TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas Senate committee is weighing a proposal to move up the effective date of a property tax lid from 2018 to later this year.

The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal reports that the lid passed by lawmakers last year bars counties and cities from increasing property taxes above the rate of inflation without a vote.

The legislation’s language makes holding an election during the current budget cycle difficult. Sedgwick County offered an amendment it says will ensure the ability to have election on property tax increases if needed.

Supporters of accelerating the implementation of a property tax lid have argued that a shortened timeline will fight current incentives counties and cities have to boost taxes.

A city of Topeka report urges lawmakers to allow local governments to retain control over taxes.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Planned Parenthood official says Kansas hasn’t cut off Medicaid reimbursements even though Republican Gov. Sam Brownback declared two months ago that he’d quickly end the funding.

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri President Laura McQuade told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her organization is still providing services to Medicaid participants — and getting state reimbursements — at five clinics in Kansas and the Kansas City, Missouri, area.

The vocal anti-abortion governor declared in January during his annual State of the State speech that Kansas would deny the funding to Planned Parenthood. In a letter, he directed state health officials to “take all necessary steps” to end the funding.

Brownback’s spokeswoman said she was looking into the situation. Other states have faced court fights over the issue.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The federal agency that handles immigration says it made a mistake when it sent a September order to detain a man accused of killing five people earlier this week.

Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino has been charged with first-degree murder in the Monday shooting deaths of his Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor and three other men and the killing of a man in central Missouri early Tuesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an email that Serrano-Vitorino was deported from the U.S. in 2004, but was fingerprinted in Overland Park, Kansas, in September 2015 after a traffic violation.

ICE says that fingerprinting generated an ICE order to detain Serrano-Vitorino, but that the agency “erroneously issued” the detainer to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office instead of the Overland Park Municipal Court, which had handled his traffic violations.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Missouri Highway Patrol says a man wanted in connection with the fatal shootings of five people is in custody after a manhunt.

The Highway Patrol early Wednesday morning said Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino had been arrested in Montgomery County, Missouri. The suspect was found lying on a hill just north of Interstate 70 and no shots were fired.

Sgt. James Hedrick says Serrano-Vitorino “looked exhausted.”

Serrano-Vitorino, a Mexican national who lived in Kansas City, Kansas, is accused of fatally shooting four men late Monday night at his neighbor’s home.

He was also wanted in connection with the shooting death of 49-year-old Randy Nordman in Montgomery County, Missouri.

At 7:20 a.m. on March 8, 2016, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call advising of a shooting at 432 Tree Farm Road in Central Montgomery County. After arriving at the residence, officers discovered the body of a male subject on the property.

 

 

TECUMSEH, Neb. (AP) — Prison officials say three prison staffers at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution were assaulted by inmates. Department spokesman Andrew Nystrom said in a news release Monday evening that just before 4 p.m., an inmate hit a staff member escorting him inside a maximum-security housing unit.

The news release said that three other inmates started assaulting the staff member before two other staff members responded to the assault. Officials say the inmates were forcibly restrained by guards.

All three staff members were taken to a hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening.

The housing unit was locked down, pending an investigation by the department.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Police say an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service has fatally shot a man in Topeka while serving arrest warrants.

Police said in a news release that shooting happened Monday afternoon near the city’s downtown.

Police say 45-year-old Randall J. Selsor, who was white, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The release said the Marshals Service was seeking to serve arrest warrants for an attempted violation of an act that requires criminal offenders to register with law enforcement and for misdemeanor domestic battery. At the time of the shooting, two members of the U.S. Marshals Service, two Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies and one Topeka police officer were searching for Selsor.

Topeka police are investigating the shooting at the request of the Marshals Service

EDDYVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An 18-year-old woman who admitted to being uncooperative during the investigation into the shooting death of a Kentucky state trooper will not have to serve prison time.

News outlets report that Ambrea Shanks of Florissant, Missouri, was sentenced Monday to five years of probation after pleading guilty in a Lyon County courtroom to first-degree hindering prosecution or apprehension.

Thirty-one-year-old Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder was shot to death in September in western Kentucky after a high-speed chase that reportedly started with the trooper pulling over Shanks’ 25-year-old uncle, Joseph Johnson-Shanks, for speeding.

Police say that during a phone call with her uncle, Shanks told him he was on speaker phone and not to say anything.

Troopers shot Johnson-Shanks to death after they say he refused to surrender.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster says the state should not require police to wear body cameras.

Koster said Monday he wants to see more police use body cameras, but he would hesitate to institute a statewide mandate for them. He said that decision should be left to local governments and law enforcement for now.

Koster supports restricting public access to body camera footage, which he has said would protect people’s privacy. He also wants to make it illegal for police to use deadly force unless a fleeing suspect poses a danger to others or has committed a violent felony.

Koster is the likely Democratic nominee to replace Gov. Jay Nixon, who has reached his term limit. Four candidates are running for the Republican nomination.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Kansas are weary of conflicts with a judiciary that has been pushing for more school spending, and they’re beginning to act on a measure to expand the legal grounds for impeaching judges.

The move is part of an intensified effort in red states to reshape courts still dominated by moderate judges from earlier administrations.

A committee in the GOP-controlled Senate plans to vote Tuesday on a bill that would make “attempting to usurp the power” of the Legislature or the executive branch grounds for impeachment.

The proposal has considerable support in a Legislature in which Republicans outnumber Democrats more than 3 to 1.

Nearly half the Senate’s members have signed on as sponsors. It’s unclear whether its novelty could complicate passage.