SALINA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has found sufficient evidence for five young men to stand trial in the mistaken-identity shooting death of a Salina girl.
The Salina Journal reports that Andrew Woodring, Macio Palacio Jr., Stephen Gentry, Daniel Sims and Jerome Forbes were bound over for trial Wednesday.
Palacio admitted in a police interview to firing the bullet that killed 17-year-old Allie Saum in May. But Saline County Attorney Ellen Mitchell argued that all five men were equally responsible, even though two of the men claim they weren’t present.
Mitchell says all the men were in on a plan to commit aggravated battery. Saum was a passenger in a truck that police say some of the defendants mistakenly believed belonged to a person who had been in an earlier altercation with them.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A woman has been sentenced to 18 months of probation for a mass transfer of emails that include information about 317 patients.
The Wichita Eagle reports that 55-year-old April Galvan, of Mulvane, was sentenced Wednesday for seven counts of felony computer fraud. Galvan was fired in June 2013 from her job as the business manager for Cypress Surgery Center.
In anticipation of losing her job, she forwarded emails from her work computer to her personal email account. The breach was discovered in an audit soon afterward.
During trial, Galvan said she feared legal backlash from Cypress about an incident that involved fraudulent insurance billing. She says she forwarded the emails to her personal account to protect herself.
Galvan’s defense attorney says he plans to appeal.
TOPEKA – A Kansas teen was injured in an accident just after 10p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Dodge Caliber driven by Shelby L. Ratner, 19, Topeka, was eastbound on Interstate 70 nine miles west of Topeka.
The driver lost control, entered the median and struck a westbound semi.
The Caliber came to rest on its top in the westbound lanes. After coming to rest, it was struck by a second vehicle.
Ratner was transported to Stormont Vail. The semi driver from Missouri was not injured.
She was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 21-year-old man has been charged in the fatal shooting of a 66-year-old woman in Wichita.
Jacob Strouse made his first court appearance Wednesday and faces several charges including first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
According to authorities, Jacquelyn Harvey’s son found her dead on Sept. 16, when he was dropping off his son so Harvey could take him to school. Police say her purse and vehicle were stolen.
It was not immediately clear if Strouse has an attorney. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 7.
A 22-year-old woman is being sought by authorities in connection to the killing.
EL DORADO, Kan. (AP) — An El Dorado student has been arrested in connection to threats that were made against the school on social media.
According to El Dorado school district officials, a student was arrested Wednesday afternoon. El Dorado school superintendent Sue Givens said in a statement that the student is a minor, and the student’s name will not be released.
Authorities say the threat was made Monday, and the high school was locked down for about two hours. All rooms were searched before students were released on schedule.
Photo by Jim McLean Jeff Korsmo, CEO of Wichita-based Via Christi Health, spoke in support of Medicaid expansion in January before a legislative committee.
Kansas’ “failure” to expand Medicaid is putting health care providers in jeopardy, the head of the state’s largest health system said Wednesday. Jeff Korsmo, CEO of Wichita-based Via Christi Health, issued a statement calling on Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislative leaders to drop their opposition to expanding KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program.
“Kansas’ failure to expand its KanCare program has resulted in almost $14 million in annual lost revenue to Via Christi — nearly $28 million over the past two years,” Korsmo said in a statement. “This failure already has contributed to the pending closure of a hospital in Independence, Kansas, and has put many other health organizations in a precarious financial position.”
The Via Christi system includes four hospitals and a behavioral health center in Wichita as well as hospitals in Manhattan, Pittsburg and Wamego. Korsmo said the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act was intended to help offset planned reductions in Medicare reimbursements.
The state’s rejection of expansion has denied hospitals access to those offsetting revenues, he said. “Our financial pressures have been intensified because of the refusal of Gov. Sam Brownback and the Kansas State Legislature to approve expanding the KanCare Medicaid insurance program for the poor and vulnerable,” Korsmo said, adding that two months into the fiscal year Via Christi’s income is $3.3 million below budget projections.
Korsmo said Via Christi would take several steps to manage costs, including focusing on hiring critical clinical staff, moving employees in low-volume areas to other positions that serve more patients, reducing the number of management positions and halting discretionary spending for travel, education and meetings.
Via Christi has reduced its full-time employee count by more than 110 in the last year and a half, Korsmo said. “While difficult, these cost-reductions are necessary,” he said. “Financial challenges in health care are intensifying, so we must constantly be focused on controlling costs while also seeking opportunities for growth.”
Without expansion, Kansas hospitals stand to lose approximately $132 million in 2016 because of reimbursement reductions in Medicare and other federal programs, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. Expanding KanCare would not only offset those reductions, it would generate a net gain of nearly $100 million.
A coalition of hospitals and other expansion advocates have failed to gain traction on the issue in the Legislature. The House Health and Human Services Committee conducted a hearing on an expansion bill backed by KHA but didn’t vote on the proposal. Brownback reiterated his opposition to expansion in a recent speech to students at Hutchinson Community College. “I don’t think we have the resources to get it done,” he said, according to the Wichita Eagle.
Previously, the governor has said he won’t consider any expansion plan that isn’t budget neutral and that doesn’t include a work requirement for recipients. In addition, he has said, KanCare services must be extended to Kansans with disabilities now on waiting lists before providing them to more low-income but able-bodied adults.
However, there are some indications that the pending closure of the Independence hospital and evidence that other providers are under increasing financial pressure are softening the GOP opposition to expansion.
Senate Vice President Jeff King, a Republican from Independence, now says he’s willing to consider the kind of conservative, private-sector approach to expansion that some other red states are taking.
“I don’t want to expand Medicaid just copying the Affordable Care Act, but want to take the model that we’ve seen in Arkansas, seen in Indiana, that Pennsylvania attempted, to have a Kansas-based Medicaid program that expands to meet the needs of those it currently isn’t covering,” King said.
Arkansas used federal Medicaid money to purchase private coverage for more than 200,000 low-income residents. Indiana’s expansion plan required some participants to contribute to health savings accounts. A coalition of expansion advocates is planning to focus on these “red state plans” at an “educational meeting” for Kansas policymakers scheduled Nov. 3 at the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita. In addition to KHA and Via Christi, the coalition includes Wichita’s Wesley Medical Center, the University of Kansas Hospital, the Kansas City-based St Luke’s Health System and the Kansas Health Foundation. The health foundation is the primary funder of the Kansas Health Institute, the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service.
The hospital association has done several studies that show KanCare could be expanded at no additional cost to the state. The ACA requires the federal government to pay 100 percent of Medicaid expansion costs through 2016. After that, its share of cost goes down incrementally until it reaches a floor of 90 percent, with states paying the remainder. KanCare now covers about 425,000 low-income children and families and disabled and low-income elderly adults.
But that number includes relatively few non-disabled adults. Adults with dependent children are eligible for KanCare coverage only if they have incomes below 33 percent of the federal poverty level, annually $7,870 for a family of four.
Non-disabled adults without children aren’t eligible for KanCare regardless of income. Expansion would expand KanCare coverage to non-disabled, childless adults with incomes up to 138 percent of poverty: annually $16,105 for an individual and $32,913 for a family of four.
Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
MANHATTAN–Governor Sam Brownback recently proclaimed Sept. 24, 2015, as Kansas Teach Ag Day in recognition of the more than 13,000 Kansas students enrolled in agriculture education and the 210 educators in 179 schools teaching agriculture courses.
Kansas Teach Ag Day, in conjunction with National Teach Ag Day, celebrates agriculture teachers and encourages students to focus on the opportunities and potential of agriculture education as a highly rewarding and extremely valuable career choice. According to a study jointly conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Purdue University, between 2015 and 2020, it is projected that there will be nearly 58,000 average annual openings for graduates with expertise in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources or the environment, with a projected average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with degrees in those areas.
Agriculture education programs serve approximately one million students nationwide. Realistic, hands-on classroom experience, opportunity for membership and participation in the National FFA Organization, and supervised agriculture experiences help prepare high school students to pursue higher education and career opportunities in the high-demand agriculture-related fields.
“Pursuing agriculture education as a field of study and professional career is highly rewarding for both the teacher and students,” said Kurt Dillon in a news release. Dillon is the Kansas State Department of Education Agriculture Education Program Consultant and Kansas FFA Advisor. “We need and encourage passionate and dedicated teachers to prepare today’s youth to work in the highly technical and continually evolving agriculture industry.”
The Kansas Department of Agriculture advocates for and promotes the agriculture industry in Kansas in part by supporting education and training programs to help prepare and strengthen the agricultural workforce. Through agricultural education programs, Kansas students receive essential knowledge and skills that prepare them for future careers serving the state’s largest industry and economic driver.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An attorney for four Kansas judges says they will continue pursuing a lawsuit over the court system’s budget despite an order in another case protecting its funding.
Lawyer Pedro Irigonegaray questioned Wednesday whether a petition filed Tuesday by Attorney General Derek Schmidt in Neosho County District Court was flawed.
Schmidt successfully sought to block enforcement of a law dealing with the judiciary’s budget until March 15.
The law was enacted this year to preserve a change in how chief district court judges are selected. The law said if the change was overturned, the judiciary’s entire budget was nullified.
A Shawnee County judge last month struck down the selection-process change. The judges represented by Irigonegaray then filed their lawsuit against this year’s budget measure in Shawnee County.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas health care worker has been convicted of second-degree murder in the asphyxiation death of a disabled client.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports the Douglas County jury on Wednesday found 49-year-old Ronald Eugene Heskett guilty in the September 2014 death of 65-year-old Vance Moulton, who suffered from cerebral palsy.
The jury, which deliberated about four hours, could have found Heskett guilty of first-degree murder.
Heskett admitted he helped Moulton die by twisting a towel around his neck. But he said he did so after repeated requests from Moulton to help him die.
Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that Moulton was murdered. They contended during closing arguments that no evidence was presented to show Moulton was suicidal. They said Heskett killed Moulton for money.
First meeting of the Social Services Policy Council -photo office of the Governor
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback meets for the first time with members of a newly formed council that will make recommendations on how the state should approach poverty and other social issues.
The governor appointed the Social Services Policy Council in February to advise him on issues related to social service policies. Several state agency chiefs met Wednesday with council members at Sporting Park in Kansas City in a largely introductory session.
Several members listed concerns they have about issues such as prison recidivism, the chain of welfare from generation to generation and where money dedicated to providing social services is being spent.
The group is expected to meet at least twice a year. It will receive ongoing staff support from the Kansas Department for Children and Families.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The former recreation director for Osawatomie has admitted embezzling more than $125,000 from the city.
Federal prosecutors said in a news release that 53-year-old Ron Maring of Osawatomie pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of tax fraud and false statement, and one count of money laundering.
He admitted that he wrote checks on the Osawatomie Recreation Commission’s account to himself and to American Legion Baseball and used the money for personal expenses.
Maring said he persuaded recreation commission board members to sign blank checks, used his own signature as an endorsement and instructed a recreation commission employee to endorse checks.
He also failed to report the embezzled income on his 2010 federal tax return, which would have added $14,902 in taxes owed.
As the sporting world mourns Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, the Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark offers a closer look at the sometimes-veiled wisdom behind the “Yogi-isms.”
FORT RILEY -Juwuan D. Jackson, 18, who lives on the Fort Riley Army base, is charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter. The indictment alleges that on Sept. 11, 2015, he handled a firearm in a reckless manner resulting in the death of 16-year-old Kenyon Givens, who also lived on Fort Riley, according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom.
On September 16, federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court in Topeka on September 16, filed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Jackson in connection with a shooting death.
If convicted, Jackson faces a maximum penalty of eight years in federal prison. Army Criminal Investigations Division and the FBI investigated. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Graham and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Mattivi are prosecuting.
