BY JIM MCLEAN

A deal to farm out the next new prison in Kansas to a private firm — one that would replace the outdated facility in Lansing and lease it to the state — hit a delay Thursday.

The State Finance Council, which would have to sign off lease-to-buy contract, said it needs two weeks to further study the details of a plan to pay CoreCivic Inc. $362 million over 20 years.

Several members of the council said they didn’t want to approve the deal until the state and the company finalized their contract negotiations.

“I don’t want something inserted tomorrow after we sign off today,” said Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican.

The concerns of some council members go beyond the contract. House Minority Leader Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat running for governor, said he didn’t consider CoreCivic a “reliable partner.”

“They have a history of not telling the truth,” Ward said, citing a report issued in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Justice inspector general that was critical of the company’s security record and a lawsuit filed by CoreCivic shareholders contending that the company’s leadership had failed to disclose information about risks to its government contracts.

Damon Hininger, CEO of Nashville, Tenn.,-based CoreCivic, said the vast majority of its government clients renew their contracts.

“If we’re not doing a good job, if we’re not making the mark on quality, if we’re not being cost effective,” he said, “they’re going to cancel our contracts.”

A new prison would lower the cost of housing inmates in Lansing and that the lease agreement would protect the state from cost overruns and spiraling maintenance costs, Kansas Corrections Secretary Joe Norwood told the council.

In September, corrections officials said they wanted to sign an agreement by the end of 2017.

A state audit completed in the summer of 2017 challenged prison officials’ argument that a lease-purchase deal would prove cheaper than a state-built facility financed with bonds. But Norwood said the auditors used faulty assumptions to reach that conclusion, noting that their calculations mistakenly included a balloon payment at the end of the lease.

The new Lansing facility, located on the outskirts of Kansas City, would hold about 2,400 inmates, about 100 more prisoners than the existing compound.

Norwood said most of the construction dollars would stay in the state, listing Kansas City’s J.E. Dunn as the general contractor and a handful of companies from Johnson County and Topeka as the architects, plumbers, electricians and concrete specialists.

The new facility would cut the labor needed to man the prison roughly in half to a little over to about 370 staff.

“Our estimated staff savings is a little more than $17 million per year,” Norwood said.

Ditching the deal, he said, would burden the state with the cost of urgently needed renovations at the state’s 155-year-old prison.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback didn’t object to the delay but said the state badly needs a new prison, noting that the existing facility “predates Abraham Lincoln.”

“It desperately needs help,” Brownback said. “It smells. It needs a lot of work.”

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved a new Lansing prison last year, but before the Finance Council scrutinized any contract. In December, top GOP lawmakers said they were on board with a lease with CoreCivic.

Members of the Finance Council are Brownback, and eight legislative leaders, six Republicans and two Democrats.

The buy-or-lease decision comes as the state’s prison system appears increasingly beleaguered. It’s overcrowded and some inmates were moved from Lansing to El Dorado Correctional Facility, which then saw an hours-long uprising in June.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – An inmate in central Missouri has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to a fellow inmate’s death.

Terry Volner pleaded guilty on Wednesday to first-degree murder for fatally striking 67-year-old Jose Benitez in 2013. Volner is currently an inmate at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

The plea was based on an agreement with prosecutors who originally wanted to seek the death penalty in the case.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Volner committed the killing “for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value from the victim.”

Volner was already serving a life sentence without parole for killing a child in 2011.

Public defender Tom Jacquinot tells The Associated Press the ruling is a “just resolution” under the circumstances.

WINNESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa – A Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) investigation has led to the arrest of a former Linn County Sheriff’s Deputy.

According to a media release, on Thursday, Jan. 4 at approximately 1:30 p.m., David Huggins, 45, of La Cygne was arrested with the assistance of the Winneshiek County Sheriff’s Office in Decorah, Iowa, for aggravated indecent liberties with a minor and sexual exploitation of a child.

On Oct. 30, 2017 Linn County Sheriff Paul Filla requested KBI assistance when information was brought forward by Pleasanton School District Superintendent Travis Laver. Huggins had been assigned as a school resource officer.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office and school district cooperated fully in the investigation. Huggins was removed from his role at the school on Oct. 20, was placed on administrative leave on Nov. 29, and was terminated from the Sheriff’s Office on Jan. 3.

Following his arrest, Huggins was booked into the Winneshiek County Jail. Extradition to Kansas will be pursued. Special prosecutor Jerry Merrill is expected to prosecute the case.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri man has been charged in a crash that killed two girls after a toxicology report found high levels of the psychoactive component in marijuana in his system.

Fifty-one-year-old Terry Gray, of Independence, is charged with two counts of DWI resulting in death or, in the alternative, two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Bond is set at $75,000. It’s not clear if he has an attorney.

Court records show Gray was speeding in his pickup truck in September as he exited Interstate 435 and slammed into a stopped sport utility vehicle. The impact forced the SUV into an intersection, where it struck a car.

The crash killed 16-year-old Emely Samantha “Sammi” Raudales, of Shawnee, Kansas, who was in the SUV, and 3-year-old Ryan Hampel, of Independence, who was in the car.

(Missourinet) – Staffing shortages at Missouri’s prisons are driving overtime costs through the roof.

The department spent $9 million on overtime in 2015, more than double that in 2016, and is on pace to spend about $17 million this year.

The size of the staff working in Missouri’s more than 20 prisons is shrinking at the same time the inmate population tops 33,000. The department faces about 500 open correctional officer positions – raising red flags about safety. Some guards are being bused to other facilities to help fill the void.

State Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, tells Missourinet affiliate KREI in Farmington that increasing correctional officer pay would help to relieve overtime.

“They’re not competitively paid in their markets and therefore we are always shorthanded. When we’re shorthanded, we have to have people work overtime and they get time-and-a-half,” says Engler. “It’s not a pleasant work environment and then you’re not given a choice. You can’t go home because we can’t let prisoners out. We can’t just give everybody the night off because offenders have to be guarded.”

Engler says the issue will be discussed during the next session.

“You wouldn’t do that in private business. You’d figure out a way to not have people getting time-and-a-half,” says Engler. “The correction officers, for the most part, do not want forced, mandatory double shifts. We’d like to accommodate both by just paying them a little bit more and then we could solve the problem.”

Missouri has the lowest paid state workers in the nation.

Engler’s district includes the Farmington Correctional Center.

(Missourinet) – More than 5,700 Missourians have tested positive for the flu this season, compared to nearly 900 during the same period last year.

There have been two flu-associated deaths, eight flu outbreaks and three flu-like school closures this season. The previous week’s state report shows 46 deaths involving pneumonia and flu were reported – bringing the season-to-date total to 416 associated deaths in Missouri.

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, about 76-percent of the flu cases this season are influenza A – a strain that is generally responsible for higher overall flu cases. Newborns to age four have been hardest hit by the flu. The regions with the highest number of cases are in northwest and southeast Missouri.

Medical officials want Missourians to be extra cautious around the holidays. Germs spread like wildfire when getting together with family and friends to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year.

The Department of Health and Senior Services says a flu vaccination is the best way of to protect yourself and your loved ones this winter. In addition to getting your flu shot, other safeguards should be taken:

• Avoid close contact with sick people.

• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after touching shared objects or surfaces such as door knobs, light switches, remote controls, shopping counters, debit card readers, etc. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.

• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

• Clean and disinfect commonly touched surfaces.

• Stay home while you’re sick and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.