JACKSON COUNTY – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 4p.m. on Monday in Jackson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Ford truck driven by Donald D. Griffiths, 83, Holton, was westbound on Golden Pond Road at U.S. 75.

The truck pulled out in front of a 1985 Peterbilt Dump Truck that was northbound on U.S. 75.

Griffiths was transported to Stormont Vail.

The dump truck driver Paul W. Aubert, 50, Topeka was not injured. Both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) — The opening of Fort Riley’s new hospital faces another delay.

The new hospital would replace the Irwin Army Community Hospital, the oldest Army hospital in the nation.

The Manhattan Mercury  reports that the new hospital was originally scheduled to open in 2012 and was later scheduled to open in January 2016.

The Kansas City District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has been managing the project, says the most recent delay is because of disagreements between the contractor and the government.

Since the 2009 groundbreaking, the project’s contractor has faced lawsuits from subcontractors, and then filed its own subsequent claim against the Corps of Engineers. The case against the Corps of Engineers is under review by the federal government’s Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals.

HUTCHINSON -The second of three suspects arrested on drug charges appeared in a Reno County District Court Monday for the reading of formal charges.

Benjamin Cullum, 40, has been charged by the state with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession of marijuana with a prior conviction, unlawfully acquiring proceeds from a drug transaction and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He was arrested along with Nicole Hays and 24-year-old Maira Meza.

They were arrested after a search of the home belonging to Hays, in the 400 block of North Plum Street in Hutchinson.

The Reno County Drug Unit allegedly found the drugs and a large amount of cash, including many bills that were used for a control buy.

In the garage of the home was a Ruger LCP 380 gun in a metal case, a baggie of methamphetamine and a scale.

Additional marijuana and smoking pipes with residue were also found.

The cases against Hays and Cullum will now move to a waiver-status docket.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett has blocked a recall effort against a county commissioner who has refused to accept millions of dollars in grants for local health programs.

Bennett announced Monday that the petition for an election seeking the recall of Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau does not meet the narrow grounds prescribed by state law.

He told reporters that the remedy prescribed by law when someone disagrees with an elected official is the ballot box.

The petition contends Ranzau failed to fulfill his legal duties to contract for the protection and promotion of public health.

Ranzau says the DA’s decision is a victory for taxpaying American citizens and legal immigrants.

The director of the citizens group who filed the petition says they are disappointed.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A lobbyist for a Kansas police association has expressed concerns over the way state social workers handle foster care.

Lobbyist Ed Klumpp of the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police told state lawmakers that social workers with the Department for Children and Families can be difficult to contact, supervisors are sometimes unreachable and calls to a hotline to assist with problems may go unanswered.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Klumpp voiced these concerns at a meeting of the Foster Care Adequacy Committee last week. He said that law enforcement officers responding to a situation involving a child in a foster home are left with very limited options, and a last resort is placing the child in protective custody.

Department secretary Phyllis Gilmore acknowledged Klumpp’s statements are concerning. Gilmore says the agency will make any needed corrections.

By JIM MCLEAN

Add the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce to the list of Kansas organizations that support expanding Medicaid to cover more low-income adults.

Pushed by influential hospital members Via Christi Health and Wesley Medical Center, the chamber’s board voted Thursday to add expansion to its list of policy priorities for the 2016 legislative session, said Jason Watkins, the organization’s lobbyist.

But, Watkins said, the chamber’s support is conditional. Expansion must be revenue neutral, meaning it cannot increase state spending. And it must require non-disabled adults to work or participate in job training to qualify for coverage, a condition that could make it a tough sell to federal officials.

“I want to be clear, if a program comes out and it costs the state $100 million a year, that’s not what we’re supporting,” he said.

About 70 percent of the members who responded to a survey used to formulate the chamber’s positions supported Medicaid expansion, Watkins said. However, 45 percent said their support was contingent on the plan being revenue neutral.

The chamber’s conditions mirror two of the three set by Gov. Sam Brownback. In addition to budget neutrality and a work requirement, the governor has said he won’t consider an expansion plan that doesn’t also extend Medicaid support services to thousands of Kansans with physical and developmental disabilities who are now on waiting lists.

Opposition from Brownback and Republican legislative leaders has prevented debate on expansion the past two legislative sessions. But the recent closure of Mercy Hospital in the southeast Kansas community of Independence has made some lawmakers open to considering a plan like those crafted by conservative Republican governors in other states.

Expansion advocates, including Kansas hospital leaders, have said they’re eager to work with Brownback and others to craft a plan that meets their conditions. But it’s not clear how that can be done given the cost of meeting them.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the state’s lead Medicaid agency, has estimated that eliminating the waiting lists for Kansans with disabilities will cost the state about $1 billion over 10 years. Covering that additional cost while keeping an expansion plan budget neutral will be no easy feat.

Still, Tom Bell, president and CEO of the Kansas Hospital Association, is encouraged by the Wichita Chamber’s support. He said it gives the issue more momentum heading into the 2016 session, which begins in January.

“Plus, it’s an indication that this is a business issue as well,” he said.

Watkins agreed, saying the chamber’s members realize that providing health coverage to more Kansas adults could lower their cost of doing business.

“The Wichita business community understands that we have folks going to hospitals and getting care, and the hospitals are not being paid because these people don’t have coverage,” Watkins said. “At the end of the day, it’s the business community that is paying for those people. It (the cost) gets passed through and increases the premiums that our business owners are paying for their employees.”

The Kansas Medicaid program was renamed KanCare in 2013 when the Brownback administration privatized it by signing contracts with three managed care organizations.

Expanding KanCare would provide coverage to roughly 150,000 Kansans earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level: annually $16,105 for an individual and $32,913 for a family of four.

A study done for the hospital association said that the billions of additional federal dollars from expansion would stimulate the Kansas economy and boost state tax collections. The amount of federal money lost to date because of the state’s rejection of expansion is approaching $835 million, according to a ticker on the hospital association’s website.

Bernie Koch, executive director of the Kansas Economic Policy Council, a group formed by local chambers of commerce and trade organizations to counter the increasingly conservative agenda of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, said the Wichita Chamber’s support of expansion, however qualified, could influence the legislative debate.

“I think it’s meaningful because it puts these conservative legislators who have been opposed to Medicaid expansion in an uncomfortable position,” Koch said.

The tension around the expansion issue is evident in another Wichita-based business organization. The Wichita Independent Business Association also surveyed its members, many of whom are small-business owners, on the issue. But Lon Smith, WIBA’s new president, was not eager to publicly discuss the results.

“I’m not inclined to really speak about that, to be honest with you,” Smith said. “We do those surveys on behalf of our members and use the information to represent them, not to take a public stance or to try to sway the public one way or the other on issues.”

The survey question on expansion generated a higher than usual response from members, Smith said, although he declined to provide the results.

However, others claiming to be familiar with the WIBA survey, who asked that their names not be used, said respondents favored expansion by a wide margin.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

GEARY COUNTY- One person was injured in an accident on Monday morning in Geary County.

A dump truck was hauling rock northbound, down a large hill on U.S. 77.

The driver attempted to make a turn onto Kansas 57 just northwest of Junction City, according to Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges.

The truck overturned onto a center protective barrier wall.

The driver was able to climb out of the truck and was transported to a local hospital for treatment of a knee injury according to Berges.

The driver’s name has not been released.

Crews were busy at noon working to clean up the large rocks that were in the truck and the truck was being moved.

Traffic on Kansas 57 into Junction City was tied up through early afternoon.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kari Bruffett, secretary of the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, has announced plans to resign at the end of the year.

Gov. Sam Brownback said Monday in a release that Bruffett’s resignation is effective Dec. 31.

Bruffett was named KDADS secretary in May 2014. She previously had been director of the Health Care Finance division of the state Department of Health and Environment.

Bruffett is leaving her position leading KDADS to join the Kansas Health Institute as director of policy.