Kansas Municipal News
Municipal Bond Trends for January 22, 2024
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, or Henry Schmidt.
Planning Commission advances new wind energy regulations for Douglas County
The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission voted 6-3 early Tuesday morning to move forward with a new set of wind energy regulations at the end of a meeting that stretched six hours. … Commissioners aimed to balance the need for rigorous regulations that protect Douglas County against the need to allow continued renewable energy development. The result was a set of new regulations with a series of modifications derived from public comments and commission discussion over the last few months.
Source: The Lawrence Times
Wichita plans to close a number of elementary, middle schools at end of school year
An unspecified number of Wichita schools will be closed at the end of the school year to help offset a looming $42 million budget shortfall. Staff will make recommendations on which schools should be closed and why at the next school board meeting on Feb. 12. Decisions will be finalized by spring break, after ample opportunity for public input, Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said. Closures will be limited to elementary and middle schools because of the logistical challenges of relocating 1,000 to 2,000 high school students.
Source: Wichita Eagle
Pickleball noise has become nuisance at this Prairie Village park. Is there a fix?
Prairie Village residents who live near Windsor Park will need to wait on any pickleball noise relief. The Prairie Village City Council on Tuesday voted 9-2 to send the pickleball noise issue at Windsor Park back to the city’s parks and recreation committee for a solution. Some residents near Windsor Park have complained about pickleball noise — what has become both a national and local uproar — since six courts were installed in June.
Source: Johnson County Post
How costly will the boil water advisory be for Topekans?
Topekans will see only a trickle of additional costs, if any, due to the problem that forced the city last week to declare a boil water advisory, city officials say. The city, which uses about 20 million gallons of water on a normal day, was able to flush the entire 60 million gallons involved through its distribution system in about three days, co-interim city communications director Rosie Nichols told The Capital-Journal Friday.
Source: CJonline
County Commission approves state of emergency from Jan. 8-9 storm
The Finney County Commission approved a severe winter weather emergency declaration for the Jan. 8-9 blizzard at its regular meeting on Tuesday. During the week of the storm, Commission chairman Gerry Schultz declared the emergency, but it needed to be confirmed by the Commission Tuesday’s meeting. Paul Resley, Finney County Emergency Management Director, said the emergency declaration was needed because they got inundated with the snow and wind from the storm. “We had so many people stranded that we were losing resources faster than we could find them,” he said. “So, we were reaching out for some help. The governor eventually did declare an emergency as well, that helped a bunch.” Resley complimented the county residents, that they stepped up to help people, especially people they couldn’t get to. “We had no injuries or deaths throughout all this, so, we were very, very fortunate there,” he said. Over 60 people that were stranded were picked up during the storm, Resley said. The furthest they went to help pick up somebody was 27 miles east of Garden City. It was a bit difficult to get to that person due to the vehicles already blocking the road, Resley said. Thankfully, a farmer helped them out and took them to where they get out a brush truck and bear cat out to rescue them. During the rescue, they checked in with the person every half an hour, seeing how they were doing and how much gas they had. A lot of phone calls were made that day trying to find resources, Resley said. County road employees were a bunch of help, especially when they had to dig through snow drifts to get people out from vehicles. “All-in-all, I can’t say enough about everybody that worked through all this with us,” he said.
Source: Garden City Telegram
‘Some days, you just might have to rescue a swan’: Wichita firefighters trek onto ice
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
WFD welcomes new recruits following graduation from training
After 14 weeks of training, the Wichita Fire Department welcomed a new batch of recruits on Friday. The class was the third class of 2023. Class instructor and WFD lieutenant Clint Gifford said they’re not starving for candidates, so they find the best of the best. “That would be our third class of the year 2023,” Gifford said. “A lot of participants would like this job. So it’s something that we haven’t struggled with. We still get the candidates that we need that are top-notch.” New WFD graduate Reed Norris said he’s taking up the mantle his grandfather had in Wisconsin as a firefighter, and he’s excited to serve Wichita. “My grandfather was a fireman back home in Wisconsin, where I came from,” Norris said. “But getting the opportunity to go to the firehouse and experience the difference that these individuals were making for the community was something that I found at a young age and that I found to be important. Something that I wanted to continue.” Norris also said he’s ready to hit the ground running to help people. “What I’m looking forward to most is getting the opportunity to take all of these skills and knowledge and experience that we’ve gathered from the instructors and use it to actually make that difference in someone else’s day,” Norris said. Wichita Mayor Lily Wu was also on hand to speak. “They respond with skill and swiftness,” Wu said. “Help those in need or in danger.” Brent Fischer, another graduate, said he appreciates the support of his family. “It feels like a great accomplishment,” Fischer said. “The training is one thing, but now we’re about to be on the floor and actually doing the job. You can’t do this job for a full career without the support of your family. It means everything.”
Source: KSN-TV
Where will the city find housing for thousands of new students in one area?
The new biomedical campus is on the way to downtown Wichita, and it will eventually bring up to 3,000 students and hundreds of faculty and staff to consolidate into one complex. It’s a collaboration between Wichita State University and the University of Kansas. While it’s being hailed as great for the ICT, some are asking where the housing will come from to meet the new demand. “Affordable housing is so important for just the stability and the quality of life of our community,” said Danielle Johnson, the Executive Director for Habitat for Humanity. Johnson says Wichita already needs up to an additional 50,000 housing units before the announcement of the new biomedical campus. “Many folks are excited about the number of folks that will help grow our population,” said Johnson. “With the biomedical center and all of the students, but that also just brings in a whole group of folks finding a place to live.” Johnson says different groups have been working to find and build affordable housing. The biomedical campus adds a new wrinkle to an already tight housing market. “First off, I’m excited for the opportunity and the collaboration between Wichita State and KU and Wichita Tech,” said Reverend Dr. Kevass Harding with Hope Builds Community. “I would love to collaborate, talk, and to help in that process for housing. Because there is a great need. There’s going to be a need. There’s already a shortage.” Dr. Harding says his Hope Builds Community group works to find good housing options for low to middle to moderate incomes. “Not just for low the moderate-income families but really for the workforce,” said Harding. “That’s going to be quite a few people coming to our community looking for housing.” Some former city council members say they have been looking to find new developers and find incentives for some time to build more housing, from single-family homes to apartments and duplexes. “This is something I’ve pushed all along,” said former city council member Jeff Blubaugh. “We’ve got all this great growth. We’ve got the biomedical center coming here. Everything is happening for Wichita except for the affordable housing. And it’s very unfortunate. We’re starting to see some more spur up, but it’s not going to be near enough for the students we are going to see bringing in to Wichita.” Some current city council members say they are having workshops to move on housing issues.
Source: KSN-TV
Kansas universities finding ways to bring in more nursing students
Wichita State University released a new rendering of the eight-story building that will house classrooms and labs for WSU and the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Many factors have fueled the shortage of nurses over the years, including burnout, people retiring, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Another contributor is the cost of nursing school. Debra Pile, Chair and Associate Dean of Nursing Practice, said this new facility will help bring more students to WSU. “Having one to meet the needs of pharmacists and nurses physicians, all of those entities involved in the biomedical center is really exciting,” said Pile. She hopes that the new facility will also help to retain faculty in the medical field. Another effort is to train more nurses coming from Fort Hays State University, which has partnered with 11 Kansas community colleges. FHSU is guaranteeing admission for community college nursing graduates. “We make our tours to our community colleges. We really try to emphasize that these courses are not overwhelming. It’s going to be a lot of reflection, a lot of group discussion, and we want to make sure that they don’t feel overwhelmed,” Assistant Department Chair of Nursing Tanya Smith said. The WSU downtown facility in should be completed by the end of 2026.
Source: KSN-TV
City water exceeds standard for HAAs
The city of Parsons sent out a public notice recently about haloacetic acids being found in drinking water samples at levels greater than the state allows. The water was sampled on Nov. 13 and tests showed that the water exceeded the Kansas Department of Health and Environment standard for the HAA5s, a group of five haloacetic acids. The standard for any one HAA is 60 ug/L. Results for samples the city collected showed that Parsons’ water plant exceeded the standard or maximum contaminant level (MCL) for HAA. Three of the samples were 72 ug/L, 79 ug/L, and 71 ug/L, respectively, according to the city notice. Derek Clevenger, director of utilities for Parsons, said this was the third notice about the city exceeding HAAs and likely will not be the last notification the city sends out on this issue. The city has been working with KDHE to resolve the matter. The city ordered a new carbon feeder, which KDHE believes will solve the problem. For now, city workers are manually feeding carbon into the water to try to reduce HAA5s, he said. When disinfection (such as the use of chlorine) is used in the treatment of drinking water, disinfectants combine with organic and inorganic matter in water to form compounds called disinfection byproducts (DBP). The U.S. EPA sets standards for controlling the levels of DBP in drinking water, including haloacetic acids (HAA). Compliance is based on the four-quarter average of sample results for each location where HAA samples are collected, called a locational running annual average (LRAA). Clevenger has updated city commissioners about the issue periodically and said he is working with KDHE to resolve it.
Source: Parsons Sun
Thousands of students in Kansas and Missouri have left public education. Here’s why
Thousands of students in Missouri and Kansas have left public school in the last four years, in line with a national trend of more families disengaging from public education. An analysis by the Associated Press, Big Local News and Stanford University economist Thomas Dee found enrollment in Missouri’s public schools dropped by 2% from the 2019-2020 school year to the 2022-2023 school year — making up nearly 18,000 students. Public school enrollment in Kansas is down about 16,000 students from its peak in 2015. Statewide enrollment numbers just released for 2023-2024 show 505,515 students in school this year, a 3% drop from the 2014-2015 school year. Nationally, the AP’s study found private schooling grew nearly 8% and homeschooling grew by nearly 27% during the same time period among more than 30 states with credible private, public or homeschool enrollment data. Collin Hitt, executive director of the PRiME Center, which studies education in Missouri, said it’s been an open question if that state’s homeschooling jump was temporary. “Given the fact that we’re seeing public K through 12 enrollments stay relatively flat, it probably suggests this is something that’s going to continue for some time, which is a major development,” Hitt said. Thousands of students across the country still haven’t returned to the classroom since the pandemic shut schools down for months. An estimated 230,0000 students were considered “missing” in fall 2021, meaning demographic changes or increases in private school or homeschooling couldn’t account for their disappearance from public education. Students have since slowly made their way back to varying forms of education or aged out of school, leaving only 50,000 kids unaccounted for. Missouri doesn’t track private school data and doesn’t legally require parents to notify when they homeschool their child. However, most parents will notify their public school district if they switch to homeschooling. Based on that limited data, Missouri has seen a 34% increase in homeschooling since 2019 — but that doesn’t include children who never attended public schools to begin with. Education leaders anticipated a drop in enrollment across the country because of declining birth rates. U.S. birth rates have been on the downswing for more than a decade, hitting a record low in 2020. The AP found there are 3,000 fewer school-aged children in Missouri compared to when the pandemic began.
Source: The Lawrence Times
Municipal Bond Trends for January 19, 2024
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, or Henry Schmidt.
When cold coal froze, wind farms helped Evergy power Kansas through winter weather
Evergy maintained “normal operating conditions for extreme weather,” despite coal freezing, thanks in part to high winds powering wind farms through the recent blustery conditions. “The bottom line is we had enough power over the last week or so and in particular through the weekend when we had the coldest weather to meet demands,” said Chuck Caisley, an Evergy executive, about the previous weekend. He added that with a midweek warming, “I think we are out of the biggest danger of not having adequate supplies.”
Source: CJonline
Law enforcement agencies across the state are encrypting their radio traffic
Law enforcement agencies across the state are encrypting their radio traffic so the public can no longer hear it, and Harvey County is doing it this week. The block on Harvey County’s law enforcement radio traffic comes after a change to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) security policy. The policy now says law enforcement agencies can’t pass sensitive information unencrypted across public networks.
Source: KSN
Girard Council discusses water leaks
With negative temperatures and water leaks, last week proved to be a wild one for City of Girard employees. At approximately 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 10, the city notified residents on Facebook that a vehicular accident involving a hydrant left residents experiencing outages or low pressure, forcing city crews to work continually through the freezing temperatures along Buffalo Street on the western side of town. In an update on Thursday morning, Jan. 11, the city said its crews continued to work on multiple leaks caused by the accident. The account noted that the city engaged a third-party contractor to assist the City Electric Department, which was also assisting. “Some members of our Public Works crew put in 18-hour days yesterday (Wednesday, Jan. 10), working until the early morning hours today (Thursday, Jan. 11), and for those showing appreciation for their efforts, thank you,” the city said in its post. “It does wonders for morale. They were delivered hot food and drinks and ate their dinners at the leak.” Several hours following the post on Thursday morning, the city notified residents of a boil order, which served as an advisory due to the massive leak causing many customers to be without water for an extended period. The advisory was rescinded just after 4 p.m. on Friday.
Source: Morning Sun
Rural school district celebrates 1,000 adult graduates
USD 112 Central Plains recently celebrated its 1,000th adult diploma completion program graduate after just three years of offering a free, online high school program for Kansan adults. “As a small, rural school district, it has been exciting to see the impact the Central Plains Diploma Completion Program has had on the adult population in Kansas,” Central Plains Superintendent Bill Lowry said. “Education has no boundaries, and we’ve been able to serve students from all four corners of Kansas and everywhere in between.” Students who complete the program graduate with a standard high school diploma from USD 112 Central Plains. To date, 250 learners have also earned an employability skills certificate, further boosting their employability. “Sixty-five percent of our graduates have gotten a better job or raise within 9 months of graduation,” Lowry said. “Over a quarter of them have continued to post-secondary education, and we’re starting to see some college graduates now as well.” The program also allows students to finish high school faster than they would in a traditional school setting — courses, which can be started any business day, take less than a month to complete.
Source: Morning Sun
County renews sheriff’s office contract with Edgerton
The Johnson County Board of County Commissioners renewed a $538,858 contract last week for Edgerton to continue receiving law enforcement services from the sheriff’s office in 2024.The issue was discussed during the board’s Thursday meeting. Brian Seidler, Johnson County Sheriff’s Office budget director, said the county has held the agreement with Edgerton since 1996 since the city does not have its own police department. According to the agreement, the sheriff’s office patrols a district that includes the Johnson County line on the west and south, West 167th Street on the north and Gardner Road/Center Street on the east.
Source: Gardner News
GB seeing more growth in tourism
Tourism is a big deal for Barton County, an excited Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Christina Hayes told the City Council Monday night. She had received the most recent Tourism Economic Impact Report from Kansas Tourism, and it contained promising information and helped solidify the importance of promoting the community to lure more visitors. “We paid for this as Barton county because Great Bend accounts for 95% of the tourism in Barton County,” she said. The report was costly enough, so by doing this, it saved the CVB about $3-4,000. Hayes said they don’t buy this report every year because it does cost so much. “But it’s interesting to see.” Kansas Tourism (which falls under the Kansas Department of Commerce) taps data from four sources for the report – the Kansas Department of Revenue; the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; and Smith Travel Research, a national measure of hotel demand and performance, and a tourism industry standard. Barton County sales and transient guest tax receipts are also included.
Source: Great Bend Tribune
City commissioners approve cemetery master plan
Manhattan city commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a master plan to implement infrastructure changes at Sunset and Sunrise cemeteries. The improvements — which will cost $6 million for Sunset Cemetery and $3 million for Sunrise Cemetery — will include a new building for equipment and a joint maintenance facility the Sunset Cemetery will share with Sunset Zoo. Sunrise Cemetery will receive a new office and maintenance shop, a remodel of the existing shop, and ongoing road maintenance and expansion as needed. The Cemetery Advisory Board voted unanimously to support the final draft master plan as presented on Nov. 9. Commissioner Karren McCulloh said she was surprised by the high price of these changes. “I do think as a commission we can accept this plan and work on it,” McCulloh said. “I think there is sticker shock. I’d like to see if we could do it a little less expensively. I’ve talked to some people in construction, and they felt that eight to nine million was pretty high.” Commissioner John Matta said he has trouble realistically picturing the fiscal impact this will have on the overall city budget. “It’s kind of hard to talk in the abstract without looking at the numbers,” Matta said. Commissioner Wynn Butler the first priority in this project should be figuring out what to do with the Sexton House. “I think we should immediately go through the process of figuring out how to unravel encumbrances on the Sexton House,” Butler said. “Because we talked about that in great detail.”
Source: themercury.com