month of first-degree premeditated murder for 2003 death of Patricia Hughes at the suburban Wichita compound that was home to the commune. Her death was considered an accident until 2011, when a woman who was 12 at the time told authorities the death was staged.

He also was found guilty of 27 other counts, including rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, sexual exploitation of a child and making false information.

Perez testified he was innocent. His attorneys have asked for his acquittal or new trial.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has approved a new proposal for controlling the cost of mental health drugs in the state’s Medicaid program.

The 40-0 vote Tuesday was on a bill requiring a review of Medicaid’s mental health prescriptions. It also creates an advisory committee to draft guidelines on prescriptions for the 368,000 needy and disabled residents covered by the program.

The measure goes to the House.

The bill arose from discussions between Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration and mental health advocates after the Senate rejected a bill last month to repeal a 2002 law that blocks restrictions on mental health drugs for Medicaid participants.

Supporters of such efforts are looking for cost savings to help balance the state budget, but they also worry that some drugs are used improperly.

Hutch Post

PRETTY PRAIRIE— Fire crews battled four separate grass fires Tuesday morning in Reno County.

The Reno County Sheriffs Office said the cause of the fires is suspicious.

The first fire was reported just after 6:30 a.m. according to Reno County Dispatch.

Within minutes two other fires were reported. All were located between Pretty Prairie and Arlington.

A fourth fire was reported about 30 minutes after the first one. All were brought under control and no reports of damage or injury have been received.

Last week rural fire crews in the area had to deal with 14 separate grass fires that stretched for nearly 20 miles through the southern portion of Reno county.

No arrests have been made.