TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Board of Regents will ask the legislature to restore $30 million in funding that was cut last year.
Regents CEO and President Blake Flanders says the board would like to see state funding at least stabilize.
In 2012, tuition became a larger source of university revenue than state general fund support. Flanders noted the shift in a presentation Tuesday on the board’s long-term goals to the Senate Education Committee.
Regents’ goals include increasing educational attainment, aligning the higher education system with the needs of the economy and ensuring university excellence.
Flanders says increasing attainment is necessary because higher wages will bring in more state income tax revenue. To reach that goal, the Regents created a pilot program to help high school students transition to college math.
The first of two Junction City High School Way Forward Town Hall meetings was held on January 17th.
The meeting was an opportunity for members of the Steering Committee to share what they’ve learned about a possible new high school project as well as address the needs of students in the District.
Questions were also taken from the public and addressed individually by District officials.
In case you missed it you can view the entire meeting below. The next Town Hall meeting is scheduled for Saturday, January 28th.
The first of two Town Hall meetings to discuss the possibility of a new Junction City High School was held on January 17th.
The second meeting will be on Saturday, January 28th. Once again, this meeting will be open to the public and the public is encouraged to come and ask questions or offer their input.
Those in attendance were given a survey to complete; the District is asking that all Geary County residents complete the survey.
Should a new Junction City High School be built the plan includes use of state and federal aid to pay the tab with no increase in the local property tax levy.
One of the questions posed during a town hall meeting concerned how can the district be confident the funds are coming to USD 475. Superintendent Dr. Corbin Witt noted if the USD 475 proposal is in, the district will know before it ever goes to the voters if the state has committed to paying for those bonds used to provide state aid. “If the state of Kansas says we will not pay for those we will know before it ever goes to the voters whether the state of Kansas has committed to paying for those bonds. If the state of Kansas says we will not pay for those you’ll know it, we probably won’t have the bond election. ” Witt also told the town hall audience, “If the state of Kansas commits to it we’ve been assured by Dale Dennis, who’s the deputy commissioner, that they’ve never defaulted, they will not default, it’s a demand item transfer, and if they’ve committed it will be paid.”
If a new school is going to be built it would be necessary for local voters to approve a bond issue in order for the state aid to be obtained.
On the issue of federal heavily impacted military aid received by the district federal legislation has been approved continuing that. Witt noted basically that legislation is three years behind. “It’s coming in where it’s looking at our student body from the past years. So the funding, we can already tell whether we qualify or not based on knowing what those enrollment figures were.” Witt added the district knows they qualify through 2020. It’s one of the most bipartisan supported things in the nation. “Military aid is extremely bipartisan supported.
Options for renovating or building a new high school range in cost from $31 million for needed maintenance on the current facility to $105 million for a new ninth through twelfth grade facility that could be built on the west side of Junction City.
The Warren Settles Auditorium at JCHS was about half full Tuesday evening for the town hall meeting. Another town hall session will be held at the same location at 10 a.m. on Saturday, January 28th.
L to R: Police Chief Peirano, Officer Williams, Mayor Rick Geike
While working his normal duty day on October 22nd, 2016 Officer Josh Williams with the Grandview Plaza Police Department said he did what anyone in that situation would have done.
“I was on uniformed patrol that day and received a call from dispatch of a 7 month old child who was choking…when I arrived the child was breathing [but] having a hard time breathing and at one point the child did stop breathing; I attempted a heimlich maneuver…and eventually the child started crying and breathing again,” said Williams.
After the ordeal, Williams said he “had to know and see for [himself] that the child was okay” so he visited the family and child in the hospital.
Initially, Williams kept the story to himself, thinking of it as “part of the job” until City officials learned about his heroism.
On January 17th, Grandview Plaza Mayor Rick Geike, and Chief of Police Shawn Peirano presented Williams with an award honoring him for the heroic act.
Sports Complex Project Manager Eddie Reeder has been busy crunching numbers.
“Right now I am working on a business plan and so a lot of what I’ve done so far is the feasibility of [it] as well as what the economic impact would be,” said Reeder.
The idea is to build a Sports Complex in Junction City/Geary County that would attract visitors and thus create more revenue in the area.
“Almost every single one of those large complexes – which a lot of them are in that Lawrence, Kansas City and Topeka area – pretty much April through August they’re filled every weekend, and that provides a good opportunity especially with our location here right off the highway,” said Reeder.
One idea that is on the table is to partner with the school district in the event a new high school successfully garners community support.
“If we were to be able to lease the land from the high school…it was mentioned as part of the design that they were going to include a sports complex and that’s something that we were working on as well, and so in a town of 23 – 25,000 why would you have two different organizations trying to complete the same project,” said Reeder.
Various school districts across the state have Sports Complex facilities where JCHS students often compete in tournaments, matches and other competitions.
The idea as it’s proposed would include having a separate entity – a nonprofit for example to run the facility.
“It would not utilize any resident tax dollars, right now we are using the 1% transient guest tax which is the hotel tax any guest would pay when staying at Geary County lodging facilities,” said Reeder.
The proposed complex would include multi-purpose fields which could be used for soccer, youth league softball and baseball fields and high school regulation softball and baseball fields.
Reeders estimates that the facility can carry a price tag of anywhere from $6 million to $10 million. No final decisions have been made at this point.
Manhattan, Kan. May 24, 2016 — The sixteenth Kansas Mission of Mercy (KMOM) project will take place in Manhattan on January 27-28, 2017 at the National Guard Armory.
“We look forward to working with the community of Manhattan over the next few months to bring the 2017 KMOM event to the Manhattan area,” said Niki Sadler, Operations Coordinator of the Kansas Dental Association, one of the supporting organizations of the KMOM project. “Local coordinators have already begun making contacts and will continue within the next few months as we look for monetary and in-kind donations and community volunteers to support our efforts.”
For every $25 donated, KMOM can provide over $500 in free dental care. This project will cost nearly $140,000, but will leave behind approximately $1 million of donated dental care in the Salina area, in return.
The upcoming project aims to treat about 1,600 patients. The Kansas Mission of Mercy project has treated 26,780 patients since its inception in 2003 and provided over $15 million in free dental care.
Information regarding the Kansas Mission of Mercy project, including registration, important updates and news releases will be made through the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation website at www.ksdentalfoundation.org.
The biggest mistake you can make in business is hiring the wrong person.
It looks like the big 1st Congressional District of Kansas may have hired the right one for the job. Congressman Roger Marshall stopped by the KJCK studios Monday afternoon for an exclusive interview where he discussed everything from agriculture to healthcare.
Marshall said he’s not worried about the appointment, or lack thereof at this point, of an Agriculture Secretary in the Trump Administration.
“I just have to have faith; Mr. Trump has made great appointments so far [and] I would assume the reason he’s not announced somebody is that he hasn’t found the right person for the job – and I think most of us that have been in business realize that the biggest mistake you can do is hiring the wrong person , but I have faith he’ll find the right person,” said Marshall.
Marshall was selected for a seat on the House Agriculture Committee for the 115th Congress, something he says is very important for Kansans.
“We’re the largest Ag producing Congressional District in the country…the average income for a farmer last year was $6000 – we need a safety net – and what it means to the average farmer is we have to somehow figure out a way to keep them solvent and not go in to bankruptcy,” said Marshall.
Kansas has maintained a seat on the House Ag Committee for the last century, with the exception of the last three years.
An obstetrician from Great Bend, Marshall said that healthcare reform will be one of the key issues for legislators as Donald Trump prepares to take office.
“I want to reassure people we’re not going to push them off a cliff, we’re not going to pull a rug out from under them…you know this is not going to transition overnight – we’ll write the law this summer but we will give everybody plenty of time to change over,” said Marshall.
Marshall said that he traveled 30,000 miles across Kansas during his campaign, and the overwhelming majority of people were dissatisfied with the current Federal Healthcare Law.
“Unfortunately, it was a nightmare what we saw were $12,000 deductibles and premiums going up 20, 40, 60 percent; so even though people had insurance it wasn’t functionable, if you’ve got a five or ten thousand dollar deductible – who’s got that type of money in savings – so it just proved to be impractical,” said Marshall.
Marshall said he doesn’t foresee a federal mandate under the Trump administration requiring everyone to have health insurance.
Marshall will spend the next week visiting communities in the First Congressional District, which includes Junction City, before preparing for the Inauguration of Donald Trump this weekend.
ABILENE, Kan. – The Eisenhower Presidential Library and the Eisenhower Foundation are pleased to welcome FOX News anchor Bret Baier to Abilene on Feb. 2 to promote his new book on the Eisenhower-Kennedy presidential transition.
Baier will present the book “Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final Mission” in a free public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Visitors Center Auditorium.
Baier conducted much of the research for this book from the archival holdings of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. The ‘three days in January’ refer to the period between Eisenhower’s prophetic farewell address on the evening of Jan. 17, 1961, and John F. Kennedy’s inauguration of the afternoon of Jan. 20 — the closing act of one of modern America’s greatest leaders.
Baier is Chief Political Anchor for FOX News Channel and the Anchor/Executive Editor of Special Report with Bret Baier. Baier previously served as National Security Correspondent based at the Pentagon. His first book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love, became a top-ten New York Times bestseller upon its release in 2014.
Three Days in January digs deep into Eisenhower’s last address as president and his efforts to advise Kennedy in the three days between the address and Kennedy’s inauguration. At the end of those fateful three days in January 1961, Eisenhower left the public stage having done perhaps more than any other modern American to set the nation, in his words, “on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.”
Copies of Three Days in January are available for purchase in the Eisenhower Presidential Library Gift Shop. Baier will be available to sign books following the program.
