DETROIT (AP) — Consumer Reports magazine says its annual auto survey shows that some newer Audi, BMW and Subaru vehicles can burn too much oil.
The magazine says in some cases owners of 2010 to 2014 models reported having to add a quart as often as once per month.
It called on auto companies to back their products by fixing them under the powertrain warranty or by extending warranties.
The survey found no link yet between oil consumption and other engine repairs. But the magazine says people have to pay attention to oil levels and watch for dashboard warning lights to avoid engine damage.
Messages were left seeking comment on the story from all three automakers.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has dismissed a case he filed last year with the state Supreme Court to keep counties from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Schmidt filed a notice Tuesday with the state’s highest court saying his case is moot because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week legalizing gay marriage across the nation.
As of Tuesday, district court clerks for all 105 counties were either issuing licenses to same-sex couples or were saying they were prepared to do so.
Schmidt filed his petition in October after the chief judge of the Johnson County District Court directed its clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The Kansas Supreme Court put the case on hold, leaving decisions about issuing licenses to local court officials.
GRAINFIELD – Two people were injured in an accident just before 3 p.m. on Tuesday in Gove County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Volkswagen Beetle driven by Vanessa D. Hesser, 19, Hill City, was westbound on Interstate 70 two miles west of Grainfield.
The vehicle’s left tire blew out. The driver lost control of the vehicle. It entered the north ditch and rolled.
Hesser and a passenger James Brown-Bannon, 31, Childress, TX., were transported to Gove County Medical Center.
A two-week-old child in the vehicle was in a car seat and not injured.
All were properly restrained at the time of the accident according to the KHP.
CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, Associated Press
JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve because of outdated rules on overtime pay.
Obama is unveiling a proposal to require overtime pay for workers who earn nearly $1,000 per week. That’s more than double the current threshold. Obama says it would extend overtime protection to about 5 million workers.
Obama says the proposal is good for workers and good for business owners who pay their employees what they deserve. He says that’s because those companies will no longer be undercut by competitors who are paying workers less.
Obama announced the proposal Monday evening in an op-ed in The Huffington Post. He says he’ll discuss the proposal during a visit Thursday to Wisconsin.
PRATT -The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has been called in to investigate the death of an inmate in the Pratt County Detention Center.
The inmate was found hanging in his cell on Tuesday.
Officials reported Pratt County Detention Officers responded to the inmate hanging in a cell just after 1:40 p.m.
Pratt County Emergency Services were called and the inmate was taken first to Pratt Regional Medical Center and then transferred to a Wichita hospital for treatment.
The name of the inmate was not released and Pratt County Sheriff Officials say no other information will be released.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has put on hold a lower court’s order for the state to immediately increase aid to public schools by roughly $50 million.
The high court issued a one-page order Tuesday, a day after a request from Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
A three-judge panel in Shawnee County District Court last week invalidated key parts of a school funding law enacted by the Republican-dominated Legislature this year.
The lower-court judges ordered Kansas to provide more money to districts using the state’s previous school funding formula.
The new school funding law scrapped the old per-student formula for distributing aid in favor of predictable grants for each districts. The lower-court panel said the changes violated the state constitution by not providing equal educational opportunities for all students.
HUTCHINSON -A homeless shelter in Hutchinson has closed. According to officials with New Beginnings, the Noel House Shelter closed Tuesday morning due to the loss of a HUD grant that provided funding.
The shelter, located on W. 2nd Avenue in Hutchinson housed about 15 people per night and provided programs to try and help those using the shelter get back on their feet. The shelter had been open since May of 2013.
The closing includes the loss of five jobs, although most were part time.
Officials say this closing affects the Noel Shelter only and none of the other New Beginnings programs or homes in central Kansas are affected.
New Beginnings President Shara Gonzales says they will continue to provide emergency transitional housing at Meadowlark Commons.
Referrals to their waiting list can be made at that location which is 100 E. 2nd Avenue in Hutchinson.
New Beginnings still offers 56 beds of homeless housing in their emergency transitional housing complexes.
New Beginnings hopes that they will be able to secure financial support through some other avenue to re open the shelter.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has collected about $22 million less in revenues than anticipated this month.
The state Department of Revenue reported Tuesday that the state took in a little more than $529 million in taxes in June. The state’s official fiscal forecast predicted more than $551 million.
The shortfall for the month was 4.1 percent.
June was the last month of the 2015 fiscal year. For the entire fiscal year, the department reported tax collections of $5.5 billion that were $33 million short of expectations, or about 0.6 percent short.
The lower-than-anticipated tax collections complicate the budget picture. Legislators raised sales and cigarette taxes to avert a deficit in the new fiscal year but didn’t expect to leave much of a cushion of cash reserves at the end of June 2016.
Delmas Dean “Jake” Jacobs, age 76, of Hays passed away June 29, 2015 at his home in Hays. He was born November 19, 1938 in Hays, KS to Andrew and Mary Jacobs. He graduated from Hays High in 1956. He married Dorothy Flax May 2, 1959 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hays.
Jake was retired from the United States Postal Service. He was an avid golfer and designed the back 9 at the Fort Hays Municipal Golf Course. He also loved to fish and hunt, Create handmade brain game puzzles and was a “Jack” of all trades.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy of hays; two sons, Tim Jacobs of Hays and Tom Jacobs and wife Mary of Hays; two daughters, JoAnn Moeller and husband Don of Parker, CO; Sharon Honeyman and husband Alan of Hays; three sisters, Norene Jacobs of Des Moines, IA, Shirley Millikin of Neosho, MO and Evelyn Bieker of Hays. He is also survived by 9 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents; two brothers, Darrell and Melvin Jacobs and a sister, Shelbia Huffhines.
Funeral services will be 10:30 AM Friday at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hays. Private family burial at a later date in St. Joseph Cemetery.
Visitation will be Thursday 5 PM – 8 PM at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. A rosary service will be Thursday at 6:30 PM followed by a parish vigil service at 7 PM all at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
Memorials are suggested for Masses
Arrangements in care of Brock’s-Keithley Funeral Chapel 2509 Vine Hays, KS 67601.
Condolences may be left by guest book at www.keithleyfuneralchapels.com or emailed to [email protected].
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gay and lesbian couples can obtain marriage licenses in almost all of the state’s 105 counties, with the number growing after last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.
Court clerks in at least 94 counties either were issuing licenses to same-sex couples Tuesday or were prepared to do so. That’s up from 61 counties before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring gay marriage legal across the nation.
But the state isn’t yet allowing gay and lesbian spouses to change their last names on their driver’s licenses, and it hasn’t reversed its policy of not allowing joint income tax returns.
Officials in Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration said they’re still studying the high court’s ruling. Kansas voters in 2005 added a provision against gay marriage to the state constitution.
Photo by KHI News Service File Admissions at Osawatomie State Hospital have been limited during $3.1 million in renovations intended to address some of the issues raised by federal inspectors.
BY DAVE RANNEY
The recent filing of murder charges against a former patient at the Osawatomie State Hospital is prompting questions about the state’s mental health system.
On May 14, Brandon Brown, 30, was released from a five-day stay at Osawatomie. He was sent to the state hospital after threatening other patients at the Haviland Care Center, a nursing facility in Kiowa County that specializes in treating adults with serious and persistent mental illness.
Brown, who has long struggled with schizophrenia, was returned to Haviland and on May 17 allegedly assaulted Jerry Martinez, 61, another patient there. Martinez was flown by air ambulance to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where he died 18 days later.
Brown, who now is being held in a locked security unit at Larned State Hospital, has been charged with second-degree murder.
“The allegations are that he pulled the victim out of bed and slammed his head to the floor several times,” said Kiowa County Attorney Scott James. The Haviland incident and a recent report in the Topeka Capital-Journal about staffing shortages are intensifying concerns about operations at the state’s two hospitals for people with mental illness.
The newspaper report said that nearly 40 percent of the full-time staff positions at Osawatomie State Hospital and 35 percent of those at Larned State Hospital recently were vacant. “I’ve had a few incidents like this now,” James said.
“I have to say they do lead me to wonder if the pressures — whether they be staffing pressures or budget pressures — are really starting to tax these mental health entities to a degree that’s not healthy for the state. I mean, if the state hospital isn’t there to house Mr. Brown, who is it there to house?”
Preserving the safety net James’ question is at the center of a long-simmering debate over the role of the state’s mental health hospitals in Osawatomie and Larned since lawmakers in the mid-1990s decided to close Topeka State Hospital and expand the state’s network of community-based programs.
This shift from institutional care to in-community care was driven by a desire to provide treatment that is less expensive, more effective and more humane. But there are growing concerns about the adequacy of the safety net for those who continue to need intensive, inpatient care. “This is all about having enough ‘ports in the storm’ for when people are in crisis,” said Frank Denning, sheriff of Johnson County.
“When 17 percent of the people in (Johnson County) jail have been diagnosed as having a serious and persistent mental illness, it means we don’t have enough ‘ports.’ And when Osawatomie stopped taking voluntary admissions, it leaves us with fewer ‘ports.’”
KDADS officials limited voluntary admissions at the Osawatomie hospital late last year after federal inspectors cited the facility for having too many patients and inadequate staffing levels, and for not doing enough to protect potentially suicidal patients. Patients admitted voluntarily are those who have been deemed to be potentially dangerous to themselves or others but have not committed a crime and haven’t been sent for treatment under a court order.
The limit on voluntary admissions was intended to reduce the patient census at the 206-bed hospital, which had a record 260 patients in October 2014. Angela de Rocha, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, said the effort to lower Osawatomie’s census created an opportunity to move patients who didn’t need to be in the hospital to more appropriate treatment settings.
“There had been increasing numbers of people who would be admitted, would get stabilized, would get on the right drugs and no longer be in crisis, but for whatever reason they were still at the hospital,” de Rocha said. “We were providing long-term hospitalization to folks who might be able to do better or who would be OK in the community.”
Over time, de Rocha said, these patients were moved to nursing homes or residential facilities that specialize in caring for people with mental illness, like the Haviland Care Center, or to drug and alcohol treatment programs. “What we found was that these people still need care and support, but they don’t need acute care,” she said.
New urgency
In recent months state officials have worked more aggressively to lower the patient count at Osawatomie so that contractors could begin $3.1 million in renovations intended to address some of the issues raised by federal inspectors. Those renovations are under way.
As a consequence, KDADS was forced to halt admissions to ensure that the number of patients doesn’t exceed 146. That required the first-ever use of a 1986 law that allows officials to refuse involuntary admissions — patients that a court has ordered into treatment.
The freeze on admissions has added new urgency to concerns about the adequacy of the mental health system. But it also has led to innovations and greater coordination among state officials, community mental health providers and law enforcement. The state has increased funding to community-based mental health programs in Sedgwick and Shawnee counties in an effort to replicate its success in converting Rainbow Mental Health Facility, once a 50-bed state-run hospital in Kansas City, Kan., to a 22-bed crisis-intervention facility that opened in April 2014.
The facility, now called Rainbow Services Inc. or RSI, found that many patients who earlier would have been admitted to the Kansas City or Osawatomie hospital instead could be stabilized and treated in a community-based setting. KDADS data show that in its first year of operation, RSI diverted 125 would-be patients from the state hospitals, 132 from jail and 766 from emergency rooms in Wyandotte and Johnson counties.
Wyandotte, Johnson, Shawnee and Sedgwick counties account for 60 percent of admissions at Osawatomie State Hospital. Sedgwick County alone counts for a fourth of Osawatomie patients. Marilyn Cook, executive director at COMCARE, the community mental health center in Wichita, said facilities like RSI provide a stable setting for mental health patients. “So many individuals benefit from having a little time to be in a safe, calm environment and being able to settle, rather than immediate decisions being made to have them go somewhere,” Cook said.
Even prior to the reduction in Osawatomie admissions, she said the effort to redirect patients who didn’t need to be hospitalized was resulting in fewer referrals. “In April of 2014, we did 109 state-hospital screens, and we approved 83,” Cook said. “This year, in April, we did 51 screens and approved only 23.”
To provide community mental health centers with additional options, Kansas lawmakers recently gave KDADS the authority to spend up to $3.45 million to cover the cost of treating patients refused admission to a state hospital at psychiatric units operated by hospitals in eight cities: Hutchinson, Garden City, Kansas City, Newton, Salina, Topeka, Merriam and Wichita. However, these units typically don’t admit involuntary patients.
No tracking system
For a variety of reasons — the admissions freeze and better planning among them — fewer people discharged from state hospitals for the mentally ill are ending up back in the hospital. Still, it’s unclear how many former patients — Brandon Brown, for example — are ending up in jail or homeless and on the streets.
“All I can say, really, is that we’ve put them in appropriate, safe support situations,” said de Rocha, the KDADS spokesperson. “Now, these are folks who have a mental illness, and sometimes they make irrational decisions about where they’re going to be and what they’re going to do.”
The tendency to make irrational decisions, de Rocha said, doesn’t mean they need inpatient care at a state hospital. The state has no system for tracking what happens to mental health patients once they leave treatment facilities. But there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that many continue to struggle.
“The national average is that somewhere between 16 and 20 percent of the people (in jail) have a mental illness,” said Brian Cole, head of the Shawnee County Corrections Department. “We’re close to 18 percent here in Shawnee County.”
Cole said he’s not noticed “a drastic increase” in the numbers of mentally ill inmates at the jail since the state hospital began limiting admissions. “I think law enforcement, Valeo (mental health center) and the community of Topeka have done really well in diverting people from Osawatomie and in getting them services in the community,” Cole said.
“We still see our fair share of people coming out of Osawatomie who become violent out in the community and end up coming to jail. But again, I wouldn’t say that we’ve seen an increase in that.” He added: “We divert far more (mentally ill) people away from jail than we have come to jail.”
Similarly, Frank Denning, the Johnson County sheriff, praised his office, neighboring police departments, Johnson County Community Mental Health Center and Rainbow Services for their collective efforts in keeping people out of jail and out of Osawatomie State Hospital. “Law enforcement, I think, has a very good relationship with the community mental health center and with RSI,” he said. “We’ve been able to do some really good things.”
Breaking point
Despite the increased cooperation and coordination, there are indications that the Kansas mental health system is stressed and perhaps near a breaking point. Janice Early, a spokesperson for Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said it recently has become more difficult to find placements for patients with mental illness who show up in the emergency room.
“We’ve noticed that since Osawatomie stopped taking voluntary admissions, we have, on occasion, had to hold (mentally ill) patients for more than 24 hours,” Early said. “That’s a new experience for us.”
Tim DeWeese, executive director at Johnson County Mental Health Center, said it’s only a matter of time before the system, as it’s currently funded, runs out of placement options. “In my opinion, this is a crisis waiting to happen,” DeWeese said. “We’ve underfunded the state hospitals. We’ve underfunded community services. We’ve just downsized, downsized, downsized. And now we’re saying, ‘OK, how can we keep folks out of jail? How can we keep them out of the state hospital?’ “And my question is, ‘Where are the resources to do that and to keep doing that?’” he said.
DeWeese said he knows of several instances of state hospital patients being discharged to nursing homes “inappropriately” or ending up in jail because they were released “without having had enough time to stabilize.” He said the freeze on admissions at Osawatomie will increase the number of people with mental illness who end up in jail or on the streets. Sandy Horton, head of the Kansas Sheriffs’ Association, agrees with that assessment.
“That’s why the best advice we can give sheriffs is to be proactive: Meet with your county attorney, get legal advice and start coming up with some local solutions, because this is going to happen,” Horton said. “It’s going to be 3 o’clock in the morning, and your deputy is going to be dealing with someone who has no place to go but can’t be left on the street. Hopefully, the solution won’t involve jail, but a lot of times I’m afraid it will.”
Cindy Luxem, executive director at the Kansas Health Care Association, the group that represents the state’s for-profit nursing homes, said the 11 facilities like the Haviland Care Center that specialize in caring for people with severe mental illnesses don’t provide much of a safety valve. Because they too are at capacity.
“They’re full and they have waiting lists,” Luxem said. KDADS officials have said they intend to raise the Osawatomie State Hospital target census to 185 patients after the renovation work is finished, likely in early November. Whether it stays there remains to be seen. “Half the people in our hospitals have co-occurring substance abuse issues,” de Rocha said.
“We don’t know if the drugs caused the mental illness or if the mental illness led them to self-medicate and to the use of drugs. But if we could get those folks back on the right track, maybe we don’t need that number of beds? I’m not saying we don’t, I’m saying we don’t know.”
To find out, the agency last month appointed a 30-member committee to critique the state’s mental health system and, perhaps, clarify the role of the hospitals. The fourth of the committee’s five meetings is set for Thursday. The group will finalize its recommendations during a July 16 meeting.
Horton said he’s telling his sheriff association members to prepare for more calls involving people with mental health issues. “KDADS has done a good job of notifying law enforcement about what’s going on at Osawatomie and in getting some things going on the community level,” Horton said.
“But the concern I have is what happens when we get to that point where (Osawatomie) isn’t taking ‘involuntaries,’ because that’s who we’re dealing with on the street.”
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
Following last week’s decision by the Shawnee County District Court that Gov. Sam Brownback’s block funding of Kansas schools violates the Kansas Constitution, Hays USD 489 is now being forced to wait to finalize next year’s budget.
USD 489 Superintendent Dean Katt
Superintendent Dean Katt is now waiting to see what Brownback will do — and trying to plan for the upcoming school year, which begins in less than two months.
In response to the court’s ruling, Katt said “I can’t say it’s a big surprise,” adding “everything that the governor and the legislators, I guess leadership, has done, has just added onto this.”
After the long legislative session, the Legislature suggested Brownback’s school funding plan was equitable, while school officials and the court found Brownback’s funding plan less than desirable for the state.
“They try to spin that and make that sound like all of this money is going into the classrooms, and it’s far from the truth,” Katt said.
Brownback was quick to criticize the ruling, issuing a statement saying the court exceeded its authority with the decision.
“The three-judge panel has once again violated its constitutional authority with this ruling,” Brownback said. “It has now taken upon itself the powers specifically and clearly assigned to the legislative and executive branches of government. In doing so, it has replaced the judgment of Kansas voters with the judgment of unelected activist judges. For the first time ever, the state will invest more than $4 billion in K-12 education in Kansas in fiscal year 2016.”
But Katt agreed with the court.
“The judges have seen through the smoke and mirrors again and trying to hold them accountable, then you hear about all the activist judges,” he said. “I guess an activist judge is one that you don’t agree with the decision. If it was going the way the governor wanted, then they would be great.”
“It’s just hard to even know where we are,” Katt said. “We need to see what happens, and every day it’s a little bit less time to prepare and have our budget completely done by August. … It’s going to be difficult.”
“We keep waiting to hear something more. In a webinar I listened to, there’s a lot of speculation what would happen. … Obviously, it’s going to be appealed, so that process will take months,” he added.
This long wait for a new state funding plan has created chaos in the Kansas Department of Education, as they scramble to figure out what is going to happen, then pass that information along to districts.
“I know the Kansas State Department of Ed waited and waited and waited until the legislators made a decision, and they started doing all their budget documents and changing formulas and doing all those things — and then Friday all of that changed again, Katt said. “Next week we’ll be going to the budget workshop the State Department of Ed puts on, and really I don’t think we will have a clear understanding of what even the budget document is going to look like.”
Meanwhile, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt filed a request with the Kansas Supreme Court this week asking for a stay on the district court’s ruling. Schmidt calling the district court’s ruling unprecedented. While that battle is just beginning, USD 489 is operating under the assumption that funding will remain similar to last year, no matter how the funding formula is created.
“What I’m thinking, whether it’s right or not I don’t know, but they will go ahead and continue with the block grant philosophy right now and see what happens later,” Katt said. “On the other hand, they could just decide we’re going to take care of it and see a big change in what the budget document will look like.”
The unconstitutional funding plan would not have had much impact on Hays schools, but now that could change.
“We don’t receive a lot of state aid. I had stated previously that the block grant didn’t hurt Hays as much as some of the other options, so now my fear is again if the governor comes in and says ‘Well, I’m going to do allotments’ then that could hurt us,” Katt said. “(Block funding) didn’t hurt us that much, the mill levy and the local option budget would have gone up if the state goes ahead and pays for capital outlay state aid, we don’t receive any, so that’s not going to make any difference, but if they do fund the local option budget, it’s not more money, it’s just keeps the mill levy down for us.”
Without knowing what will happen in the upcoming weeks, USD 489 must prepare to open its schools, with contingency plans already in place.
“We’re in the process of closing the last fiscal year out right now, and we’ll have some carryover funds that we’ll put in contingency reserve with the anticipation that we’re going to receive some sort of cut next year,” Katt said. “I just wish I knew what to expect next week. … We thought we knew with the block grant how much money we would see to the penny, basically what we received last year would be the same and started the budget process on that.”
Before she was even officially on the job, she attended last week’s annual Pacesetter kickoff luncheon and was meeting with UWEC board members and UWEC Office Manager Erica Burgess. The Pacesetter companies conduct their own internal fundraising prior to the official kickoff of the UWEC campaign late this summer.
“I’ve been involved with nonprofits throughout my professional career and as a volunteer,” Dryden said. “Now that my children are out of the house, this opportunity allows me to continue my professional growth and still remain involved with the many wonderful agencies in our county.”
She will remain busy year round, initiating some new efforts.
“I want to start meeting with the United Way funded agencies no less than a quarterly basis,” she said.
“A lot of people think the United Way is just raising money and giving some of that money to agencies and some more money comes in through a grant or whatever. There’s other ways we can all work together and help strengthen each other–bringing that unity together.
“Years ago there was some communication between member agencies to where if they had somebody come through their doors that they weren’t able to help, they were able to refer them to some other agencies as well,” Dryden explained. She hopes to “get that kind of get that cooperation going again.”
Monetary awards from grants is getting tighter, according to Dryden. She wants the UWEC to help the member agencies get additional grant resources.
“As the United Way, we’re more than ‘raise some money, give it out.’ We need to be supportive in many ways for our member agencies. We need to hear from them and be getting together on a regular basis to help keep us focused in what we need to be doing for them,” she added.
Dryden is the former human resources director at Developmental Services of Northwest Kansas. She and her family have been a part of the Hays community since 1981.
Dryden replaced Jason Rauch, who resigned in April.
The United Way of Ellis County has a partnership with 15 agencies and will begin the 2015 campaign in August. This year’s goal is $490,000–the same as in 2014.
(Disclosure: Becky Kiser is the 2015 UWEC campaign chair.)
