$1 million for slippers; F-bomb brouhaha; kind cop lauded

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker signed the next Wisconsin state budget into law on Sunday, brushing aside complaints from his own party about the $73 billion spending plan and fulfilling his promise to get it done before he announces he is running for the Republican nomination for president.

Walker signed the budget at Valveworks USA, a valve and wellhead component manufacturer in Waukesha. He made scores of changes to the spending plan using his veto powers that he said returned $44.5 million to the state's general fund over the next two years.

"The budget I signed today again brings real reform to Wisconsin and allows everyone more opportunity for a brighter future," Walker said in a statement.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, a Kenosha Democrat, said in a statement that the budget "throws the people of Wisconsin under Governor Walker's campaign bus." Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said Wisconsin residents deserve better.

"Rather than selling out Wisconsin to advance Gov. Walker's presidential ambitions, we need to focus on ways to boost family wages and strengthen the middle class," Shilling said in a statement.

Walker plans to announce his presidential candidacy Monday. He had hoped Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate would enable his party to finish the budget early and allow him to coast into his announcement. But the budget ended up on his desk a week into the new fiscal year marked by the most "no" votes from GOP lawmakers of any of his three state budgets. One Republican, state Rep. Rob Brooks, described the budget as "crap."

The Legislature's Republican-controlled budget committee handed the governor a string of defeats as it spent months revising the two-year budget.

The committee scrapped his plans to grant the University of Wisconsin System autonomy from state oversight and scaled back a $300 million cut the governor wanted to impose on the system by $50 million. The panel also rejected deep funding cuts for K-12 public schools and the popular SeniorCare prescription drug program as well as a proposal to borrow $220 million for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena.

The committee slipped a provision into the budget that Walker's office helped draft that would have dismantled Wisconsin's open records law. Walker and Republican leaders did a quick about-face, stripping the provision in the face of a wave of bipartisan outrage.

Assembly Republicans, in particular, were extremely critical of the budget, with 11 GOP members voting against the plan on the floor. They cited a host of reasons, saying the budget doesn't spend enough on public schools, borrows too much for road work and shouldn't include provisions exempting local governments from the prevailing wage law. Those statutes require the government to pay construction workers minimum salaries on public projects.

The spending plan still gives Walker plenty of talking points as he courts conservative voters in early primary states in the coming weeks. It expands the private school voucher program, which provides state subsidies for students to attend private schools, including religious ones. It also extends a freeze on in-state UW tuition for another two years, removes tenure protections for UW professors from state law and imposes no sales or income tax increases.

Walker made 104 changes to the spending document using his extensive veto power, which allows him to cut words from sentences and remove individual digits to create new numbers.

He nixed provisions that would have given the payday loan industry authority to offer financial advice as well as offer insurance, annuities and other related products. Opponents said the language would make it easier for predatory lenders to exploit the needy. Walker wrote in his veto message that the provisions were overly broad and gave the industry the ability to offer services beyond what other financial institutions can offer.

He wiped out $1 million in grants for nonprofit conservation organizations, saying he objects to handing out the money without accountability. He also erased requirements that the state must cover treatment for food stamp and publicly-administered job training recipients who fail drug tests, saying he objects to the state paying if the person has other coverage. The state would still be the payer of last resort, Walker wrote.

He erased provisions the budget committee added to the spending plan that would have required the state schools superintendent to develop English, reading, writing, science and math tests for students in grades three through 10 that would be used to track their progress in each subject toward college. Walker called the testing unnecessary and school boards should be able to decide for themselves what tests to adopt.

He also removed provisions that would have required the troubled Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to hand out $750,000 in grants, saying the mandate reduces WEDC's flexibility.

Walker created WEDC shortly after starting his first term as governor in 2011. The agency was beset with problems from the start, including not tracking past-due loans, leadership turnover and highly critical audits that revealed mismanagement. The agency came under fire in May after the Wisconsin State Journal reported it handed an unsecured $500,000 loan to a company owned by Walker campaign donor William Minahan in 2011 that still hasn't been paid back.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — St. Paul police are investigating how a running car was stolen with a 6-year-old boy in the back seat.

Sgt. Paul Paulos tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press the boy's bother was hysterical when she called 911 on Thursday afternoon. Moments later, the thief dropped the child off nearby unharmed, then sped off again in the stolen vehicle. Police later recovered the car.

Paulos says the 27-year-old mother had parked outside a beauty supply company and left her son in the back seat with the engine running. She returned to find the car gone and called 911, but a few minutes spotted her car as her son was getting out. She didn't get a look at the thief.

CHICAGO — The head of an education company at the heart of an ongoing federal investigation advocated for the hiring of ex-Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and communicated on her behalf with a top aide to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, according to a published report Sunday.

The Chicago Sun-Times story comes as federal investigators have sought records related to the district's roughly $20 million no-bid contract with Wilmette-based SUPES Academy, Byrd-Bennett and other district employees. Byrd-Bennett, who resigned last month, did contract work for SUPES before she was named CEO of the nation's third-largest school district in 2012.

No one has been charged, but the probe has raised questions about outside influence and how the district awards contracts.

The newspaper, which cites emails it obtained, said SUPES owner Gary Solomon often lobbied Emanuel's former deputy chief of staff for education issues, Beth Swanson, about Byrd-Bennett. In an interview with the newspaper, she said it happened so often that he was like "Barbara Byrd-Bennett's conduit — an extension of her team who pushed for her hiring."

"When I would ask Barbara for information, she would have Gary send it," Swanson, who no longer works for the city, said.

Solomon also helped negotiate some of the terms of Byrd-Bennett's CPS job and passed on complaints she had to Chicago officials.

Swanson said she raised the issue of the connections to Chicago Board of Education members before they voted unanimously on the $20.5 million no-bid contract to SUPES for principal training. Several board members — who are appointed by Emanuel — have since said they were comfortable with the decision at the time and the company is reputable.

Solomon declined to comment, as did his spokesman.

"There is a pending investigation into CPS, therefore it is not appropriate to address your detailed questions," spokesman Dennis Culloton said in an email to the newspaper.

Chicago Public Schools spokesman Bill McCaffrey and Byrd-Bennett's attorney, Michael Scudder, also declined comment.

CHICAGO — Suburban Chicago zoo officials say 54 stingrays are dead after oxygen levels dropped in a tank.

In a Saturday news release, operators of the Brookfield Zoo said veterinary staff and the zoo's animal care unit responded and were working to get the tank's oxygen levels back to normal. Four southern stingrays and 50 cow-nose rays.

The stingrays were in a shallow pool at an exhibit that allows visitors to touch and feed the animals.

The Chicago Zoological Society says most of the deaths happened on Friday afternoon.

Bill Zeigler is a senior vice president at the society. He says staff is devastated by the loss of the animals and worked hard to try and save the animals.

Officials are closing the seasonal exhibit for the rest of the summer.

SKILLAGALEE ISLAND, Mich. — A lighthouse constructed in 1888 on an island in Lake Michigan is up for sale to the highest bidder.

The Petoskey News-Review reports that an online auction started July 1 for the Isle Aux Galets lighthouse on Skillagalee Island.

The active lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places and is being sold through the U.S. General Services Administration. The new owners will be required to maintain the light following government standards for treating historic properties.

Skillagalee Island is about eight miles offshore of Cross Village in northern Michigan's Emmet County.

General Services Administration spokeswoman Catherine Langel says "Isle Aux Galets is available for sale because advancements in navigation technology have reduced the Coast Guard's requirement to own and operate houses."

No auction closing date has been announced.

ST. CROIX FALLS, Wis. — A western Wisconsin firearms retail store is drawing ire from some local residents because of its name.

About a dozen people spoke out against the signage for F-Bomb Ordnance during an unusually packed city council meeting earlier this month, St. Croix Falls Mayor Brian Blesi tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The residents thought the signage violates the nuisance ordinance.

"The innuendo around it is enough that it really lowers the standards in this community," resident Amy Klein, who spoke out against the business's name at the meeting, said Friday. "I just think that we as a community need to hold ourselves to higher standards."

The city council will take up the issue again Monday.

F-Bomb Ordnance's owners say they're not trying to be inflammatory and that the business should be able to display its name and website — f-bomb.net — on the building.

Co-owner Dr. Geoff Gorres says he and the other owners have "the moral high ground." He says they won't change their name or their signage and they won't move.

Gorres said F-Bomb Ordnance — which operated for the past several years in nearby Amery, Wisconsin — didn't set out to be controversial or offensive.

"But we don't control how other people are offended," he said. "There are a lot of things that offend me in America, and I just have to deal with them."

Both Blesi and Gorres said they think the fact the store is selling firearms is a factor in the uproar.

"If the name of our business was F-bomb Records, I don't think that we'd be having this discussion," said Gorres, who is an emergency room physician.

Klein, however, said hunting is part of the culture in St. Croix Falls and the fact the business sells guns "is really not the issue here."

"The issue is the innuendo around the name itself being really offensive," she said.

PEORIA, Ill. — A central Illinois woman says her baby was born on the bank of a bridge on the way to the hospital.

Elizabeth Riddle tells The (Peoria) Journal Star her son was delivered around 4 a.m. Saturday by his father, Brandon Smith, in the back seat of their car in Tazewell County. Riddle says she had been in labor on Friday, but hospital officials sent her home to Eureka because of consistent contractions that weren't progressing.

However, Riddle says her previous three deliveries had been quick once her water broke.

She says they went home, but the pain became unbearable and they pulled over on the way to the hospital.

Baby Paxton Smith is 6 pounds. Family members put balloons near the spot he was born to commemorate the birth.

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Information from: Journal Star, http://pjstar.com

CLEVELAND — A drop in the number of marijuana plants seized in Ohio in recent years can be attributed a greater push by growers to cultivate the plants indoors, according to authorities.

Investigators say they have seized $326 million in marijuana across the state since 2008. But authorities say the underground market for marijuana continues to thrive, with growers moving operations inside to avoid police, thieves and unpredictable weather, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports.

An agent with the U.S. 23 Major Crimes Task Force in Chillicothe says just as much and maybe more marijuana is being produced now, even though the number of confiscated plants has dropped.

"They're taking their product inside," Agent Jason Park said.

Tens of thousands of the plants have been seized annually through a program run by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's office. The program puts drug agents in helicopters to locate marijuana plots and signal authorities on the ground where to find the plants. This summer's hunt begins in about six weeks.

Prosecutors and police across the state strongly support the program. But critics call it a waste of time and say only a tiny amount of the plants grown are confiscated.

Organizers are currently pushing a plan to legalize marijuana in Ohio. DeWine has said he is unsure what would happen to the eradication program if voters pass a state amendment to legalize marijuana.

"We'll cross that bridge when, and if, we come to it," he said.

Authorities seized more than 326,000 marijuana plants across Ohio from 2008 through 2014, with a third of those plants uprooted since 2010, but state records show a dramatic drop in the numbers since 2010.

Last year, authorities seized 31,402 plants, a fraction of the 105,121 cut down in 2010, state records show. In 2013, the numbers were even smaller, as investigators found 24,577 plants. Police chopped down slightly more than 30,000 plants each in 2011 and 2012.

Narcotics officers estimate that each plant, when mature, is worth $1,000.

It is impossible to determine how much indoor growing in done in Ohio, but investigators have noted an increase in higher-grade marijuana, which is often associated with upscale production.

Outdoor growers can sell a pound of marijuana as low as $1,200 in Ohio, the newspaper reported. But indoor growers can make $4,000 to $5,000 a pound as they seek to produce high-potency strains using advanced systems of fertilizers, hydroponic irrigation and lighting.

Investigators also say they have noticed an increase in the number of stores selling indoor growing equipment and the amount of information that informants provide about basement operations.

"It grew in the open for years around here," said Vern Castle, a former sheriff in southern Ohio's Athens County. "Now, people are more sophisticated. They're hiding it inside."

GREENSBURG, Ind. — School districts across Indiana are having trouble finding people to fill open teaching positions as the number of first-time teacher licenses issued by the state has dropped by 63 percent in recent years.

The Indiana Department of Education reports the state issued 16,578 licenses to first-time teachers, including teachers with licenses in multiple subject areas, in the 2009-2010 school year. That number dropped to 6,174 for the 2013-14 school year, the most recent for which data were available, the Greensburg Daily News reported.

The dwindling pool of educators is raising alarm in some school districts as they struggle to fill open positions, especially in math, science and foreign languages.

"It has become a real struggle," Decatur County Community Schools Superintendent Johnny Budd told the Greensburg Daily News. "The pool of applicants is definitely dried up."

School leaders say state funding constraints, testing pressures and a blame-the-teachers mentality have steered people away from education as a career.

Many education programs have seen their enrollments drop in recent years.

Enrollment in Ball State University's elementary and kindergarten teacher-preparation programs has fallen 45 percent in the last decade. Other schools are reporting similar declines.

Denise Collins, associate dean with the College of Education at Indiana State University, said enrollment there has fallen 7 percent, and the number of students completing an education degree has dropped 13 percent.

"It's certainly disappointing because we know we also need highly qualified teachers in the schools," Collins said. "We might not have the number of teachers that are needed to fill vacancies coming up."

Tom Hunter, superintendent of Greensburg Community Schools, said he used to get 40 applications for open teaching positions. Today, he's lucky if he gets 10, and some open positions this year had no applicants, he said.

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. Superintendent John Quick said there are usually plenty of applicants for elementary school jobs but that every math teacher his schools interview usually gets multiple job offers.

He said schools across the state that lost millions when the General Assembly changed the school funding formula have enticed older, more experienced — and more expensive — teachers to retire early, replacing them with younger, less expensive colleagues.

Quick said that when schools can replace teachers who earn $70,000 with those who earn $40,000, they can use the difference to give raises to the remaining staff.

But now that schools are struggling to find replacements for the retiring teachers, they are facing a dilemma: They can provide incentives for older teachers to retire at the risk of not being able to find replacements, or they can keep older teachers as long as possible and risk losing younger teachers to other schools.

Darrel Bobe, superintendent of the North Knox School Corp., told the Vincennes Sun-Commercial he thinks the situation will get worse before it improves.

Bobe likened the teacher shortage to a crisis in manufacturing years ago, when people scattered from the industry amid lower-than-average salaries and poor working conditions. That industry has seen improvements, and he said he hopes the same will happen with teachers.

"We'll have such a shortage, five, maybe 10 years down the road," Bobe said. "People will panic, and we'll all have to figure out what to do."

ROELAND PARK, Kan. — A suburban Kansas City police officer said he is amazed by the public response to actions he took this week while responding to a routine shoplifting call at a local retail store.

Roeland Park, Kansas, police officer Mark Engravalle was dispatched Monday afternoon to a Wal-Mart store after a woman and a juvenile were caught shoplifting, The Kansas City Star reported.

Upon arrival, Engravalle was so touched by the homeless woman's crying, dirty, barefoot children that he went into his own pocket to buy shoes for the kids and the diapers and baby wipes the widow had been caught trying to steal.

"I didn't give it a second thought," Engravalle said. "I just wanted to do right by the children."

Engravalle, who has been a Roeland Park officer since late 2013, said such calls to the store are a daily occurrence. Normally, people are caught stealing things such as jewelry, cosmetics and electronics.

But this time, Sarah Robinson — who told the officer her husband had drowned several years ago and the family was living out of their car — and one of her daughters were caught trying to take diapers, wipes and shoes.

The girls, ages 15, 12, 4 and 2-year-old twins, were crying.

"They thought I was going to take their mother to jail," Engravalle said.

He asked Robinson if she had any money for the items and she said she didn't. Looking at the dirty bare feet and legs of the younger girls, he asked if they had shoes.

"She said no and started crying harder," he said.

Thinking of his own two children, Engravalle told the teen daughter to take her younger sisters and pick out some shoes. He also paid for the diapers and wipes.

"By then there wasn't a dry eye in the place, including mine," he said, declining to reveal how much money he spent.

Roeland Park Police Chief John Morris said he was not surprised by what his officer did. A few months ago, Engravalle was one of four officers who received a life-saving award in a case involving a choking infant.

"He's a really good guy with a compassionate heart," Morris said.

MINNEAPOLIS — Flavored cigars will no longer be sold in Minneapolis convenience stores starting in January.

The Star Tribune reports the city council voted Friday to ban flavored tobacco products at convenience stores.

The federal government banned flavored cigarettes in 2009, but other tobacco products are still sold with fruit and candy flavors.

Currently, cigars sold in flavors like grape, strawberry and chocolate can be sold at more than 300 locations. Starting in January, that drops to fewer than two dozen adult-only tobacco shops.

The vote followed several weeks of debate between anti-tobacco advocates who argued that flavored products were designed to attract young smokers and shop owners who fear a significant hit to their businesses.

WARSAW, Mo. — More than 30 years after a Forbes publishing subsidiary conducted a worldwide campaign to market land in central Missouri as a "lakeland paradise" the area is largely undeveloped and dreams of a vibrant but secluded community have not been realized.

Sangre de Cristo Ranches, a Colorado-based division of Forbes Inc., bought the property in 1984 and advertised relatively cheap prices for home sites on about 13,000 acres about 20 miles east of Warsaw. The push attracted buyers from around the world who wanted to be part of Forbes Lake of the Ozarks Park. Once all the lots were sold, the company turned over management to a landowners association.

In the ensuing years, only about 50 homes were built and most of the 2,000 landowners have never seen their land. Some of the land parcels, which range in size from 1¼- to 6 acre-lots, have gone through foreclosure, with more than 60 properties currently listed for an upcoming sheriff's sale in Benton County, The Kansas City Star reported.

Some residents are perfectly happy with the secluded, slow-paced lifestyle in a gated community that includes a shooting range, RV park, tennis courts amid spectacular views and abundant wildlife. The property includes nearly 5 miles of shoreline, with three interior lakes.

Other landowners would like more activity, said Gary Batson, president of the Forbes Lake of the Ozarks Owners Association. "In the beginning, there was a rush. They were marketing, and they sold to people all over the world. Now, we're trying to do some things to spark some interest and get our name out there again."

Forbes' sales pitch highlighted the seclusion and natural beauty of the area, attracting buyers from as far away as Australia and Germany. For $50 down and $50 a month for 15 years, someone could own 1 ½ acres of virgin forest.

"And a lot of people thought, 'Forbes Magazine — they're rich. This is a good investment here,'" said Rich Meister, secretary of the landowners association. "They could own a little slice of the wilderness, and Forbes was backing it. It had to be something good."

Today, most of the nearly 50 homes are permanent residences, with some vacation homes, said Sean Dockery, whose company manages daily operations for the landowners. A few are under construction and about half the lots are set up for camping. Other than being required to have 1,000 square feet on the main floor, homeowners are mostly free to build any type of home they want. The average house is worth $300,000 to $400,000.

But over the years, many of the landowners either lost interest in the property or couldn't afford to keep it.

"Some of these people have passed the land on to their kids, and the kids have no idea what this is," said Jim Kramer, a board member of the landowners association. "They've been getting a bill once a year for the dues but have never been there. And some simply decide they don't want to pay that anymore."

Besides facing foreclosure for failing to pay land association dues — $132.75 a year per lot — some owners lost their property in a sheriff's sale for not paying their taxes.

Meister said the association needs to be more aggressive selling the property. Committees have been formed to judge interest in the property.

"We're in our infancy trying to poke our heads out from underneath the sheets, and we don't really know what we're doing," he said. "It's all trial and error."

WICHITA, Kan. — Classroom spending cuts, uncertain school financing, low pay and eroding tenure protections all play into a hostile climate in Kansas that teachers and school administrators say is spurring a surge of teacher departures and retirements.

At least 3,720 Kansas teachers have left the state, retired or taken jobs outside of education after this past school year, a huge jump from the 2,150 who did so just a couple of years ago, according to a newly released data by Kansas State Department of Education.

The teacher exodus comes as a panel of district judges declared last month that key parts of a new state law for funding public schools violate the state constitution. The panel ordered an immediate increase in funds, but the Kansas Supreme Court later stayed that order pending its review.

But it is not just the financing problems fueling a perception education in Kansas is under attack. The GOP-dominated Legislature also tried to limit teachers' bargaining power and sought unsuccessfully to pass a law that would allow teachers to be criminally prosecuted for presenting material deemed harmful to minors.

"Instead of funding our schools, (lawmakers) are vilifying our teachers," said Mark Farr, a high school science teacher now serving as president of the Kansas National Education Association.

State Rep. Ron Ryckman Jr., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee noted that the Legislature tried to provide schools with two years of financial stability in unstable times with its block grant financing plan, and that some of the more objectionable bills either were never passed or were negotiated into more acceptable versions.

"We value our teachers and try to find the best way possible to get more money in the classrooms," Ryckman said.

Other outside factors are aggravating the defections. Many teachers who stayed put during the economic recession are now leaving for better paying jobs outside education. Demographics also play a role as baby boomers nearing retirement age are coping with new caps on how much outside income a retired teacher can earn while still drawing a state pension.

On Tuesday, the Kansas State Board of Education will hear a presentation on "exit trend data" for the 2014-15 school year. Preliminary numbers are already raising alarms:

— At least 654 teachers have quit their jobs in Kansas and left the state, according to statistics compiled by the Kansas State Department of Education. That compares to 399 teachers who left in the 2011-12 school year.

— Teacher retirements surged to 2,326, almost doubling the 1,260 retirements recorded after the 2011-12 school year.

— Another 740 Kansas teachers left the profession entirely, compared to 491 who did so at the end of the 2011-12 school year.

"That puts some hard numbers to what we have been hearing," said Mark Tallman, associate executive director for advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards. "The numbers are real and the situation has changed in the past few years."

Out-of-state districts are taking advantage of the current situation.

On the Kansas Turnpike near Lawrence a recruitment billboard put up by the Independence, Missouri, school district proclaims: "HIRING TEACHERS FOR 2015-16." A similar billboard also greets drivers near Goddard.

The district decided to use billboards in neighboring Kansas because it needed to hire 45 new teachers after its voters approved a tax increase in a move to lower class sizes.

"We have seen many more applications in late June and July than we would typically see in a given school year, and honestly most of them are from Kansas," Dale Herl, superintendent for the Independence school district, said.

Jeff Hersh, assistant superintendent for human resources at the Goddard schools, said his district lost two teachers with more than 15 years of experience to Independence. He also noted that the number of candidates he's seen at recruiting fairs has been much lower than in years past.

Goddard had 13 teacher vacancies this year, but only decided to fill two of them due to uncertainty in school financing, Hersh said. That will mean bigger class sizes come fall.

Parent Judith Deedy, who has two 11-year-olds and one 13-year-old in the Shawnee Mission school district, said teachers in Kansas feel threatened by not only by the low pay but the Legislature.

"Why do they think this is going to help us get bright people to go into teaching," Deedy said. "And my kids are still relatively young, we have a ways to go. So I think that it's frightening."

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A concert planned by a 9-year-old terminally ill girl in South Dakota will allow her to fulfill her wish of helping other children.

The Argus Leader reports the event planned by Rebekah Spader, of Sioux Falls, raised enough funds Saturday to help at least one ill child.

Rebekah was diagnosed with a genetic nerve disorder at age 1. She was later diagnosed with a bone marrow failure disorder.

Rebekah survived a transplant, but her family decided against a needed second one. Her father, Tony Spader, says the family chose to "celebrate" her life.

Rebekah's favorite singers, Christian artists Geoff Moore and Rachelle Hope, performed for a full high school auditorium.

Each ticket was $11. Tony Spader says that's enough money to support the wish of at least one child.

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. — An anonymous donor has offered a $1 million reward for credible information leading to the pair of actress Judy Garland's ruby red slippers stolen from a museum in her Minnesota hometown.

Garland wore the sequined red slippers in the 1939 movie "Wizard of Oz." Three other pairs still exist, including one pair on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

John Kelsch, executive director of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, says the anonymous donor is from Arizona and is a huge Garland and "Wizard of Oz" fan.

The reward offer requires the exact location of the slippers and name of the perpetrator.

The 10-year anniversary of the theft is coming in August. The slippers were insured for $1 million. Kelsch says they could be worth $2-3 million now.