TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers return to Topeka facing pressing deadlines to find a budget fix and write a new law for funding public schools.

The Republican-controlled Legislature ends its annual spring break Monday with the year’s biggest issues far from resolved.

Kansas faces projected budget shortfalls totaling $889 million through June 2019, and legislators expect to increase taxes.

They’ve focused on rolling back past income tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. He vetoed an income-tax bill in February and lawmakers have struggled to find consensus since then.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has ruled that education funding is inadequate.

GOP leaders hope lawmakers can finish their work by mid-May but it could drag into June, as it did in 2015.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas judges are backing off an effort to shield jurors’ names in a compromise with transparency advocates who hope to avoid court secrecy.

The Kansas District Judges Association will still seek to keep jurors’ addresses secret under its compromise with the Kansas Press Association. Lawmakers had approved the original bill, but the measure can still be changed before getting final legislative approval.

Transparency advocates had warned that the original effort was part of what they see as a growing trend across the U.S. toward anonymous juries. States where courts don’t have to release jurors’ names include California, Indiana and Oklahoma.

Kansas judges said they want to protect jurors from harassment and stop a “chilling effect” potential jurors’ feel when they have to disclose their information for the public record.

COUNCIL BLUFF, Iowa (AP) — An inmate who escaped from a western Iowa jail has been captured after crashing a stolen vehicle during a police chase in neighboring Nebraska.

Authorities have acknowledged that an inmate stole a transport van and crashed out of the Pottawattamie County Jail around 11 a.m. Monday.

Authorities say the van was abandoned a few blocks away, where the inmate either met an accomplice or carjacked someone’s car. He then drove over the Missouri River into Omaha, Nebraska.

It’s unclear whether the inmate was alone and still in the same vehicle when he crashed in Omaha to end the high-speed police chase.

Representatives for several police agencies involved have not returned calls from The Associated Press seeking details of the inmate’s escape or capture.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Latest on severe flooding in Missouri (all times EST):

1 p.m.

Authorities in eastern Missouri have identified a 77-year-old man killed by floodwaters.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the victim was Clifford Brandt. On Sunday, he walked to a creek near his home to look at rising floodwaters when he slipped and was swept away by the current.

Brandt is among three people killed in flooding in Missouri. Much of the state received 6 inches to 12 inches of rain over the weekend. Several rivers are still rising, including the Meramec near St. Louis, where hundreds of people are sandbagging to protect homes and businesses.

A 57-mile stretch of Interstate 44 is closed by floodwaters, and hundreds of other roads are closed in spots across the state.

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11:45 a.m.

Hundreds of sandbaggers ranging from children to the elderly are working fast to try and save businesses from floodwaters in the St. Louis suburb of Eureka, Missouri.

The Meramec River is expected to reach nearly 27 feet above flood stage in Eureka by Wednesday morning, just shy of the record set on Dec. 30, 2015. Other St. Louis suburbs like Valley Park, Pacific and Arnold are also in danger from the surging Meramec.

Torrential rains over the weekend caused flash flooding across Missouri, and as storm drains and fields continue to pour into rivers, they continue to rise. Near-record flooding is forecast on several rivers, including the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau.

Three deaths across the state are blamed on flooding.

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10:50 a.m.

Flooding has forced the closure of hundreds of Missouri roads, including a 57-mile stretch of Interstate 44 in the south of the state.

The Missouri Department of Transportation said Monday that several sections of the stretch of I-44 between Rolla and Lebanon are underwater.

More than a foot of water fell in parts of the state from Friday through Sunday, causing widespread flooding that led to hundreds of water rescues and killed at least three people in the state.

Many rivers were still rising Monday. Near-record flooding is possible on the Meramec River near St. Louis and other smaller rivers. Even the Mississippi River is projected to come within a half-foot of the all-time record in Cape Girardeau.

The storms were part of a bigger system that being blamed for the deaths of at least 15 people.

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8:50 a.m.

Three people are dead after torrential rains in Missouri caused rivers to rise rapidly.

Several inches of rain fell across the state Friday through Sunday. In Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, a 78-year-old man drowned after walking to a creek to look at rising water. Authorities say he slipped and was swept away.

Two others died when vehicles were swept away by floodwaters. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 18-year-old Gideon Jenkins, of Richland, was killed early Sunday when his vehicle was caught in flash floodwaters as he attempted to drive across a low-water crossing in Pulaski County.

Madelaine Krueger, of Billings, was killed Saturday afternoon. The 72-year-old woman was a passenger in a vehicle that was swept off a highway in Christian County.

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7:20 a.m.

Authorities say the victims of deadly flooding in Missouri were an 18-year-old man and 72-year-old woman whose vehicles were swept away by floodwaters.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says Gideon Jenkins, of Richland, was killed early Sunday when his vehicle was caught in flash floodwaters as he attempted to drive across a low-water crossing in Pulaski County.

Madelaine Krueger, of Billings, was killed Saturday afternoon. She was a passenger in a vehicle that was swept off a highway in Christian County. The patrol says Krueger’s husband tried to rescue her from the rushing water but couldn’t. The car was found in a farm field after the waters receded.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens has agreed to pay a penalty to the state Ethics Commission for failing to report that his gubernatorial campaign got a donor list from a charity he founded.

Greitens’ campaign adviser Austin Chambers said Saturday that the violation was a “simple campaign finance matter — not a major ethics matter.”

The Ethics Commission imposed a $1,000 fee, most of which would be waived if Greitens pays $100 and commits no other violations in the next two years.

The Associated Press first reported in October that Greitens’ campaign accessed a donor list from the nonprofit Mission Continues and had raised about $2 million from people and entities on that list.

Greitens has filed an amended campaign finance report valuing the donor list as $600 in-kind contribution.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Roughly 240,000 more Missouri Medicaid recipients are being switched to a system under which private companies oversee patient care.

The system, called managed care, will be expanded statewide Monday. About 500,000 Missourians in 54 counties along I-70 already had health care under that model.

The rest received care under a fee-for-service model. Under that system, physicians are reimbursed as patients are treated.

Missouri seniors, the blind and people with disabilities on Medicaid will not be impacted by the change.

State lawmakers in 2015 passed a budget that called for expanding managed care statewide. It’s now under scrutiny by some lawmakers who say the change was pushed through too quickly and without enough public input.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say 54 cases of mumps have been confirmed among students at Southeast Missouri State University.

KFVS-TV reports that there also are another 23 probable cases among students at the Cape Girardeau school. School leaders believe the peak of the mumps outbreak has passed, but expect to see more positive cases on campus and in the community. Students are being urged to receive a booster dose of the vaccine that protects against mumps, as well as measles and rubella.

Mumps is a viral infection that causes swelling in the salivary glands and cheeks.

Missouri campuses have been hard hit this school year. More than 300 confirmed and probable cases were reported at the University of Missouri’s flagship campus in Columbia.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Nearly 200 animals rescued from a home in southwest Greene County are being prepared for adoption at the Humane Society of Missouri’s office in St. Louis.

The Greene County Sheriff’s office says in a news release deputies went to the home on Wednesday after responding to a report of possible animal abuse and neglect.

The owner, who could no longer afford to care for the animals, voluntarily turned them over to the Humane Society on Thursday.

The animals included 13 dogs, 53 rabbits, four chickens, 23 partridges, 87 pigeons and quail. Another 27 birds were found dead at the home.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri House members want more information on how much money the state is paying in lawsuit settlements and judgments.

House members voted 150-1 on Thursday to pass legislation to require the attorney general and administration commissioner to update lawmakers and others monthly on state legal expenses.

The bill comes after alternative weekly The Pitch in Kansas City reported on harassment and discrimination claims by prison employees. The newspaper reported that between 2012 and 2016 the state paid more than $7.5 million in settlements and judgments to those who complained of harassment or discrimination.

The issue spurred outrage amount some lawmakers, who craft the budget and said they were left in the dark over the expensive lawsuits.

The House bill still needs approval from the Senate before lawmakers’ May 12 deadline.