FREDERICK, Md. (AP) – A Missouri man has been convicted of first-degree murder in the 1996 rape and strangulation of a 15-year-old Maryland girl.

The Frederick County, Maryland, State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement that 54-year-old Lloyd Harris of Kansas City was also convicted Wednesday of rape in the death of Stacy Lynn Hoffmaster.

Hoffmaster’s body was found in December 1996 under a blanket in a wooded area of Frederick where police say Harris had been living. She’d been missing nearly three months.

Harris was arrested in 2016 in Missouri and charged with Hoffmaster’s slaying.

Harris will be sentenced in December.

TOPEKA —  Starting Thursday, the Kansas Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) utilizing the statewide call handling system now have the ability to receive 911 text messages in 71 Kansas Counties, according to a media release from the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council

Text-to-911 service will be available for those individuals who cannot safely make a voice call to 911 in an emergency. This will be a valuable service to the deaf and hard of hearing community.

Testing for Text-to-911 has been completed and is available with plans from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, & Verizon Wireless. If a text is made to 911 where that service is not available, a message will be sent back to the phone advising the customer to make a voice call.

Some situations when Text-to-911 is appropriate:
• Deaf, hard of hearing callers, or individuals with a speech disability
• A caller who is unable to speak due to a medical or other condition
• Emergency situations that would put the caller in danger if making a voice call
• Examples include abduction, domestic violence or active shooter situation

When texting to 911, follow these guidelines
• Provide your exact address or location- Location accuracy is not as reliable through text messaging
• Explain the type of emergency or help that is being requested
• Be prepared to answer any questions that the 911 telecommunicator texts back.
• Use plain language; do not use abbreviations, symbols, emoticons, or photos.
• Messages should be brief and concise

Texting 911 can be done by typing “911” in the field for a phone number. No other numbers need to be used. Texting should be done through your wireless phones text messaging service and not from a third party texting applications.

Text-to-911 does require an active telephone service plan with data or it will not work.
Remember, the best way to contact 911 is by making a voice call. Please only utilize this service in emergency circumstances where a voice call is not possible or safe.

 

CHEROKEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas woman involved in a fatal car accident in southeast Kansas.

Galena police issued a warrant last week for 25-year-old Shelby Colon’s arrest. The Cherokee County district attorney has charged Colon with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of 66-year-old Charles Burkybile Jr. and 86-year-old Glen A. Roosa.  Authorities say Burkybile and Roosa were struck by a vehicle Colon was driving on July 6. Burkybile died at the scene. Roosa later died at a nearby hospital.

Detectives developed information that she was at a home in Joplin. Patrol officers responded to the home just after 10p.m. Monday to locate her. While there, she arrived in a vehicle in the alley behind the house and was taken into custody. She is awaiting extradition back to Kansas, according to a media release.

Police Chief Billy Charles says Colon stopped at the scene of the crash and didn’t attempt to flee. He says there was no indication she was impaired at the time, but a blood sample was sent to the state crime lab for analysis.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A former teacher of the year for a northeast Kansas school district has been charged with sex crimes with a teenager.

Two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy were filed Tuesday against 45-year-old Todd Burd, of Gardner. Bond is set at $250,000. No attorney is listed for him in online court records. Court documents say the nonconsensual sexual acts are alleged to have occurred last fall with a 15- or 16-year-old.

Burd was a choir director and vocal teacher at Gardner Edgerton High School, but is not currently an employee. He received Gardner-Edgerton district’s Teacher of the Year honor in 2015.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ office says it hasn’t seen a feasible plan to restore budget cuts affecting services for the disabled, signaling that a special session on the issue is unlikely.

Greitens spokesman Parker Briden said Wednesday that if anyone has said otherwise to reporters, “they are either confused or being dishonest.”

Fellow Republican Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard had said earlier this week that lawmakers presented a potential plan to Greitens for reversing those Medicaid cuts but hadn’t heard back from the governor’s office.

Richard had said lawmakers could pass the potential fix if Greitens called a special session.

But Briden said there’s no plan with enough support to pass.

Lawmakers also could take up the issue when they return to the Capitol in January.

TOPEKA– Data from the latest revenue report released Wednesday indicates the state has collected $196.52 million over last fiscal year at this time, totaling $2.02 billion this year, according to a media release from the Kansas Department of Revenue.

So far this fiscal year that started in July, the state has collected $884.09 million in total individual tax, which amounts to $143.03 million over last year. In the same time span, sales tax collections total $793.08 million, putting it $30.11 million over last year. Corporate income tax collections continue to vastly exceed previous year collections by $23.67 million.

“This trend of higher than last year corporate receipts confirm expectations of an improved economic climate taking root,” Revenue Secretary Sam Williams said. “That becomes even more distinct when looking at the modest growth in sales tax receipts.”

October tax receipts totaled $500.71 million, which is $53.69 million over October last year. Individual income tax collections totaled $229.42 for the month, while sales tax revenue came in at $194.19 million. Corporate income tax totaled $16.58 million.

The Consensus Revenue Estimating group will meet Thursday and release projections indicating how much revenue the state expects to collect for fiscal years 18 and 19.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri appeals court upheld a ruling that the Missouri Veterans Commission and its executive director, Larry Kay, were guilty of age and sex discrimination against a former ombudsman for the commission.

A panel of the Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a the commission didn’t prove during the original trial in Cole County that judge improperly handled some evidence in a lawsuit filed by Pat Row Kerr.

In July 2016, Kerr was awarded $2.875 million in damages.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune reports Kerr and Kay repeatedly clashed after he became the commission’s director in June 2009. She contended age and sex discrimination led to her firing in November 2009.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Josh Hawley declined to comment on whether the state will file another appeal.

KANSAS CITY— (AP) – A suburban Kansas City man has been charged with driving under the influence of marijuana in a crash that killed two 18-year-olds.

Nineteen-year-old Rodriquez Franklin, of Lee’s Summit, was charged Tuesday with two counts of driving while intoxicated leading to death. Prosecutors also filed alternative counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors requested that bond be set at $50,000. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

The charges stem from a crash in January that killed Kaeden Hernandez and Zachary Meyers. The police investigation found that Franklin was speeding when he lost control, struck a curb and a large tree in southern Kansas City. Court records say Franklin was following a car that belonged to his girlfriend. The girlfriend said she didn’t know who was following her.

By Stephen Koranda

After wrestling to balance the budget for years, Kansas lawmakers bit the bullet this spring and agreed to undo many of Gov. Sam Brownback’s signature 2012 tax cuts.

The question now is whether they have done enough to fix the state budget, as many promised to do in the 2016 campaign. Lawmakers will get a better idea of the state’s financial situation later this week when the consensus revenue estimating group determines whether revenues are tracking with projections.

Kansas lawmakers overrode Brownback’s veto of a tax plan in June, retracting the 2012 income tax exemption for thousands of business owners and raising individual income tax rates.

At the time, Republican Rep. Stephanie Clayton of Overland Park found it hard to believe they had taken a step toward fixing the budget.

“I think that it was very big. It hasn’t even sunk in yet, honestly, the reality,” Clayton said.

Four days after the tax vote, lawmakers approved a budget with some targeted spending increases — including $300 million more for schools over two years — in the hopes that it would be enough to satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court and end a long-running battle over public school funding.

But in an order issued after the Legislature adjourned, the court said the increase that lawmakers approved was not sufficient to ensure adequate and equitable funding — a clear indication that work remains before lawmakers can claim they have stabilized the budget.

There are other indications as well.

The Kansas Constitution requires a balanced budget, so lawmakers and other policymakers keep a close eye on revenue reports and estimates.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a conservative Republican from Shawnee, said the state isn’t able to make its scheduled contributions to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System.

“We can pretend that we have a balanced budget, that there has been some sort of structural fix,” Pilcher-Cook said. “This is a fake budget that does not pay our bills.”

A “structural fix” would mean the Kansas budget is balanced without any accounting tricks or one-time cash.

Kicking the can?

After the 2012 tax cuts took effect, state tax collections tumbled by $700 million in the first year as Kansans kept more of their income. Tax collections in 2018 are expected to rebound back to roughly where they were before.

Revenue estimators will be looking for evidence that is happening when they meet Thursday.

Republican House Majority Leader Don Hineman of Dighton said in August that for the first time in a while, Kansas tax collections were beating estimates. He is among those counting on that trend continuing.

“That’s good news in terms of the budget,” Hineman said. “It raises the possibility that maybe we make some downward adjustment to tax rates in the future if we can.”

Dave Trabert, president of the Kansas Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on limited government, said the tax increase won’t be enough to stabilize the budget. There will continue to be structural problems until spending is substantially reduced.

“The can has been kicked down the road as far as possible,” he said. “We’re going to have to get spending under control.”

The state needs a top-to-bottom overhaul to employ efficiencies and cut spending, according to Trabert. If lawmakers don’t do that, he said, the budget will be in the red by 2020, even before considering additional costs for services like education.

“Whether they want to admit it or not, history says they are setting Kansans up for perhaps the mother of all tax increases,” Trabert said.

Uncertainty remains because official state budget estimates only cover two years. Nonpartisan legislative staff said internal budget projections they’ve produced show the state could be in the red in 2020, driven by variables like pension costs.

Heidi Holliday leads the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, a nonprofit organization that often takes the opposite view of the Kansas Policy Institute. Sitting in her office recently with her newborn son, Holliday said spending cuts aren’t the answer to the state’s fiscal challenges, because they would hinder the state’s ability to make needed investments in education, social services and other critical programs.

“As I was sitting in (legislative) committee hearings pregnant, I was thinking about, ‘What legacy are we leaving for kids that are growing up in Kansas?’” she said.

For her, enhancing that legacy means Kansas officials should be investing more in state services.

“We’re already operating pretty bare bones,” Holliday said. “I think what we have to look at moving forward are ways that we can raise additional revenue through the state.”

She suggests options including new taxes on services and on internet sales.

A complicating factor: school finance

The recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling declaring public school funding inadequate further complicates the state budget picture. That could force Kansas lawmakers to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars more for education.

Republican Rep. Steven Johnson, chairman of the House Tax Committee, was feeling upbeat about the fiscal forecast before the court’s ruling thanks to growing tax collections.

RELATED: 5 Reasons the Kansas Supreme Court found the state’s school funding unconstitutional

After the ruling, Johnson said he was “much less confident” about the state’s financial situation because positive tax collections alone won’t balance the budget and provide additional money for schools.

“You’ve got to have growth beyond our wildest expectations to be able to even meet a meaningful part of it,” he said.

Rep. Jim Ward of Wichita, the top Democrat in the Kansas House, said it makes sense to expect several years of work to fix the state’s fiscal issues.

“We didn’t get so far underwater overnight,” Ward said. “We’re not getting out immediately, nor should we. That’s too much of a shock to the system.”

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for Kansas Public Radio, a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.