SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating an attack on an officer at the jail.

Just before 6p.m. on Tuesday an inmate threw orange juice on a corrections officer and his radio, while being served a meal, according to Salina Police Lt. Mike Smith.

Just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon four corrections officers were in the process of moving an inmate to another cell for discipline reasons.

Before the inmate could be handcuffed, he threw a cup of urine on the officers, hitting them in the face and their uniforms.

The inmates face felony charges of battery of a corrections officer.

The names of the inmates and the corrections officers were not released.

By Minami Levonowich

KU Statehouse Wire

TOPEKA – Legislators are debating a bill that would abolish the solid waste grants advisory committee, the group that specializes in clean up of tire stockpiles and market development for recycled tires. And lawmakers are talking about a reduction in the tax on tires.

Lawmakers want to eliminate the waste tire grant program, which has provided economic and safety benefits to Kansas residents, such as safe, clean playgrounds and parks. Lawmakers also are discussing a reduction in the tax on new tires, from 25 cents to 15 cents per tire.

Opponents say the bill could negatively impact public safety and create future economic burdens, such as damaging property values if clean-ups are not fully funded. However, proponents say it’s time to let private industry manage tire recycling.

Gary Mason, deputy secretary for environment at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), told the House Energy and Environment Committee on Monday that removing the funding for used tire recycling grants will not harm the state. The U.S. market has improved its management of waste tires, he said.

Before 1980, many states, including Kansas, encountered a problem with improper handling of discarded tires. Rubber scraps were left in ditches, ravines, creek beds, farmlands, and the tire fire piles. Tire dumps are not as prevalent today, Mason said, and several tire recycling businesses in Kansas are devoted to managing waste tires.

Over the years, KDHE initiated and helped make many grant programs a success, but once each program’s goals were achieved, KDHE closed the program.

“We funded the (programs) heavily in the early years to get that momentum going … and now those grants essentially don’t exist. We did the same with many of the recycling grants on solid waste recycling landfills to where those are down to very little opportunities now,” Mason said. “That’s just what our trend is. . . . We try to move the bar. Once we move it, we kind of back out of the program and let the private sectors and others pick it up.”

KDHE disposed of more than 11 million tires from 1993 to 2001. In the last eight years, the agency has noted a 99 percent reduction in the amount of tires collected each year.

The 25-cent tire tax generates approximately $712,000 per year in revenue, Mason said. Those revenues funded 50 percent of grant program’s administration costs, as well as the cost of waste tire removals.

Opponents argued that removing the waste tire grant program, which encourage the purchase of recycled tire products, will reduce benefits to schools and local governments. Also, it will harm the state’s ability to recycle abandoned tires and discourage the growth of local industries, they said.

Justin Glasgow, owner of Performance Tire and Wheel in Topeka and board member of the Mid-America Tire Dealers Association (MATDA), told the committee that taking away a program that is user-generated and self-funded and that shares money with schools and other facilities is a mistake, especially since consumers don’t dispute paying the small tax after spending more than $100 on a tire.

Gary Champlin, general manager of Champlin Tire Recycling, Inc., in Concordia and national secretary/treasurer at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, said that Kansas already has the lowest tax in the nation for the purchase of new tires.

Spencer Duncan, executive director of the Kansas Organization of Recyclers (KOR), said that the waste tire grants allowed private and public entities such as schools, churches, and parks to provide safe and clean surfaces for citizens. Despite KOR’s good relations with KDHE, Duncan disagrees with them on this issue.

“They’re telling you this has been such a successful program, it’s time for it to go away,” Duncan said. “We’re arguing that it’s such a successful program, you should be trumpeting from the mountaintops about what a great thing this has been for such a low fee.”

KDHE stated in the Scrap Tire News in January that the tire recycling grant program “ended” even though the statute required it to continue. Democratic Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, said he was “interested in fixing the blame” on KDHE and wanted to know who was responsible for suspending this program without speaking with legislators. Mason admitted there was miscommunication within the agency.

“The (KDHE) website says ‘suspended,’ this (publication) says ‘ends.’ We’ve got some internal communication issues, and I’ll take full blame for it,” Mason said. “I don’t think that (miscommunication) was the intent, but we obviously have a law that we have to abide by and we intend on doing that.”

Edited by Madeline Mikinski

SALINA – One person was injured in an accident just before 7a.m. on Friday in Saline County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Toyota passenger vehicle driven by Ian Ray Thompson, 25, Platteville, CO., was eastbound on Interstate 70 at extremely high speeds.

The driver lost control of the vehicle. It entered the grassy area between the Interstate and the Exit ramp for Ohio Street and rolled.

Thompson was transported to Salina Regional Health Center.

He was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Officials are trying to hammer out a deal to address competing water needs of south-central Kansas irrigators and a national wildlife refuge that’s lost considerable water to them.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, has been asking Kansas for years to address the fact that hundreds of area farmers have been using water for irrigation that the refuge has prevailing rights to use.

An area water manager says reducing access for farmers who are already dealing with limited water raises considerable concern about the economic impact on families and communities.

Federal, state and local stakeholders say they’re hopeful a solution can be reached that would work for the refuge and irrigators.

by MEGAN HART

A bill originally promoted as preventing lottery winners from claiming public assistance would now also cut off households that have received cash assistance for more than two years.

Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, confirmed that the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee had amended Senate Bill 372 to lower the lifetime Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) limit from 36 months to 24 months.

Theresa Freed, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said approximately 424 households would be affected if the 24-month limit is adopted this year. The bill has passed out of committee but has yet to be scheduled for a hearing before the full Senate.

The Hope, Opportunity and Prosperity for Everyone (HOPE) Act, passed in April 2015, lowered the lifetime limit from 48 months to 36 months. About 200 families that hit the new limit received their last check from the TANF program in January.

Federal law allows for up to 60 months of TANF payments, though states can fund additional time from their own money. In recent years, however, states have tended to move in the opposite direction, with Arizona instituting the lowest limit in the country in July, capping assistance at 12 months. Missouri has a 45-month limit.

In January, 5,370 Kansas households received cash assistance through TANF. Those households included 3,039 adults and 9,450 children. Removing the 424 families affected by the 24-month limit would reduce the caseload by about 8 percent.

The bill also would limit people who received a “TANF diversion payment,” a one-time case payment meant for an emergency, to 30 months of payments if they eventually did need to receive TANF. The current limit is 42 months. Diversions aren’t common, with cases numbering in the single digits in recent years. None would be affected at this point by shortening the time limit, Freed said.

Employment elements

The bill also requires food assistance recipients to accept a “suitable employment offer” and would forbid them from quitting a job where they were working at least 30 hours per week. The penalty for not complying is a three-month ban from food assistance for the first offense, a six-month ban for the second offense and a one-year ban for any subsequent offenses.

Joseph Mastrosimone, an associate professor of law at Washburn University who specializes in employment law, said banning a person from “voluntarily” quitting doesn’t mean the person could never leave a job, if the bill uses the same standard used in unemployment claims. For example, a person can’t receive unemployment if he or she leaves voluntarily, but there are exemptions, such as if that person is being sexually harassed in the workplace or if the company relocates, he said.

“I would think they wouldn’t be voluntary for the purposes of benefits,” he said.

Mastrosimone said the language likely wouldn’t run afoul of federal labor law. Most provisions have to do with preventing unjust firings rather than determining whether people can be prevented from quitting, he said.

“There’s no provision of federal law that says you can’t restrict somebody’s ability to quit their job,” he said.

Other requirements

The bill also states that any individual who doesn’t cooperate with a fraud investigation would be ineligible to receive TANF or child care subsidies until he or she cooperated. Currently, there are no penalties for not cooperating with fraud investigations, Freed said.

In addition, the bill would direct DCF to monitor benefit card requests for signs of fraud and authorize the state to collect any assistance that is improperly conveyed to another person. If a person requested a replacement card four times in a year, he or she would be notified the account was being monitored, and the department would investigate possible fraud if the person requested a fifth card. DCF and the contractor in charge of benefit cards already monitor replacements, Freed said.

Another provision would require DCF to verify the identity of all adults living in a household applying for benefits and to cross-check with the Kansas Lottery Commission to determine if any benefit recipients have won $10,000 or more, which could make a household ineligible for assistance. Current policy is to verify the identity of the applicant and only check on other adults in the household if they seem “questionable,” Freed said. The state currently doesn’t cross-check lottery winners.

The bill’s fiscal note hadn’t been updated to reflect the lower time limit for TANF. The Budget Office estimated the bill as it was originally written would cost the state general fund about $157,343 in fiscal year 2017.

Megan Hart is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach her on Twitter @meganhartMC