TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Laura Kelly says she hopes that extra state funding for the Kansas higher education system will lead to lower tuition for students and their families.

Kelly on Friday touted the additional $33 million included for higher education in a proposed $18.4 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning in July.

She said during a Statehouse news conference that legislators included the extra money hoping that the Kansas Board of Regents could keep university tuition flat.

Kelly said she would like the regents to go further and reduce tuition. She said she’s worried that students are being priced out of higher education.

The regents have complained in the past that tight state funding has forced them to increase tuition to pay for vital programs on the campuses.

By NOMIN UJIYEDIIN

Kansas may soon turn to private contractors to take the overflow from its crowded prisons, raising questions about growing costs and the reliability of for-profit jails.

That plan ran into complications over the weekend when lawmakers insisted on a closer review from a state commission to OK some of the line-by-line spending. But taxpayers could soon be spending almost $36 million more to deal with a range of problems in the prison system.

• $16.4 million in contracts for 600 outsourced prison beds
• $11.5 million in raises for the state’s prison staff
• $4.5 million worth of Hepatitis C treatment for inmates
• $3 million to move 120 inmates from the state’s women’s prison to an empty unit in its juvenile prison
• $340,000 for stab-proof vests for staff

But following a heated week at the Statehouse, the Kansas Legislature only gave a fraction of that money immediately.

Lawmakers added just $5.5 million to the corrections budget for contracts next year, enough funding for only 200 prison beds. The Legislature also decided to give a pay raise only to employees of El Dorado Correctional Facility, at a cost of another $2.5 million. It also funded the stab-proof vests.

The State Finance Council, a board consisting of Gov. Laura Kelly and high-ranking members of the Legislature, will decide the rest of an additional $27.6 million in spending.

Now the Kansas Department of Corrections will have to make its case for that funding in front of the State Finance Council later this year.

Kelly, speaking to reporters on Monday, said she hopes to use her position on the finance council to clear the way for the added spending on prisons.

“That’s sort of a pain,” she said, “but certainly doable.”

But Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz said the state’s prisons need the money now. The DOC has already taken contract bids to outsource 600 inmates to county jails or private prisons next year.

“The problem’s immediate,” he told reporters on Saturday. “I don’t know when that money is going to be released.”

Solutions For Overcrowding

State prisons currently have a capacity of 9,916 people. As of May 6, they hold 10,022 people, with a projected population of 10,655 by next year.

Werholtz said he had repeatedly told the Legislature about overcrowding problems, including increased inmate violence, danger to staff and inmates not getting the mental health treatment or training that they need.

“I want something to lower the pressure in the system so we can operate it more safely,” he said. “We’ve laid out in detail, with money figures attached, what it would cost to fix the problem.”

With that in mind, Kelly last week asked legislators to put an additional $16.4 million in the state’s budget for “contract beds” — agreements with outside prisons to house Kansas inmates for a fee. The proposal would essentially rent 600 prison beds and everything else it takes to keep inmates locked up for $75 each per day.

Now that the Legislature has awarded enough funding for only 200 beds, Werholtz said the DOC will still consider bids from outside contractors. But it is still deciding how those beds will be used. He said in a phone interview that the department has three major needs: to reduce crowding in the system overall, to increase the number of solitary confinement units and to move some inmates out of El Dorado Correctional Facility to relieve staff, some of whom work 16-hour days.

“We have to choose,” he said. “Two hundred beds is only sufficient to partially address any of those three.”

Some of those contract bids could go to county jails in Kansas. The state already contracts with two county jails, in Jackson and Cloud counties in the north-central part of the state, to house about 80 inmates at a cost of about $45 per inmate per day.

But most likely, contracts will be awarded to private prisons outside of the state with room to take in more inmates and the ability to ship them to the new locations.

Private prisons may have a poor reputation, but Werholtz said the state could successfully monitor any contracts with them.

“There’s nothing inherently good or inherently bad about either a public or a private prison,” Werholtz said. “It all hinges on who’s operating it, what resources they have available to them, and how closely you monitor the terms of the contract.”

Werholtz said the DOC would track security, operations and mental and behavioral health programs, possibly sending a full-time staff member to work on site if one contract facility takes on hundreds of inmates.

However, he said he would prefer to contract with county jails in Kansas, where inmates can be closer to their families and the medical services provided by the DOC provides in state prisons. But the state’s county jails won’t have enough beds.

“We’ll look at those first,” Werholtz said. “But I’m not optimistic that that will satisfy all our needs.”

Among those needs are 300 beds for people assigned to solitary confinement.

As of May 6, nearly 900 people were in solitary confinement in Kansas. It’s used as a form of discipline or to isolate inmates who exhibit suicidal tendencies, have a contagious illness, intimidate witnesses or attack others. The state has to swap them in and out because there aren’t enough beds.

“In order to put somebody in who’s engaged that kind of behavior, we’ve got to take somebody out who just did the same thing, maybe two or weeks prior to that,” Werholtz said. “That makes it much more difficult to discourage that sort of behavior.”

Staff in private prisons, however, are often inexperienced and paid less than employees of public prisons, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the nonprofit Sentencing Project, based in Washington, DC.

“Private prison operators have promised many things to public officials. They say that they can keep people housed in prison at less cost to the state. They told their shareholders that they’re going to make a profit,” Mauer said. “If you want to cut costs in order to meet both of those goals, the main cost is personnel.”

Mauer says moving inmates out of state can affect inmates’ quality of life in other ways.

“If you’re far away from your home state, that means your family visits are going to be limited,” he said. “If you have a legal case pending, it’s going to be very difficult to meet with your attorney.”

Sentencing Reform

Ultimately, Werholtz said, lawmakers will have to contend with the root cause of the problem: the ever-growing prison population. He credits the growth to the state’s sentencing guidelines, which determine the length of prison or probation time.

Those recommended sentences can only be reduced through legislative action. And the DOC’s aging computer system would need time to adjust to those changes, Werholtz said.

“You’re looking at, at an absolute minimum, a two-year process,” he said. “More likely a three or three-and-a-half-year process.”

In the meantime, he predicts the state’s prisons will remain full, with contract beds catching the overflow, and costs increasing every year.

“We’re going to be overcrowded,” he said, “for the foreseeable future.”

Nomin Ujiyediin is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can send her an email at nomin at kcur dot org, or reach her on Twitter @NominUJ.

HOUSTON, Mo. (AP) — Another suspect has been convicted in the slaying of a transgender teen whose eyes were gouged out and her body set on fire in southwest Missouri.

26-year-old Briana Calderas pleaded guilty Thursday to abandonment of a corpse, concealing a felon and evidence tampering. The plea came just days before she was scheduled to be tried on a first-degree murder charge in the 2017 death of 17-year-old Ally Steinfeld. Relatives say Calderas and Steinfeld had dated.

Local officials haven’t said what led to the killing in the town of Cabool but insisted it wasn’t motivated by Steinfeld’s gender identity.

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against another suspect, Andrew Vrba. Two others have been sentenced to prison for their roles in the crime.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Latest on flooding in the Midwest (all times local):

11 a.m.

A stretch of the Kansas Turnpike has reopened near the Oklahoma border after a flooding creek inundated the roadway.

We are so proud to share I-35/KTA has been repaired and is fully open, less than 48 hours from when it closed. The first 24 hours belonged to Mother Nature; the second 24 hours belonged to us. Watch how the work unfolded: https://t.co/8GVaanwbzg

— Kansas Turnpike (@KansasTurnpike) May 10, 2019

The Kansas Turnpike Authorities said in a tweet Thursday night that, “The first 24 hours belonged to Mother Nature; the second 24 hours belonged to us.” The tweet included a video of the flooding and crews working to repair the toll road, which had been closed south of the exit in Wellington.

The area flooded Wednesday when up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain fell across parts of the state in just 24 hours. Flooding also forced evacuations and school closures. Wellington is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wichita.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers on Friday gave final approval to a $30 billion state spending plan with a slight increase for higher education and more money for K-12 public schools following a fight over college tuition for students living in the U.S. illegally.

The budget package includes an additional $61 million in core K-12 public school funding, and colleges and universities are set to get at least $1 million more compared to this year.

Lawmakers ditched Gov. Mike Parson’s original plan to borrow $350 million to fix 250 bridges across the state. Instead, they agreed to spend $50 million in un-earmarked general revenue on bridge repairs next fiscal year, plus another $50 million for a local cost-share program.

If the state gets a federal infrastructure grant to help pay to fix an Interstate 70 bridge in the mid-Missouri city of Rocheport, that would kick in another roughly $300 million in bonding under another pending proposal.

The budget now heads to Parson.

Lawmakers finished the budget before their Friday deadline despite a heated dispute over whether to allow colleges and universities to charge in-state tuition to students living in the U.S. illegally.

Missouri lawmakers put restrictions on the use of state dollars for tuition discounts for students “with an unlawful immigration status” in 2015. Because of that, schools face losing state funding if they offer those students anything less than the tuition rate charged to international students.

Members of a 10-person panel of bipartisan negotiators this week agreed to end that policy . But the move spurred outrage among House Republicans, who voted it down on the House floor.

“We only have so much money to allocate to state subsidies for higher education,” Springfield Republican Rep. Curtis Trent said. “Why should that not go to the people who live here, who pay taxes here, who have followed the rules and obeyed the laws of the land?”

Missouri is one of six states that blocks in-state tuition for students living in the country illegally, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures . Actions by lawmakers in 16 states allow in-state tuition, and five more states provide for that through state university systems.

The proposed budget still includes a ban on colleges providing scholarships to students living in the country illegally.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on drug charges after a traffic stop.

Just before  11a.m., Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office deputies conducted a traffic stop for a traffic violation on a 2016 Nissan Rogue driven by Ricky D. Shaw, 24, Alton, IL,  at eastbound Interstate 70 near the Wanamaker exit, according to Sheriff Brian Hill.

Through the investigation of the stop, deputies seized 448 one gram packages of THC Concentrate “Shatter,” 201 grams of raw Marijuana, 658 grams of THC Butane Honey Oil “Butter,” 99 THC Vape Pen Cartridges The estimated street value of these items is $50,000.

Deputies arrested Shaw and booked him into the Shawnee County Dept. of Corrections with charges of Felony Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

DALLAS COUNTY —One person was injured in an accident just after 2:30p.m. Thursday in Dallas County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Lexus RX 300 driven by Chandra L. Nicholas, 60, Buffalo, was northbound on Highway 73 six miles north of Buffalo. The vehicle crossed the centerline and struck a John Deere road grader driven by Ronald D. Claspill, 60, Long Lane head-on.

Nicholas was transported to CMH hospital in Bolivar where she died. A private vehicle transported Claspill to Cox South for treatment of minor injuries. Nicholas was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A ruling from Kansas’ highest court could force the state Senate to vote on a nominee for a lower-court judgeship whose nomination was withdrawn because of his political tweets.

The state Supreme Court waded Thursday into an unprecedented legal dispute between Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the GOP-controlled state Senate’s top Republican over filling a vacancy on the Kansas Court of Appeals, the state’s second-highest court. The two disagree over whether the governor can submit a new nominee to the Senate for possible confirmation.

Kelly withdrew Labette County District Judge Jeffry Jack’s appeals-court nomination within a few days of announcing it in March after political posts on his Twitter feed came to light. They included criticism and vulgar language about President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

A 2013 law says that if governor fails to make an appeals court nomination within 60 days of a vacancy, Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss makes the appointment. Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, contends that Jack’s withdrawal means Kelly failed to make a proper nomination in time. The deadline was March 15.

Kelly points to another part of the law that says if the Senate rejects a nominee, the governor names another. Kelly argues that the Senate rejected Jack’s nomination even though it failed to have even a committee hearing on him.

The law doesn’t say specifically what happens if a nomination is withdrawn, and Attorney General Derek Schmidt, also a Republican, filed a lawsuit against Kelly, Nuss and the Senate to resolve the dispute. Six of the Supreme Court justices and a substitute for Nuss, who removed himself, spent nearly two hours hearing arguments and questioning attorneys.

A majority of the justices suggested that they could declare that the law did not give Kelly — or Jack, for that matter — the authority to withdraw Jack’s nomination. To keep Jack off the appeals court, the Senate then would have to reject his nomination. Kelly would get a second choice.

“Isn’t that scenario the one that makes the most sense out of the statute, that there just isn’t a mechanism for withdrawal, period?” Justice Caleb Stegall said while questioning attorneys.

The Supreme Court did not say when it would rule, but legislators hoped to have a decision within days. Legislators wrapped up most of their business for the year over the weekend, but GOP leaders, anticipating the need to deal with the Court of Appeals appointment, scheduled a Senate session for Tuesday.

“We’re here for one reason, and that is that the governor gave us a nominee that was absolutely unacceptable to the Senate, and clearly that nominee wasn’t vetted,” Wagle said after the Supreme Court’s hearing.

Kelly has already named another nominee for the Court of Appeals vacancy, Sarah Warner, a 39–year-old Kansas City-area attorney. The vacancy initially was created when longtime Appeals Court Judge Patrick McAnany retired on the day Kelly took office in January.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat and Kelly ally, said forcing a vote on Jack’s nomination would be “an exercise in futility.” He said he doubts Jack’s confirmation would receive a single vote in the 40-member Senate.

“It makes absolutely no sense that we would be put in that position, but if that’s what the court decides, then we’re going to have to be forced to have a vote,” Hensley said.

___

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri House Republicans on Thursday backed away from a budget compromise that would allow colleges and universities to charge in-state tuition to students living in the U.S. illegally.

The GOP-led House voted 110-43 against the deal. That means a panel of House and Senate lawmakers will get another shot to negotiate on the policy, which is included in the proposed state budget for public higher education.

Lawmakers face a Friday deadline to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July.

Missouri lawmakers previously put restrictions on the use of state dollars for tuition for students “with an unlawful immigration status.” Because of that, schools face losing state funding if they offer those students anything less than the tuition rate charged to international students.

Members of a 10-person panel of bipartisan negotiators this week agreed to end that policy. But the move spurred outrage among House Republicans, who voted it down on the House floor.

“We only have so much money to allocate to state subsidies for higher education,” Springfield Republican Rep. Curtis Trent said. “Why should that not go to the people who live here, who pay taxes here, who have followed the rules and obeyed the laws of the land?”

St. Peters Republican Rep. Phil Christofanelli said House lawmakers would be willing to vote down the entire public higher education budget to protest the tuition provision.

“I will never vote to fund an illegal immigrant education in our state’s budget,” Christofanelli said.

Missouri is one of six states that blocks in-state tuition for students living in the country illegally, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Actions by lawmakers in 16 states allow in-state tuition, and five more states provide for that through state university systems.

The latest version of Missouri’s higher education budget still includes a ban on colleges providing scholarships to students living in the country illegally.

Democrats slammed efforts to undo the compromise.

Columbia Democratic Rep. Kip Kendrick told colleagues during debate on the House floor that he once had to inform a single parent working two part-time jobs that she would have to pay international tuition and she “started bawling, because she understood that higher education, a way out of poverty, was unattainable.”

“It broke my heart, because this is a person that’s done everything we ask of anyone: pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, working hard (and) really trying to become the best person that she can be,” he said. “She was brought to this country when she was 1 year old by her parents. That was not a decision of her own.”

Lawmakers’ roughly $30 billion budget proposal includes an additional $61 million in core K-12 public school funding, and colleges and universities are set to get at least $1 million more compared to this year.

Lawmakers ditched Gov. Mike Parson’s original plan to borrow $350 million to fix 250 bridges across the state. Instead, they agreed to spend $50 million in un-earmarked general revenue on bridge repairs next fiscal year, plus another $50 million for a local cost-share program.

If the state gets a federal infrastructure grant to help pay to fix an Interstate 70 bridge in the mid-Missouri city of Rocheport, that would kick in another roughly $300 million in bonding under another pending proposal.