LENEXA — After a request for assistance, the Lenexa Police Department reported they have identified a man suspected of taking photos or videos of women in a department store changing room.
Can you help us ID this man? He is suspected of taking pics/vids of women in a department store changing room in Lenexa. He left the scene in a black SUV, possibly an Audi. If you know who he is, please contact us at 913-825-8097 or send us a DM. pic.twitter.com/GrcADLjfxA
GLENWOOD, Iowa (AP) — The federal agency that manages dams along the Missouri River received stern criticism from several U.S. senators Wednesday during a hearing held in Iowa to examine the massive spring flooding this year that caused more than $3 billion in damage in the Midwest.
Wednesday hearing in Iowa on the Army Corps’ river management -photo courtesy Sen. Joni Ernst
The flooding and actions taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has been bitterly criticized in the wake of the flooding, are the focus of the U.S. Senate hearing. Critics have demanded that the agency make flood control its top priority, though Congress would have to act to change the Corps’ priorities.
Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said flooding shouldn’t be such a regular occurrence along the Missouri River, saying: “The trend of flood and rebuild, flood and rebuild must end.” Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand added that the Corps should be more aggressive in preventing flood damage and consider the effects of climate change.
“They are too slow, too bureaucratic and they don’t have enough money,” said Gillibrand, who is running for president and was in Iowa touring flood damage. She took part in the hearing because she serves on the committee that oversees the Corps.
The sentiments may be appealing in Midwestern states that have endured flooding along rivers that the Corps is charged with managing, but they may not be as popular with supporters of other approved uses of the river, such as protecting endangered species and navigation.
The Corps’ John Remus said the agency works to balance all the uses of the river and maximize the benefit to several when possible. But flood control is the main concern anytime flooding is imminent along the Missouri River.
“The number one priority of the Corps in its operations is life and public safety,” Remus said.
The Corps has also said that much of the water that caused the Midwest flooding in March came from rain and melting snow that flowed into the Missouri River downstream of all the dams it controls. At the same time massive amounts of water was filling the reservoirs and some had to be released.
Farmer Leo Ettleman said the Corps should have made significant changes to its operating manual after the historic 2011 floods, but neither the Corps nor Congress took action. Ettlemen said the kind of flooding the area saw this spring will continue unless changes are made.
“In the past eight years, Congress has done little or nothing except to offer prayers and thoughts, which are appreciated, but won’t fix the problem,” said Ettleman, who farms near Percival, Iowa, and joined a lawsuit against the Corps after the 2011 flood.
Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst farms near the Missouri River. He said the lessons from this year’s flooding should lead to changes about where levees are built and how the river is managed.
“When flood recovery is complete, we will have failed if every structure is the same as it was and if the management of the river has not changed,” Hurst said. “To do the same things and expect better results is the triumph of hope over experience.”
Mike Peluso, a longtime professional fisherman who runs an outdoors and guide service in North Dakota, said he doesn’t want to see management of the river “swayed one way or the other” for political reasons.
“They are more populated down south, I get that,” he said. “But it’s the same river regardless of whether or not you’ve got a million people or 100,000 people. It needs to be managed from the top down.”
He added, “I have a hard time believing with all the technology and brainpower we have we can’t find a balance there” between flood protection and other interests like recreation.
Greg Power, fisheries division chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, said he believes the Corps does “a pretty good job” of managing the Missouri River system.
“Flood control is still a high priority within the Corps, I know that,” Power said. “Some of these water years are pretty incredible themselves and I would hate to be a Corps person, to be honest.”
Rep. Sam Graves, whose district includes the northwestern Missouri area ravaged by flooding in March, introduced a bill this month that would remove fish and wildlife as an authorized management priority on the Missouri River and make flood control the highest priority. The bill would require revision of the Missouri River Master Manuel within 90 days of enactment.
“Time and again, we continue to see fish and birds take precedence over people and property when it comes to managing the Missouri River,” Graves, a Republican, said in a statement. “This latest round of flooding has devastated communities up and down the river. We already know that the management practices are contributing to it.”
Area politicians have said repeatedly since the flood that flood control should be the Corps’ top priority.
Robert Criss, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who has been studying flooding for more than two decades, said there may be a more important factor than how the Corps’ priorities are ranked.
The Missouri River has been made narrower over the years, Criss said, and the Corps has worked to maintain a defined channel for barge traffic even though few barges ever cross the river near Iowa and Nebraska.
“We’re having this problem because we messed with the rivers too much,” Criss said.
Diane Fay Mannering, the oldest child of Guy M. and Theda L. (Paulsen) Mannering was born April 25, 1937 in Smith Center, KS and died on Palm Sunday, April 14, 2019 at the age of 81.
Diane married Frank L. Arment on November 13, 1955. To this union were born four daughters; Susan (Andy) Heller, Kathy (Dennis) Beckmann, Amy (John) Timmons and Nancy (Johnny) Monroe.
Farming was in Diane’s blood. She began farming for her Dad and Bill Barry when she was still in school. She rode that red bellied Ford over many acres. When she married, the color of the tractor changed, but she kept farming. There were times that she left the kids playing on one end of the field while she ran the tractor.
Diane drove the trucks during harvest and she ran the silage cutter during silage harvest. Her love, however, was the cows. She worked out a system in the 1960s to track all of the cows and their calves (pre-computers) so she knew how many calves a cow had which sire was used and any other pertinent information about the cow and calf. She could tell you without looking which cow was related to another cow and how they were related. Diane loved the herd they built, especially with TC Ranch bulls. She could be seen at the auction elbowing Frank to keep bidding on a bull she wanted.
The Anchor A Farm that Frank and Diane built together was her pride and joy.
Diane had an inquiring mind. She could often be found with her head down looking for treasures. She found Native American pottery shards and arrow heads in fields and roads around the farm. She unearthed a young Mosasaurus skeleton and painstakingly pieced it together.
One thing Diane regretted was not attending college. Because of that, she attended night school and took a couple of courses from Kansas University. She proudly graduated with honors from Cloud County Community College with an Associate’s Degree. Physics was one of her favorite classes.
Diane attended Smith Center High School and was editor of the school newspaper. Later on she wrote the Reamsville column. Her wit made the column lively. She also wrote poetry and loved to recite poetry, often while digging musk thistles in the creek with a daughter. It made the time pass more pleasantly.
Wilma Grass taught Diane how to sew. Diane went on to sew numerous school wardrobes for her four daughters. She was a perfectionist and beautifully sewed four wedding gowns and the bridesmaid and mother-of-the bride dresses for four weddings as well as prom and other special occasion clothes.
Diane had a green thumb. She had a jungle of green in her home and in her younger years raised large gardens and canned, so she could feed her family. One of her favorite accomplishments, was the year she and a daughter had a huge garden together and canned 700 quarts of food.
Diane knew the Lord as her personal Savior and was baptized into the Christian Faith. She read her Bible daily. It was important to her that she raise her daughters to know Jesus as she did. She faithfully took them to the Reamsville church for worship, Sunday school and Vacation Bible School. Diane taught Sunday school and VBS. She also completed the Menninger Bible Class. In her Bible was found the phrase “Our children are our only possessions we can take to Heaven with us”.
Diane was proceeded in death by her husband, Frank and her parents.
Left to celebrate her life are her daughters Susan (Andy) Heller of Hunter, KS, Kathy (Dennis) Beckmann of Mankato, KS, Amy (John) Timmons of Smith Center, KS and Nancy (Johnny) of Smith Center, KS, fourteen grandchildren and 36 great grandchildren.
WASHINGTON, Kan. – Fort Hays State Women’s Basketball head coach Tony Hobson has been named the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association Women’s Four-Year College Coach of the Year for 2018-19. This is the first time Hobson has received the honor from the KBCA in his coaching tenure at FHSU.
Hobson guided Fort Hays State to its best record since joining NCAA Division II with a 32-2 mark in 2018-19. The Tigers set a new program best for fewest losses in the regular season, going 27-1 prior to the MIAA Tournament. The Tigers won the MIAA regular season with an 18-1 record, besting defending national champion Central Missouri by three games in the standings, then captured their first MIAA Tournament Championship. The Tigers became the first women’s team in the MIAA to capture both titles in a season since 2012. FHSU finished the year ranked No. 5 in the WBCA Division II Top 25 Poll, the highest finish in the poll in program history.
Fort Hays State claimed the No. 1 seed in the Central Regional of the NCAA Tournament, entering with a mark of 30-1. The Tigers defeated conference foe Pittsburg State in the regional quarterfinals, then Minnesota State-Moorhead in the semifinals, before falling in the regional final to eventual national runner-up Southwestern Oklahoma State. The regional final appearance was the second in five years for the Tigers, matching the progress of the 2014-15 squad that also reached the 30-win mark under Hobson, going 30-4 overall. It also matched the 2014-15 team for the deepest run in the NCAA Tournament in program history.
The Tigers have now enjoyed eight consecutive 20-win seasons under Hobson’s guidance, making four NCAA Tournament appearances in that span, all within the last five years. In his 27 years of coaching women’s basketball teams at the collegiate level, Hobson has put together eight 30-win seasons, which includes two at FHSU, five at Hastings (Neb.) College, and one at Barton (Kan.) Community College. All three of his NAIA national championship squads at Hastings College won at least 30 games in a season. He has reached the 20-win plateau in a season 21 times his 27 years as a coach, which helps add up to an astonishing 650-200 (.765) overall coaching record.
Hobson became the all-time wins leader in FHSU history during the 2018-19 season, passing Helen Miles’ record of 217 wins accomplished in 15 years from 1971-86. Hobson went past the mark in just his 11th season, now with a record of 237-94 guiding the Tigers. He also tops the all-time win percentage list for FHSU coaches now at .716, with the closest on the list at .665.
The consistent run of success for Hobson’s teams at Fort Hays State has strongly impacted attendance at home games inside Gross Memorial Coliseum. Official attendance reports for 2018-19 will not be released until the summer of 2019, but Fort Hays State has ranked second in the nation in average home attendance the previous four years. It will likely move to five years in a row when the official reports are released. However, this year Fort Hays State by far led cumulative attendance at home with more than 47,000 fans witnessing 19 home games, nearly 14,000 more than any other Division II school can claim. The attendance numbers were capped with an average of more than 4,000 fans witnessing the Tigers’ three NCAA Regional Tournament games at Gross Memorial Coliseum. More than 5,000 attended the Central Regional Final.
This Kansas Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year honor gives Hobson 17 Coach of the Year honors in his 27-year history as a collegiate head coach. This is his third Coach of the Year honor for 2018-19, also named MIAA Coach of the Year and WBCA Central Region Coach of the Year. He was also a finalist for WBCA Division II National Coach of the Year.
Kansas has dropped its effort to terminate Planned Parenthood’s participation in Medicaid, ending a three-year-long court battle that the state lost at every turn.
The change in policy wasn’t announced publicly but rather came in the form of a joint stipulation to dismiss Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging the state’s move.
The stipulation, which was filed in federal court on Friday, stated that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), which oversees the state Medicaid program, has notified Planned Parenthood of its decision to rescind the Medicaid terminations. The court approved the dismissal of the lawsuit on Monday morning.
Ashley All, a spokeswoman for Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, said the state’s decision to end the litigation came after multiple court rulings against the previous administration.
“To continue with this costly litigation would be unwise and out of step with the priorities of Kansas,” All said. “Gov. Kelly is focused on expanding healthcare options to women, not limiting them.”
Still up in the air is the extent to which Kansas will be required to reimburse Planned Parenthood for the legal fees it incurred. Both sides have requested an additional 60 days to resolve the matter. The legal fees are likely to amount to several hundred thousand dollars, if not more, since the case has been litigated for three years and gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We’re really pleased that this case has come to a resolution,” said Rachel Sweet, regional director of public policy and organizing for Planned Parenthood Great Plains in Overland Park, one of the two affiliates whose Medicaid funding Kansas sought to cut off.
“We believe that all Kansans deserve access to high-quality health care. and it shouldn’t matter where they live or how much money they make,” Sweet said. “If Medicaid is your insurance, you should be able to get the best care possible and we’re glad that this politically motivated fight is coming to a close.”
The legal saga dates to May 2016, when the administration of then-Gov. Sam Brownback notified Planned Parenthood Great Plains and the Planned Parenthood affiliate in St. Louis that it was terminating their Medicaid provider status.
Planned Parenthood Great Plains had several hundred Medicaid patients at the time – adults with monthly income of no more than $768 who were pregnant, disabled or parents. And though based in Missouri, Planned Parenthood in St. Louis operated a health center in Joplin, Missouri, near the Kansas state line, and served a small number of Kansas patients.
Both affiliates immediately sued KDHE, alleging the terminations were unlawful and based on spurious grounds. KDHE had cited the Overland Park’s alleged failure to cooperate with a solid waste disposal inspection and potentially fraudulent Medicaid claims submitted by the Planned Parenthood affiliates in Oklahoma and Texas as reasons for the terminations.
Planned Parenthood responded that it had cooperated with the solid waste disposal inspection, although it said it refused to allow inspectors to take photographs out of concern for patients and staff privacy and safety. And it said the affiliates in Oklahoma and Texas had no connection to the affiliates in Overland Park and St. Louis.
The move to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in Medicaid came not long after Brownback, in his State of the State address in January 2016, accused Planned Parenthood of trafficking in “baby body parts” and vowed to defund the organization.
Brownback made his remarks after anti-abortion activists in 2015 released a highly edited undercover video purporting to show that Planned Parenthood clinics illegally sold fetal tissue for profit.
A dozen states, including Kansas, launched investigations, but none of them – including Kansas – found evidence for the video’s claims. A Houston grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing and indicted two of the makers of the video instead; those charges were later dismissed.
The firm doesn’t come cheap. In the first three months after Kansas hired it, Consovoy billed Kansas more than $272,000, according to invoices obtained by KCUR under the Kansas Open Records Act. At that rate, assuming the firm continued to represent the state through last December, Kansas would have spent about $2.8 million in legal fees on the case.
Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.
Orville K. Anstaett, 87, died Monday, April 15, 2019 at Garden Valley Retirement Village in Garden City, Kansas. He was born June 9, 1931 in Springdale, Ohio the son of Lawrence & Marie (Blackburn) Anstaett.
Orville moved with his family to Garden City in 1950. He graduated from Holcomb High School in 1950. Orville served in the United States Air Force from September 3, 1952 to September 2, 1956 during the Korean War. After the service, he returned to Garden City and lived in Garden City until the early 2000’s when he moved to Ingalls. He has lived in Ingalls since. A lifetime farmer and stockman, Orville was a pilot where he enjoyed spending his time flying. He later worked as school bus driver for Ingalls schools. He was a member of the Cimarron United Methodist Church of Cimarron, served as a Lt. Col. In the Air Force Reserves, and served on the Ingalls City Commission.
Survivors include two brothers Jack & wife Nita Anstaett of Garden City, Kansas and Mike & wife Kay Anstaett of Goodland, Kansas; and many nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by his wife Frances who died in 2004. He is also preceded in death by his parents; two brothers Charles Anstaett and Byron “Pat” Anstaett; and two sisters Emily Gaines and Jean Gibbons.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 20, 2019 at the Cimarron United Methodist Church in Cimarron, Kansas with Pastor Mike Keating officiating. A graveside service will be held at 2:00 p.m. also on Saturday, April 20 at Valley View Cemetery in Garden City with military graveside rites conducted by the United States Air Force Honor Guard. Friends may call from 10:00 a.m. to service time at the Cimarron United Methodist Church. The family suggests memorials given to the Cimarron United Methodist Church in care of Garnand Funeral Home of Garden City.
DOUGLAS COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a stabbing and asking the public for help to locate a suspect.
Google map
Just after 6a.m. Wednesday, police responded to the 900 block of Essex Court in Lawrence for reports of a stabbing, according to a media release.
Responding officers made contact with the 28-year-old woman who had suffered multiple stab wounds, inside her residence.
The victim was transported via ambulance to an area trauma center with injuries that are reported to be possibly life threatening. Police have no suspect information available.
Anyone with information on this incident is asked to contact the Lawrence Police Department at (785) 832-7509, or Crime Stoppers of Lawrence and Douglas County at (785)843-TIPS. Tips to Crime Stoppers can be anonymous.
201 E. 12th St. in Hays, one of the Comeau properties foreclosed by Sunflower Bank.
All remaining employees at Plainville company laid off, attorney says
By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post
After foreclosure filings on multiple buildings owned by Chuck Comeau and his subsidiaries, his luxury furniture company Dessin Fournir and 11 of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 8.
The company’s offices have closed, and all of its employees have been laid off, including those in Plainville, according to Edward Nazar, the attorney handling the bankruptcy.
At its height, Dessin Fournir employed more than 90 people in Comeau’s hometown of Plainville.
Nazar said Comeau is seeking to find a third-party buyer for the multiple divisions of his company. In the meantime, a meeting of creditors is set to convene, Nazar said.
“It was a very successful business,” Nazar said, “which had a reversal of fortune in 2008, and it struggled for the last 10 years to overcome the reduction in revenue and was regretfully forced to file a bankruptcy.”
The furniture manufacturer was listed in court documents to have more than 200 creditors locally, nationally and even internationally with a total liability of more than $13 million. Some of its subsidiaries had other creditors, including companies in the trade.
Some of main company’s creditors include the IRS, the Kansas Department of Revenue, the Rooks County Treasurer, Assurance Partners in Salina, designer Holly Hunt and singer Lionel Richie, who had a customer deposit of more than $15,000 with the company.
Dessin Fournir assets were listed as $6.6 million, $3.8 million of that is in inventory. The assets also includes Plainville properties at 308 and 310 W. Mill, 223 W. Mill, 211 W. Mill and 111 N. Jefferson.
The company is listed as owing more than $8.9 million in secured debt to three local banks, including $952,000 to Astra Bank, $7.5 million to Bank of Hays and $420,000 to Sunflower Bank.
Bank of Hays and Sunflower Bank filed for foreclosure on Comeau properties last year.
On March 26, District Court Judge Blake Bittel in a summary judgement ordered Comeau’s companies and other loan guarantors to pay Sunflower Bank a total of more than $420,000.
The companies included Oak Street Plaining Mill, Classic Cloth, Dessin Fournir, DFC Holding, C.S. Post, Liberty Group, plus individuals Chuck Comeau, Shirley Comeau, Christopher Mraz, Lenice Larson and Palmer Hargrave.
Properties listed in the foreclosure included 201 E. 12th St. in Hays, and Plainville properties 108 N. Main, 211 1/2 Mill, 205 N. Main, 317 W. Mill, 211 W. Mill, 221 W. Mill.
If the money for the bank loan is not paid in full, the properties involved were ordered to be sold in a sheriff’s sale.
The Bank of Hays also had a loan on Rooks County property worth $7.5 million.
Judge Bittel ruled Sunflower Bank’s interest in the case took priority over Bank of Hays’ loan.
The Kansas Center for Entrepreneurship also had a mortgage on a portion of the Rooks County properties, but the agency disclaimed any interest in the real estate in the foreclosure.
DFC Holdings listed the property at 311 S. Washington in Plainville in its real property asset list in the bankruptcy filings on April 8.
Business Home in a story published April 10 said Chuck Comeau sent a letter to clients last week saying, “I failed to understand the ‘right-sizing’ for our company after the recession, and instead thought we should try to maintain jobs.”
A call to the Attorney Ashley Comeau, who is representing her in-laws was not returned. Attorney for Sunflower Bank, Aaron Martin, said he could not comment on ongoing litigation.
On Monday, Addy Tritt will be featured on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” A show spokeswoman said that while Tritt generously gives back to her community, she is actually in debt herself with student loan and even relies on family support to buy groceries.
Tritt, a Fort Hays State graduate, said she wanted to help others because so many people have helped her in the past. When the price at a Hays store dropped to $1 per pair, Tritt negotiated with the business to buy the remaining shoes for $100.
They included 162 pairs of baby shoes, two pairs of men’s shoes, and the rest were women’s shoes.The retail price of the shoes would have been more than $6,000.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A Hutchinson farm implement dealer has been sold along with the company’s four other locations.
KanEquip announced Wednesday that it has acquired Straub International. Straub also has locations in Pratt, Wichita, Salina and Great Bend. With this agreement Case IH authorizes KanEquip to assume responsibility for these markets.
“Straub International has been a reputable supplier in central Kansas for several years.” stated Craig Goff, General Manager, KanEquip. “We are extremely happy to have the Straub employees join our team and to continue and enhance the customer experience they have driven.
Expanding the KanEquip Case IH footprint into central Kansas will be beneficial for all stakeholders: KanEquip, Case IH, Straub’s employees, and our new customers.
Larry Straub, CEO of Straub International, noted that they are excited to pass on their legacy as well as the care and support of their customers to the KanEquip organization.
He stated, “While we remain excited about the prospects for agriculture, we feel this is a very good time for us to move aside with recent industry changes and developments. It was very important for us that we transitioned our operations to a quality organization with a past history of success and a proven track record.
We are confident this will be a good transition for our employees, suppliers and customers. We would like to thank everyone that has supported the Straub organization(s) for the past 50 years and we hope you will give your full support to KanEquip moving forward.”
DCF Secretary Laura Howard speaks to the media Tuesday during a stop in Hays.
By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post
Kansas Department for Children and Families Secretary Laura Howard remains focused on agency process, despite recent criticism from child welfare advocates who are pushing for more rapid reform in the agency.
Howard made a stop Tuesday morning at the Hays DCF office.
One of the recommendations from the Child Welfare Task Force was to increase recruiting for foster families.
“Placement stability is one of our top priorities as an agency as we come on board with a new administration,” Howard said. “There is no doubt that kids have been placed too far from home, and they move around too often. We are doing a number of things in that regard.”
The agency has new foster care management contracts starting, and the agency will have individual contracts with child placing agencies. Additional funds will also be available for foster family recruitment.
The agency is starting a practice called Team Decision Making, where the agency is able to bring more resources to the table for kids and bring other people who have connections to the child into the process.
“What the evidence tells when we do that from other jurisdictions that use this model is that children are more likely be placed with a relative and be placed in their home community, and they also reach permanency more quickly,” Howard said.
The new contracts begin Oct. 1. The Team Decision Making model will be phased in over the next 12 to 18 months and will be launched in the Kansas City area.
Kansas has 7,300 children in the foster care program, which is high compared to other similar states. The agency is looking at prevention programs to help children and families, so children do not have to be removed from their homes.
These can include parent training, early childhood services, Parents as Teachers and mental health services.
DCF also will be using the federal Families First program, which will bring federal funds into the state that can be matched with state funds.
“Part of my goal is to reduce the number of youth we have in foster care,” Howard said. “Our system has a lot of strain today, but as we are successful in diverting children safely on the front end to preventive services, we will have less demand than we have today as we have fewer kids actually in the foster care system.”
She said Kansas initially saw more children coming into foster care during the recession. Other states saw their numbers decrease as the economy recovered. Kansas has not.
“I attribute it to a couple of things. I can’t prove these things, but I at least see a correlation between policy changes that were made about safety net programs in Kansas,” she said, “and there were policy changes made in Kansas in the last few years to reduce eligibility for the TANF cash assistance program down to a two-year lifetime limit. There were other changes made to really limit family access to cash assistance, to child care assistance.”
The governor has recommended an additional 52 workers per the recommendation of the task force. Twenty-six workers would be added this year and 26 next year. These would primarily be social workers in field offices. The Legislature is close to approval of at least the first round of these new employees.
The agency is also trying to take advantage of social work practicum students and is working to reduce requirements for social workers coming from other states to work in Kansas.
Task force members said in a recent letter they have “deep concern” lawmakers have only made minimal progress and have made no progress on most recommendations, according to the Associated Press.
The agency has also been criticized in recent years for several high-profile deaths of children after DCF became involved with the families. In the latest case in Wichita, a 3-year-old boy was found dead in his crib and a 4-month-old boy was removed from the home and hospitalized in critical condition.
Howard said she could not comment on that case specifically, but said DCF is investigating.
Howard said some reforms will need to be enacted by the Legislature, but other actions can be done internally within DCF.
She said the task force’s tier one recommendations are being met, including new staff, aggressively pursuing Families First, $13 million in new funding (half federal, half state funding) and improvements in the agency’s information systems.
“I am actually really pleased that the governor and the Legislature have prioritized those tier one recommendations,” she said. “There are more recommendations, but many of those recommendations we are already making progress on administratively.”
DCF is working with the state’s managed care organizations that control Medicaid to help youth in foster care more timely access health care, health care screenings and mental health care.
“It is important to understand that some things require legislation. Some things require new funding. Some things just require us to change how we do our business or practice and our practice models,” she said.
Howard said she has walked into some agencies that do not have the resources they need, but she said she was pleased in the progress that has been made in the last 100 days.
“What I would say is that agencies have really been hollowed out over the last few years based on the state’s challenge with financial resources,” she said. “I have agencies that don’t have enough staff, and they don’t have enough resources. We won’t get out of that overnight. It is going to take some time to dig out of that.”
COWLEY COUNTY — A Kansas woman injured in a mower accident is recovering in a Wichita hospital.
Photo courtesy Eagle Med
Just before 1:30p.m. Sunday, sheriff’s deputies and Winfield EMS were dispatched to the 4000 block of 307th Road in Cowley County for the report of a woman trapped under a tractor-mower, according to Sheriff Dave Falletti.
When first responders arrived the woman later identified as 59-year-old Virginia Emmons had been freed from under a large mower and CPR was started. Eagle Med transported her to Wesley Hospital in Wichita.
The investigation has so far revealed that the mower had become stuck in the mud and another individual used a truck with a chain to pull the mower out.
At some point the mower flipped and Emmons became pinned under it. The sheriff released no update on her condition Wednesday morning.
Kansas has dropped its effort to terminate Planned Parenthood’s participation in Medicaid, ending a three-year-long court battle that the state lost at every turn.
