ALLEN, Kan. (AP) — An eastern Kansas school district has fired a bus driver following his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

KWCH-TV reports the 57-year-old man was arrested Monday afternoon after pulling up to Northern Heights High School in Allen, about 20 miles north of Emporia.

An employee of the North Lyon County School District notified the sheriff’s office that a driver appeared to be driving under the influence. No students were on the bus.

The North Lyon County superintendent said the driver had worked for the district for eight years without any previous problems.

The sheriff’s office declined to comment about the driver’s blood-alcohol level. Charges were pending Tuesday.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says he will create an independent commission to study issues that have surfaced since the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

The group will examine the social and economic conditions underscored by the unrest in the St. Louis suburb since a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed the unarmed, black 18-year-old on Aug. 9.

Nixon outlined his plan for the commission Tuesday at St. Louis Community College’s Florissant Valley campus. Members of the commission, which is through an executive order, will be announced next month.

Besides the study of conditions that led to the unrest, the group is also to come up with recommendations for making the St. Louis region a fairer place to live.

 

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FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon will be in Ferguson Tuesday to announce an effort that seeks to address issues raised in the wake of the death of Michael Brown.

The Democratic governor and local elected officials, police, civil rights leaders and others will reveal the plan during a 1 p.m. news conference at St. Louis Community College’s Florissant Valley campus. So far, there is no word about specific topics to be addressed.

Brown, 18 and black, was shot and killed on Aug. 9 by a white Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. Weeks of unrest have followed in the St. Louis County town. A state grand jury is deciding whether Wilson should face criminal charges. That decision is expected by mid-November.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Retiring Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger grew up in a Republican family and won’t drop her GOP affiliation even after the party moved well to her right.

But Praeger is breaking with the GOP by publicly opposing the re-election of Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and Gov. Sam Brownback.

She’s also endorsed Democrat Dennis Anderson for insurance commissioner.

Praeger said Tuesday that she’s backing Democrat Paul Davis in the governor’s race and independent candidate Greg Orman in the U.S. Senate race because she wants to move the GOP back toward the center.

She’s finishing her third, four-year term as insurance commissioner after deciding not to seek re-election this year. She turned 70 on Tuesday.

Kansas GOP Executive Director Clay Barker doubts her endorsements will carry much weight.

By Dave Ranney

Parents of adult children with developmental disabilities say state officials are breaking a pledge made during negotiations last year that led legislators to include Medicaid-funded home- and community-based services for the developmentally disabled in the state’s KanCare program.

“I have one thing I want to say to the (Kansas) Department for Aging and Disability Services: ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’” said Susan Jarsulic, whose 35-year-old daughter, Jayne, has severe physical and developmental disabilities.

Jarsulic and others are upset over reports that a “health home” initiative recently announced by KDADS includes language that encourages – but stops short of requiring – KanCare companies to let developmentally disabled Kansans keep their current case managers if they so choose.

During several hearings last year, state officials promised families that if KanCare were to take over management of services for the developmentally disabled, beneficiaries’ families would be allowed to keep their case managers, who would help them navigate the new system. Legislators, in turn, agreed to the so-called KanCare “carve in.”

Case managers play a key role in assessing beneficiaries’ needs, determining which services they need to continue living in community-based settings, arranging for those services and making sure they’re provided.

“My daughter’s case manager has been with her for 18 years now,” Jarsulic said. “She’s wonderful. She knows Jayne, she knows the system and she really knows how to get things done.”

Under the KDADS health home initiative, KanCare health care providers – a group that includes physicians, safety-net clinics, mental health centers and home health agencies – are eligible for additional funding for integrating primary and behavioral health care with services designed to help people live in community-based settings rather than institutional care. A health home is not a place but a concept of care delivery built on close coordination among a patient’s medical providers so that health crises can be prevented or reduced.

The plan, Jarsulic said, included language that encouraged but did not require health home providers to allow beneficiaries to keep their case managers.

The change created a loophole that could lead to some families losing their case managers, she said, undercutting their abilities to advocate for their loved ones.

“Let’s be honest about this,” Jarsulic said. “This is just a back-door way of getting rid of the case managers that we’ve come to know and trust, and letting the managed care companies do whatever they want to do.”

Jarsulic, who lives in Shawnee and runs a Lenexa-based activity program for 10 severely disabled adults, is active in Provider Advocate Coalition of Kansas (PACK), a group that organized a town hall-style meeting here last week that included nearly 200 parents, case workers, service providers, and KDADS Secretary Kari Bruffett.

Bruffett assured the audience that KDADS is in full support of families keeping their case managers.

The decision to encourage rather than require the arrangement, she said, was driven in large part by federal policies that consider case management to be a service that a health home would provide.

“CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) does not allow us to bill for both kinds of services,” Bruffett said, adding that the two services – health home coordination and case management – are considered duplicative.

But there is nothing to stop a health home provider from subcontracting with a beneficiary’s case manager on its own, she said.

And, Bruffett said, anyone who’s assigned to a KanCare health home that doesn’t allow them to keep their case manager can switch to a health home that does or opt out of health homes altogether.

“You don’t have to be in a health home,” Bruffett said. “We’d like you to be in one, but you don’t have to be in one.”

Those who opt out of their health homes, she said, will be allowed to keep their case managers.

It’s not yet known how many providers of health homes intend to contract with enrollees’ case managers.

Marilyn Kubler, a PACK facilitator, said the group is not yet aware of any families losing their case managers.

“We’ll know more in November, which is when the health homes (for the mentally ill) really get started,” she said. “But right now, no, we’re not aware of anybody being told they don’t get to keep their case managers. Our fear is that this is something that could happen, which is why we’re speaking up.”

KDADS launched its health home initiative in late July, limiting enrollment to KanCare beneficiaries who have a serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI).

Bruffett said department officials hope to have health homes for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses – diabetes and asthma, primarily – up and running in January.

According to KDADS records, letters were mailed to 25,770 SPMI beneficiaries across the state, informing them that they had been assigned to a health home provider in their area.

Almost 1,800 of these letters went to beneficiaries who were thought to be developmentally disabled and mentally ill.

Several parents in the audience said they resented KDADS assuming that their developmentally disabled sons and daughters were mentally ill.

Rosemary Maxwell, whose 31-year-old daughter, Tiffany, has cerebral palsy, was among those who were upset.

“Are you kidding me?” Maxwell said. “Anyone who knows Tiffany knows that she is not mentally ill.”

Maxwell said that when she called KDADS to find out why her daughter had been assigned to a health home, she was told that Tiffany had been diagnosed with depression.

“That did not happen,” she said. “Tiffany has never been diagnosed with depression. Somebody made that assumption because she takes Wellbutrin for neuropathic pain and Valium for spasticity.”

Maxwell said Tiffany opted out of her health home assignment because she isn’t mentally ill, her health care already is well-coordinated and she didn’t want to risk losing her case manager.

Other parents complained about not being involved in the process. As a result, they said, they weren’t anticipating the health home assignments.

“There’s no trust,” said Patty Hink, whose 37-year-old son is autistic. “There was before KanCare, but there isn’t anymore.”

Angela de Rocha, director of communication at KDADS, said the agency was committed to finding ways to “communicate better” and restoring the families’ confidence in the system.

“There needs to be more trust, and that goes both ways,” de Rocha said. “We need to trust them and they need to trust us, because everyone’s intentions are good. Everyone’s trying to make things better.”

Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Military personnel have converged at a southeast Kansas pasture where an Oklahoma Air National Guard fighter jet tumbled to the ground and burned after colliding with another F-16 during a training exercise.

One pilot ejected after the Monday afternoon crash about three miles northeast of the Elk County town of Moline. The Oklahoma Guard’s Col. Max Moss has said neither pilot was seriously injured.

Moss said one of the F-16s remained airborne and returned safely to its base in Tulsa. Moss said the pilot of the crashed plane was taken to McConnell Air Force Base hospital in Wichita for evaluation, but was not believed to be seriously injured.

A McConnell Air Force Base spokesman said Tuesday that the Oklahoma Air National Guard would release more details in the afternoon.