… the Newton Police Department and the Harvey County Sheriff’s Department … both do business a little bit differently. Newton, for instance, trades in seized firearms acquired through civil forfeiture with their equipment dealer when purchasing new equipment for the department. “We have these things sitting here, and whatever value we get for them is money the taxpayer doesn’t have to spend,” Newton Police Lt. Mike Yoder said. They work through a company, GT Distributors, based out of Kansas City and trade the seized firearms as well as old department service firearms to lower the cost of purchasing new equipment… The sheriff’s department can follow a similar procedure, according to information provided by County Public Information Officer Kyle McCaskey. “The firearm can be sent to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to be destroyed, can be used for department use, or it could be used to trade for equipment needs,” he said. “For example, the firearm can be traded to a licensed firearm dealer, and in turn, that funding could be used for equipment the sheriff’s office needs. In turn, the licensed firearm dealer can resell it, pending background checks, etc.”
Source: Harvey County Now

The Pittsburg City Commission this week approved purchasing approximately 192 acres located north of Atkinson and west of Free King Highway for $1.2 million and annexing it into the city for use as a future industrial park. “We only have so much industrial park space in the city,” said City Manager Daron Hall. “We’re very fortunate that we’ve got a lot of growth in the businesses that are in our industrial parks, and the few acres that we have unallocated are currently being sought after. What we don’t have is a very large, new, undeveloped industrial park with rail access, next to a highway, which this is.”
Source: Morning Sun

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.

The Hutchinson Police Department will begin wearing a brand-new badge starting on September 1st, 2021, in honor of the department’s sesquicentennial anniversary. Captain Thad Pickard, Captain of Professional Standards, designed the new badge. Pickard wished to create a badge that would represent the entire 150-year history of the police department, including the iconic Salt Hawk, a ring to describe the history of policing and a two-tone design to represent the different officers, patrol and ranked. ‘The shield is silver, giving honor to the true workforce of our department, the patrol officers, the banners are gold to honor the officers that hold rank,’ said Pickard.
Source: Hutch News

Few projects financed using STAR bonds met benchmarks for bringing visitors and spending to the state, a new report from the Legislature’s non-partisan auditing arm revealed Monday. Moreover, a sampling of three projects using the tool found it will take decades, even upward of a century, for revenues from out-of-state visitors to reach the point where the state had made back the tax revenue it gave up for those enterprises. STAR bonds, short for Sales Tax and Revenue Bonds, are an economic development tool designed to boost tourism and business activity in Kansas. They have existed in the state for decades. They allow municipalities to issue bonds to finance major commercial, entertainment and tourism developments and are paid off through sales tax revenue generated by the project.
Source: CJonline