Federal court officials have scheduled sentencing in November for former St. Joseph School District Superintendent and board president Dan Colgan.

Dr. Colgan pleaded guilty in June to one count of wire fraud, admitting he caused others to overstate his salary in reports to the Public School Retirement System.

As a result, prosecutors say Colgan was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in excess pension benefits.

Under terms of the plea agreement, Colgan, 70, will be sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, and must pay more than $660,000 in restitution.

Sentencing is scheduled before U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple on November 10 at 9am.

Students and parents will see a change to the financial aid process beginning Saturday. 

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the first step in applying for financial aid for college. 

Director of Financial Aid at Missouri Western State University Marilyn Baker said the change implemented this year is that FAFSA will be available October 1st instead of January 1st. Baker said that means students can start filing the FAFSA using their 2015 tax return information. 

“In past years, it’s always started in January and everyone had to wait until they got their W-2 forms, got their taxes filed and basically they’re using their prior year taxes,” Baker said. “So what’s changed is you’re using two years back now.” 

Baker said the Financial Aid industry agreed that it would be easier to change the date, which could help students during their college decision making. 

“Students could make their college decision earlier because they may know what the costs are of attending the college and then approximately what their financial aid may be to attend whichever school they plan to go to,” Baker said. “It just allows them to make their choice a little earlier.” 

Baker said they are working with high school counselors in the area and letting them know their high school seniors should begin thinking about applying for financial aid as early as Saturday. 

“One of the features of the FAFSA is called the IRS Data Retrieval Process,” Baker said. “So you don’t really even have to have your tax return sitting in front of you, you can just click on a button to link to the IRS and they will actually import the 2015 tax information right into the FAFSA for you for both student and parent.” 

It will vary by school when information will get back to students after they have filed. Baker said she estimates students could hear back from schools during the first part of November as opposed to March or April in previous years. 

For more information, contact Missouri Western’s Financial Aid Office at (816) 271-4361 or any institution the student filling out the FAFSA is interested in attending.   

“Ever since the Secretary of State’s office started online registration, we seen increase,” Baack-Garvey said, “this week we received 300 to 400 new registrations.”

“UPS is bringing big envelopes full of them every day.”

On Tuesday her staff mailed out the first batch of 862 absentee ballots to voters who requested them. She expects to see around 3,500 such requests. Those ballots have to be returned by the day before the election, or can be brought in to the Clerk’s Office on election day.

Baack-Garvey says she is expecting a lot of people to turn out in the November election.

“I’m betting we’ll see 85% turnout,” she said. “”We ordered ballots to cover 100%.”

The last day to register to vote for the November general election is October 12