6A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY JABY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18,2007
» DEFERRED MAINTENANCE
Sebelius backs repair funds
Gov. wants $63 million for initial maintenance of universities
Charlie Riedel/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bret Baer, right, and Matt Meimig put new mortar between massive limestone blocks in the basement of the west wing of the Kansas Statehouse Thursday in Topeka. The work is part of ongoing renovations throughout the state, including the $663 million backlog at universities.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA — Gov. Kathleen Sebelius wants legislators to spend nearly $63 million as a first installment on long-needed repairs to state universities. Legislative budget chiefs say there will be additional money, but how much remains up in the air.
The deferred maintenance money was part of the governor's request presented Tuesday for an additional $203 million in the upcoming budget year. The money would be added to the final budget bill lawmakers will consider when they return April 25 from their annual break.
Legislators already have sent the governor the $12.3 billion main budget to finance state government after July 1.
The governor's request includes $47.7 million as a one-time appropriation to address the top priority needs on seven campuses, plus $15 million for unspecified maintenance projects.
"Earlier in this legislative session, I proposed a more comprehensive plan for dealing with university deferred maintenance. However, neither my plan, nor any other, has been enacted," Sebelius said in her request to the House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means committees.
Sebelius also asked for an additional $56.8 million for the current year, with most of that for growth in social service programs and to repay some Medicaid funds to the federal government.
The House panel began working on the budget bill Tuesday and the Senate committee will begin work Wednesday. The final version will be worked out by negotiators from the two chambers.
The governor and the Kansas Board of Regents have urged legislators to address the backlog of $663 million worth of projects.
Budget experts met this week to review state revenue and said that while the economy was in good shape, legislators didn't have large surpluses to take care of all funding requests, including state buildings, expanding social services or making huge tax cuts.
The question is what legislators eventually will do with the governor's request for the campuses.
"I have no idea at this time how much of it will stay, but it probably will be in that ballpark," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Sharon Schwartz, R-Washington.
Schwartz said she wanted legislators to have more oversight of how the money will be spent.
"There ought to be policies approved by the Legislature rather than a line item in the budget," she said. "It's a big enough issue that the full Legislature needs to weigh in on it."
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dwayne Umbarger said deferred maintenance would be a serious contender, but just how much it will remain depends on what legislators decide.
"I'm fairly confident that we are going to designate significant resources to deal with deferred maintenance," said Umburger, R-Thayer. "It is always the process of prioritizing and seeing where the dollars are most needed."
Umbarger said universities were the best judges of their most pressing needs.
"The institutions are more capable of prioritizing their list than we under the dome. I want to make sure we don't replace their knowledge with our perceptions," he said.
The issue of deferred maintenance at the various campuses has been a lingering one, with legislators doing little to make a significant dent in the backlog.
The last major legislative effort to deal with deferred maintenance was in 1996, when legislators authorized about $164 million in bonds to pay for repairs in a program dubbed "Crumbling Classrooms."
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You're getting ready to graduate! That means entering the working world, paying bills and making student loan payments.
University Financial Services will be on the KU campus during the week of Monday, April 16th through Friday, April 20th to provide you with free one-on-one student loan consultations. Learn how to save money each month and lower your future student loan payments by up to 50%. Also, find out about lower in-grace rates, forbearance and deferment rights, and the great incentives that we can offer KU graduates.
FREE Consultations with Financial Specialists for KU students.
Monday April 16 11:00am to 5:30pm
Tuesday April 17 9:30am to 5:30pm
Wednesday April 18 9:30am to 5:30pm
Thursday April 19 9:30am to 5:30pm
Friday April 20 9:30am to 4:30pm
The Jayhawk Bookstore at the top of Naismith Hill.
》 SOLDIER WELFARE
Veteran holds family hostage
Fort Riley soldier surrenders after promise of psychiatric help
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HERINGTON — A veteran of the Iraq war who held his family hostage and wore military armor during a standoff with police surrendered only after being assured he would receive help for post-traumatic stress disorder, police said.
The 33-year-old Fort Riley soldier, whose name was not released because he had not been charged, locked himself and his family inside his Herington home Sunday night. He released his family shortly after the incident began but surrendered only after talking to a Herington police officer who had befriended him, police Chief John Pritchard said.
Police went to the man's home about 8.30 p.m. after receiving a call that he was holding his wife and four children hostage. After releasing his family shortly after officers arrived, the man put on military body armor
Pritchard said Tuesday that the man would undergo psychiatric evaluation at Fort Riley before the Dickinson County attorney will decide what, if any, charges will be filed.
"Our first concern was to get help for the family and him," Pritchard said. "At the same time, we're finishing our investigation so the county attorney can determine how to proceed."
and said he wanted to "go down in a blaze of glory" Pritchard said.
Pritchard said the man had nine loaded firearms, including two assault rifles, in the house. The man did not point a weapon at officers during the standoff, but officers saw him with a weapon in a backyard several times, he said.
After refusing to talk to other
officers, the man said he would talk to Herington police officer Curtis Hartman, who had befriended the man and visited him at his home. Hartman talked to the man for about an hour before the soldier agreed to surrender.
ics of the conversation but said the man talked about what was bothering him and about getting help.
"I got him to where he would remove his body armor and put down his weapons and listen carefully as I told him how he could come out of his house so there would be no harm to him or to any of our officers or to anyone else." Hartman
JOHN PRITCHARD Police Chief
"When he surrendered, he told the officer,'I did this for you. You treated me like a person,and I appreciate it."
"I think it was that rapport that helped resolve the issue the way it was," Pritchard said. "When he surrendered, he told the officer, 'I did this for you. You treated me like a person, and I appreciate it.'"
Pritchard said one of the conditions of the man's surrender was that he receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, from which the man believed he suffered because of his service in Iraq.
Hartman wouldn't discuss specif-
said.
The man attempted suicide after being placed in a holding cell at the Herington Police Department and was treated for minor injuries before being taken by ambulance to Fort Riley at about
midnight Sunday, Pritchard said.
Pvt. Francisca Vega, a spokeswoman for Fort Riley, said Tuesday the man was a sergeant with the rear detachment of 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, which is currently in Iraq. He has been deployed at least twice, and at least one of those deployments was to Iraq, Vega said.
She said the man has been admitted to Salina Regional Medical Center but couldn't say whether he was being evaluated or treated there.
Up in smoke
Bob Self/THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION
A helicopter drops water on the fires burning south of Waycross, Ga., on Tuesday. The fire in southeastern Georgia, which started Monday when a tree fell on a power line near Waycross, has blackened 10,000 acres of forest, destroyed a mobile home and was threatening the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a haven for alliators, bears and wading birds, officials said Tuesday.
》 AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kansas cities compete for biodefense lab
WASHINGTON — A week before site selection teams visit Kansas, the state's congressional delegation is ramping up the push for a new federal biodefense lab to be built in Leavenworth or Manhattan.
A state task force formed earlier this year to land the site shows Kansas is making the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility "a critical national and state priority," law-makers said in a letter Tuesday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Eighteen sites in 12 states are competing for the new lab, which could pump $3.5 billion into the local economy during the next 20 years.
The field is expected to be narrowed in June and a final decision will be made in October 2008. The
Lawmakers said the large number of agriculture research and development sites along the Interstate 70 corridor make the state an ideal location for the lab.
new lab would replace an existing facility on Plum Island. N.Y.
The new lab would bring about 1,000 construction jobs and 250 science-based jobs to the community once the project is completed by 2015.
Environmental & Life Sciences Career Fair Thursday, April 19th 2007
Burge Union
Explore opportunities from full-time or part-time employment internships, volunteering, & continuing education opportunities
4:30-5:30 Employer Panel 5:30-7:30 Career Fair
Presented by the University Career Center
All students welcome!
For more information:
www.ucc.ku.edu
Contributing to Student Success!
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