HUTCHINSON– A Kansas man serving time in prison for burglary and theft convictions is now charged with alleged crimes while he was being housed at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility.

Kevin Wilson, 19, is charged with trafficking in contraband at the prison.

The state said that between December 19, 2014 and January 13, of 2015, he attempted to introduce items into the prison that are not allowed.

The items are not the usual drugs or tobacco products but cell phones, jewelry and cash.

The state also alleges that Wilson conspired with two other individuals including 46-year-old Bryant Colbert.

Colbert is serving time for aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated burglary and rape in Montgomery County.

The third conspirator according to the complaint is Janet Gutierrez. Its unclear if she will be charged.

Wilson has been moved from Hutchinson and is being housed at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility.

His case is now being transferred to a waiver-status docket on July 21.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Legislation that funds most of state government in Kansas for its next fiscal year began as a measure giving wildlife and parks officers more discretion in issuing citations.

It also had two other, vastly different incarnations before becoming a bill containing the bulk of the budget.

Lawmakers’ handling of the measure from its introduction through its signing this week by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback shows how loose the rules for moving bills to passage have become.

Legislators don’t hesitate to strip out texts and titles of bills and dump the contents into other bills to speed up their work.

Measures become what lawmakers call “shells,” ”vehicles” or even “body donors.” The legislative process can end up looking little like what’s taught to schoolchildren in lessons about how government works.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Owners of a Kansas City, Kansas, store have pleaded guilty to defrauding a federal food stamp program out of more than $227,000.

The U.S. Attorney for Kansas said in a release Wednesday that 39-year-old Saima Sajjad, of Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Her husband, 47-year-old Sajjad S. Chaudhry, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Their store came under investigation in 2013 because it reported thousands of dollars in transactions in a federal food stamp program.

Investigators found they had been exchanging benefits for cash, giving about 50 percent of the value of the food stamp benefits. Chaudhry also admitted using another person’s electronic benefits card to buy food.

Sentencing is Aug. 25

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A jury says neither the Kansas City Royals nor a man who was hurt when he was struck in the eye by a foil-wrapped hot dog were at fault in the accident.

Jackson County jurors said nobody Wednesday was to blame for the incident at a September 2009 Royals game.

Overland Park, Kansas, resident John Coomer sued the team, saying Royals mascot Sluggerrr recklessly threw a hot dog behind his back and struck Coomer in the eye.

A jury in 2011 found Coomer 100 percent at fault because he should have been paying better attention. A Missouri appeals court disagreed in 2013, saying mascots aren’t necessary to play the game of baseball.

The Missouri Supreme Court concurred and sent the case back to Jackson County for another trial.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jurors are hearing testimony in a lawsuit against the Kansas City Royals by a Kansas man who was struck in the eye by a foil-wrapped hotdog flung by the team’s mascot.

John Coomer of Overland Park, Kansas, says he suffered a detached retina at a September 2009 Royals game when Sluggerrr chucked a hotdog behind his back and struck him in the eye.

The team claimed the so-called “baseball rule” was in effect and that Coomer should have been aware of what was going on around him.

Coomer sued, but a Jackson County jury sided with the team in 2011, saying Coomer was at fault for his injuries. An appeals court overturned the decision in 2013, and last year the Missouri Supreme Court sent the case back to Jackson County.

SALINA, Kan. (AP) — The Salina Airport Authority will try to get Hawker Beechcraft to help pay for cleaning up contamination at the former Schilling Air Force Base.

The Salina Journal reports the airport authority has approved filing a $2 million claim against Hawker Beechcraft, which has filed for bankruptcy. Hawker Beechcraft is a former tenant at the airport.

Salina public entities are investigating cleaning up contamination at the former base, which is primarily polluted with TCE, plumes of which are moving underground toward Salina’s water wells.

Exposure to TCE, a metal cleaning solvent, has been linked to illnesses ranging from kidney cancer to brain damage.

Greg Bengtson, legal counsel to the airport authority, says the amount Salina will receive from Hawker will be “pennies on the dollar” to the actual claim.

By ANDY MARSO

Gov. Sam Brownback’s office will work to identify $50 million in budget cuts mandated by the Legislature for the upcoming fiscal year, although future restoration of those reductions could be constrained by automatic income tax cuts.

Brownback addressed reporters Tuesday in a news conference recapping the historically long session that ended Friday.

The governor acknowledged that the 113-day session was difficult for everyone involved and that many legislators did not want to vote for the tax bill that closed a $400 million budget gap.

“But the beauty of it is they did it, and they actually got things done,” he said.

As a condition of passing the tax increase, legislators built into the bill $50 million in spending cuts that Brownback is required to make to give the state treasury a bigger cushion and appease small-government conservatives.

It was unclear Tuesday if cuts to health-related agencies would be included.

RELATED: State worker furloughs not out of the question

The governor said he had made one line-item veto of $1.9 million for a special fund for the state’s public universities. His administration will identify the rest of the cuts later.

“We’ll look at everything we can on efficiencies, on privatization, on a series of areas that we’ll go at,” Brownback said. “But we haven’t started much of a serious look. This was a long legislative session to get through, and I wanted people to get rested up before you take on those next sets of issues.”

Budget Director Shawn Sullivan said the $50 million in spending cuts cannot come from K-12 public education, the state pension system or the state’s debt service payments.

He said he had tentatively identified $15 million in possible savings in the state’s Office of Information Technology and is examining other state agencies.

“My hope is it’s not across-the-board (cuts),” Sullivan said.

Brownback encouraged Kansans to combine the latest tax increase in their minds with the steep income tax cuts made in 2012. As a whole, he said, the package represents a shift from taxing “productivity” in the form of income taxes to taxing “consumption” in the form of sales taxes.

While some Kansans will end up with a higher tax burden, overall the three years of tax policy will still result in a lower level of net tax revenue for the state.

The most recent bill also stipulates that if economic growth pushes state revenues more than 102.5 percent ahead of the previous year, the excess must go to further income tax cuts.

Brownback said that was the right approach because his intention is still to eliminate the state income tax. But he acknowledged that capping spending growth at 2.5 percent would constrain some budget priorities.

“Almost all of it goes into K-12, Medicaid, KPERS,” he said. “Those have been the big three.”

Brownback said he wants to continue making investments in public safety, including hiring more highway patrol officers.

As for Kansas’ four state hospitals, he said, “we really need to help out as much as we can.” But the governor suggested that help might come in the form of better continuity of care to keep people out of the hospitals rather than more funding.

The state hospitals serve Kansans with mental illness or developmental disabilities. Brownback said the mental health system in particular needs to be better integrated so people get treatment before they need a state hospital.

“Let’s start working with them much earlier, so I hope we can cut our costs down once we get to this system where you’re doing it inpatient, long-term,” Brownback said. “It’s a very expensive system.”

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

CONCORDIA (AP) — A Kansas community college has received a $3.15 million gift from a couple who never attended the school.

The Cloud County Community College Foundation on Tuesday announced the gift from the estate of Ernest and Ellen Briggs, bringing the couple’s total contribution to the foundation to $5.2 million.

When the estate is settled in September, the foundation will receive another $600,000 to $800,000. All the money will be used for scholarships.

The gift will double the scholarship money available each year from $250,000 to $500,000, providing 250 full-ride semester scholarships every year.

The Concordia Blade-Empire reports Briggs, a retired Wichita barber, had an estate estimated at $12 million made mostly through investments in Phillip Morris.

Ellen Briggs died in 2008. Her husband died in April. They had no children.

SALINA – A 22-year-old Salina woman was the victim of a scam after she was threatened with going back to jail.

Salina police say the woman, who had bonded out of jail on a DUI arrest, was contacted by phone on Monday by a man claiming to be with the bail bondsman.

She said he told her there was a mix-up with her bond.

The caller said if she did not pay an additional $600 dollars via Western Union, she would have to return to jail.

The woman paid, and later learned she was scammed.

Authorities are investigating.