Kansas Municipal News
USDA Invests $6.3 Billion to Strengthen Rural Infrastructure and Create Good-Paying Jobs in 44 States
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA is investing $6.3 billion in rural and Tribal communities across 44 states to expand access to a clean and reliable electric grid, provide safe drinking water and create good-paying jobs. More than 200 projects are being financed to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure in rural places, growing the American economy from the middle out and bottom up. These projects will help ensure everyone in rural America has access to reliable electricity to increase economic opportunity and improve quality of life. Funding will benefit Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Source: USDA – Latest News Releases
Wichita’s mayor tried to turn down a pay raise. This was the City Council’s response
The Wichita City Council blocked Wichita Mayor Lily Wu from fulfilling one of her campaign promises — not accepting any pay raises. The council’s and mayor’s salaries are bundled with other non-union city employees’ annual salaries, although the city’s agenda report did not explicitly say that the mayor and council members would be voting on their own raises, or what their salaries are. They were all set to receive a 4% raise starting next year. As the council complimented city staff on their roles in running the city and prepared to approve the raises during a City Council meeting Tuesday afternoon, Wu stepped in. Wu — whose salary is $125,970 a year — moved to exclude the mayor’s salary from the wage increases. Her motion failed because no one on the council would second it — a requirement under the city’s rules for an item to be voted on.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Raises approved for Wichita police officers amid calls for contract delay
Wichita police officers will receive substantial raises in 2025 as part of a new Fraternal Order of Police contract approved by the City Council on Tuesday. The unanimous approval came over objections from multiple public speakers who called for a delay on the vote until the FOP and Wichita Police Department agree to address several recommendations from Jensen Hughes, a consultant hired in 2022 for $214,000 to develop a roadmap to restore public trust in police and improve the culture within the department.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
More routes or shorter waits? Officials discuss what would make JoCo’s bus system better
Given a hypothetical choice between shorter wait times at a bus stop and having a wider choice of places to go, county commissioners went with the shorter wait times as they considered how to build a better suburban transit system. The commission had a high-level discussion last week as they continued talks about what needs to be done to attract more riders. Previous work sessions have looked at adjusting fares and services on express routes and the microtransit service.
Source: Johnson County Post
Shawnee Mission finalizing new ‘age appropriate’ cellphone rules for students
A policy intended to clarify students’ use of cellphones and other electronic devices in Shawnee Mission schools was deemed not quite ready for approval at a board meeting Monday night. But the issue is scheduled to come up again at the board’s next meeting on Jan. 13, and board members said they hope to begin implementing it by February. The draft policy sets different rules for elementary, middle and high school students, in an effort to make it “age appropriate,” said Superintendent Michael Schumacher. “This is one of the hardest decisions I think we’ll make this year,” Schumacher said. “But if we can protect instructional time at the high school without fail, that is a huge step in the right direction.”
Source: Johnson County Post
Dodge City fire chief to retire
Dodge City’s fire chief is retiring. According to the City, Fire Chief Ken Spencer will step down on Dec. 20. Spencer started his career 28 years ago as a maintenance worker for Dodge City before becoming a firefighter a year later in 1997. He became a fire engineer in 2001 and a fire captain two years later. He was promoted to Deputy Fire Chief in 2015 and became Chief of the fire department in 2019.
Source: KSN-TV
Regulation change could be boom for hemp in Kansas
On Jan. 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture takes over regulating hemp grown in Kansas. “I think there’s a lot of potential to be opening up markets,” said Kelly Rippel, co-founder of Kansans For Hemp. “This change is a big deal.” The change Rippel is talking about is the Kansas Department of Agriculture essentially turning over control of hemp regulations to the feds. The USDA will now be the primary regulating agency over hemp production in the Sunflower State. For years, Rippel has worked with state lawmakers and other state leaders at the KDA to grow the hemp industry in Kansas.
Source: KSN-TV
This city in Kansas will pay you to move there
More than 20% of U.S. residents say they are more likely to move now that the election is over, and some cities are offering cold hard cash to attract newcomers. The pandemic-era rise of remote work made it possible for employees to work away from their company’s home base. Cities such as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Columbus, Georgia, have tried to attract those workers with incentives worth thousands of dollars. Other initiatives, like the Choose Topeka program in Kansas, are available to workers who relocate to the area even if they don’t work remotely.
Source: KSN-TV
Abilene to again vote on tax for youth sports complex
Voters in Abilene will again be asked to vote to approve a sales tax to pay for new youth sports facilities in the community. In August, voters rejected a sales tax initiative to fund the project. The 0.35% sales tax, or .0035 of every cent spent in Abilene, would go towards funding the new facilities, which would include playing fields for youth baseball, softball, men’s and coed slow pitch, and pickleball, along with seating and support facilities.
Source: KSN-TV
Future of downtown Wichita being planned
The future of downtown Wichita is already being planned. The planning and design firm Sasaki is partnering with Downtown Wichita to develop an action plan for 2035. The executive director of Downtown Wichita says the firm is helping guide them in transforming the city’s core and focusing on attracting development. Housing is a key part of that growth. Sasaki will send a team to Wichita in the spring to hold community workshops, get input and create a plan to present to Downtown Wichita.
Source: KSN-TV
Kansas broadband internet disparities persist despite huge investments
It doesn’t take a lightning-quick internet connection to theorize income, education and geographic disparities underly Kansas’ digital divide. But the nonprofit and nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute’s latest research demonstrated with online county-by-county maps that broadband deficits and computer ownership gaps plaguing Kansas were intertwined with social and demographic influences. Thirty-one percent of low-income Kansas households making less than $20,000 annually didn’t have high-speed connections, KHI said. However, 4.5% of Kansas households earning more than $75,000 were in the same predicament in terms of broadband access.
Source: Kansas Reflector
A total phone ban for students: What Kansas is recommending to school districts
Kansas K-12 education officials are telling local districts that they should ban students from using phones in classrooms — and during the entire school day. The Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday to formally accept the recommendations of a task force established earlier this year to study student screen time and cellphone use in schools. Local school districts aren’t required to follow the new recommendations.
Source: CJonline
Municipal Bond Trends for December 9, 2024
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of AA rated bond trades reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA® system. 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.
Wichita City Hall spent $3.4 million on police retention bonuses. Did they work?
At least 48 Wichita Police Department employees who received $5,000 retention bonuses last December left their jobs within a year, The Wichita Eagle has found. And they get to keep the money. The Wichita City Council reopened the city’s negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police last year to approve $3.4 million in unplanned spending for the bonuses in an effort to encourage officers to stay with the department in the wake of a mayoral election where police staffing was the dominant topic.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Lawrence City Commission to consider plan for separated bike lanes on section of Mass Street
Lawrence city staff members are recommending a design for the stretch of Massachusetts Street between 14th and 19th streets that includes 3-foot curbs to separate bike lanes from vehicle traffic. Community members asked the Lawrence City Commission in April to push for the stretch of road, which was already set for a redesign, to include protected bike lanes. City staff members looked at street designs with protected bike lanes in several cities to help evaluate options. The proposed design would include one lane of vehicle traffic in each direction, a center lane for turns, and 5-foot-wide bike lanes separated from the street by a 3-foot-wide median. Residents along the stretch could put their trash carts in the median zone, and solid waste workers could complete trash pickup from the lanes of traffic, according to the meeting agenda.
Source: The Lawrence Times
Cyber attack on plant detailed
The FBI and Homeland Security have completed their investigation of the cyberattack against the Arkansas City water treatment plant that occurred in late September. City Manager Randy Frazer gave a report of those findings to the city commission last week. He said that a detailed analysis by Homeland Security’s Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed that no data had been acquired during the attack. He said according to the report, files were accessed but no staging or transfer of data took place. “There was no personal information compromised,” he said. “None of the citizens information of the employee’s information, so we’ll be closing that investigation out.” But the attack was costly for the city. Frazer said the city carries insurance for such attacks that only covered the legal fees and investigation costs. He said those costs came to $58,550, of which all but the $10,000 deductible was reimbursed.
Source: Cowley CourierTraveler
Commerce Launches New Quality of Place Grant for Rural Revitalization
Secretary of Commerce David Toland announced today the launch of the new Towns grant program. This program is an initiative designed to spur quality-of-place improvements in rural Kansas communities that have received no funding from the Kansas Department of Commerce in the past three years. This new opportunity will have $100,000 available for its first round of funding. The program provides grants that range from $1,000 to $10,000 to support small-scaled projects that will deliver meaningful results in rural communities, with a focus on increasing local capacity, fostering community and youth engagement, and mobilizing volunteers and local investment…. Grant applications open Monday, December 16, and will close February 28, 2025. Awardees will be announced mid-April 2025.
Source: Kansas Department of Commerce
Kansas Tourism Announces 13 Attraction Development Grant Awardees
Secretary of Commerce David Toland today announced that more than $400,000 has been awarded for projects that will boost tourism throughout the state. Funding from the Attraction Development Grant program, which focuses on assisting local communities in the development of sustainable travel experiences through new and existing tourism attractions, will be divided among 13 entities…. The grant program is an initiative designed to provide financial assistance to public, private and nonprofit entities to invest in enhancing tourism across the state. The initiative will create a positive economic impact through job creation, capital investment, higher revenue and increased visitation.
Source: Kansas Department of Commerce
Municipal Bond Trends for December 6, 2024
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of AA rated bond trades reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA® system. 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.
With potential for ‘storm of controversy’, Prairie Village again wades into revising neighborhood guidelines
After an unofficial hiatus of more than a year, Prairie Village is picking up the baton of tweaking neighborhood design guidelines. On Tuesday, after city staff suggested a few options to update the city’s guidelines that address single-family housing issues, the Prairie Village Planning Commission punted the conversation to the city council. Planning commissioners said they wanted to hear feedback from the city council before discussing any changes to the design guidelines. Neighborhood design guidelines — a topic that received significant attention in Prairie Village six years ago — dictate requirements for items such as lot size and lot coverage for new construction.
Source: Johnson County Post