A judge let the new Missouri Congressional district map stand. A coal-fired Kansas power plant was put on hold again. And legislators talked about dissolving the Kansas City school district. These stories and more from KCUR's news review.
Vouchers? Dissolve the District?
The latest bill aimed at determining what will happen to the unaccredited Kansas City School District would dissolve it and divide kids up among neighboring ones... and create tax credits for a scholarship program for private and parochial schools.
Local Catholic Educators like Jude Huntz supported the idea, asking, “Why should parents who need the Catholic schools have to pay twicefor their child's education?”
Diocesan officials said they could accommodate a thousand Kansas City district transferees, and the bill was promoted as one to “rescue” neighboring districts from an enrollment flood, but Byron Clemens of the Missouri chapter of the American Federation of Teachers condemned the idea as one where “even Scientology could get state money.”
In St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson said many Missouri Catholic schools are likely to be closed or consolidated in coming years because of declining enrollments.
No back-down on food stamp rule
Kansas officials said its unlikely they will reverse a new food stamp policy that will end the assistance for more than a thousand kids. Michelle Schroeder of SRS said the old policy favored households that included illegal immigrants.
A Kansas City Star article said the new policy doesn't count undocumented parents as members of households, but counts the income they earn as family earnings.
Coal-fired plant on hold again
A federal judge put a controversial coal-fired power plant in Southwest Kansas on hold
pending a federal environmental impact statement. The Sierra Club's Scott Allegrucci welcomed the fact that impact statement will have to address greenhouse gas emissions.
The Sunflower Power Company declined to speculate on what those analyses would mean for the plant's future.
Battles over Congressional maps
A Kansas Senate committee approved a Congressional redistricting map that puts Manhattan in the third district and ends the split of Lawrence between the second and third. ommittee chair Tim Owens of Overland Park called the boundaries fair, but the State Chamber of Commerce and the Kansas Republican Party called the committee map a capitulation to Democrats.
Plaintiff's attorney Gary Greiman testified in court Congressman Emanuel Cleaver's district as an example of how new Missouri maps failed to meet standards of compactness. The district omits part of Jackson County but now includes large irregularly-shaped rural areas.
On Friday the court ruled that the maps can stand as drawn.
Job cuts forecast for Missouri universities
University of Missouri curators, meeting in Kansas City, postponed a decision on tuition increases, but interim president Steve Owens did say that the governor's proposed 12.5 percent funding cut for next year will inevitably result in job cuts.
Curators will vote on tuition increases ranging from 3 and 8 percent later this month.