August 17, 2007
GOVERNOR AWARDS GRANT TO ALLIANCE AGAINST FAMILY VIOLENCE
Today Governor Kathleen Sebelius awarded 17 children’s advocacy centers a total of $962,941, which will be used to initiate, enhance, or expand programs establishing comprehensive Children’s Advocacy Centers. These facilities are child-focused, community-oriented programs coordinating investigation and intervention services for abused children by bringing together professionals and agencies in a comprehensive, multidisciplinary model.
Children’s Advocacy Centers restore a child’s quality of life by connecting him/her with a team of professionals who recognize the hurt of abuse and are dedicated to providing help and protection. These centers help children recover, while also ensuring the perpetrators of abuse face justice.”
The Alliance Against Family Violence in Leavenworth will receive $42, 972 to develop a Child advocacy center. Other organizations that will receive funding for new centers are:
County Organization Name Grant Award
Allen Hope Unlimited $ 34,724
McPherson Heart to Heart $ 38,298
Osage Osage County Sheriff’s Office $ 14,641
Riley Sunflower CASA Project, Inc. $ 39,183
Sedgwick CAC of Sedgwick County $ 93,395

The following organizations received funding to fund, enhance or expand existing programs:
County Organization Name Grant Award
Butler Sunlight Child Advocacy Center $ 35,584
Crawford Children’s Advocacy Center $ 54,256
Ford Crisis Center of Dodge City $ 45,468
Harvey Heart to Heart $ 44,283
Johnson/Wyandotte Sunflower House $207,702
Lyon SOS $ 40,302
Reno Horizons Mental Health Center $ 58,020
Saline Child Abuse Prevention Services, Inc. $ 44,425
Scott Western Kansas Child Advocacy Center $ 38,000
Shawnee Prairie Advocacy Center $ 81,688

The Kansas Chapter of Children’s Advocacy Centers will receive $50,000 to provide training, technical assistance and networking for children's advocacy centers and to assist new organizations in developing CAC services.

August 15, 2007
2008 Budget

Yesterday the Joint Budget Committee decided to look at some agency budgets in November, along with the Consensus Revenue Estimate and some other information to start working on the Fiscal Year 2009 budget. The committee is interested in some sort of pre-governor’s budget report examination of state spending and programs by House Appropriations/Senate Ways and Means committee members. The idea is primarily a House freshman-driven look at budgets, and Rep Jeff Colyer, a plastic surgeon, R-Overland Park, told the budget committee that there are some federal budgeting procedures that might have relevance to a state budget, like spending projections, economic outlooks and a prognostication of what spending decisions may mean for the economic future of the state. Colyer said that at some point, it might make sense for legislative leaders to authorize some pre-session days for the budget committees of the House and Senate.

Hospital payment kickoff

The Kansas Health Policy Authority today floated a proposal to substantially alter the state’s disposition of “disproportionate share” monies to hospitals which provide services to customers who can’t pay or aren’t insured for health-care services. The proposal by KHPA will serve as a kickoff of wrangling over the issue, which has the most notable effect of slashing over three years the current $17.6 million sent to Children’s Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, Mo., to just $4.5 million over the next three years and boosting funding for Via Christi Medical Center in Wichita from its current $1.6 million to $12.4 million in three years. The proposal to shift funding between the two big providers of care to the medically indigent also has the effect of sending more money to smaller hospitals across the state. One provision of the KHPA’s proposal reduces to 10% of total disproportionate share funds that can be paid to any out-of-state hospital, which tends to keep more of the money in Kansas.

Stephan: medical marijuana

Former Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan, a cancer survivor, will at 11 a.m. Friday endorse legalization of medical marijuana in Kansas. He’ll be at a Statehouse press conference of the Kansas Compassionate Care Coalition, which endorses medically prescribed marijuana in care and treatment or as a pain-alleviator for some diseases including cancer.

Agricultural Disaster

Severe weather has caused lossess for ag producers in several Kansas counties. The Governor is asking for federal assistance. Sebelius, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns asked that 8 Kansas counties be declared agricultural disaster areas due to crop losses resulting from spring storms. The State Emergency Board, which includes representatives from USDA’s Farm Service Agency, K-State University Research and Extension, Kansas Agricultural Statistics and the Kansas Department of Agriculture, reviews damage assessments submitted by county emergency boards. The board identified eight counties with loss estimates exceeding 30 percent for major crops and where a significant number of farmers were impacted:

· Hamilton and Trego counties for an ice storm, hail and high winds occurring through May 23, 2007;

· Kearney County for hail and high winds occurring May 23, 2007;

· Ellis County for hail and high winds occurring May 22 and May 31, 2007;

· Gove and Norton counties for hail, high winds and excessive rain occurring May 31, 2007;

· Jewell County for hail, high winds, excessive rain, lightning, flash flooding and flooding occurring May 31, 2007; and

· Lane County for hail, high winds and excessive rain occurring June 19, 2007.
Sebelius asked Johanns to declare each of the counties an agricultural disaster area so farmers will become eligible for low-interest loans for physical and crop production losses.

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