USA TODAY
Former Fox host files sexual harassment suit against boss. 1B
L A W R E NC E
Journal-World
®
$1.00
LJWorld.com
THURSDAY • JULY 7 • 2016
Bert Nash among mental health centers losing $30M By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
Topeka — Officials at the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center in Lawrence said they have already reduced their staff and discontinued some services after losing more than $1 million in state Medicaid funding, and they are now asking Douglas County to
Town Talk
Kansas budget cuts lead to reduced staffing, services help fill in the gaps. than two dozen commu“We’ve eliminated nity mental health censome positions, and ters around the state that we’ve realigned other have lost a combined $30 staff,” said Dave Johnson, million a year in MedicCEO of Bert Nash. “This aid funds to treat lowis a real penny-wise, LEGISLATURE income individuals with pound-foolish situation.” serious mental health Bert Nash is one of more problems.
Kyle Kessler, executive director of the Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas, said the cuts fell into three categories: l Elimination of a “health home” pilot program designed to coordinate care for people with both mental health ill-
A neck on the line for art
Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Nonprofits jockeying for city aid
Please see AID, page 8A
Please see BERT, page 3A
SCHOOL FUNDING
Next for court to decide: Is it adequate? Arguments are set for Sept. 21 as some justices face voter test
S
ome people say the art of politics is compromise. I’ve heard others contend the true art is figuring out a good way to ask for money. If so, Lawrence City Hall is full of art these days. It is budget season, and among the groups seeking city funds are the community’s social service agencies. If history is any guide, they won’t be overly successful. Even though the total amount of money the city gives to social service agencies is a relatively small portion of the city’s overall budget, it gets outsized attention. The funding requests are full of good causes, and the social service agencies have boards full of community leaders who know how to twist the arms of city commissioners. If you have been on Facebook recently, you perhaps have noticed that City Commissioner Matthew Herbert has taken to politicking for a particular social service agency. Herbert has lent his support and his Facebook page to getting city funding for Just Food, the food bank that has seen a whole host of financial problems since its former director — and Lawrence’s
nesses and chronic medical conditions. l Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of funding for a mental health screening program aimed at diverting mental health patients, when appropriate, away from inpatient hospitals and into community-based treatment programs.
By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
GUS HACHMEISTER, OF LAWRENCE, gives a coat of paint Wednesday to a giraffe created by local artist Kris Kuksi. Kuksi's studio at 647 Maple St. in North Lawrence was putting together a show for an upcoming exhibit in Los Angeles.
Topeka — With the issue of school funding equity now resolved, the Kansas Supreme Court is turning its attention to the much larger and thornier issue of overall adequacy of school funding. The court will hear oral arguments Sept. 21 on that portion of the case, where the plaintiff school districts are seeking upwards of $550 million a year in additional base state funding. They argue that’s how much has been cut in state funding since former Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat, and current Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, began slashing state aid in the wake of the Great Recession. But in an earlier round of appeals, the court changed the standard by which it judges the overall adequacy of state education spending. Instead of basing it on the actual cost of providing required services, which was the standard used in the last school funding case, Montoy v. Kansas, the court now says it will judge adequacy based on student achievement, as defined by standards known as the Rose capacities, set out in a Kentucky school funding case in the 1980s. Those essentially say that by the time students graduate from high Please see COURT, page 5A
Fourth of July ride-along reveals disregard for Lawrence fireworks ban By Nikki Wentling
SOME OF THE FIREWORKS CONFISCATED from a Fourth of July gathering at 302 E. 15th Place.
Twitter: @NikkiWentling
L
awrence Police Officer Ryan Robinson drove his patrol car slowly along East 15th Place about 10 p.m. Monday, headed toward a spot where the street dead-ends and a group of neighbors were gathered for a Fourth of July party. Robinson, responding to a fireworks complaint, had just seen an artillery shell Debris from all kinds of firefirework shoot up from the works — fountains, firecrackspot and explode into the sky. ers, Saturn Missiles, Roman
Business Classified Comics Deaths
Low: 71
Today’s forecast, page 8A
candles — littered the street at the dead-end. Several families, about 30
INSIDE
Hot, breezy
High: 94
Nikki Wentling/ Journal-World Photo
people in all, met Robinson with stares when he got out of his patrol car at 302 E. 15th Place, where the families had set up three rows of lawn chairs to watch their show. They looked on as he sorted — with the help of one of the men in the group — the illegal fireworks from the legal ones; loaded them into a 150-quart Igloo cooler; and dropped them into the back of his old Crown Victoria. The officer took what he guessed was hundreds of dollars’ worth of fire-
2A 6C-10C 4A 2A
Events listings Horoscope Opinion Puzzles
2A, 2C Sports 6A Television 7A USA Today 6A
Join us at Facebook.com/LJWorld and Twitter.com/LJWorld
1C-5C 6A, 8A, 2C 1B-8B
“
It’s hard to predict. There’s always something that can come along that will absorb those resources.” — Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib works and tossed them in a dumpster behind the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical training center off Please see FIREWORKS, page 5A
Injured officer Lawrence police say they have issued an arrest warrant for a man who allegedly injured an officer Tuesday while fleeing a traffic stop on Rhode Island Street. 3A
Vol.158/No.189 26 pages