By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — A spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Children and Families on Tuesday announced that Deputy Secretary Kathe Decker and Prevention and Protection Services Director Brian Dempsey have left the agency.

Anna Pilato, director of the department’s divisions for strategic development and community and faith-based initiatives, is due to leave later this month.

“As is normal with a new term, we have re-evaluated our organizational structure and identified places where we can be more efficient,” Theresa Freed, communications director at DCF, wrote in an email to KHI News Service.

“Some individuals have been let go, decided to move on or accept different positions within the agency,” Freed said. “Although we cannot discuss specific personnel matters, we can say that the changes are unrelated to any one issue.”

Dempsey and Decker oversaw the administration of the state’s foster care program, which in recent months has taken in record and near-record numbers of children.

According to DCF reports, 6,156 foster children were in “out-of-home placements” in April, which, at the time, was an all-time high. Since then, the monthly counts have topped that number in May, June, July and October.

In October, 6,215 foster children were in out-of-home placements.

DCF officials have attributed the increases to corresponding greater public awareness. Child advocates have cited how the increases coincided with cuts in the state’s public assistance programs.

Freed said Dempsey’s position has been filled by Michael Myers, director at the department’s regional office in Overland Park since 2012.

Jaime Rogers, she said, has been named deputy secretary of family services, replacing Decker, a former Republican legislator from Clay Center. Rogers had been director of economic and employment services at DCF.

Freed said Pilato’s position “will be left vacant.”

According to state records, Pilato’s annual salary last year was $97,500. Decker’s salary was $90,000 and Dempsey’s was $66,600.

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

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A woman has lunged at a man charged with kidnapping, raping and killing an 8-year-old girl during his capital murder trial.

The Topeka Capital-Journal eports that several police officers caught the woman before she made contact with Billy Frank Davis Jr. He is accused of kidnapping Ahliyah Irvin in March 2012 while she slept in her Topeka apartment, where Davis was a neighbor.

The altercation happened as Davis was being escorted from the courtroom at the start of the afternoon break. Earlier in the day the dryer in which the girl was found was wheeled into the courtroom. Jurors also saw a photo of the victim’s body.

Police have said Davis told detectives that he kidnapped and choked the girl during a flashback to his military service in Iraq.

Michael Pagels, Little Apple Post

MANHATTAN -More than 40 students participated in a protest at the K-State Student Union over the lack of an indictment in the well-publicized case of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo.

Justice Davis, junior at K-State and Black Student Union President, led the protesters in the ‘Hands Up – Don’t Shoot’ chant before 4.5 minutes of silent protest by those present.

The student activists wore black and laid on the ground on the main level of the Union in the main hall to represent the 4.5 hours Michael Brown was left on the street after being shot by Officer Darren Wilson.

Davis mentioned several cases involving racial discrimination and police brutality that have occurred over the last few years.

He finished the protest by explaining the Black Student Union’s position is one of non-violence, and violence is not to be condoned.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Ameren Corp.’s nuclear plant in mid-Missouri has been shut down due to an electrical equipment failure, but the company and federal regulators say there is no risk to the public.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says an “unexpected main turbine trip” caused the shutdown at 12:22 a.m. at Ameren’s Callaway nuclear power plant near Fulton.

Mark McLachlan, Ameren’s senior director of engineering at the plant, says the issue is strictly electrical. He says there was no radiation release and no threat to the safety of employees or the public.

McLachlan says customers will see no effect because other power plants will compensate.

NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding says the cause of the shutdown is still being determined. It isn’t clear when the plant will start generating electricity again.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has lost another legal skirmish in its efforts to salvage the state’s battered ban on gay marriage.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected on Tuesday the state’s request to convene the full court to hear its appeal of U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree’s order that the state allow same-sex marriages.

The latest procedural development from the federal appeals court in the case has little practical effect because the U.S. Supreme Court has already refused an emergency request to block Crabtree’s order. It means that, as usual, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit will hear arguments over the preliminary injunction issued in the Kansas case.

Also, the U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to resolve soon the question of whether state marriage laws excluding same-sex couples are unconstitutional.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state economist says Kansas has regained the private-sector jobs it lost during the most recent recession but has seen a shift away from employment in manufacturing.

Kansas Department of Labor senior economist Tyler Tenbrink also said Wednesday that wages haven’t rebounded fully from the recession when adjusted for inflation.

Tenbrink reported on employment and wages during a meeting of a council advising Republican Gov. Sam Brownback on the economy. He said manufacturing jobs have been mostly replaced by jobs in professional and business services.

Tenbrink said the state should see continued growth in private, non-farm employment for the next six to 12 months.

Brownback successfully pushed personal income tax cuts in 2012 and 2013 to stimulate the economy, but the state now faces budget shortfalls.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a Kansas City suburb for pulling over a driver for flashing his headlights at oncoming drivers to warn that a speed trap was ahead.

The federal suit was filed Wednesday on behalf of Jerry L. Jarman Jr., who lives on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area. He was ticketed in August in Grain Valley, and the charge was dismissed in October.

The ACLU of Missouri alleges that the stop violated Jarman’s First Amendment right to free speech and Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

The suit said that without a court ruling, Jarman fears he will be penalized in the future for flashing his lights.

Interim city administrator Ryan Hunt didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment.