TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers have tightened the financial requirements for a license to operate nursing homes after state regulators were forced to take over 22 struggling facilities last year.

Officials with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services  reported they had no choice but to step in because nursing home managers had fallen behind on bills for basics like food and utilities, putting the health and safety of residents at risk.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed a package of health care legislation this month requested by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration that will require much more financial information from people who apply for nursing home licenses.

“It gives us a better opportunity to maybe know in advance if somebody coming in is maybe in financial difficulties,” said Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee.

Fifteen of the 22 homes the state had to take over last year were run by Skyline Health, a company owned by a family of investors and headquartered above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.

The Kansas City Star reported last year that when Kansas issued the 15 licenses to Skyline in 2016, the company had already missed payments to vendors for laundry, housekeeping and food for its facilities in other states. Skyline owed almost $2 million when it was granted its Kansas licenses, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the vendors.

At the time, the state required applicants to provide financial statements showing they had enough cash or equity to meet at least one month’s operating expenses.

Under the new law, nursing home applicants must furnish a detailed budget for the first 12 months of operation, which matches Missouri law. They must also document that they have enough working capital to carry out that budget, and they must provide a list of all other nursing homes in the U.S. or abroad where they have ever had an ownership stake.

It also streamlines the legal process for the state to take receivership of nursing homes, which requires a court order.

Mitzi McFatrich, the executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care, said she thinks the Kelly administration may seek more reforms in the future, but wanted to get a bill passed quickly this spring to address some of the problems that caused last year’s unprecedented situation.

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MORGAN COUNTY – One person died in an accident just before 4p.m. Sunday in Morgan County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 1997 Subaru Legacy driven by Robert A. Faulkner, 34, California, Mo., was eastbound on Highway 50 just east of Old Route 50.

The vehicle went into a skid, traveled into the westbound lanes and the path of a and struck a 2017 Ford F250 driven by Tiffanie M. Heavner, 36, Buckner.

Faulker was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Kidwell-Garber Funeral Home.  Heavner was not injured.  Faulkner was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.

WILSON COUNTY —Kansas Game Warden Ross Uhrmacher received a call Friday from a county road worker in southeast Kansas concerning a Bald Eagle that was out in a field with its wing out, according to a social media report from the Kansas Deparment of Wildlife and Parks Game Wardens.

Uhrmacher and Wildlife Biologist Kelly Newman responded to the reported location. The eagle was not able to fly, but it could run and swim.

Uhrmacher and Newman worked together and were able to catch the wounded eagle. The eagle was relayed to Game Warden McGinnis who then transported it to Operation Wildlife in Linwood.

Uhrmaher has a long history of assisting wild birds. In April 2015, he was called to rescue a barn Owl in Wilson County. In January 2017 Uhrmacher rescued a Bald Eagle that was struck by a vehicle on a Kansas highway.

TOPEKA —An investigation by the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) has led to criminal charges in Shawnee County against a former Topeka Correctional Facility dental instructor for inappropriate conduct involving female inmates.

Tomas Co, 73,  was returned from Oklahoma to Kansas Friday and charged by the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office with seven counts of unlawful sexual relations, according to a media release from the KDOC.

He has bonded out of the Shawnee County Jail, according to online jail records.

A KDOC employee since 2013, Co was responsible for the inmate training and employment program designed to teach inmates to produce dental prosthetics. He had supervised up to 16 inmates assigned to the program. He was released from employment at the Topeka Correctional Facility in December 2018.

Following the department’s investigation by its Enforcement, Apprehension and Investigation Unit, the investigation report was forwarded to the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office.

“We will cooperate fully with the prosecution of this case,” said Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz.

Topeka Correctional Facility, the state’s only correctional facility for women, has a population of 955.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s prairies are disappearing and the loss is hurting the state’s ecosystem, according to a conservation expert.

Carol Davit, executive director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, told KCUR-FM that prairies are rich in nutrients, serving as a natural habitat for pollinators that fertilize crops.

Further destruction of prairies would reduce pollinators’ ability to thrive, which could affect food security in the state, Davit said.

“We have reaped the benefits of prairie soils, becoming an agricultural powerhouse,” Davit said.

“I’d like us to really embrace our prairie inheritance and be proud of it, and understand that it is part of our lifeblood,” Davit said.

She said restoring the grasslands could be beneficial as Missouri grapples with recovering from severe flooding this spring. In March, hundreds of residents had to evacuate their homes, which were inundated with water after the swollen Missouri River breached levees due to heavy rain and snowmelt.

Prairie vegetation can absorb substantial amounts of stormwater, as well as reduce soil erosion.

“Taking just 10% of a cropped area and creating strips of prairie plants, we can see up to 90% reduction in soil erosion,” Davit said.

She’s calling for the planting of more native vegetation to restore some of the prairie’s ecological functions.

Using plants for landscaping can also help preserve the habitat, which Davit called “an inherent value that we must preserve and protect for our benefit and for the benefit of future generations.”

Davit will serve as the keynote speaker at the North American Prairie Conference in Houston in June.