Sports: Red Devil squads earn split at home See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
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Thursday, February 11, 2016
System connects inmates with outside world By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Allen County jail inmates don’t have much freedoms, but now they may communicate as often as they wish with family and friends via the Internet. Computerized stations have been installed to allow inmates to communicate with the outside world. Sheriff Bryan Murphy said the privilege had become commonplace in jails throughout the nation. Cost of hardware and installation was $3,900, which came from profits on sales at the jail’s commissary. No tax money was spent on kiosks for the five pods, and a sixth in the Law Enforcement Center lobby where money — by credit or debit card or cash — may be deposited to an inmate’s account. Inmates are provided email accounts when they are admitted. Grievances and medical requests also See INMATES | Page A6
Allen County Jail inmate Jason Sinclair sends a message via the jail’s email kiosk Wednesday. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
School funding law nixed
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has struck down a stopgap law for funding the state’s public schools, saying it left poor districts $54 million short. The justices ruled today the law enacted last year doesn’t comply with the Kansas Constitution. Lawmakers have until the end of June to write a new law. The ruling came in a lawsuit that four districts have been pursuing since 2010. The Supreme Court has yet to decide on the larger question of whether Kansas must boost its education spending by at least $548 million a year. Lawmakers approved the 2015 law as temporary fix. The law replaced a perstudent formula for distributing more than $4 billion a year to school in favor of stable “block grants.”
Senate bill would lower lifetime welfare limits again By MEGAN HART KHI News Service
A bill originally promoted as preventing lottery winners from claiming public assistance now also would cut off households that have received cash assistance for more than two years. Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, confirmed that the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee had amended Senate Bill 372 to lower the lifetime Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) limit from 36 months to 24 months. Theresa Freed, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department
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for Children and Families, said 420 households would be affected if the 24-month limit is adopted this year. The bill passed out of committee but has yet to be scheduled for a hearing before the full Senate. The Hope, Opportunity and Prosperity for Everyone
(HOPE) Act, passed in April 2015, lowered the lifetime limit from 48 months to 36 months. About 200 families that hit the new limit received their last check from the TANF program in January. Federal law allows for up to 60 months of TANF payments, though states could fund additional time from their own money. In recent years, however, states have tended to move in the opposite direction, with Arizona instituting the lowest limit in the country in July, capping assistance at 12 months. Missouri has a 45-month limit. In January, 5,370 Kansas
households received cash assistance through TANF. Those households included 3,039 adults and 9,450 children. Removing the 420 families affected by the 24-month limit would reduce the caseload by about 8 percent. The bill also would limit people who received a “TANF diversion payment,” a onetime case payment meant for an emergency, to 30 months of payments if they eventually did need to receive TANF. The current limit is 42 months. Diversions aren’t common, with cases numbering in the single digits in recent years. None would be affected at this point
by shortening the time limit, Freed said. Employment elements
The bill also requires food assistance recipients to accept a “suitable employment offer” and would forbid them from quitting a job where they were working at least 30 hours per week. The penalty for not complying is a threemonth ban from food assistance for the first offense, a six-month ban for the second offense and a one-year ban for any subsequent offenses. Joseph Mastrosimone, an See WELFARE | Page A6
LaHarpe misses on grant By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
LAHARPE — LaHarpe was left on the outside looking in, City Council members were told Wednesday, on a series of Community Development Block Grants announced recently by the Kansas Department of Commerce. The city had applied for up to $400,000 in grant fund-
ing to help fund electric service upgrades. The margin was apparently razor-thin, Mayor Mae Crowell explained, with 11 communities or counties receiving Community Facility Awards. According to Crowell, recipients were chosen based on a point system that considers everything from comSee GRANT | Page A6
Mystery booms explained By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Reports of loud explosions heard in and around Iola in recent weeks likely stem from the use of a compound that detonates upon impact from a high-powered rifle, said Allen County Sheriff Bryan Murphy said Wednesday. The product is called Tan-
nerite, named after its Oregon-based manufacturer. While the explosions are loud, they are relatively harmless, as long as proper safety practices are followed, Murphy said. The targets consist of small plastic canisters filled with ammonium nitrate. See BOOMS | Page A6
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 72
Iolans Cody Tice and Milton Ivy will fight in Blue Corner Battles, a series of boxing and mixed martial arts matches Friday in Kansas City. Tice, second from left, and Ivy, second from right, are shown here with their trainers, Mike Aronson, left, and Jeremiah Ivy. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Locals ready to hit the ring Friday in KC By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Friday’s “Fight Night” in Kansas City will have a large contingent of Iolans to cheer on a pair of local combatants. Milton Ivy, a fledgling heavyweight boxer, will take on Jacob Giangrosso in the
debut boxing match for both. Meanwhile, Iolan Cody Tice will take on Nikolas Quinn in an 185-pound mixed martial arts bout. Both Tice and Quinn are 0-1 in their brief MMA careers. As part of their help in promoting Blue Corner Battles — the name designated for Friday’s series of
“Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” — John W. Gardner, teacher, 1912-2002 75 Cents
bouts at Harrah’s Casino in Kansas City, Mo. — both Ivy and Tice have sold scores of tickets to friends, family and other acquaintances in Iola. “Without a doubt, some of their largest crowds are when people from Iola show up,” said Mike Aronson, a loSee FIGHTS | Page A6
Hi: 42 Lo: 30 Iola, KS