WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 49-year-old brigadier general with extensive military experience has been named Sedgwick County manager.

The Wichita Eagle reports  that Sedgwick County commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to approve Brig. Gen. Michael Scholes as the next county manager. The job is the highest non-elected position in county government, which includes 2,663 active full- and part-time employees.

Scholes replaces William Buchanan, who retired in June after 24 years.

Scholes, a Gulf War veteran and one-star Army general who has served in leadership positions in the southern United States, led combat missions in Iraq and managed peacekeeping forces in the Balkan republic of Kosovo.

He’s expected to start work by November 15, and will have an annual salary of $165,000 in 2016. That will rise to $185,000 in 2017 depending on performance.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas State Fair has announced plans to begin reviewing applications for the fair’s general manager position.

The fair said in a release Wednesday that its five-person subcommittee will start reviewing resumes and submissions for general manager on October 1.

The fair’s former general manager, Denny Stoecklein, announced his resignation in June. He had led the fair since 2003.

The Kansas State Fair starts the Friday after Labor Day in September and lasts for 10 days.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka man has been charged in a car explosion that injured his 4-year-old son.

Authorities say Jacob Schell and his 4-year-old son, Roman, were injured in the July 5 explosion near Topeka.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Jacob Daniel Schell was booked into the Shawnee County Jail on Wednesday on charges including aggravated battery, aggravated endangering of a child and criminal use of explosives.

He was released on bond.

The fire marshal’s office investigated the incident.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge has struck down an administrative policy change imposed on the state’s courts by the Legislature in a legal dispute that became tied to the judicial branch’s budget.

Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a law changing how chief judges for the trial courts in the state’s 31 judicial districts. Hendricks concluded that the law interferes with the Kansas Supreme Court’s power to oversee the judiciary.

Lawmakers earlier this year tied the judiciary’s entire budget to preserving the policy. It wasn’t immediately clear what happens next.

The law says judges in each judicial district pick their chief judges, taking that power from the Supreme Court.

District Judge Larry Solomon of Kingman County challenged the statute. He is chief judge in the 31st District.

TOPEKA – A Georgia woman was sentenced to 12 months and a day in federal prison for helping conceal bribes an executive of the company that makes Glock firearms received from a Kansas firearms distributor for preferential treatment, according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom.

Lisa Delaine Dutton, 43, Acworth, Ga., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy.

In her plea, she admitted she assisted her husband, co-defendant James “Craig” Dutton, 43, Acworth, Ga., who was the Assistant National Sales Manager for Glock, to receive bribes from co-defendant John Sullivan Ralph, III, 41, Olathe, Kan. Ralph was owner of Global Guns & Hunting Inc. of Olathe, Kan., doing business as OMB Guns.

Lisa Dutton created a company called Supreme Solutions LLC and used it to receive payments from Ralph to James Dutton. The bribes were to pay James Dutton for helping Ralph to receive preferential treatment over other distributors of firearms, including directing customers to OMB Guns, giving it priority relative to the allocation of limited products, steering government contracts and sales to government agencies of firearms and accessories to OMB , as well as providing confidential Glock information to Ralph and OMB Guns.

By DAVE RANNEY

An advisory committee charged with helping state officials design a system for regulating the use of prescription mental health drugs for Medicaid patients met for the first time Tuesday.

“This is going to be an evolving process,” said Dr. Vishal Adma, a committee member and president of the Kansas Psychiatric Society.

The nine-member committee spent nearly two hours discussing the pros and cons of “prior authorization” policies that would allow the three private insurance companies that manage KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, to approve or disapprove mental health drug prescriptions.

Until this year, Kansas law specifically prohibited policies and regulations — such as preferred drug lists or prior authorization requirements — that would have restricted or impeded a physician’s ability to prescribe mental health drugs for Medicaid patients.

Legislators changed the law after Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, testified that prior authorization would address long-standing safety concerns and likely save $8 million in the fiscal year that began July 1.

Mental health advocates opposed the change, arguing it would add to the system’s administrative costs and delay medications for patients with severe and persistent mental illnesses.

At Tuesday’s meeting, KDHE officials said:

500 of the state’s 260,000 Medicaid patients under age 18 are taking two or more mental health drugs.
450 children age 4 to 6 are taking at least one antipsychotic drug.
3,400 children age 7 to 13 are taking at least one antipsychotic.
Much of the meeting was spent discussing KDHE-proposed criteria for imposing dosing limits and for allowing the KanCare insurance companies to review prescriptions for adults and children.

Three of the four psychiatrists on the committee assured the group that almost all of the children who’ve been prescribed antipsychotics are in the state’s foster care system, have a severe mental illness or both.

Many of these children, they said, have been prescribed one or more psychotropic drugs because all other treatment options have been exhausted and the drugs have proven to be beneficial.

“If a medication reduces a symptom by 20 percent, it’s considered successful,” said Dr. Taylor Porter, a psychiatrist and medical director at Valeo Behavioral Health Care in Topeka.

Porter said he resists prescribing multiple medications but when he does it’s because “not doing it would be worse.”

Porter, Adma and Dr. Charles “Chip” Millhuff, staff psychiatrist at Family Service and Guidance Center in Topeka, each said they would support reviews of cases involving patients taking three or more antipsychotics but asked that the review process not be overly time-consuming.

Millhuff said a KDHE proposal that would require psychiatrists to fill out multi-page forms or to personally explain their decisions to a managed care company’s physician would “add a tremendous amount of administrative work onto us.”

Each of the psychiatrists said having to spend more time on administrative tasks would result in less time with patients.

Dr. Bradley Grimage, a psychiatrist with the VA hospital in Topeka, was unable to attend the meeting.

Much of the discussion was hampered by a lack of data from KDHE about how patients have been affected by taking more than one psychotropic, which medications appear to be most overprescribed and which types of practices — public or private, rural or urban — appear to be doing the most overprescribing.

“It would be helpful to understand the depth of the problems we are talking about,” Adma said.

During the meeting, the 25 people in the audience were not provided copies of the KDHE proposals. Sara Belfry, a KDHE spokesperson, said the policies were in draft form and would be provided later when updated copies are available.

The committee’s next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 24.

In keeping with the new law, the advisory committee’s recommendations will be forwarded to the state-administered Drug Utilization Review Committee, which will vote to enact or reject the recommendations.

The advisory committee will have the option of amending and re-submitting any recommendations that the Drug Utilization Review Committee rejects.

 

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

 

MANHATTAN -In April of 2013 over 75 percent of the Student Body at K-State voted to increase the student privilege fee for students taking classes on the Manhattan campus effective fall 2014, in order to fund a renovation of the Student Union.

Over two years later the University has broken ground on that project.

“This is just really another project towards us making sure that our campus, and our facilities are reminiscent of a top 50 public research University,” said Kirk Schulz, KSU President.

The renovation will include a new south facade, updated retail spaces, enhanced dining facilities and even a sports bar, which is something that is starting to become popular at other Universities across the nation according to Andy Hurtig, Kansas State Student Body President.

“I think maybe in the past years it was more of just a sensitivity issue, putting a sports bar in a Union,” said Hurtig. “But we see it as a great draw for students. It will be something that students can get excited about, something that prospective students and their parents can try out when they come to campus and alumni when they come back for game days. It will just be a really cool place that people identify that’s on campus instead of going someplace that is off of campus.”

The renovation is expected to begin on September 8th. The Union will remain open, with certain sections blocked off at certain times due to the renovation.

 

MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An internal watchdog says nearly 900,000 veterans have pending applications for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But a report by the VA’s inspector general says “serious” problems with enrollment data make it impossible to determine how many of the 867,000 veterans with pending applications were actively seeking VA health care.

About one-third of those with pending applications are likely deceased, but the report says “data limitations” prevent investigators from determining how many now-deceased veterans applied for health care benefits or when. The applications go back nearly two decades and officials said some applicants may have died years ago.

The report also says VA workers incorrectly marked thousands of unprocessed health-care applications as completed and may have deleted 10,000 or more electronic “transactions” over the past five years.