TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Highway Patrol says it will not change its policy on tattoos on troopers.
The agency released a statement Tuesday saying a more focused effort on recruiting and a salary scale adjustment have generated enough applicants for jobs without having to alter the policy.
In January the KHP conducted an unscientific survey to poll the public’s perceptions of tattoos in law enforcement The full survey results are here
The current policy prohibits tattoos that are visible on areas of a trooper’s body not covered by the uniform. Minor adjustments were made for consistency.
Further changes weren’t recommended by an internal committee studying the issue.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been charged in the death of former University of St. Mary basketball player Marcus Mondaine.
The Kansas City Star reports that 21-year-old Damon Hammons, of Grandview, faces second-degree murder and armed criminal action charges in the death of Mondaine. Hammons has not been apprehended.
Authorities said Mondaine had been dating Hammons ex-girlfriend. Mondaine was killed Saturday in Kansas City while he slept beside the woman’s 1-year-old daughter. Hammons is the child’s father.
Mondaine was finishing his final semester at the private liberal arts university in Leavenworth, Kansas. Before his last season ended this spring, he was twice named the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Defensive Player of the Week. He also played for State Fair Community College in Sedalia.
SALINE COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a burglary.
Police say between September 5th and September 29th someone cut a padlock off a storage unit in the 600 Block of South 2nd Street in Salina.
The suspect removed several antique items including a Walnut Pier mirror, a Walnut Parlor table, three oil lamps, a large round stain glass window with Oak frame, a box of Fiesta plates, antique mirrors, crystal prisms, amber crystal teardrops.
The loss is estimated at $9,614, according to police.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former Washburn University graduate assistant football coach who originally was charged with aggravated kidnapping and rape has pleaded guilty to reduced charges.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that 23-year-old Jesse Robert Bubke, of Topeka, admitted Tuesday to one count of battery and two counts of criminal restraint. Under the plea, he will serve 60 days in the Shawnee County Jail and be placed on probation for 10 months after that.
Senior assistant district attorney Dustin Curry told the judge he had discussed the proposed plea with the victim, who was in full agreement with it.
Police said the woman reported in March that she had been kidnapped from a bar, taken to Bubke’s home, assaulted and released. As a graduate assistant, Bubke has coached defensive backs.
Police on the scene of Wednesday’s shooting at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 5400 block of E. 21st. Street between Oliver and Woodlawn -photo courtesy KWCH
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say an 18-year-old man is dead after 20 to 30 rounds were fired at a car in northeast Wichita.
The shooting happened before 5 a.m. Wednesday in an apartment complex parking lot.
Wichita police Lt. Todd Ojile says officers found the victim inside the car. The Wichita man had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ojile says he had gone to the apartments to see someone but didn’t live at the complex. His name wasn’t immediately released, pending notification of his relatives.
Police are interviewing witnesses and urging anyone with information to come forward.
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WICHITA— Police say an 18-year-old is dead after a shooting in the parking lot of the Woodgate apartment complex in the 5400 Block of East 21st. Street in northeast Wichita, according to a social media report.
The shooting happened just after 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
No other details were immediately available, including the name of the victim.
Photo by Andy Marso/KHI News Service Shawn Sullivan, right, the governor’s budget director, says this year’s Kansas revenue projections would have been more accurate if the process incorporated recommendations released Tuesday. At left is Sam Williams, a retired accountant selected to lead the working group that made the recommendations.
BY ANDY MARSO
A working group appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback unveiled Tuesday a host of recommendations for changing the way Kansas officials estimate the amount of tax revenue the state will receive each year.
The recommendations include overhauling the group that makes the estimates and making a controversial change to the way monthly tax revenue is reported.
The governor’s office and the Legislature use the tax revenue estimates as a guide to the amount the can spend for all services, including education, health care and transportation.
The current process has been in place for decades. But state revenues have consistently failed to meet estimates since 2012, when Brownback and the Legislature approved significant income tax cuts and then followed with increases in other taxes in subsequent years.
Sam Williams, a retired accountant tapped to lead the working group, said the inability to adapt to the tax changes shows the revenue estimating process needs improvement.
“When there’s a significant tax policy change, the system breaks down, and that’s exactly what we’ve been through in the state of Kansas the last four years,” Williams said.
A consensus revenue estimating group makes tax revenue projections twice a year. The group includes representatives of the Division of the Budget, Kansas Department of Revenue and Kansas Legislative Research Department and one consulting economist each from the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University.
Williams’ group recommended eventually removing the current economists and putting out a bid for a single economist experienced in economic and revenue forecasting.
“The tools we have are not accurate,” Williams said. “The people we’re bringing to the table are not bringing, in our opinion, the expertise to the table we need to bring.”
Controversy over monthly reports
Williams’ group also recommended that revenue estimators:
Gather additional data from more diverse sources for the twice-annual revenue forecasting meetings, including macroeconomic reports and information from experts in industries important to Kansas, like agriculture.
Buy new computer software to form economic and revenue models.
Use statistical methods that focus less on past trends.
Restructure the Department of Revenue to increase expertise.
Estimate capital gains separately from individual income tax receipts.
Remove monthly projections from Department of Revenue reports and report only actual collections compared to the same month of the prior year.
The governor’s office can make those changes without legislative approval.
Democratic leaders immediately voiced concerns about the proposal to scrap the reports that compare actual collections to monthly projections.
Sen. Laura Kelly of Topeka, the top Democrat on the Senate budget committee, said that would make it more difficult for legislators to know if the state was on track to be able to fund its budget or if the budget needed to be adjusted.
Kelly said the monthly missed revenue targets have become a political embarrassment for Brownback.
“Clearly this is an effort to get that out of the news,” Kelly said. “Because it has been bad and will probably continue to be bad.”
The proposal to end the monthly comparisons comes on the heels of a decision by Brownback’s Council of Economic Advisors to scrap a quarterly report showing Kansas lagging in metrics the governor said should be used to evaluate his policies.
Williams said his group’s recommendations were not a response to the current economic or political environment. Instead, he said they were intended to better account for tax changes and economic trends like the drop in commodity prices and oil prices.
He said the proposals would make the twice-annual forecasts accurate enough that comparisons to monthly projections would become irrelevant.
Tax changes drive revenue uncertainty
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley said in a prepared statement that the current revenue estimating process had been in place since 1975, through eight administrations. It had been accurate, Hensley said, until Brownback and Republican legislators began overhauling the tax code.
Kelly likewise said the flood of tax changes since 2012 made inaccuracies in the revenue estimates inevitable.
“I don’t see how any of these recommendations are going to change that,” she said.
But Shawn Sullivan, the governor’s budget director, said this year’s projections would have been more accurate under Williams’ recommendations.
Sullivan said he already was working to implement some of the group’s recommendations, but the administration still was evaluating the proposal to change the monthly reports.
“This particular recommendation, we’ll have to discuss with the governor, the Legislature, with KLRD if we decide to implement it,” he said.
Sullivan said a decision on the monthly reports likely would be made later this year or early next year.
Williams’ group also recommended that the Legislature allow the executive branch to delay April revenue forecasts until May to sync better with state income tax deadlines and allow more input on the fiscal notes that legislators use to evaluate the effect of tax bills before voting on them.
Far more companies used the exemption than originally estimated, leading to questions about whether corporations were changing their structure to take advantage of it.
Williams said the work group found no evidence that was the case.
Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso
FAIRVIEW, Okla. (AP) — A 3.5 magnitude earthquake has rattled parts of northwestern Oklahoma.
No damage or injuries have been reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake was recorded at 10:02 a.m. Wednesday near Fairview which is 170 miles southeast of Dodge City.
The earthquake was recorded at a depth of about three miles.
Geologists say a magnitude 3 temblor was recorded earlier Wednesday near Mooreland, about 50 miles northwest of Fairview. That quake occurred at 8:46 a.m. and was recorded at a depth of about three miles.
An increase in magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes in Oklahoma has been linked to underground disposal of wastewater from oil and natural gas production. State regulators have ordered some wells to close.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Authorities say a man charged with murder in the slaying of a former Kansas State University football player outside a Cleveland hookah bar has been arrested.
U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott says officers arrested 27-year-old Jean Blevins during a traffic stop Tuesday in Cleveland. Court records don’t show an attorney for Blevins, who also is charged with manslaughter and assault.
Cleveland.com reports court records indicate Blevins is accused of disposing of a gun his brother used to fatally shoot 26-year-old David Garrett in October 2014. Authorities say Jean Blevins’ brother fired into a crowd after a fight, striking Garrett.
Barry Blevins pleaded guilty in August to involuntary manslaughter.
Kansas State’s website shows defensive back Garrett played at T.W. Harvey High School in Painesville before joining Kansas State’s team in 2009.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to life in prison in the shooting death of a Kansas bride as she left her reception in her wedding gown.
Thirty-nine-year-old Thomas Earl Brown Jr. of Topeka was sentenced Tuesday for premeditated first-degree murder in the May 2014 death of 42-year-old Tiffany Davenport-Ray and the attempted murder of her husband, Melvin Ray. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that under the sentence, he must serve at least 71 years and five months.
Prosecutors say shots were fired at the Topeka newlyweds from a sport utility vehicle in which Brown and two others were riding. Prosecutors say Melvin Ray returned fire but wasn’t wounded.
Co-defendant Awnterio Dwan Lowery has also been sentenced to life in prison. The third SUV occupant was later killed.
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County are investigating four suspects on drug, weapons and theft charges.
A Kansas Game Warden checking for Turkey hunter’s on opening day, October 1, came across four individuals shooting pistols on one of KDWP&T public hunting areas in Shawnee County, according to a social media report.
The warden called for backup from the Shawnee County sheriff’s department.
Further investigation revealed the group possessed two pistols, a sawed off shotgun, drugs and drug paraphernalia.
In addition one subject was a convicted felon and another was a parole absconder.
After an interviews at the Sheriff’s department, officers recovered a stolen truck.
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks reminded residents target shooting is only allowed at designated ranges on department properties.
FARMVILLE, Va. (AP) — Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine met last night in the only vice-presidential debate of the campaign. The faceoff took place at Virginia’s Longwood University. Rather than go after each other, the two men immediately took aim at the tops of their tickets. Kaine repeatedly challenged Pence to vouch for Donald Trump while Pence kept questioning Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness.
SEDGWICK COUNTY -Tuesday night’s storm brought high winds, large hail and heavy rain to central and eastern Kansas.
The National weather service reported 60 and 70 mile per hour wind gusts in many areas.
The winds uprooted trees, toppled power poles and hundreds of Westar customer lost power.
Some street flooding was reported in Sedgwick County.
USD 267 Andale cancelled school on Wednesday due to the power outage.
7:02pm…Impressive view of the supercell over northern Sedgwick county from our office skycam. This is a dangerous storm! Take cover! #kswxpic.twitter.com/F9G1lVOw8h
DICKINSON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Dickinson County are investigating a report of vandalism.
Sometime during the overnight hours of October 1, suspects caused extensive damage throughout Bicentennial Park in Abilene, according to a social media report from police.
Due to the damage, the restrooms located in the park will be closed through the winter.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Abilene Police Department at (785)263-1213 or Dickinson County Crime Stoppers at 1-888-5DK-TIPS. If your information helps lead to an arrest in this case, you may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.00 and remain completely anonymous.
