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Headlines for Friday, May 17, 2024

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Emily DeMarchi
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KPR

Kansas Governor Vetoes Tax Cut Proposals

TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - She said she would do it... and now she has. Democratic Governor Laura Kelly has vetoed a tax cutting plan - the third one sent to her desk this year. Kelly says the bipartisan proposal costs too much and is not sustainable. The vetoed plan would have slashed Kansas revenue roughly $470 million each year through income, Social Security and property tax cuts. Kelly says the bill needs to be less than her $425 million limit because of other tax bills lawmakers have already passed.“It's not going to be 425. It'll be less than that because I've got to account for those other things that are already law," she said. Kelly says next week she will announce the date of a special session for the Republican-dominated Legislature to craft a compromise bill.

(Additional reporting...)

Kansas Governor Vetoes a Third Plan for Cutting Taxes. One GOP Leader Calls It 'Spiteful'

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Governor Laura Kelly has vetoed a proposal for broad tax cuts. Her action Thursday to set up a high-stakes election-year tussle with the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature. The plans included cutting income, sales and property taxes by a total of $1.45 billion or more over the next three years. The Legislature adjourned its annual session May 1 and therefore cannot override her veto. Kelly promised to call a special legislative session and said she will announce next week when it will start. Republicans are frustrated and House Speaker Dan Hawkins called the governor's actions spiteful.

It was the third time this year Kelly has vetoed a plan for cutting income, sales and property taxes by a total of $1.45 billion or more over the next three years. GOP leaders have grown increasingly frustrated as they've made what they see as major concessions, including giving up on moving Kansas from three personal income tax rates to just one. “Kansas is being noticed for its sense of responsibility. Don’t toss all that,” Kelly said in her message. “The Legislature cannot overpromise tax cuts without considering the overall cost to the state for future years."

All 40 Senate seats and 125 House seats are on the ballot in this year’s elections, and Democrats hope to break the Republican supermajorities in both chambers. Both parties believe voters will be upset if there is no broad tax relief after surplus funds piled up in the state’s coffers.

GOP leaders have accused Kelly of shifting on what's acceptable to her in a tax plan, and even before Kelly's veto, Republicans were criticizing her over the extra session’s potential cost, more than $200,000 for just three days. "It seems her laser focus has shifted solely to wasting your money on a needless and spiteful special session,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said in a statement addressing taxpayers.

Republicans were unable to override Kelly's previous vetoes of big tax bills because three GOP dissidents formed a solid bloc in the Senate with its 11 Democrats to leave GOP leaders one vote short of the 27 votes required. And so Republicans have trimmed back both the total cost of their tax cuts and given up on enacting a “flat,” single-rate personal income tax that they view as fair but Kelly argued would benefit the “super wealthy.”

Kelly and Republican leaders have agreed on eliminating state income taxes on retirees’ Social Security benefits, which kick in when they earn $75,000 a year. They also agree on reducing a state property tax for schools and eliminating the state’s already set-to-expire 2% sales tax on groceries six months early, on July 1.

But almost half of the cuts in the latest bill were tied to changes in the personal income tax. The state's highest tax rate would have been 5.57%, instead of the current 5.7%.

Kelly's veto message focused mostly on her belief that the latest plan still would cause future budget problems even though the state expects to end June with $2.6 billion in unspent, surplus funds in its main bank account.

Before lawmakers adjourned their annual session, Senate Democratic Leader Dinah Sykes, of Lenexa, circulated projections showing that those surplus funds would dwindle to nothing by July 2028 under the bill Kelly vetoed, as spending outpaced the state's reduced tax collections. “In the next couple of years, we’re going to have to go back and the very people that we’re trying to help are going to have the rug pulled out from under them,” Sykes said in an interview Thursday.

However, if tax collections were to grow a little more or spending, a little bit less — or both at the same time — than Sykes projected, the picture in July 2028 looks significantly better.

Nor is the $2.6 billion in surplus funds in the state's main bank account the only fiscal cushion. Kansas has another $1.7 billion socked away in a separate rainy day fund, and Republicans argued that the extra stockpile is another reason for Kelly to have accepted the last tax plan. “Her shifting reasons for vetoing tax relief have now morphed into the absurd," Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said in a statement.

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University Leaders in Kansas Propose Tuition Hikes

TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - The cost of a college education in Kansas will likely go up this year. All six of the state’s public universities have proposed tuition increases. University leaders told the Kansas Board of Regents that raising tuition will help offset inflation and make up for tuition freezes imposed during the pandemic. They also want to pay faculty more. Proposals range from a 2.8% increase at Kansas State University to a 6% increase at Fort Hays State. Wichita State is asking to raise tuition 3.9% and the University of Kansas is requesting a 3.5% tuition hike. KU Chancellor Douglas Girod says colleges got more state funding this year, but not enough to make up for rising costs. “While we’re extremely appreciative for all of that,“ Girod said, “it doesn’t help pay the bills on a day-in, day-out basis.” The Board of Regents will vote on the tuition plans next month.

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Spirit Announces Layoffs for Hundreds of Workers

WICHITA, Kan. (KNS/KMUW) - Spirit AeroSystems has announced it will lay off hundreds of workers in the coming weeks as a result of ongoing issues with the Boeing 7-37 MAX. An email from Spirit to union members says it will lay off at least 400 hourly production employees, about 4 percent of its Wichita workforce. Spirit is a key supplier to Boeing on the 7-37 Max. Spirit said in a statement that a reduction in the delivery rate of its commercial programs triggered the layoffs. Federal safety officials slowed the rate on 7-37 Max deliveries because of continued manufacturing problems including the recent incident in which a door blew off an Alaskan Air flight in January near Portland, Oregon. In an earnings call earlier this month, Spirit said it lost more than $500 million dollars in the first quarter of this year. Spirit is one of the state’s largest employers with more than 12,000 employees

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Governor Signs New Kansas School Funding Bill

TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - Governor Laura Kelly has signed a bill to fully fund Kansas public schools. The bipartisan legislation also provides $75.5 million in additional money for special education and $1.3 million for a mentorship program for early-career educators. Kelly vetoed a provision that earmarked state tax dollars for weapons detection software. She objected to language in the bill that would have required schools to purchase a specific type of AI security system in order to get matching money from the state. Kelly said the provision amounted to a no-bid contract and wouldn’t give schools the flexibility to invest in other security efforts.

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Kansas Revenue Officials Seize Junction City Bar for Back Taxes

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (KSNT) - The Kansas Department of Revenue has seized a bar in Junction City because of delinquent taxes. Geary County Sheriff's deputies took control of the Coyote Saloon this week. KSNT reports that the bar owes $81,000 in back taxes. The bar's assets were seized and the bar was sealed shut for failure to pay corporate, sales, payroll and liquor taxes.

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USDA Announces Cuts to Survey Reports

UNDATED (HPM) - the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s statistics division recently announced it is discontinuing a few industry survey reports due to budget cuts. The National Agricultural Statistic Service is stopping its July Cattle report, the Cotton Objective Yield Survey and all County Estimates for Crops and Livestock. Troy Joshua, director of the statistics division, says the budget came six months into the fiscal year… and is 23-million dollars below last year’s budget. "We expected a cut, but we didn't expect it to be that deep of a cut." Joshua says the division made other internal budget cuts before stopping the reports. A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers is urging USDA officials to reconsider.
(Read more.)

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Topeka Was at Center of Brown v. Board. Decades Later, Segregation of Another Sort Lingers

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The school system in Topeka, Kansas, was at the center of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that struck down segregated education 70 years ago. In school lessons, memorials and ceremonies, Topeka is marking its ties to the 1954 ruling. But just as clear to many is the legacy of discrimination that stands in the way of its promise of equity. Segregation persists today, not as a matter of law but as a reflection of underlying disparities, including in housing. In greater Topeka, as in school systems across America, students of color are concentrated in districts that disproportionately serve low-income families.

The lesson on diversity started slowly in a first-grade classroom in Topeka, where schools were at the center of a case that struck down segregated education. “I like broccoli. Do you like broccoli?” Marie Carter, a Black school library worker, asked broccoli-hating librarian Amy Gugelman, who is white.

The students were comparing what makes them the same and what makes them different. It’s part of their introduction to Brown v. Board of Education, a ruling commemorated at a national historic site in a former all-Black school just down the street. Linda Brown, whose father Oliver Brown was the lead plaintiff in the case, was a student there.

Within a few questions, the first-graders at Williams Science & Fine Arts Magnet school watched the two women hold their arms next to each other. “My skin is brown,” Carter observed, “and Mrs. Gugelman’s skin is not.”

And then Gugelman reached the heart of the lesson. “Can we still be friends?”

The students, themselves a range of ethnicities, screamed out “yes!” oblivious to the messiness of the question, to the history of this place, to the struggles with race and equity that continue even now.

In school lessons, memorials and ceremonies, Topeka is marking its ties to the 1954 ruling that struck down “separate but equal.” But just as clear to many is the legacy of discrimination that stands in the way of its promise of equity in Topeka and elsewhere.

The district is now 36% white, down from 72% in 1987. The changes coincide with the nation growing more diverse. Yet none of Topeka’s neighboring districts have a white enrollment below 64%; one district has a 94% white enrollment.

This concentration of students of color in districts with higher numbers of poor students partially reflects historic redlining and that poorer families couldn’t afford to move to suburban districts with more costly homes, said Frank Henderson, who has served on the state and national school board associations.

Four years ago, the largely white suburban district of Seaman, north of Topeka, where Henderson was the first Black school board member, was forced to confront the darker aspects of its past.

In 2020, student journalists confirmed the district’s namesake, Fred Seaman, was a regional leader of the Ku Klux Klan a century ago. The school board ultimately voted unanimously to renounce Seaman and his KKK activities but to keep the name. “I felt it was probably the best that could be done to be able to address this hot issue,” said Henderson, whose 16 1/2-year school board term ended in January.

Madeline Gearhart, who was co-editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper, was disappointed. But now she thinks the student journalists who broke the story laid the groundwork for the issue to be taken up later in a district that is 80% white. “I just think it’s so ironic that in a world where Topeka was a part of Brown v. Board, we still are maintaining the namesake of the district and not trying to disassociate,” said Gearhart, who is white and now a junior at the University of Kansas.

Seven years after the historic ruling, Beryl New began attending the all-Black school, Monroe Elementary, where Linda Brown and another plaintiff child were students. It was still largely segregated, not by district policy, but by redlining.

Her family was friends with the president of the Topeka chapter of the NAACP who recruited the 13 families that sued the Topeka district. Their case was eventually joined by school desegregation cases from Virginia, South Carolina and Delaware. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” in the case that bore Oliver Brown’s name. A similar case from Washington, D.C., was decided at the same time in a separate ruling.

The ruling embarrassed city leaders because they believed they had built equitable schools for white and Black students, said New, who serves on the African Affairs Commission for Kansas and is a former principal and district administrator. “But of course, there were issues that were deeper than just what a building looks like,” she said.

For New, the mission now is to diversify the district’s workforce. Nationally, only about 45% of public school students are now white, but around 80% of teachers are, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The district is handing out symbolic teaching contracts to high schoolers and vowing to hire them when they graduate from college. And to clear roadblocks for Black aides who want to become full-fledged teachers, it sometimes pays their salaries while they student teach.

That is what allowed teacher Jolene Tyree, who is Black, to finish her degree. The longtime-aide, hopes it makes a difference to her students to have someone who looks like them. Growing up, she recalls having very few Black teachers. “You just feel somewhat on the outer side,” said Tyree, whose mother also attended Monroe and whose first-graders are now learning about the desegregation case.

Back in the library, Tyree’s students’ lesson was ending. Tiffany Anderson, Topeka’s first Black female superintendent, strode to the front of the room, quizzing the children on whether they wanted to be teachers, doctors or even the president of the United States someday.

Hands shot into the air. Anderson said many of the kids wouldn’t have done so in the past because they hadn’t seen anyone who looked like them in those roles. “So, boys and girls,” Anderson said, “as I’m looking out at the sea of differences that make you all special, ... I just want to remind you, do differences really matter?”

The children shouted “no” before trickling out of the room.

Seven-year-old Jamari Lyons stayed behind. “It’s OK to be white. And it’s OK to be Black. You can still be friends. You can still be neighbors. You can still love each other,” Jamari said, spreading his arms out wide.

Then he asked: “Right?”

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Why the Speech by KC Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker Was Embraced at Benedictine College's Commencement

ATCHISON, Kan. (AP/KPR) - Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker may have stirred controversy for his proclamations of conservative politics and Catholicism, but he received a standing ovation at the
May 11 commencement ceremony at Benedictine College in Atchison. The fast-growing college is part of a constellation of conservative Catholic colleges that tout their adherence to church teachings and practice. It is part of a larger conservative movement in parts of the U.S. Catholic Church. The college also is home to more traditional expressions of Catholicism, such as the Latin Mass, all-night prayer vigils and a strict code of conduct.

Butker's 20-minute speech hit several cultural flashpoints.

Butker, a conservative Catholic himself, dismissed Pride month as consisting of the “deadly sin sort of pride" while denouncing abortion and President Joe Biden's handling of the pandemic. He said women are told “diabolical lies” about career ambition when “one of the most important titles of all” is that of homemaker. He said this is not time for “the church of nice” and in particular blasted Catholics who support abortion rights and “dangerous gender ideologies.”

WHAT IS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE?
Benedictine College is a Catholic college in Atchison, Kansas, that traces its roots to 1858. It is located about 60 miles north of Kansas City., and has an enrollment of about 2,200.

LOTS OF COLLEGES ARE CATHOLIC. WHAT MAKES IT DISTINCTIVE?
In some ways, Benedictine College sounds like a typical Catholic college. Its “mission as a Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts, residential college is the education of men and women within a community of faith and scholarship,” according to its website. But its home to more traditional expressions of Catholicism, such as the Latin Mass, all-night prayer vigils and a strict code of conduct. Its mission statement further cites its commitment to "those specific matters of faith of the Roman Catholic tradition, as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and handed down in the teachings of the Church.”

The school gets a high ranking from the Cardinal Newman Society, a group that touts nearly two-dozen conservative colleges that exhibit what it calls “faithful Catholic education." That includes upholding church teachings and Catholic identity while providing ample Masses and other devotional activities in shaping their students. The society seeks to differentiate schools that “refuse to compromise their Catholic mission” from those that have become “battlegrounds for today’s culture wars.”

Others praised by the society include Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Ave Maria University in Florida and Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. The society's ranking says Benedictine benefits from having monks in residence, multiple Masses and prayer groups, spiritually focused organizations and theology programs with professors with a “mandatum" of approval from the local bishop.

Benedictine's enrollment has doubled in the past 20 years. Some 85% of its students are Catholic, according to the Cardinal Newman Society. Students told The Associated Press in interviews they embrace the college's emphasis on Catholic teaching and practice. “It’s a renewal of some really good things that we might have lost,” one student told the AP in its recent article on the revival of conservative Catholicism.

OTHER FACTS
Annual tuition for full-time undergraduates is $35,350, but Benedictine says 100% of its students receive some form of financial aid. Benedictine’s sports teams, called the Ravens, compete in National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Its athletics department says it is committed to ”setting the highest standards for academic success, athletic competition, ethical behavior, fiscal responsibility, and spiritual development.”

HOW DID GRADUATES REACT TO BUTKER’S SPEECH?
Video of the commencement shows virtually all the graduates and spectators rising to a standing ovation, but student interviews showed a more mixed reaction. ValerieAnne Volpe, 20, who graduated with an art degree, lauded Butker for saying things that “people are scared to say.” “I was thinking about my dad, who was also here, and how he’s probably clapping and so happy to see what he would say is a real man (reflecting) family values, good religious upbringing and representation of Christ to people,” she said. “You can just hear that he loves his wife. You can hear that he loves his family.”

Kassidy Neuner, 22, said the speech felt “a little degrading” and gave the impression that only women can be a homemaker. “I think that men have that option as well,” said Neuner, who will be spending a gap year teaching before going to law school. “And to point this out specifically that that’s what we’re looking forward to in life seems like our four years of hard work wasn’t really important.”

Elle Wilbers, 22, who is heading to medical school in the fall, said the Catholic faith focuses on mothers, so that portion of the speech wasn’t surprising. She was more shocked by his criticism of priests and bishops “misleading their flocks” and a quip comparing LGBTQ+ Pride month to one of the seven deadly sins. “We should have compassion for the people who have been told all their life that the person they love is like, it’s not okay to love that person,” Wilbers said. “It was sort of just a shock. I was like, ‘Is he really saying this right now?’”

WHAT DID BENEDICTINE'S NUNS SAY?
The Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, one of the founding sponsors of Benedictine College, issued a statement Thursday criticizing Buter’s speech, contending it did not properly represent the college's values. “Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division,” the statement said. “One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman,” it added. “We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God’s people, including the many women whom we have taught. ... These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.”

Butker's comments must be resonating with some as his Chiefs jersey has just become a hot commodity. According to various media sources, including the website AthlonSports.com, Butker's #7 jersey just replaced Chief's quarterback Patrick Mahomes #15 jersey as the NFL's top-selling jersey.

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Lesser Prairie Chicken Still Under Threat in Southwest Kansas

LIBERAL, Kan. (KNS) - It’s mating season for the lesser prairie chicken, but bird watchers will have fewer feathered friends to watch as the population continues to dwindle in southwest Kansas. The lesser prairie chicken used to roam the plains by the millions, but Audubon of Kansas estimates only around 25,000 remain. It is a metric that animal conservationists use to gauge the health of native grassland ecosystems, but 90% of the bird's habitat has been lost. Wayne Walker is with Common Ground Capital, an endangered species organization in the southern plains. “Imagine if 90% of the rain forest was cut down. People would be freaking out about that," he said. Walker and others are working on a program to pay ranchers for protecting the grasslands. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit last year to remove the bird from the threatened species list.

Proponents of the lesser prairie chicken say the species is synonymous with the Great Plains but the bird could go the way of the buffalo. Most of the bird’s remaining habitat is located in southwest Kansas. There are fewer places overall for the chicken to roam and less biodiversity in the prairies. Walker says that’s because cropland has replaced native prairie ecosystems. “I mean, it’s this massively complex and cool ecosystem. And you know, we look at a field full of wheat. And it's just like golly, you know, we plowed up this to make that?, he said.

Check out this new commentary about the lesser prairie chicken from Rex Buchanan.

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Next Season, the KC Chiefs Are Scheduled to Play on Almost Every Day of the Week

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP/KPR) - With their record-setting quarterback and pop-star dating tight end, the Kansas City Chiefs were the NFL’s version of the Beatles last season. This season, the Chiefs will come close to matching the Beatles' famous song “Eight Days a Week.” Along with the traditional Sunday games, Kansas City is also set to play games this season on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday - every day but Tuesday. It's an odd occurrence that has happened only once before in the NFL.

With their record-setting quarterback and pop-star dating tight end, the Kansas City Chiefs were the NFL's version of the Beatles last season. This season, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Chiefs will be as close to matching the Beatles' “Eight Days a Week” as any NFL team in nearly 100 years.

Along with traditional Sunday games, Kansas City is also set to play games every day of the week except Tuesday under the newly released NFL schedule. The Chiefs will be the first team since the 1927 New York Yankees — the football version, not the version with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig that dominated the baseball diamond — to play games on six days of the week in a single season. Those NFL Yankees under coach Ralph Scott went 7-8-1 that season with a roster that featured Hall of Famer Red Grange and played every day other than Monday.

The increase of television packages and broadcast windows have given one of the NFL's most high-profile franchises a most unusual schedule with a maximum of 11 games to be played on Sundays with at least two of those in prime time.

The Chiefs will open the season at home on Thursday night against the Baltimore Ravens on September 5 in the traditional spot for the defending champions. They will also play twice on Monday nights (October 7 against New Orleans and November 4 against Tampa Bay) and then were tabbed for two of the newer broadcast windows to fill some of other days of the week.

Kansas City will host the Las Vegas Raiders in the second annual Black Friday game on Amazon Prime Video on November 29 and was picked for the Christmas Day doubleheader on Netflix for a Wednesday game at Pittsburgh. The teams playing on Christmas in Week 17 were given Saturday games in Week 16 to get adequate rest, with Kansas City hosting Houston that day.

That gives the Chiefs games scheduled for every day of the week other than Tuesday.

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This summary of area news is curated by KPR news staffers. Our headlines are generally published by 10 am weekdays and are updated through 7 pm. This ad-free news summary is made possible by KPR members. Become one today. And follow KPR News on X (formerly Twitter,).