TOPEKA – Heating your home during the winter months can create a financial burden. In an effort to help keep Kansans warm this winter, the Kansas Department for Children and Families will soon begin accepting applications for its Low Income Energy Assistance Program.
“Although we’re experiencing a comfortable January week, winter has just begun,” DCF Secretary Phyllis Gilmore said. “The winter months can bring frigid temperatures and we want families to be able to escape the cold in the warmth of their homes.”
LIEAP provides an annual benefit to help qualifying households pay winter heating bills. Persons with disabilities, older adults and families with children are the primary groups assisted. In 2013, nearly 48,000 households received an average benefit of $489.
To qualify, applicants must be responsible for direct payment of their heating bills. Income eligibility requirements are set at 130 percent of the federal poverty level. The level of benefit varies according to household income, number of people living in the home, type of residence, type of heating fuel, and utility rates.
Applicants must demonstrate that they have made payments on their heating bill two out of the last three months. Those payments must be equal to or exceed $80 or the total balance due on their energy bills, whichever is less.
Applications for the program have been mailed to households that received energy assistance last year. LIEAP applications are also available at local DCF offices and through partnering agencies. They can be requested by calling (800) 432-0043. To apply online, visit www.dcf.ks.gov. More information is available HERE.
Applications will be accepted from Jan. 21 to March 31.
MANHATTAN – Wheat in Kansas that did not have snow cover during a cold snap the first week of January suffered some injury to its foliage, said Jim Shroyer, K-State Research and Extension wheat specialist.
Jim Shroyer, K-State Research and Extension wheat specialist
Leaf injury from cold weather while the wheat is dormant will not affect yields, however, since wheat begins new growth from the crown in the early spring, he said. The bigger question is whether temperatures were cold enough to injure the crown itself, which is typically about a half-inch deep in the soil. As long as the crown survives, the wheat will remain alive.
“Winter wheat can survive cold temperatures well as long as soil temperatures at the depth of the crown are not in the single digits for a prolonged period of time,” Shroyer said.
“Winter wheat typically has its highest level of winterhardiness in December and January,” he said. “Leaves on wheat exposed to very cold temperatures may turn brown and die back somewhat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the entire plant is dead. Soil temperature is a more important consideration than air temperature alone during the winter.”
In most cases so far, soil temperatures have not been cold enough to create concern for the wheat, Shroyer said. However, there are areas of concern, especially where soils are dry. For example, soil temperatures at the 2-inch depth reached 9 degrees on Jan. 5 at Scandia, in Republic County.
Will this cause some winterkill in those areas?
“It’s too soon to know, but the situation should be monitored – especially on terrace tops and north-facing slopes. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some damage to the wheat in parts of north central Kansas where soil temperatures were this low,” he said.
Producers shouldn’t necessarily be concerned if wheat remains brown this winter and doesn’t start greening up as daytime highs get into the 40s and 50s, Shroyer said. That’s not warm enough for wheat to start greening up.
To know if the wheat is still alive, producers could dig up some plants and bring them inside. After a week or so of warm conditions and water, wheat should begin greening up if it is alive, he said.
“Otherwise, producers can wait until spring greenup begins in the field. Areas of dead or dying wheat should be noticeable at that time,” the K-State agronomist said.
If plants are killed outright by cold temperatures, they won’t green up in the spring. But if they are only damaged, it might take them a while to die, Shroyer said.
“They will green up and then slowly go backwards and eventually die. There are enough nutrients in the crown to allow the plants to green up, but the winter injury causes vascular damage so that nutrients that are left cannot move, or root rot diseases move in and kill the plants. This slow death is probably the most common result of winter injury on wheat,” he said.
Direct cold injury is not the only source of winter injury. Under dry soil conditions, wheat plants may suffer from desiccation. This can kill or weaken plants, and is a more common problem than direct cold injury, he said.
TOPEKA — The first meeting of a new regulatory panel for health information exchange in Kansas is slated for Feb. 17, nine months after the previous regulatory body was dissolved by the Legislature.
KDHE Deputy Secretary Aaron Dunkel. Photo by Phil Cauthon, KHI
The KanHit Advisory Committee was mandated by the same 2013 statute that dissolved Kansas Health Information Exchange, Inc., a quasi-public board that crafted all of the policies currently regulating the transfer of digital patient records over networks.
Invitations were emailed Friday to the potential members of the 23-seat panel for the first meeting, which is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Curtis State Office Building, Room 530 (map). The meetings are open to the public and by law must be held at least four times per year, but could be more frequent.
KanHIT officials declined to identify those invited to join the panel until they have accepted, but said most former members of KHIE, Inc., were asked to participate.
“Almost all the folks who were still attending meetings towards the end are going to convert over, or at least have the opportunity to,” said Aaron Dunkel, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and chief of its KanHIT bureau, which has had regulatory authority since July.
Members of the panel are to include representatives of hospitals, doctors and other health professionals, public health departments, consumers, employers and insurance companies.
Jerry Slaughter, a former KHIE, Inc., board member and executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, said he intended to serve on the advisory committee, at least during the transition period.
He said he expected the committee would spend most of its time initially on formulating a policy regulating secondary data use.
“That is, what are the rules that are going to govern how this data is going to be protected or used to improve care and the like,” Slaughter said. “That’s a big issue and there are no real clear guideposts nationally. Everybody’s talking about that. So we’ll spend a fair amount of time, I think, trying to establish some guidelines on secondary use for this data: making sure that it’s protected properly and not used in a way that people who truly own the data — the patients — wouldn’t want.”
TOPEKA — Thirty-two first-year educators from around the state recently were named 2014 Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Award recipients recently, the Kansas State Department of Education announced Thursday.
The Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Awards are sponsored by the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Cable Telecommunications Association and recognize exemplary first-year educators.
Among the recipients from northwest and north-central Kansas are:
Megan Berry, Abilene High School, USD 435 Abilene
Katrina Goscha, McPherson High School, USD 418 McPherson
Valerie Harris, Central Elementary School, USD 352 Goodland
Robyn Myers, Roosevelt Elementary School, USD 418 McPherson
Anna Voth, Salina High School Central, USD 305 Salina
The Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Award program allows school districts in the state an opportunity to nominate one elementary and one secondary teacher for the award. To be eligible for the award, teachers must have successfully completed their first year of teaching and have performed in such a way as to distinguish themselves as outstanding. The program is a regional competition with four regions corresponding to the state’s U.S. Congressional districts. Four elementary and four secondary classroom teachers may be selected for the award from each region.
Recipients of the 2014 Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Award were notified of their selection by Dr. Diane DeBacker, Kansas commissioner of education.
“I want to extend my congratulations to the recipients of the Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Award,” DeBacker said. “These new educators have taken on the challenge of helping all of our students learn to their fullest potential, and I am heartened by the quality of individuals we bring to our classrooms each year. I commend each of the award recipients for their commitment to making a difference in the lives of their students.”
The 2014 Kansas Cable Telecommunications Horizon Award recipients will be recognized at a luncheon during the Kansas Exemplary Educators Network State Education Conference on Feb. 21.
OTTAWA (AP) — A judge has granted a request to close an evidentiary hearing in the case of an eastern Kansas man accused of killing three adults and a child in rural Ottawa last year.
Kyle Flack
Franklin County District Judge Thomas Sachse on Thursday granted the state’s motion to close the Feb. 13 hearing for Kyle T. Flack, who is charged with capital murder.
Attorneys for Flack did not object to the state’s request.
Flack is charged with capital murder, first-degree murder, rape and criminal possession of a firearm in the deaths last May Andrew Adam Stout, Steven Eugene White, Kaylie Kathleen Bailey, and Bailey’s 18-month-old daughter, Lana-Leigh.
Flack’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 11.
Registration is now open for the Rural Opportunities Conference, which will be April 9 and 10 in Dodge City. The deadline to register is April 2.
The Rural Opportunities Conference will highlight rural business and community development topics. General session speakers include:
Duane Goossen, vice president for Fiscal and Health Policy at the Kansas Health Institute, will provide an overview of data and options for financing local and state government.
Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office will present information about Kansas’ water supply and use and future water needs in the state.
Christy Hopkins and Liz Sosa, PowerUp liaisons, will discuss strategies to engage and connect younger rural residents within their communities.
Breakout sessions will discuss funding diversity and collaboration for community and entrepreneurial development; closing the workforce housing gap; the economic impact of water in Kansas; and attracting residents, workers and entrepreneurs to rural Kansas. A new breakout session will focus on topics proposed by conference attendees.
The Rural Opportunities Conference will be held April 9 and 10 at the Magouirk Conference Center, 4100 West Comanche, Dodge City, Kan. 67801. Registration and exhibits open at 9 a.m. April 9.
The cost to attend the conference is $75 per person and includes all sessions and meals.
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas legislators have heard debate on proposals to abolish the state’s death penalty law, hearing emotional pleas from families of murder victims not to reopen painful wounds from the past.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee also heard testimony Thursday from opponents to capital punishment who argued it is an inexact sentence that is costly for the state.
Kansas has had the death penalty since 1994 but has not carried out an execution since then. Currently, nine people are on death row.
State senators deadlocked 20-20 in 2010 over a similar death penalty bill.
A second bill to be considered shortens the appeals process in capital cases, limiting the time attorneys have to seek extensions from the court. Supporters say a defendant’s rights would be protected.
WICHITA (AP) — Federal election regulators face a court-imposed deadline this week to decide whether to modify the national voter registration form so Kansas and Arizona can fully enforce proof-of-citizenship requirements for their residents.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren has given the U.S. Election Assistance Commission until Friday to make a final decision. The judge has kept control of the lawsuit filed by Kansas and Arizona in anticipation of further court proceedings.
Elections commission spokesman Bryan Whitener said Thursday the matter is still under review.
The commission solicited public comments from Dec. 24 to Jan. 3 on requests by Kansas, Arizona and Georgia requiring the additional proof of citizenship.
If the commission does not respond by Friday’s deadline, Melgren said he would deem the request denied and proceed with the lawsuit.
MANHATTAN – Nationally recognized geoscientist Susan Brantley will present the 31st annual Roscoe Ellis Jr. Lectureship in Soil Science at 4 p.m. Feb. 5 at Kansas State University. The title of the lecture is “Water Resource Impacts During Unconventional Shale Gas Development with Hydrofracking: The Pennsylvania Experience.”
The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided before the lecture at 3:30 p.m. in the lobby of Throckmorton Hall.
Brantley is a distinguished professor of geosciences in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. She also is director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.
Her research has concentrated on understanding water chemistry at the surface of the earth and how water in the earth’s crust interacts with the rocks through which it flows. The research investigates the chemical, biological, and physical processes using field, laboratory, and theoretical modeling.
Brantley is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, Geochemical Society, European Association of Geochemistry, and International Association for GeoChemistry. She is a past president of the Geochemical Society and has served on the U.S. Department of Energy Council on Earth Science since 2009.
TOPEKA (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback is proposing minor funding changes in the current fiscal year, including restoration of salary cuts for state university employees imposed last year by Kansas legislators.
Details of the $6 billion budget are being shared Thursday with members of the House and Senate budget committees.
Interim budget director Jon Hummell describes the increases for higher education, veterans and public schools as targeted expenditures. They include a plan to fund all-day kindergarten at $16 million, restore more than $5 million in university salary cuts and give state classified employees a 1.5 percent wage increase.
Most of the budget was settled by legislators in 2013. The goal was to create two-year budgets for the current fiscal year, which began July 1, 2013, and the 2015 budget.
HUTCHINSON — A home was destroyed and a family pet killed in a fire Wednesday night east of Hutchinson.
The Hutchinson Fire Department responded just before 6:30 p.m. to the 500 block of North Kent Road to find the home ablaze, Hutch Post reported this morning.
The occupant told firefighters he was changing a fuel pump and using a propane heater in a garage when the fire started. He was able to get his family out of the home, although a dog was left in the home and later found dead.
Because the area does not have hydrants, water had to be hauled in to fight the fire.
The fire department expected to be on scene for several hours today to control hot spots, and the Red Cross was called to assist the family.
LAWRENCE (AP) — The Kansas Board of Regents has approved a proposal to build a $17.5 million apartment complex that will house basketball players at the University of Kansas.
The proposed apartments will house up to 66 university students, with nearly half being men’s and women’s basketball players. It is scheduled to open just south of Allen Fieldhouse for the 2016-17 school year.
Kansas officials say the Fieldhouse Apartments will be financed by private donations and bonds, which will be paid off through rent from the apartments. The state Legislature will have to authorize the bonds.
Each apartment will have a full kitchen, living and dining rooms, with lounges on each floor, two team meeting rooms, tutoring space and a multipurpose room. Construction is not scheduled to start for another year.
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback used his State of the State speech last night to repeat his call for statewide, all-day kindergarten and to throw a fresh rhetorical rebuke at the Kansas courts on school finance issues.
Gov. Sam Brownback delivering the State of the State message to the 2014 Legislature. Jeff Tuttle, courtesy of Kansas Leadership Center
“Too many decisions are made by unaccountable, opaque institutions,” Brownback said, deep into his 11-page speech. “Elected officials are sometimes complicit in this transference of power, because it removes them from accountability. So, let’s be clear. On the number one item in the state budget – education – the Constitution empowers the Legislature – the people’s representatives – to fund our schools.
“This is the people’s business done by the people’s house through the wonderfully untidy – but open for all to see – business of appropriations,” he said. “Let us resolve that our schools remain open and are not closed by the courts or anyone else.”
It was one of the speech’s 14 applause points, mostly cheered by the Republicans who dominate both the House and Senate.
At odds with the courts
Five of the state’s seven Supreme Court justices sat nearby but were frozen faced during the governor’s remarks.
Lawmakers have been keenly waiting to see what the court will decide in the case of Gannon vs State of Kansas, which claims that the state underfunds its public schools and uses an unequal formula that puts children in poor school districts at disadvantage to those from richer ones.
A three-judge lower court earlier found that the state was in violation of the Kansas Constitution’s education funding provisions and in their decision were critical of Brownback’s signature accomplishment since taking office as the governor – the largest income tax cut in state history, enacted by the 2012 Legislature.
The lower court said the tax cut’s passage appeared to them to be “in direct contravention of the spirit” of the Kansas law that states that school funding “shall be given first priority in the legislative budgeting process.”
The governor’s tax cuts virtually assure state revenues will drop over the next couple of years, leaving policymakers little or nothing to put into schools without a tax increase, even if a majority were inclined to spend the money.
Brownback’s references to the tax cuts earned some of the biggest applause of the evening, but afterwards they were roundly criticized anew by House Democratic Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence attorney who is running against Browback for governor. Davis said the governor’s tax policies have forced schools to lay off teachers and increase class sizes.
‘Strong message’
Together, the governor’s speech and Davis’ could have been taken for the opening salvo of the 2014 election season.
But some Republicans also said the governor’s tax policies were unpopular in their districts.
“What I’m hearing from my coffee-shop constituents is that the income-tax breaks were kind of ‘crazy,’ because the small businesses who got the breaks haven’t brought more jobs to Clay Center, they haven’t brought new machinery to Clay Center,” said Rep. Vern Swanson, whose district includes Clay Center and Fort Riley. “They may have helped some people pay a few bills or maybe let them save some money for a trip, but that’s about it. I’m hearing people say they don’t think the tax breaks were in the best interest of all Kansans.
“I’m all for cutting taxes, but I also understand the practicality of having enough money in the bank to fund the state budget,” he said. “I don’t think we can continue to cut. I think we have to find ways to make our government more efficient. But does that mean eliminating jobs and throwing people out of work? I don’t think so.”
Legislators said they thought there was little chance the justices could have missed the governor’s point on school finance.
“It was a strong message to the public and definitely a strong message to the court,” said House Speaker Pro-Tem Peggy Mast, an Emporia Republican.
If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court decision, the cost of complying could be $400 million or more and Brownback essentially told the justices they had no business determining how much the Legislature should spend on schools.
But a Brownback aide afterwards said the governor’s remarks were intended to signal to judges what they “should do” more than what they “could do” because it was doubtful the Republican-run Legislature would spend more on schools even if directed to do so by the court.
Few policy statements
Apart from those pointed remarks on the court’s role and the expansion of all-day kindergarten, the governor’s speech contained few policy statements. The largest part of the speech was spent framing his tenure in office as a success for Kansas.
“Simply put…the government is back in its proper place, serving the people,” Brownback said.
He said his budget would include money for a program meant “to bring doctors to rural Kansas,” but mentioned it in passing and provided no details.
The program referenced is the Rural Bridging Program, which repays student loans for doctors trained at the University of Kansas medical school who go on to rural practice. The program receives less than $1 million a year and an aide to the governor said the new money would allow for a modest increase but would be intended to pave the way for discussion of a bigger initiative in months to come.
There was no mention in the speech of a possible Medicaid expansion, which Kansas hospitals and consumer groups are pushing to get on the Legislature’s agenda this session despite continued GOP resistance to it.
Not an applause line
Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican from the party’s moderate wing, said she was disappointed Brownback didn’t mention Medicaid expansion. A physician, Bollier said she favors expansion but doesn’t expect the issue will gain traction without leadership from the governor.
“He knew he couldn’t get legislators to stand and applaud, so he left it out of the speech,” she said. “That is our federal money and we should be able to use it to care for our people.”
“We’ve got a lot of small hospitals out in Southwest Kansas,” said Rep. Bud Estes, a Dodge City Republican. ”We can’t afford to lose any of them. It’ll be a real challenge.”
Hospital officials say their bottom lines will be hurt if the state does not expand Medicaid, imperiling their ability to provide services.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would pick up the full cost of expansion coverage through 2016 and 90 percent after that. But conservative Republicans, including the governor, have said they doubt the federal government will keep the funding promise.
House Speaker Ray Merrick, a Stilwell Republican said again that nothing is likely to happen this session on Medicaid expansion unless the governor urges action.
“It’s his call to tell us that he needs something done on Medicaid,” Merrick said. “It’s our job (the Legislature’s) to decide what we’re going to do on Medicaid.”
Nor did the governor mention KanCare, his sweeping initiative launched Jan. 1, 2013 to “remake” the state’s Medicaid program. His administration is pushing to expand the program to include long-term supports for the developmentally disabled but still needs approval from the federal government to do that.
Asking forgiveness
The governor made a point of apologizing on behalf of all Kansans to Native Americans and blacks for the way they were treated earlier in the state’s history.
“I ask forgiveness for these wrongs we have done,” he said.
His concluding remarks could have come from a pulpit and some critical legislators described the speech as a sermon.
“Our dependence is not on big government,” Brownback said, “but on a big God that loves us and lives within us. Our future is bright. Our renaissance is assured if we move from dithering to action, if we listen to our own better angels and the still, small voice that calls us onward….which way to choose? We know the way. God wrote it in our hearts.”
“It was true Sam Brownback,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican. “It’s such an honor to serve with a pro-jobs, pro-growth governor after you’ve served with the (Kathleen) Sebelius administration that was pro big government.”
KHI staff writers Trevor Graff, Jim McLean and Dave Ranney contributed to this report.
