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Top Of The Morning News: Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota releases 150,000 cubic feet per second of water June 14, 2011. Releases from the dam and others in the area were slowed to try to help with flooding of the Missouri River.
USACEPublicAffairs/Jay Woods
/
via Flickr
Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota releases 150,000 cubic feet per second of water June 14, 2011. Releases from the dam and others in the area were slowed to try to help with flooding of the Missouri River.
  • Panel Finds Corps Worked To Prevent Mo. River Floods
  • OptumRx Adds 620 Jobs in Overland Park
  • Kansas Democrats Propose Job Bills

Panel Finds Corps Worked To Prevent Missouri River Floods

An independent panel says the US Army Corps of Engineers did what it could to prevent this year's record flooding along the Missouri River but that changes will be needed to manage increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Those include updating the Corps’s water management manuals and procedures, and improving forecasting of snowmelt in plains states.  Read more here.

OptumRx Adds 620 Jobs in Overland Park

OptumRx will add 620 jobs to its Overland Park facility.  The company fulfills mail order prescriptions.  The Kansas City Star reports this will make OptumRx has grown since it came oto Overland Park six years ago and is set to become Johnson County’s fifth largest employer.

The mail-service drug prescription firm came to Overland Park six years ago as Prescription Solutions with a pledge to create 750 jobs. It has surpassed that, and in 18 months its head count will be more than 2,100 at the company’s mail and customer service center at 115th Street and Metcalf Avenue

The new jobs will be entry level positions that start at $21,000 a year and don’t require previous experience.

Kansas Democrats Propose Job Bills

Democrats in the legislature are introducing 14 bills they say will spur job growth and career training in Kansas. The plans include speeding up a 10 year transportation plan, so jobs are created sooner. The legislation would also give businesses a tax credit for training apprentices. Paying for the plan hinges on adding slot machines at race tracks and building a new casino in southeast Kansas.  That could face opposition from Kansas Governor Sam Brownback who has discouraged lawmakers from considering gambling in the coming legislative session. Read more here.

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