GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) — A pressurized tank manufacturing company in Garden City is laying off 80 workers because of lower oil prices.
The layoffs at Palmer Manufacturing and Tank, a subsidiary of Ohio-based Worthington Industries, are part of 245 jobs the company is eliminating in three states. The company also is closing a plant in Florence, South Carolina.
Spokeswoman Cathy Lyttle says customer orders have dropped because of low oil prices and fewer new wells starting in the country.
The Hutchinson News reports that the Garden City plant manufactures steel and fiberglass tanks and processing equipment for the oil and gas industry. It also makes custom manufactured fiberglass tanks for agricultural, chemical and general industrial applications.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican Gov. Sam Brownback hopes the GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature wraps up several key budget issues this week.
Lawmakers must erase a projected shortfall of nearly $600 million for the next fiscal year.
The Senate has approved a $15.5 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that won’t balance without tax increases. The House’s Republican leaders aren’t sure whether the chamber will vote on a spending plan before the Legislature begins its annual spring break Saturday.
Lawmakers expect to consider proposed tax increases after returning from their break April 29.
Several bills will affect the spending plan. One deals with public pensions, another with tapping health insurers for additional fees, and a third with controlling the costs of mental health drugs under the Medicaid program.
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) announced that he is accepting applications for nominations to the United States Service Academies.
The academies include the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.; the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.; the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo; and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. Those selected will enter the academies in June 2016.
Selections are based on SAT or ACT test scores, class rank, grade point average, school records, extracurricular activities, leadership potential, motivation, recommendations and interview evaluations. Applicants must meet the individual admission requirements of each academy in order to receive Sen. Moran’s nomination: applicants must be legal residents of the state of Kansas, at least 17 years of age but not past their 23rd birthday on July 1 of the year of admission, citizens of the United States, unmarried, not pregnant and without legal obligation to support children or other dependents.
The application deadline is Sept. 4, 2015.
Applicants will be required to interview with Sen. Moran’s Service Academy Selection Board on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. Academies will make the final decision on who will receive an appointment of admission in early 2016.
Interested applicants can request application materials on Sen. Moran’s website at moran.senate.gov under the “Services” menu, or by calling Sen. Moran’s Olathe office at (913) 393-0711. Additional information is also available online at moran.senate.gov.
Governor Sam Brownback issued a proclamation declaring the month of April as “Safe Digging Month” in Kansas. The proclamation, in concurrence with National Safe Digging Month, reminds Kansans to call 811 before starting any outdoor digging projects.
“The Kansas Corporation Commission joins Governor Brownback in strongly encouraging individuals and companies to call 811 before they begin digging,” said Chair Shari Feist Albrecht. “By locating and marking underground lines homeowners and companies are making the important decision to keep their communities safe and connected to their underground utility system. Enjoy the upcoming weather, but know what’s below.”
The Kansas Corporation Commission, Kansas One-Call, the Kansas Pipeline Association and the Common Ground Alliance are encouraging excavators and homeowners to call 811 before they begin digging projects to prevent injuries, property damage, and inconvenient outages. A utility line is damaged by digging once every eight minutes nationwide, and one-third of those incidents are caused by failure of the professional excavator or homeowner to call 811 before digging.
When dialing 811, callers are connected to Kansas One-Call, which notifies the appropriate utility companies of the intent to dig. Calls are taken 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Requests can also be entered at www.kansasonecall.com.
Excavators and homeowners are required to make a request at least two working days in advance of beginning a digging project. Professional locators are then sent to the requested digging site to mark the approximate locations of underground lines with flags or spray paint. Once lines have been accurately marked, digging can begin.
Striking a single line can result in injury, repair costs, fines, and inconvenient outages. Every digging project, no matter how large or small, requires a call to 811. The depth of utility lines varies, and there may be multiple lines in a common area. Some utility lines are buried only a few inches below the surface, making them easy to strike during shallow digging projects. Installing a mailbox, landscaping, putting in a fence, and building a deck are all examples of digging projects that necessitate a call to 811 before starting.
Learn more about 811 and Safe Digging Month by visiting: www.call811.com. More information about Kansas One-Call is available at: www.kansasonecall.com.
Photo by Dave Ranney A former child protection supervisor with the Kansas Department for Children and Families office in Winfield has filed a “whistleblower” lawsuit, accusing the agency of firing her for calling her supervisor’s attention to false reports filed by a social worker.
By Dave Ranney
A former child protection supervisor with the Kansas Department for Children and Families office in Winfield has filed a “whistleblower” lawsuit, accusing the agency of firing her for calling her supervisor’s attention to false reports filed by a social worker.
In the lawsuit, filed in early December in Cowley County District Court, Karen King asks that she be reinstated with back pay. King’s attorney, Orvel Mason, declined to comment on the case. “What’s in the petition is pretty much what we’d have to say,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that.”
Theresa Freed, a DCF spokesperson, said the department is preparing its response to the lawsuit. She also declined comment: “Outside of court, we cannot comment on pending litigation.” ‘Chaotic’ work environment King’s lawsuit came as no surprise to Rebecca Proctor, executive director at the Kansas Organization of State Employees, a labor union that represents state employees. “The work environment at DCF is chaotic in all the regional offices,”
Proctor said. “It’s been through more reorganizations in the past year and a half to two years than any other agency that KOSE works with. It’s like they’re continually reorganizing, retitling positions and changing requirements for their employees.”
Amid those changes, DCF is dealing with record numbers of at-risk children entering the state’s foster care system. According to DCF reports, 6,156 foster children were in “out-of-home placements” in April 2014, which, at the time, was an all-time high.
Since then, the monthly counts topped that number in May, June, July and October of 2014. All of those records were broken last month when the department reported having 6,275 children in foster care – that’s 329 more children than a year ago and 639 more than two years ago. DCF officials have attributed the increases to corresponding greater public awareness and reporting of child abuse and neglect. C
hild advocates have cited how the increases coincided with cuts in the state’s public assistance programs. Earlier this year, DCF Secretary Phyllis Gilmore said during an appearance before the House Social Services Budget Committee that the department was aware of the increases but had not been able to find the “silver bullet to keep children safely in their homes.”
DCF also is named in a federal lawsuit that accuses the agency and one of its contractors of removing a 4-year-old Hiawatha boy from his mother’s care and allowing his father and his father’s girlfriend to care for him despite the father’s history of domestic violence. The boy was later murdered by his father and his girlfriend, both of whom are now in prison. In December, DCF
Deputy Secretary Kathe Decker and Prevention and Protection Services Director Brian Dempsey left the agency. Freed, the DCF spokesperson, said in an email that the agency “has made numerous improvements during this administration to further our mission of protecting children, promoting healthy families and encouraging personal responsibility.
We have also worked hard to support our staff and encourage positive working conditions. We will continue to make reforms to make DCF the best social services agency.”
Lawsuit details In her lawsuit, King said that between 1985 and 2000 she was a child protection worker in the Winfield and Wichita offices of what was then known as the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. In 2000, she left the state agency for a social work position with the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.
In April 2013, King returned to the state agency, which had been reorganized and renamed as DCF, to take a supervisory position in Winfield, overseeing eight child protection workers in Barber, Cowley, Harper, Kingman, Pratt and Sumner counties. Her annual salary was nearly $42,000.
Although she was a supervisor, King said in the lawsuit that she was “not given (the) authority to discipline any employee.” The office, she said, was “generally short-staffed.” In her lawsuit, King said she reported to her supervisor in July 2014 that a social worker had filed paperwork indicating that she had conducted safety checks on children on days she had not worked.
King said she subsequently called the inaccuracies to the attention of her supervisor on several occasions. Each time, she said, she was told her concerns had been “turned over to personnel.”
A month later, King said, she was told the worker would not be disciplined because too much time had passed. At that point, King took it upon herself to call the errors to the worker’s attention.
A few days later, King said, she was summoned to the DCF regional office in Wichita, where she was handed a termination letter, advising her that her position was an “unclassified appointment” and would end that afternoon. King said that prior to her dismissal, she had “never” been warned or reprimanded by her supervisors.
Her performance reviews, she said, had shown that she was meeting the agency’s expectations. Her termination, she said in the lawsuit, constituted a violation of the state’s whistleblower act, which is meant to protect workers who report malfeasance. The issues King describes in her lawsuit sound familiar to Wendy Flickinger, who runs the Hutchinson-based Family Advisory Council program that counsels parents whose children are in foster care.
“There are tons of foster homes that are supposed to be monitored that rarely see a worker,” Flickinger said. “We deal with that all the time. Someone is supposed to go by and see them once a month, but they don’t.
There’s a lot of chaos, but it’s not because people don’t want to do their jobs. It’s that the money only stretches so far and there can only be so many workers. And when that happens, things slide.”
Investigation of Wichita DCF office
King’s return to the state agency in 2013 occurred as DCF was investigating reports that its Wichita office had been steering children at risk of entering the state’s foster care system toward FaithBuilders, a group supported by several evangelical churches in the Wichita area.
Some parents accused FaithBuilders of later undercutting their efforts to be reunited with their children. The director of the Wichita office, Diane Bidwell, resigned in October 2013, shortly before the results of the investigation were presented to Gilmore.
The investigation, formally released in January 2014, found that the office improperly shared confidential information with FaithBuilders and that Bidwell had allowed the group to influence some of its foster care decisions.
Bidwell, FaithBuilders and the investigation are not mentioned in King’s lawsuit.
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
Fort Hays State women’s track and field was victorious in seven events on the way to a winning team effort at the Alex Francis Classic in Hays. Madison Wolf, coming off All-America honors as a true freshman in 2014, uncorked the longest throw (160’3″) of her collegiate career in the javelin to lay claim to a spot in the NCAA Outdoor Championships with an automatic qualifying mark.
Wolf’s effort topped a dominating effort by the Tigers in the women’s javelin with two others also reaching provisional qualifying marks. Estefania Lopez threw 155’4″ to post a very solid provisional mark, ranking her fourth in the nation so far for the outdoor season. Megan Honas also had a provisional mark in the event, throwing 139’0.5″ to rank 12th nationally so far.
FHSU claimed six other events outside of the javelin, including three on the track and three in the field. As a team, FHSU scored 277 points. Barton Community College had 138 points and Colby Community College had 85.
On the track, Anna Eigruber won the 100-meter hurdles in 15.77 seconds. The 4×100-meter relay team of Casey Freed, Ashli Dryden, Kelly Wycoff and Lexi Riedel won in a time of 48.09 seconds. The 4×400-meter relay team of Mandy Wilson, Mindy Wilson, Riedel, and Wycoff won in a time of 4:14.70.
In the field, Dryden won the long jump with a distance of 18’2.25″, while Eigruber won the triple jump with a distance of 37’9.5″. Rachel Monteil won the hammer throw with a distance of 163’9.5″.
Courtesy Emma Henry
Provisional Mark for Tien Fort Hays State men’s track and field won eight events on their way to a team win at home. Brady Tien turned in the third-best effort nationally in the pole vault so far this outdoor season with a solid provisional qualifying mark of 16’6″.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Appropriations Health Subcommittee, spoke on the U.S. Senate Floor this week about the importance of permanently replacing the broken Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula.
“For more than a decade, the broken SGR formula has frustrated health care providers, threatened access for Medicare beneficiaries, and created budgetary dilemmas for Congress,” Sen. Moran said. “To preserve medical access for Kansans, physicians and other health care providers must receive appropriate reimbursement for the care they provide. The reality is patient care suffers when providers are forced to endure an exasperating wait-and-see game every few months to find out what amount they will be reimbursed for the care they provide. Rather than continually punting responsibility for this issue to a later date, this week Congress can – and must – do better. We can end this piecemeal approach to legislating and come together to permanently repeal the SGR in a fiscally responsible manner.”
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act, with a bipartisan vote of 392-37.
Kathleen Mae “Kathy” Schukman, 60, Hays, died Friday, March 27, 2015 at the Hospice House of Kansas City.
She was born February 23, 1955 in Hays, Kansas the daughter of Vernon “Vern” and Dorothy (Huber) Herrman. She graduated from Hays High School in 1973 and received her BS and MS degrees in English from Fort Hays State University.
She was a retired high school English teacher having taught at Skyline School USD #438 in Pratt, Kansas and Hays High School USD #489. On September 19th, 2005 she married Kevin Schukman in Great Bend, Kansas. She was currently serving on the board of directors of the Hays Kiwanis Club and the Hays Public Library. She was a former board member of the Hays Arts Council, was very active in the community, and enjoyed being a high school forensics judge. She also enjoyed sewing and quilt making, was an avid reader, and loved her family and spending time with her grandchildren.
Survivors include her husband, of the home in Hays, her parents, Vern and Dorothy Herrman of Hays, a daughter Carrie Pfannenstiel of Hays, two step daughters, Sarah Smith and husband Josh and Suzanne Whitaker, all of Hays, four brothers, John Herrman and wife Terri of St. Louis, MO, Dave Herrman and wife Deanna of Hays, Ron Herrman and wife Cheryl of Russell, and Marc Herrman of Hays, and four grandchildren, Carter Jones, Laylah Pfannenstiel, Kolyn Pfannenstiel, and Ella Smith.
Funeral services will be at 11:00 am on Wednesday, April 1, 2015 at the Celebration Community Church, 5790 230th Ave. Private family burial will be in the St. Joseph Cemetery, Hays. Visitation will be from 9:30 am until service time on Wednesday at the church. Memorials are suggested in Kathy’s memory to the Friends of St. Anne’s Girls’ School in Kapkemich, Kenya or to her grandchildren’s college fund, in care of the Hays Memorial Chapel Funeral Home.
Condolences may be left for the family at www.haysmemorial.com.
Judith C. “Judy” Brull, 70, Hays, died Friday, March 27, 2015 at the Alders Gate Village in Topeka, Kansas.
She was born February 19, 1945 in Thomas County, Kansas the daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth “Betty” (Halbleib) Broeckelman.
After graduating from High School she went on to Fort Hays State University where she received her BS degree in Home Economics. On December 26, 1968 she married Kenneth “Ken” Brull in Angelus, Kansas. She was a librarian and homemaker working in the Children’s Department of the Hays Public Library. She briefly taught Home Economics at Marian High School in Hays. She was a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Hays, and enjoyed cooking, sewing, reading, her dogs, worrying, gardening and canning, playing cards and games, and visiting with friends and family.
Survivors include her husband, of the home in Hays, a son Steve Brull and wife Sheresa of Ellis, Kansas, a daughter Tina Ball and husband Ken of Topeka, Kansas, a brother Lee Broeckelman and wife Barb of Grinell, Kansas, four sisters, Phyllis Rueschhoff, Joan Ostmeyer and husband Rick, and Lois Stafford and husband Don, all of Hays, and Barbara Dayvault of Sacramento, CA, and three grandchildren Grace, Eliana, and Henry Brull of Ellis, and numerous nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents, a sister Edie Broeckelman, and two brothers-in-law Day Rueschhoff and Doug Powers.
Funeral services will be at 10:00 am on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at the Hays Memorial Chapel Funeral Home, 1906 Pine St. Burial will be in the Fort Hays Memorial Gardens Cemetery, west of Hays. Visitation will be from 4:00 until 6:00 pm on Monday and from 9:00 am until service time Tuesday, all at the funeral home.
Memorials are suggested to the Alders Gate Village, in care of the funeral home. Condolences may be left for the family at www.haysmemorial.com
CONCORDIA- A Kansas teen was injured in an accident just before 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in Cloud County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am driven by Marcus Alexander Dice,18, Onaga, was southbound on 130th Road five miles south and west of Concordia.
The driver lost control of the vehicle and it rolled into the west ditch.
Dice was transported to Cloud County Hospital. A passenger Blade Ryan Moody, 19, Salina, was possibly injured. The KHP did not report where or if he was treated.
They were not wearing seat belts according to the KHP.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka mother has pleaded guilty to threatening staff at the Kansas jail where her son killed himself more than a decade ago.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that 58-year-old Cathy Lynn Thomas admitted Friday to a reduced charge of making a threat to commit violence. The prosecution and defense agreed to ask for supervised probation at her May 1 sentencing. The prosecution said corrections staff wanted Thomas to receive a mental health evaluation and help.
Security was beefed up last month at the Shawnee County Jail after Thomas called to say the jail had “brutally murdered” her son and that she was headed there with a rifle. Thomas’s son, Anthony Stapleton, was 28 in 2002 when he used a bedsheet to hang himself at the jail. She sued unsuccessfully.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka city councilman has reached a diversion agreement that resolves a misdemeanor charge that stemmed from campaign paperwork.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Chad Manspeaker signed the deal Friday. Assistant District Attorney J. Todd Hiatt said the agreement calls for the charge to be dismissed if Manspeaker successfully completes the diversion program.
Manspeaker acknowledges in the agreement that he failed to include all his substantial interests in a statement he filed last June as part of a failed campaign for a Shawnee County Commission seat. Manspeaker said in a statement issued Friday that in signing the agreement, he acknowledged that he “erroneously omitted my wife’s vendor cart business.” Manspeaker said the business was only a month old at the time and that the omission was “out of confusion.”
