By KYLE CRANE
KU Statehouse Wire Service

TOPEKA— University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little asked a House committee Wednesday to consider restoring at least some of the $13.5 million cut from KU’s budget last year. At least one legislator said the state’s tight budget would be an obstacle to restoring funds.

Testifying before the House Committee on Education Budget, Gray-Little said the university needs more state funding to achieve its mission.

“There are ways in which the cuts will keep us from meeting the aspirations that we have,” Gray-Little said. “And they also do damage in other ways that I think would be costly to the university.”

The Kansas Legislature approved a two-year budget plan last year that reduced state funding for higher education by $33 million. It resulted in cuts amounting to $5.3 million at KU’s Lawrence and Edwards campuses and $8.2 million at KU Medical Center.

Gray-Little said the university’s plans for moving forward will require more resources, especially investment in faculty.

“We can ask people to work harder, and they do, but ultimately everything requires resources,” Gray-Little said. “We can’t bring the number of faculty up to the level that we wish without additional funds.”

According to Gray-Little, since 2011 the university has made major efforts to reduce costs and increase efficiency as part of its Changing for Excellence project. Efforts include reorganizing the administrative staff to condense the amount of positions. Savings from these changes are being reinvested in teaching and research programs.

State Rep. Jerry Henry, D-Atchison, said the lack of state revenue leaves legislators with few options to restore funding for universities.

“The question the Legislature will have is, even if you want to fund it, can we continue to keep funding it if we don’t have the revenue stream,” Henry said.

Henry said that tuition increases are a major concern for legislators.

“You can see the pressures are coming from not only the budget, but it’s also coming from families at home saying it’s too expensive to go to school.”

In an effort to prevent tuition increases at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses, planned projects have been cancelled or postponed, such as undergraduate research funding and multicultural scholarships. According to Gray-Little, KU Medical Center tuition increased by 5 percent, which would have needed to increase by 12 percent to cover the State General Fund cuts. The cuts fell more heavily on KU Medical Center, which receives a larger portion of its revenue from state appropriations than tuition.

Restoration of funds and financial support from the Legislature is especially important to KU Medical Center. The university plans to construct a $75 million medical education building to replace its current facility, which Gray-Little has said is outdated. The Legislature hasn’t agreed to help cover the cost, though it has given KU permission to finance the project with bonds.

“Without a new medical education facility we won’t have an adequate place to train the physicians that we have, even if we don’t increase the number (of physicians).”

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A northeast Kansas man whose getaway vehicle was a city bus has pleaded guilty to robbing a bank.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 29-year-old Jamarr Dale faces up to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Thursday to one count of bank robbery.

The holdup occurred Jan. 2 at a Security Bank branch in Dale’s hometown of Kansas City, Kan.

Dale admitted handing a teller a note that said, “I need $3,000 or I will start shooting.” He left after the teller gave him a drawerful of cash.

Police received a call saying the robber had boarded a city bus outside a nearby WalMart. Officers boarded the bus within minutes and arrested Dale with what was described as a large amount of cash, but no gun.

WICHITA (AP) — A Kansas military boarding school embroiled in a lawsuit alleging widespread abuse of its cadets is asking a federal judge to keep any mention about prior arrests or criminal convictions of its employees away from jurors at next month’s trial.

The request comes amid 21 sealed motions filed on Wednesday by St. John’s Military School in Salina seeking to restrict evidence when trial begins March 4 in federal court in Kansas City, Kan.

The school also seeks to keep out of the trial a police report, findings by a state child welfare agency and certain testimony.

Four sealed motions also were filed by the ex-cadets seeking to exclude references about illicit drug use, their own “prior bad acts,” and references to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

By MIKE KRINGS
KU News Service

LAWRENCE — It’s nothing new for journalism students to take an internship while completing their degree. The University of Kansas’ William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications has put a unique twist on the tried-and-true program, putting students in the Statehouse to report on the legislative session while providing content to newspapers across the state.

The Statehouse Reporting class has sent journalism majors to Topeka to cover state government for three years. This year, however, the class has launched a wire service that provides news to more than a dozen newspapers across the state. The students report on new bills, committee hearings and the major legislative issues of the day, but they also specifically tailor their coverage to meet requests from newspaper editors across Kansas.

The class aims to give students real-world experience while giving back to the state.

“The long-term goal has always been to start a wire service that can feed content to newspapers throughout the state,” said Scott Reinardy, associate professor of journalism and instructor for the class. “We’re a state institution. We need to deliver services to the state, and we see this as one way to do that.”

The benefits for the students are myriad. In addition to seeing a legislative body in action, they learn how to put together timely news on deadline, obtain bylines in several newspapers and build a relationship with both editors and lawmakers. Reinardy said he hopes the program is of value to newspapers as well. In an age when newspaper budgets have tightened, many can’t afford to send a reporter to cover the Kansas Legislature or pay freelancers to cover specific issues of interest to their coverage area.

For more on the story, click HERE.

TOPEKA (AP) — A Kansas House committee is weighing a resolution urging Congress to resist following President Barack Obama’s plan for addressing climate change

Members of the House Energy and Environment Committee took nearly two hours of testimony Thursday about the measure. It declares that the federal goals for addressing climate change are based on false assumptions about the role of carbon dioxide and human activity. Supporters point to data suggesting warming is occurring naturally and human influence is overstated.

Environmentalists argue that the resolution is based on bad science and ignores data that emissions and humans are altering sea levels and weather patterns.

The resolution cites Obama’s 2013 plan that calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and encourages development of renewable forms of energy.

WICHITA (AP) — Wichita police have arrested a suspect in the killing of a communications company employee earlier this week.

KAKE-TV reported police arrested the suspect Wednesday night after receiving an anonymous tip in the death of 25-year-old Daniel Flores. His body was found early Monday at Steckline Communications.

Police say when they stopped the suspect’s car the driver stabbed himself in the stomach. He is currently under police watch at a Wichita hospital.

Lt. Todd Ojile says the suspect is an ex-boyfriend of someone who works at Steckline. He says Flores didn’t know the suspect and apparently was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ojile said that the suspect will be booked for felony murder when he’s released from the hospital. No other suspects are being sought.

Salina Post

SALINA — Memorial services for a Minneapolis coach and teacher will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at First Covenant Church in Salina.

Jeffery Giles, 50, died Tuesday in Wichita after becoming ill last weekend.

Giles was the head high school football coach, and junior and senior high head wrestling coach. He coached junior and senior high track at Minneapolis Junior-Senior High School.

Wilson Family Funeral Home, Minneapolis, is in charge of arrangements.