By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

Gov. Sam Brownback, poised to leave Kansas after a generation of dominating its politics, on Tuesday called for steep infusions of money into public schools — spurring fellow Republicans to accuse him of raising hopes with a “fairy tale.”

Brownback said the state can add $600 million over the next five years — without a tax hike.

The push to spend more comes in response to a Kansas Supreme Court order. In his State of the State address to lawmakers on Tuesday, the governor called for a change to the state constitution to keep the courts out of future education politics.

“We must,” Brownback said, “stop the never-ending cycle of litigation.”

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning called the idea of adding $600 million “personally insulting.”

He’s among staunch conservatives in the Kansas Legislature who — after a long and contentious session — ultimately parted ways with Brownback last June to hike taxes and plug a $900 million void in the state budget.

Denning said, even without more spending on schools, Kansas is on track toward a budget shortfall .

“This is reckless,” he said. “He’s given everybody a sense of false hope that he’s just solved the school issue.”

Brownback frustrated Denning and other Republicans last spring by fighting against any tax hikes. It tore at a relationship between legislative leaders and the governor that had already frayed in the years before. Ultimately, they revolted and scrounged the votes needed to override a Brownback veto.

Tuesday’s speech figures to be one of Brownback’s last high-profile moments as governor. President Donald Trump chose him as the next ambassador for religious freedom, a nomination re-entered this week and that could soon move him from Topeka.

“I have to question how this proposal is any more than a feel-good talking point on the governor’s way out the door,” said Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Republican who advocated for a five-year $750 million school funding increase last year but found no support from Brownback.

Brownback offered no hints Tuesday on where the money for his $600 million plan will come from. His administration’s budget proposal will emerge Wednesday.

Denning predicted the governor wants to divert even more money from the state’s depleted highway funding and from payments into its pension system, which already falls $8 billion short of what it will need to pay for state employee retirements.

House Speaker Ron Ryckman doubted Brownback’s tax hike-free school spending approach.

“I’m not seeing how that’s possible at this time without drastically hurting other core functions of government,” the Republican said.

Rep. Barbara Ballard, a Democrat, said Brownback’s vision for the state should have included expanding Medicaid to combat illness and poverty, shoring up the pension system and paving Kansas roads.

“We need to address the transportation issues,” she said. “Roads are not being maintained, bridges are not being maintained.”

Brownback’s eighth State of the State address found the chief executive sounding almost wistful and proud at times, extolling the state’s quail, its biking trails and its falling obesity rate.

Despite dismal popularity numbers at the close of his time in office, he described his years in Kansas politics as “a successful, long journey.”

Brownback also:

• Touted lower unemployment rates and the drop in child poverty from 19 percent to 14 percent over five years.

The Brownback administration draws a link between its welfare policies, increases in people working and decreases in childhood poverty, but that connection is a point of debate with advocacy groups.

• Praised the wind industry.

“I dream of a future Kansas exporting wind electricity across America,” he said.

Brownback opposed attempts in recent years by the fossil fuel industry to repeal incentives that led to a boom in wind energy production.

• Rattled off business and recreational facilities completed last year, such as a milk-drying plant in Garden City — largest in the country — and the 117-mile Flint Hills Nature Trail. And boasted of lower infant mortality.

• Said Kansas saw 17,000 fewer abortions in the past six years than it had in the previous six years.

“We must not go back now,” he said.

Brownback signed several anti-abortion laws during his tenure, including some of the most stringent restrictions in the country. Among them, a 2015 ban on certain second-trimester abortions.

• Threw his weight behind the Kansas State Board of Education’s goals to graduate significantly higher numbers of high school students and send them to colleges and tech schools.

A fine enough aspiration, said lobbyist Mark Tallman of the Kansas Association of School Boards. But he noted that that some of the targets haven’t been reached in any state — and that $600 million might not be enough to make them happen.

• Called for Kansas schools to pay teachers better than all its neighboring states. Currently pay is better than two of Kansas’ four neighbors. Educators have long called for higher pay, warning that parts of the state are experiencing teacher shortages.

• Spoke wistfully of his youth and decades-long career in Kansas. He recalled a Ford pick-up truck the then-eager politician-to-be drove, its “three-on-the-tree” manual transmission that shifted gears from a lever mounted on the steering column and the advent “traveling the back roads of Kansas.”

In the years since those days in the Future Farmers of America, he went to Congress and came back. He became governor, dramatically lowered taxes, saw the state budget slip into crisis, won re-election and watched his approval ratings circle the drain.

But in what was essentially his farewell to the legislature, Brownback spoke gratefully of the people he met and the changes he engineered.

“I have,” he said, “been blessed.”

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service,  You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Two members of law enforcement are facing charges in separate incidents.

Wichita Police Department (WPD) Officer Josh Price has been charged with two misdemeanors and one felony by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

The charges stem from his October 20 arrest by the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office for misdemeanor official misconduct and stalking, according to a media release. Price has been employed as a WPD police officer for 18 years. He was placed on administrative leave without pay Oct. 30, according to Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsey.

In addition to Price, Wichita Police Department Officer Jax Rutledge has been charged with one count of misdemeanor domestic battery and one count of misdemeanor criminal deprivation of property by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

The charges stem from an Oct. 9 incident while Rutledge was off-duty. The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office made the arrest for misdemeanor domestic violence battery and theft. Rutledge has been employed as a WPD police officer for nine years. She is on administrative leave without pay.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday night temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s decision to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted a request by California and other plaintiffs to prevent President Donald Trump from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program while their lawsuits play out in court.

Alsup said lawyers in favor of DACA clearly demonstrated that the young immigrants “were likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm” without court action. The judge also said the lawyers have a strong chance of succeeding at trial.

DACA has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. The program includes hundreds of thousands of college-age students.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in September that the program would be phased out, saying former President Barack Obama had exceeded his authority when he implemented it in 2012.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice said the judge’s decision doesn’t change the fact that the program was an illegal circumvention of Congress, and it is within the agency’s power to end it.

“The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position, and looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation,” department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement.

Sessions’ move to phase pout DACA sparked a flurry of lawsuits nationwide.

Alsup considered five separate lawsuits filed in Northern California, including one by the California and three other states, and another by the governing board of the University of California school system.

“DACA covers a class of immigrants whose presence, seemingly all agree, pose the least, if any, threat and allows them to sign up for honest labor on the condition of continued good behavior,” Alsup wrote in his decision. “This has become an important program for DACA recipients and their families, for the employers who hire them, for our tax treasuries, and for our economy.”

That echoed the judge’s comments from a court hearing on Dec. 20, when he grilled an attorney for the Department of Justice over the government’s justification for ending DACA, saying many people had come to rely on it and faced a “real” and “palpable” hardship from its loss.

Alsup also questioned whether the administration had conducted a thorough review before ending the program.

Brad Rosenberg, a Justice Department attorney, said the administration considered the effects of ending DACA and decided to phase it out over time instead of cutting it immediately.

DACA recipients will be allowed to stay in the U.S. for the remainder of their two-year authorizations. Any recipient whose status was due to expire within six months also got a month to apply for another two-year term.

The Justice Department said in court documents that DACA was facing the possibility of an abrupt end by court order, but Alsup was critical of that argument.

People took out loans, enrolled in school and even made decisions about whether to get married and start families on the basis of DACA and now face “horrific” consequences from the loss of the program, said Jeffrey Davidson, an attorney for the University of California governing board.

“The government considered none of this at all when they decided to rescind DACA,” he said at the hearing.

The University of California said in a statement after the decision that “UC’s DACA students represent the very best of our country and are a key part of California and our nation’s future.”

The statement says the UC system will persist in legal challenges to the end of the program and will seek permanent protection for the young immigrants.

DACA recipients are commonly referred to as “dreamers,” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act that would have provided similar protections for young immigrants.

“Dreamers lives were thrown into chaos when the Trump administration tried to terminate the DACA program without obeying the law,” California Attorney General Becerra said in a statement after Tuesday’s decision. “Tonight’s ruling is a huge step in the right direction.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking a bipartisan compromise to avoid a government shutdown, President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that an immigration deal could be reached in two phases — first by addressing young immigrants and border security with what he called a “bill of love,” then by making comprehensive changes that have long eluded Congress.

Trump held a lengthy meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Trump last year ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded more than 700,000 people from deportation and gave then the right to work legally in the country. He gave Congress until March to find a fix.

The president, congressional Republicans and Democrats expressed optimism for a deal just 10 days before a government shutdown deadline. Trump expressed a willingness to be flexible in finding an agreement.

“I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with,” Trump said during a Cabinet Room meeting with a bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers. A group of journalists observed the meandering meeting for an extraordinary length of time — about 55 minutes — that involved Trump seeking input from Democrats and Republicans alike in a freewheeling exchange on the contentious issue.

Trump at one point suggested bringing back “earmarks,” or money for pet projects requested by lawmakers, as a way to bring the two parties together and avoid divisions.

The president said he would insist on construction of a border security wall as part of an agreement involving young immigrants, but he said Congress could then pursue a comprehensive immigration overhaul in the second phase.

House Republicans said they planned to soon introduce legislation to address border security and the young immigrants. Trump said, “it should be a bill of love.”

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a robbery and asking the public for help to identify suspects.

Just before 7 p.m. Monday, police responded to the east parking of J.C. Penny at Town West Square in 4600 Block of West Kellogg in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

A 52-year-old woman told police as she was opening the door of her car a suspect’s vehicle pulled up next to her. The suspect reached out the passenger window and attempted to pull the purse from her shoulder. The victim said she did struggle to keep her purse but the suspect pulled it away. The driver then fled the scene.

While the victim’s husband was on the phone with credit card companies, it was learned the card was being used at a west Wichita gas station, according to Davidson.

The first suspect was described as a 6-foot tall black male with a clean beard. He was wearing a red DuPont jacket with black sleeves a red and grey stocking cap with a fuzzy ball on top. The second suspect was also a black male, approximately 6-foot tall with short dreadlocks. He wore a red sweater with Kansas printed on the front.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Wichita police.