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THURSDAY • JANUARY 20 • 2011
Blizzard buries Lawrence
Brownback directs GOP to address budget crisis ————
Governor calls for reforms in school finance, KPERS and public health care By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
MAINTENANCE WORKER CHET EISENHOWER had his light on while clearing the sidewalks Wednesday at Babcock Place, 1700 Mass. A snowstorm entered Lawrence Wednesday afternoon, dumping about five inches by evening with snow continuing to fall.
Storm leads to closings, but few accidents By Joe Preiner jpreiner@ljworld.com
ONLINE: See a video of snowy sights downtown at LJWorld.com
The snow started falling in Lawrence early Wednesday afternoon and refused to stop. Area residents reported snowfall in
excess of five inches throughout the evening hours as a fast-moving winter storm swept across northeast Kansas. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for Douglas County and its surrounding counties that was to expire this morning, but not until it had dumped an additional one to three inches of
snow, for a total of up to eight inches in less than 24 hours. Lawrence street crews began working 24-hour shifts Wednesday morning in preparation for the storm and had all roads in the city treated with sand and salt before 4 p.m.
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● Closings and cancellations, page 2A. ● Tips for driving in winter weather, Please see STORM, page 2A page 2A.
Dozens have already been fined for failing to clear sidewalks By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
A total of 71 Lawrence property owners thus far have learned the hard way that the city is serious about having public sidewalks cleared of snow. Brian Jimenez, the city’s code enforcement manager, confirmed Wednesday that his office had issued 71 tickets to property owners who had failed to have their sidewalk cleared within 48 hours following last week’s snowstorm. The city has received 163 complaints, and staff members are continuing to
inspect properties. “The warmup on Monday took care of a lot of the complaints, but we’re still obligated to take a look,” Jimenez said of his staff of three inspectors. “You never know if a property will thaw and then refreeze. Unfortunately, that is what has been happening quite a bit. That is why it is so important to get the snow off early.” Jimenez said he thinks Lawrence residents are starting to understand the importance of complying with the code. Last year the city issued more than 200 tickets and had more than 700 com-
HOW TO REPORT IT To report an unshoveled sidewalk, call 832-7700 or report it online at http://www.lawrenceks.org/pds/ code_violation. plaints throughout the winter. “When we got this snowstorm, I was saying anything under 200 complaints would be surprising,” Jimenez said. Jimenez said he believes he’s seen more shoveled sidewalks this year than he has in the past. But he said it would be unrealistic for complaint numbers to ever dwindle to just a few.
“I don’t know that anything is ever going to translate into a lot fewer complaints because there are just miles and miles of sidewalks in town,” Jimenez said. Jimenez is guessing that many people who received tickets last year complied with the ordinance this year. But he said there are a lot of out-of-town property owners who may not be fully aware of the ordinance. It is likely that several of them soon will get a lesson on the ordinance in their mailboxes. The $20 ticket — plus court costs — go to the property owner, not the tenant.
TOPEKA — With a sense of urgency, Gov. Sam Brownback on Wednesday renewed his call for reforming school finance, the public pension system and taxpayer-funded health care. Brownback, a Republican who took office last week, assigned top Republicans in the Legislature to produce reforms and have them on his desk to sign into law this session. “We are staring at a structural budget problem that doesn’t go away,” Brownback said at a news conference. Standing beside Brownback were Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, and House Speaker Mike Colyer O’Neal, R-Hutchinson. The funding problems have plagued state government for more than two years as revenues decreased during the recession. In the face of a current estimated budget deficit of $550 million, Brownback has proposed cutting base aid to schools, eliminating or merging eight agencies, and wiping 2,000 unfilled positions off Morris the books. But even if those proposals are implemented, Brownback said, the state still faces a “continued huge structural deficit.” The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System has a $7.7 billion long-term gap between projected revenues and promised benefits, and Medicaid costs are O’Neal skyrocketing as more Kansans fall into poverty and need to access services. Brownback said if he and legislators fail to get control of the three core areas of government there will be additional layoffs, furloughs and cuts to Medicaid providers. Brownback put O’Neal in charge of developing legislation that will define what the state is required to fund for schools to comply with the Kansas Constitution. O’Neal said the state’s responsibility probably falls somewhere between all that is offered now in schools and the basic reading, writing and math. Colyer, a physician and former legislator, will tackle Medicaid funding with a number of Cabinet secretaries and budget director Steve Anderson. Medicaid provides health care to the poor and those with disabilities. Colyer said Medicaid funding is “now on a path Please see BROWNBACK, page 2A
University leaders blame budget cuts for departure of star professors By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
TOPEKA — Leaders of several of Kansas’ public universities said Wednesday that they have lost some star professors because of recent state budget cuts. In Kansas University’s case, budget cuts likely figured into the 2009 departure of associate professor Yang Zhang, one of the most prominent researchers in bioinformatics, according to a “case study” memo by KU. His computational laboratory at KU, started with an initial invest-
ment of $335,000, generated $2.5 million in research funds. But the University of Michigan made a $2 million start-up offer for Zhang to conduct his research Gray-Little there. KU couldn’t counter, the memo said. “In this case, the offer (from Michigan) came when no merit salary increases were available, when cuts were making it impossible to maintain faculty numbers in bioinformatics,
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State and Wichita State, but the universities would have to match the state funding through their own existing resources to access those funds. Kansas State, Pittsburg State and Wichita State provided similar examples of top professors leaving for more lucrative deals at other schools. KU Chancellor Bernadette GrayLittle said KU has strong faculty who are sought by programs across the nation. “Their departure causes loss of other staff and research programs,” Gray-Little said during a meeting of the Kansas Board of Regents’ Coun-
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and when the prognosis was for additional challenging budget years,” according to the memo. Zhang’s spouse was also able to find an ideal job in Ann Arbor, the memo said. “The loss of Professor Zhang has been a major setback” for bioinformatics and molecular biosciences departments at KU, the memo said. Higher education has been cut by approximately $100 million during the past two years. Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed budget makes no additional cuts. He has proposed $15 million in new research funding, divided equally among KU, Kansas
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cil of Presidents, which is composed of regents university chiefs. In November, the Council of Presidents had discussed trying to gather figures on the number of faculty who have left recently for better offers, and forwarding that information to policymakers. But on Wednesday, Gray-Little said there “was not a clear pattern” of faculty losses across all regents universities. So the council decided to focus on several specific instances of faculty being lured away. — Statehouse reporter Scott Rothschild can be reached at 785-423-0668.
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