By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas are moving closer to passing Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s plan to boost spending on public schools after some GOP lawmakers dropped their push for an alternative Wednesday night with a court deadline looming.

It’s time to do the right thing and fund our schools. Call your legislators and tell them you support our plan and the Senate position on school funding. 1 (800) 432-3924. #ksleg pic.twitter.com/JmZZFHpcJK

— Laura Kelly (@LauraKellyKS) April 4, 2019

Kelly’s proposal to increase education funding by roughly $90 million a year is designed to satisfy a Kansas Supreme Court ruling last year that lawmakers aren’t spending enough on schools. The court gave the state’s attorneys until April 15 to file a written report on lawmakers’ response.

House and Senate negotiators agreed Wednesday night on the final version of a bill containing Kelly’s funding proposal and a few education policy changes, including a requirement for an online, one-page state performance report on each public school. The House plans to consider the bill first on Thursday, and if both chambers approve it, the measure goes to Kelly.

The GOP-controlled Senate approved Kelly’s plan last month with strong bipartisan support. Top Republicans in the GOP-controlled House wanted to tie the new money to education policy changes and earmark much of it to programs for at-risk students but couldn’t find enough support in their chamber.

The House has yet to pass a funding proposal but narrowly approved a policy bill last week. That action was enough for the House and Senate to begin talks Monday on both money and policy.

Senate negotiators would not back off supporting Kelly’s funding proposal because the full House had not voted on one. The talks grew contentious over three days, but House Republicans eventually caved in.

Their lead negotiator, Rep. Kristey Williams, a Wichita-area Republican, said senators were working “hand in hand” with the governor’s office, adding, “What else could we do?”

Senators dismissed the criticism, saying they were sticking with the funding approach most likely to satisfy the Supreme Court.

“It was a difficult task for the House, since they had never passed anything,” said lead Senate negotiator Molly Baumgardner, an eastern Kansas Republican.

Four school districts sued Kansas over education funding in 2010. The Supreme Court has issued six rulings since February 2014 requiring lawmakers to increase it, so that it’s now more than $4 billion a year.

A 2018 law promised to phase in a $548 million increase by the 2022-23 school year, but the Supreme Court said it wasn’t sufficient because lawmakers didn’t account for inflation.

BONNER SPRINGS, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a school resource officer in Kansas City, Kansas, has been charged with child sex crimes.

30-year-old Mark Scheetz, of Lansing, faces two counts of rape and two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy. The Kansas Attorney General’s Office filed the charges last week in Norton County District Court. His bond is set at $500,000.

Charging documents say Scheetz had sex with a child under the age of 14 several years ago while he was living in the county.

The Kansas City, Kansas, district has its own police department. The school district said last week that it placed Scheetz on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.

Before coming there, Scheetz worked for the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office from 2016 to 2018.

 

NEW YORK (AP) — After its journey through bankruptcy, Sears is getting ready to open its first batch of smaller stores focusing on appliances, mattresses and home services.

The first three stores called Sears Home & Life will open on Memorial Day weekend and are a fraction of the size of the company’s traditional stores.

Peter Boutros, chief brand officer for Sears and Kmart, declined to say how many of the stores are in the works but said locations have been identified. However, he said the new-format stores will not take the place of Sears’ remaining 425 stores.

The company also plans to ramp up TV advertising and is planning to extend its Kenmore brand beyond major appliances into kitchen accessories, plates and knives.

The new smaller stores will be located in Overland Park, Kansas; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Anchorage, Alaska, Boutros said. They range in size from about 10,000 to 15,000 square feet (900 to 1,400 square meters). The average Sears is about 155,000 square feet (14,400 square meters).

The moves come nearly two months after Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert bought the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company for $5.2 billion in a bankruptcy auction through an affiliate of his hedge fund. With the deal, Sears retained the Kenmore appliances and Diehard battery brands and continues to sell Craftsman tools through licensing partners. The company sold Craftsman tools to Black & Decker in 2017. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2018.

“We need to instill confidence that we are open for business,” said Boutros in an interview with The Associated Press, declining to comment on recent sales trends.

Lampert is restructuring the business, but Sears’ long-term survival remains an open question. It has to contend with increasing competition from the likes of Best Buy, Home Depot and Walmart.

Each of the new stores will sell both major and small kitchen appliances. Customers can meet with experts to explore how new appliances will look in their home. They will also have kiosks where shoppers can order items available online and in the regular stores and can have them be delivered to the store or delivered at home.

Boutros declined to comment on sales projections for the new store formats.

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted in the 2012 murders of his sister-in-law and her boyfriend in Arizona has been sentenced to death.

Yavapai County Superior Court officials say a jury reached its verdict Wednesday and lawyers for 35-year-old Kenneth Wayne Thompson have already filed an appeal.

Jurors began deliberating March 30 whether Thompson should get life in prison or the death penalty.

He has been convicted Feb. 20 on two counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors say Thompson used a hatchet and knife to kill Penelope Edwards and Troy Dunn in March 2012 and then poured acid on the bodies and then set his sister-in-law’s Prescott Valley home on fire.

Jurors rejected arguments by Thompson’s attorneys that his motive for the slayings was rooted in his upbringing as a Scientologist.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — The Latest on governors meeting with federal officials about flooding (all times local):

Just getting started with discussions @USACEHQ & @fema — As Governor’s, our goal today is to start a conversation that hopefully will redirect the focus and help the Corps to understand its original and top priority — to improve flood control on the MO river. #MOFlood pic.twitter.com/GTsgMEyyR2

— Governor Mike Parson (@GovParsonMO) April 3, 2019

The governors of three Midwest states ravaged by March flooding say they will pushing for more control over management of the Missouri River that borders their states.

Management of the dams and levees along the river falls to officials of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, who met with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson for much of Wednesday afternoon in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The three governors, all Republicans, questioned a shift by the Corps in 2004 to no longer prioritize flood control along the river over other goals, such as maintaining fish and wildlife habitat.

Asked whether the Corps indicated it would or could cede some river management decisions to the states, Parson replied, “Well, they listened.”

The governors said they plan to work together for that change, even if it means petitioning Congress to give states more authority in river management.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has been slated to attend Wednesday’s meeting, but ran into travel problems that required her to back out.

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2 p.m.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials were set to meet Wednesday with the governors of four flood-ravaged Midwestern states amid criticism of the federal agency for its management of swollen waterways.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, all Republicans, and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, were to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Council Bluffs.

Parson is among critics who have accused the Corps, which manages the river’s dams, of making the flooding worse. Last month, Parson admonished the agency to prioritize human safety and property over other goals, such as preserving fish and wildlife habitat.

But the Corps has said it works to balance all its priorities and that much of the flooding was well out of its control. The agency said that much of the water that created the flooding came from record rains and melting snow that flowed over frozen ground and directly into the river downstream of its dams, all while massive amounts of water filled Missouri River reservoirs and had to be released.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Top Republican lawmakers in Kansas struggled Wednesday to find enough GOP votes to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a tax relief bill despite a strong push to save the measure from the state Republican Party.

The measure Kelly vetoed last week was designed to prevent individuals and businesses from paying more in state income taxes because of changes in federal tax laws at the end of 2017. Republican leaders made it their top priority this year and argue that failing to return the revenue “windfall” represents an unlegislated tax increase.

Kelly framed the bill as a return to a tax-cutting experiment under former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that made Kansas nationally notorious because of the persistent budget woes that followed.

Republicans hold the two-thirds majorities in both chambers necessary to override a veto, but their leaders worry that too many GOP lawmakers will bolt, side with Democrats and vote against overriding the veto. Lawmakers who want to overturn Kelly’s veto must act this week, before the Legislature starts its annual spring break.

The Kansas Republican Party launched a text-based petition this week to show support for an override and a Facebook ad criticizing Kelly, saying that in three months in office, she’s already broken a campaign pledge not to raise taxes. GOP State Chairman Mike Kuckelman and Secretary Emily Wellman issued statements Wednesday calling for a veto override.

“As a taxpayer, I might not even understand that Kansas took additional taxes from me that was intended to go in my pocket,” Kuckelman said during a telephone interview. “I don’t think as a party, the Republican Party, we should stand by and allow that to happen.”

However, it wasn’t clear that the campaign would sway GOP holdouts. State Sen. John Skubal, a moderate Republican, said he was elected in his Kansas City-area district in 2016 to help “fix’ state government.

“To do that, we have to have some money,” he said.

Republican lawmakers slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging, but voters later turned on Brownback’s policies because of the state’s budget problems. Bipartisan legislative majorities repealed most of the tax cuts in 2017, and Kelly ran against Brownback’s political legacy last year.

“My district supports the veto,” said Rep. Jan Kessinger, another moderate Kansas City-area Republican, calling this year’s tax bill “something Kansas can’t afford right now.”

Kelly’s administration estimated that the bill would have cost the state $209 million during the budget year beginning in July, undercutting her plans to boost spending on public schools and expand Medicaid health coverage for the needy. Much of the taxpayer savings would have gone to corporations, particularly those with operations outside the U.S.

The governor’s veto message said Kansas is recovering after being “on the brink of financial disaster” and this year’s tax bill “would absolutely dismantle all the progress we’ve made.”

Republicans who support the bill said it’s unfair to paint it as a return to Brownback’s policies.

Like other states, Kansas faced the issue of revising its income tax code because it is tied to the federal tax code. Changes in federal tax laws championed by President Donald Trump lowered rates but also included provisions that raised money for Kansas, in part by discouraging individual filers from claiming itemized deductions.

“It has zero to do with anything Gov. Brownback did when he was governor,” Kuckelman said.

The bill vetoed by Kelly would have provided relief to taxpayers who have itemized on their state returns. It would have allowed them to keep itemizing even if they don’t on their federal returns, something previously prohibited.

“The message is — it’s universal — that Kansans do not want their taxes raised,” said House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., a Kansas City-area Republican.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a 16-year-old girl has been charged with murder in the killing of another teenage boy in a suburban Kansas City community.

On Wednesday, the Olathe girl was charged in Johnson County Juvenile court with first-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Rowan Padgett of Overland Park. The girl was also charged with felony obstruction of justice for allegedly giving false information to investigators.

The charges allege Friday’s killing in a suburban cul-de-sac occurred during a drug deal involving the anxiety drug Xanax.

Prosecutors requested she be tried as an adult.

Padgett, an Olathe East High School senior, was just weeks from celebrating his 18th birthday when he died. The suspect is a runaway who at one time also attended the same school.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Just weeks after winning a key regulatory approval, one the nation’s largest wind energy projects is facing a new obstacle from Missouri legislation that could prevent the proposed high-voltage power line from being strung across the property of uncooperative landowners.

A Missouri House panel advanced legislation Wednesday that would prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire easements for the Grain Belt Express project. The proposed 750-miletransmission line would carry wind power from Kansas across Missouri and Illinois into Indiana, where it would connect to a power grid that serves eastern states.

The $2.3 billion project has been repeatedly delayed by regulatory hurdles and court battles but won a significant victory in March, when Missouri’s utility regulatory commission reversed its previous denials and approved the project. Missouri’s “certificate of convenience and necessity” deems it a public utility, which allows it to pursue condemnation cases in local courts against landowners who refuse to sell easements.

The legislation is intended to block that — either forcing the power line to zig zag around unwilling sellers or zapping it altogether.

Clean Line Energy Partners, based in Houston, has been pursuing the project since 2010. In November, Chicago-based Invenergy announced it was buying the project — a deal that would strengthen the project’s finances but still needs regulatory approval.

Unlike traditional power line projects, the Grain Belt Express is not part of an existing energy distribution system and would not carry power directly to residential customers. It instead would sell power to other utilities. A coalition of Missouri municipal utilities has agreed to purchase some of the energy, but the vast majority would go to eastern states.

That’s sparked opposition from some Missouri landowners and politicians.

“We’re asking our Missouri farmers and rural areas to give up their land and their rights so that people further east can save on their energy bills? I don’t think that’s good for Missourians,” said Republican Rep. Dean Plocher, the chairman of the committee that advanced the eminent domain legislation.

Invenergy spokeswoman Beth Conley said the legislation would delay or prevent residents in dozens of Missouri communities that agreed to purchase the wind power from saving millions of dollars annually through cheaper rates.

While approving the project last month, the Missouri Public Service Commission concluded that “the broad economic, environmental, and other benefits of the project … outweigh the interests of the individual landowners.”

At a legislative hearing this week, Marilyn O’Bannon vowed that she and her relatives never would agree to provide easements for the transmission line to pass through about 5 miles of her family’s farmland near Madison. She expressed concerns that their farms would be harmed by the construction without benefiting from any of the electricity passing overhead. Her family’s farms get their power from a rural electricity cooperative.

“They think we’re just out here complaining because it’s our land, but every acre really counts, especially when the commodity prices are where they are today,” O’Bannon told The Associated Press.

Other property owners appear more willing to sell easement rights without going through condemnation proceedings.

“I really believe in renewable energy,” said Donna Inglis, whose Huntsville property lies in the path of the power line. She added: “I think a lot of the people on the line are being very selfish, because they’re worried about me. They’re not worried about the better good.”