Takeaways: A growing program in Kansas and Missouri aims to set up more kids for environmental jobs — and it’s focusing on foster kids. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is spending more than $450,000 to help foster children in the two states land environmental jobs. Those kids spend days in the classroom studying for key […]
Kansas State Government
Stories from The Wichita Beacon that cover issues from the Kansas state government.
Posted inKansas State Government
Kansas Republicans want a flat tax. Here’s why it may not happen
Takeaways: The path to a Republican-led tax cut looks murky one day into the Kansas legislative session after three key lawmakers signaled they back the competing tax plan pushed by the Democratic governor. Republicans came close to passing a single-rate flat-tax plan last year that would have taxed everyone’s income at 5.15% if they make […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Kansas lawmakers have a budget surplus and want tax cuts. Here’s what they’re thinking for 2024
Takeaways: Kansas lawmakers return to Topeka with a $2 billion-plus surplus and competing ideas on how to spend it. Republicans want things the state’s Democratic governor is sure to veto, and Democrats don’t have the legislative clout to pass their plans. The Beacon asked Republican and Democratic leadership what their priorities are for this session, […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Here’s some ideas Kansas lawmakers have for drumming up more child care
Takeaways: Tory Marie Blew first got on a waiting list for infant care when she got married. She waited over three years before a spot finally opened. Thankfully for Blew, a Republican state representative from Great Bend, Kansas, she wasn’t pregnant when she first signed up. She is now, and the recently-available opening will come […]
Posted inEducation, Kansas State Government
More Kansas teens feel sad or hopeless, but a school program is helping thousands
Takeaways: Anxiety and depression. Eating disorders. Suicide. Among kids. More than one-third of high school students in Kansas reported feeling sad or hopeless for a two-week run or longer in 2021 — slightly below the national average, but at nearly double the rate recorded a dozen years before the pandemic. Kansas spotted the growing youth […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Deaf Kansans struggle getting legal help. The state is trying to change that
Takeaways: A deaf Kansas woman going through a divorce signed a separation agreement thinking she would receive $500 a month in alimony. But that alimony had never been agreed to. “By the time (an attorney) reviewed the matter, it was well past the time to file an appeal,” said Leonard Hall, a lawyer at Hall […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Kansas foster kids need mental health care, but trying to add more is expensive
Takeaways: Kansas foster kids get too little behavioral and mental health treatment, audits find, but expanding those services can prove so costly that it slows expansion of those programs. Foster kids got mental and behavioral health treatment just 70% of the time in 2022, a lawsuit settlement found. That’s well below the 85% court-mandated requirement. […]
Posted inKansas State Government
A 15-year-old’s suicide while in Kansas foster care came amid a shortfall in mental health care
Takeaways: A 15-year-old took his own life in October while in the care of a private Kansas foster care agency. That agency, KVC Kansas, fell short of court-mandated benchmarks for getting mental health treatment for children in its care. Yet KVC actually comes closer to hitting the mark than other agencies hired by the state […]
Posted inEconomics, Environment, Kansas State Government
Kansas regulators give Evergy a smaller electrical rate hike than it asked for
Takeaways: Kansas regulators dialed back electric rate hikes that Evergy wanted to impose on its customers. Electric rates will now go up slightly for former Westar customers in the central part of Kansas and tick down for customers who used to get their kilowatts from Kansas City Power & Light. Evergy says, on average, its […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Kansas judge blocks 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions
A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked several of the state’s longstanding abortion restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period that providers say has resulted in hundreds of women being denied abortions. In an order released Monday, Johnson County District Judge K. Christopher Jayaram wrote that the restrictions “(appear) to be a thinly-veiled effort to stigmatize the […]