THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3,2014
PAGE 3
Davis: Brownback will cut school funds
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic challenger Paul Davis predicted Tuesday that state aid for Kansas public schools will be cut if Republican Gov. Sam Brownback wins re-election this year, but Davis didn't outline a specific plan to boost education funding.
Davis had a news conference Tuesday in the library of Lowman Hill Elementary School in Topeka to declare education funding will be his top priority if he's elected. Brownback pushed successfully for personal income tax cuts worth $4.1 billion collectively through mid-2018 to stimulate the economy. The state has already cut its top income tax rate by 26 percent and exempted the owners of 191,000 businesses from personal income taxes.
Critics contend the reductions are jeopardizing the state's financial health.
The Legislature's nonpartisan research staff projects a $238 million budget shortfall by July 2016, and neither candidate has outlined a specific plan for closing it. Davis has said he wants to restore school funding to levels promised in 2008, before the state felt the Great Recession, but he refused
Tuesday to outline how or when the state would provide the additional hundreds of millions of dollars.
Davis instead said Brownback's tax cuts are a failed "experiment" at the expense of public schools.
"Gov. Brownback wants to stay the course," Davis said. "That's going to result in more cuts for schools if Sam Brownback has his way."
"Gov. Brownback wants to stay the course. That's going to result in more cuts for schools..."
PAUL DAVIS Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Brownback spokesman John Milburn said Davis is distorting the governor's record and "is tripped up by the facts." Milburn also said Davis, the Kansas House minority leader, had a hand as a legislator in cuts in state aid to schools in 2009 and 2010, before Brownback took office.
leadership."
"He continues to ignore his role in the mess and offer no solutions for how he would do things differently," Milburn said. "That's the opposite of
Education funding is a key issue because Davis is wooing moderate GOP and unaffiliated voters worried about the effects of the income tax cuts on the state's finances.
Brownback has said new jobs will generate enough new tax revenues to close the projected budget gap, though federal statistics show the state's rate of private-sector job growth still lags behind the U.S. figure since Brownback took office in January 2011.
Democratic candidate Paul Davis makes a point while criticizing Republican and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on education funding issues Tuesday in the library of Lowman Hill Elementary School in Topeka. Davis says he'll make education funding a top priority if he's elected, but he isn't outlining a specific plan for boosting aid to public schools.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Davis has proposed indefinitely postponing tax cuts promised after January 2015, but a report last month from legislative researchers show the policy wouldn't produce enough revenues to eliminate the projected budget shortfall before July 2016. Davis said Tuesday that the tax freeze would be a first step. Meanwhile, candidates have declared for years that education funding will be their top budget priority. Even if they didn't, aid to public schools consumes more than half the state's tax dollars, making it the biggest item in the budget.
Brownback last week outlined second-term education goals and declared that he was reaffirming a strong commitment to public
schools. His administration says Kansas is spending about $270 million more in state tax dollars on schools than it did during the 2010-11 school year, an increase of nearly 9 percent.
student is $3,852, a decline of $581, or 13.1 percent, from its 2008 peak of $4,433. Public school officials use the base aid figure most widely in budget comparisons, but Brownback and other GOP conservatives note that it doesn't cover all spending.
But even with the additional dollars, the state's base aid per
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Burned teen's death was random attack
ASSOCIATED PRESS
With Claplain David Coatie at his side, Louis Allen, center, father of 15-year-old Dominique Allen, whose badly burned body was discovered in a backyard in Indianapolis on Sunday, grieves Tuesday at the site where her body was found. Dominique's purse and shoes were found about a block away from where her body was found. The Marion County Coroner's Office ruled the death by asphyxiation a homicide. Dominique Allen was a Ben Davis freshman. At right is Nira Watts.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A 15-year-old Indianapolis girl whose burned body was found over the weekend was likely abducted and killed by someone she didn't know, police and family members said Tuesday.
Dominique Allen's death was a homicide resulting from asphyxiation, Marion County Chief Deputy Coroner Alfarena Ballew ruled Tuesday. A man walking his dog found Allen's body in his backyard on the city's near northwest side Sunday, police said.
One of Allen's sisters, Shenika Poindexter, issued a stern warning to whoever was responsible during a news conference Tuesday at the site where Allen's body was found. A small makeshift wooden cross was placed next to scorch marks in the grass, and decorated with flowers and stuffed animals.
"I don't know why you had to do this. Whatever you do, wherever you go, justice is going to be served, in this life or the next. I don't care, they will hunt you until you die. ... She did not deserve this, she did not deserve this, she was 15 years old," Poindexter said between tears.
Poindexter said her sister wasn't the type to talk to strangers or get in a car with someone she didn't know. The victim had been staying with
another sister, Mareeka Allen,
and was last seen on the sister's
porch about 4 a.m. Sunday.
Mareeka Allen said the crime was a "careless random act;" and a detective investigating the case agreed.
"At this time, we believe it was random." Indianapolis Metro Police Detective Marcus Kennedy said, adding that Dominique Allen was dead before her body was burned.
Detectives are combing registered sex offenders for possible leads and checking for reported runaways in case there are other victims.
Police discovered the teen's purse and shoes Tuesday about a block from where her body was found.
Kennedy distributed a photograph of Dominique Allen taken the last night she was alive. In it, she's smiling and wearing the sandals that were discovered Tuesday.
Her sisters said Allen, who attended Ben Davis Ninth Grade Center, wanted to be a model and to attend Spelman College in Atlanta.
Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams, who lives a few blocks away from where the girl's body was found, comforted the family at the news conference.
"Pretty young lady, she had a future, and this evil person, or persons, destroyed her life," Williams said.
Convicted Air Force instructor dies
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The first Air Force instructor convicted of rape and sexual assault in a massive sex scandal at one of the nation's busiest military training centers has died while in prison, officials said Tuesday.
Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, a former instructor at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, was found unresponsive Friday at the federal military prison in Fort Leavenworth. Denise Haeuswell, a spokeswoman for Fort Leavenworth, said Walker was taken to a hospital, where he died Sunday night.
Haeusler said the cause of death was still being investigated and that no further details would be available until Army criminal investigators have completed their work in the case. It was unclear how long that would take. Calls to Lackland's public affairs office were not immediately returned Tuesday evening.
Walker had been serving a 20-year prison sentence. In July 2012, a military
court found Walker, then a married father with two sons, guilty of 28 counts of rape, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated sexual contact.
Lackland is where all Air Force recruits go through basic training, and Walker's was the first case tried following a massive sex scandal in which dozens of instructors were accused of preying on female recruits.
At trial, prosecutors said Walker used his position as trainer to gain female recruits' trust before making illicit sexual advances. Walker's court-martial included testimony from 10 women, one of whom wept as she described him luring her into his base office and sexually assaulting her on a bed, ignoring her pleas to stop. A month after Walker was convicted and sentenced, the military ousted Col. Glenn Palmer, the top commander over the basic training unit where the sexual assaults and harassment happened.
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