Cool fall weather arrives today

Cool fall weather is in today’s forecast, with the high near 70 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

A few sprinkles are possible today, the weather service said, with no precipitation expected through the rest of the week. There will be a north northeast wind of 7 to 9 mph today.

Cool temperatures are expected the rest of the work week, with highs in the lower to mid 70s, according to the weather service. Warmer temperatures may return sometime next week.

Tonight, skies will be mostly clear with a low of 53, according to the weather service, with a north northeast wind of 6 mph becoming calm in the evening.

Thursday, the high will be near 75 with sunny skies, the weather service said. A calm wind will become north northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.

Thursday night, expect a low of 55 with partly cloudy skies and a light north northwest wind, according to the weather service.

Friday, it will be mostly sunny with a high near 75, the weather service said. There will be a calm wind becoming northeast around 5 mph in the afternoon.

Friday night, expect a low of 54 with partly cloudy skies, according to the weather service.

Saturday, there will be partly sunny skies with a high near 75, the weather service said.

Saturday night, there will be a low of 57 with partly cloudy skies, according to the weather service.

Sunday, the high will be near 77 with mostly sunny skies, the weather service said.

Sunday night, the low will be 62 with partly cloudy skies, according to the weather service.

Supplier Diversity Expo planned Thursday

The Unified Government, Board of Public Utilities and the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools are planning a Supplier Diversity Exposition for businesses on Thursday, Sept. 28.

The event will be from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday, Sept. 28, at Kansas City, Kansas, City Hall, 701 N. 7th St., Kansas City, Kansas.

The event will provide a free opportunity for minority or disadvantaged business owners to meet with representatives from these organizations and showcase their products and businesses.

Service Disable Veterans, Veteran Owned Businesses, Minority Owned Businesses, Woman Owned Businesses and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises will have direct access to procurement officers and buyers from the BPU, the UG and the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools, as well as 30 other public and private sector organizations.

Other experts will be on hand to assist entrepreneurs and proprietors with their certification process if needed.

More information is available at 913-573-5440 or email [email protected].

Kansas launches final phase of troubled enrollment system

by Stephen Koranda, Kansas News Service

The overhaul of the Kansas computer system for processing welfare and Medicaid applications recently went through its final implementation phase. State officials say the process went smoothly, especially compared to the system’s initial rollout that delayed thousands of Medicaid applications.

The Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, combines the processing for Medicaid and welfare benefits. The more than $200 million system got off to a rocky start with delays before its eventual 2015 launch and backlogs for Medicaid applicants.

The new section of the project focused on welfare benefit applications and family services. Glen Yancey, who helped oversee the project for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said he and others working on the project learned from those early stumbles.

“As time goes on, people get more experienced,” Yancey said. “As those people go through and do that work they get better at it, so they’re better at anticipating the business needs and how to implement that.”

The state worked with a private contractor, Accenture, to develop KEES, which was plagued by issues since its launch. An audit released in January 2016 shed light on some of the problems with KEES, including the fact that the state is unlikely to see the system’s projected $300 million savings.

The system was down from Aug. 19 to Aug. 27 during the recent upgrade, which was a shorter outage than originally planned.

Robert Choromanski, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, said not all information migrated properly to the new welfare system during the August upgrade. That means workers will need extra time to go through benefit applications that piled up while the system was down.

“It’s just taking a long time,” he said. “Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, as more and more employees get familiar with KEES, the new system, the processing times will get a little bit faster.”

Yancey said welfare benefit applications that would normally take about 10 days to process are currently taking around 14 days.

The update also indirectly affected Medicaid applications. Medicaid services were merged into KEES during the first phase of the program, but Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, said the system for Medicaid applications was also down during the latest upgrade.

“Medicaid application processing continued. They just couldn’t use the electronic system,” de Rocha said.

She said the outage did increase a backlog of applications waiting to be processed, but she didn’t specify by how much. As of now, there are around 2,500 Medicaid applications that have been in the system for more than 45 days. Almost half of those are delayed, she said, because the applicant needs to provide additional information.

De Rocha said state officials have added staff to reduce the number of applications in the backlog.

“Managers believe we will be back down to where we should be shortly,” de Rocha said.
The number of delayed Medicaid applications ballooned after the health insurance program was merged into KEES, hitting a high of nearly 8,000 applications in the system for more than 45 days in 2015.

Last year, some Kansas nursing homes reported financial issues while awaiting Medicaid renewals for residents.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for Kansas Public Radio, a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to kcur.org.

See more at http://kcur.org/post/kansas-launches-final-phase-troubled-enrollment-system.