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Brownback standing by tax-cutting proposal By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
TOPEKA — Unhappy with projections of budget shortfalls caused by the proposed tax cut, Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is preparing rosier numbers.
Sunny
During a meeting of the House Republican caucus, Majority Leader Arlen Siegfreid, R-Olathe, said Brownback’s budget director, Steve Anderson, would soon release a “dynamic scoring model” that Siegfreid said would show the positive ef-
fect of tax cuts cycling back through the economy. The financial projections produced by the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department show the tax cuts will start producing a revenue shortfall in July 2014, increasing to an estimated
$2.5 billion to $3 billion shortfall in 2018. The current annual state budget is about $6.2 billion in tax funds. Moderate Republicans and Democrats have said a tax cut of that size will mean Brownback and the Legislature will have to make dras-
tic cuts to schools, social services and public safety. The tax-cutting plan headed to Brownback’s desk Please see TAX, page 2A
More legislative news.
Page 6A
Kansas River on endangered list
Low: 54
High: 81
Today’s forecast, page 10A
INSIDE City crunches budget numbers Lawrence city commissioners will today start crafting the 2013 budget, after having just received a report that the city last year took in less than $10,000 more than it spent, while its expenses grew at a faster rate than did revenue. Page 3A
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— Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will formally launch a national initiative against the mind-robbing disease today at a meeting of researchers. Page 7A
COMING WEDNESDAY We’ll tell you about a discussion that’s planned at tonight’s City Commission meeting centering on plans for a recreation center in northwest Lawrence.
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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Sports Television Vol.154/No.136
Man accused of hiring another to kill his wife By George Diepenbrock
gdiepenbrock@ljworld.com
QUOTABLE
These actions are the cornerstones of an historic effort to fight Alzheimer’s disease.”
Brownback
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
A DREDGING OPERATION sits east of downtown Lawrence along the Kansas River. Environmentalists say proposals to expand dredging of the river would degrade the river bed and bank, as well as stir up pollutants that have settled at the bottom of the river.
Proposals to expand dredging cited as peril to the Kaw By Christine Metz cmetz@ljworld.com
A proposal to increase sand and gravel dredging along the Kansas River has placed the body of water on a list of the most endangered rivers in the country. Each year, American Rivers, a river preservation organization, names the nation’s 10 most endangered rivers. This year’s list is led by the Potomac River, where clean water and public health are threatened by pollution, the organization said. The Missouri River also made the list because of what the organization called outdated flood management. The Kansas River, which has
7A 6B-10B 9A 2A 10A, 2B 9B 4A 8A 9B By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com 1B-5B 4A, 2B, 9B Take it as a sign that even 20 pages though the University of Missouri is leaving the Big 12 Conference, its rivalry with Kansas Energy smart: The University is alive and well. Journal-World Two Missouri state senamakes the most tors are trying to quash the KU of renewable Alumni Association’s attempt resources. to make a Jayhawk license plate www.b-e-f.org available in the state after news of the effort hit last week. “It’s a fascinating study of hatred,” said Kevin Corbett, president of the KU Alumni Association. Corbett said the association was trying to provide the tags for its 30,000 or so alumni in the state.
At the heart of the concern is a request for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit that would allow five dredging companies to increase the amount of sand and gravel removed from the Kansas River by about 45 percent. been included on the list three other times in the past two decades, was No. 10. “This is not the 10th most polluted river in the country. The river is at a crossroads. It is at tipping point,” said Laura Calwell, who is the riverkeeper with
Friends of the Kaw, a local environmental advocacy group that aims to protect the river. At the heart of the concern is a request for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit that would allow five dredging companies to increase the amount of sand and gravel removed from the Kansas River by about 45 percent, from 2.2 million tons a year to 3.2 million. The permits also seek to move into three areas of the river that had been closed because of “unacceptable degradation.” The corps is expected to make a decision late this year. “It is going to give national recognition to this problem,” Calwell said of the American Please see RIVER, page 2A
A 37-year-old Basehor man who has Douglas County ties is in federal custody, accused of hiring a man to kill his wife. According to an affidavit filed in federal court in Missouri, investigators accuse Lee D. Smith of agreeing to pay a man $1,800 to murder Smith’s wife. The man whom Smith asked to commit the murder was a confidential informant to law enforcement, the affidavit said. Federal prosecutors in Missouri filed a complaint Friday alleging that Smith met the informant in Kansas City, Mo., on May 9 and drove the man to the parking lot outside his wife’s job at 7400 College Blvd. in Overland Park to show him where he could kidnap her. According to the affidavit, a federal task force officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives alleges that on May 11 the informant placed a recorded call to Smith telling him he had his wife and Smith’s daughter in his custody. “Smith requested that he let his daughter go and to continue as planned with killing his wife,” according Please see MURDER, page 2A
Missouri lawmakers rally against KU license plate “Missouri happens to be a state where we’ve got a lot of graduates that would love a license plate,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the University of Missouri.” Two state senators, Kurt U. Schaefer, R-Columbia, and Bill Stouffer, RNapton, issued a press release Monday declaring their intentions to block the measure. Stouffer is a co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight and the chairman of the Senate Trans-
portation Committee. He said he thought it was “pretty reasonable” to assume that the proposal wouldn’t make it out of the transportation oversight committee. After the news that KU was pursuing a Missouri license plate, Stouffer said his email hadn’t lit up like that since the Missouri House speaker announced plans to honor political commentator Rush Limbaugh in the state’s Hall of Famous Missourians. Even though Missouri offers
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other universities’ license plates — Pittsburg State University and the University of Arkansas are two examples — Stouffer said KU was a special case. “We can’t sell our souls,” Stouffer said. But wouldn’t that mean Missouri is losing out on a new revenue source? “KU’s turning down a lot of revenue by not playing MU in football,” Stouffer said. He said he wouldn’t be able to look his grandchildren in the eyes if he allowed the KU license plate to go forward. “My goal is just to save the world from a mythical bird invasion in the state of Missouri,” Stouffer said.