Week of August 20 2024

Local

1 McPherson School Board Sets Key Public Budget Hearings for September 16
2 Schools Waive Class Fees for 2024-2025; Approve Plan to Hire Full-Time Substitutes
3 McPherson College Welcomes Largest Incoming Class in History; Showcases Auto Restoration Program
4 City Commission Reviews Bids for Housing Rehab Projects; Updates on Elm Street Drainage Project
5 Rainfall Roundup: Storm Brings High Winds and Heavy Rain, Significant Damage Across Area

State
1 USDA Forecasts Record Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Yields in 2024
2 Kansas Residents Voice Concerns Over Proposed Federal Transmission Line Corridor
3 Wichita School District Launches Khan Academy-linked Microschool

Nation
1 Erie County’s Struggles Represent Plight of Post-Industrial America
2 Five Key Facts About Democrats
3 Walmart Boosts Sales Forecast as U.S. Retail Sales Surge, Consumer Health Remains Strong

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This week’s column: American Brain Drain 

Contact: gregloving@protonmail.com

Local

1 McPherson School Board Sets Key Public Budget Hearings for September 16

The McPherson School Board has scheduled several key meetings for September 16, 2024, that will shape the district's financial future. The day will begin with a Revenue Neutral Rate hearing at 5:30 PM, where the board will discuss the proposed tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year. This will be followed by a Budget Hearing at 5:45 PM, allowing the public to review and comment on the district’s financial plans for 2024-2025. During the regular board meeting, the Lloyd Group will present the district's annual audit report, highlighting the financial health and compliance of the district. Additionally, the board will provide further budget explanations to ensure both members and the public fully understand the financial decisions being made.

Source: USD 418

2 McPherson Schools Waive Class Fees for 2024-2025; Approve Plan to Hire Full-Time Substitutes

Students in McPherson returned to school on August 13, kicking off the 2024-2025 academic year with a half-day of classes.

At the school board meeting on August 12, the board unanimously approved a proposal to waive all class and student material fees for the 2024-2025 school year, saving families approximately $671k in total. The waiver, which excludes activity participation fees, activity pass fees, and yearbook fees, was made possible by the district's use of ESSER funds. These funds, established under the CARES Act as part of the federal COVID-19 relief efforts, covered the cost of curriculum materials that would normally require fee collection. The district plans to review and potentially restructure the fee system for future years, with an updated proposal expected by early 2025.

The school board also approved a $265k proposal to hire two full-time substitutes at each of the six school sites in USD 418, aiming to ensure consistent classroom coverage across the district. Despite some board members raising concerns about the financial implications, particularly regarding fringe benefits, the motion passed with a 6-1 vote. The plan addresses ongoing challenges in securing substitutes, which have previously forced certified staff to cover classes. The hiring process will begin immediately.

The board also entered an executive session, which was closed to the public to discuss sensitive matters related to employment contracts, bargaining strategies, and other confidential topics.

Source: USD 418

3 McPherson College Welcomes Largest Incoming Class in History; Showcases Auto Restoration Program

McPherson College is set to welcome one of the largest incoming classes in its 137-year history as classes begin this Wednesday. Over 300 first-year students and more than 50 transfer students will join the campus, making up a cohort of over 350 new students. 

Aron Meis, Executive Vice President at McPherson College, told Ad Astra that, “driving this growth are increases in student retention as well as noticeable growth…among our 13 NAIA athletic teams. All of this is due to the hard work of the members of our campus community - Admissions and Financial Aid staff, advisors, coaches and faculty - all of whom play a critical role in recruiting students to McPherson. It is also due to the increased presence of our nationally recognized Automotive Restoration Program and the announcement of our $1 billion endowment matching gift.”

A new documentary, “The Path to Pebble” narrated by Jay Leno, is also out about the Auto Restoration team’s second place finish at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. You can watch it on YouTube:

Source: McPherson College

4 McPherson City Commission Reviews Bids for Housing Rehab Projects; Updates on Elm Street Drainage Project

The McPherson City Commission met August 13 and opened bids for rehabilitation projects on two properties as part of its 2022 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) housing initiative. Three contractors submitted bids, with proposals ranging from $27k to $54k for the work on homes located at 1115 South Chestnut and 1208 South Walnut. The bids will be reviewed, with a final decision on the contractor selection expected next week. These projects are aimed at improving housing conditions and lead abatement.

The city also provided an update on the Elm Street drainage project, which again has made significant progress. The city has not yet provided a timeline for the project's completion, but rest assured, Ad Astra will continue to monitor and provide updates.

Source: McPherson City Commission 

5 McPherson Rainfall Roundup: Storm Brings High Winds and Heavy Rain, Significant Damage Across Area

For the week ending August 20, 2024, I recorded a total of 2.89 inches of rain at my house in east McPherson, putting us .75 inches ahead of the August average. The most significant rainfall occurred during a big storm on Wednesday night, August 14. High winds, clocked at 74 mph at McPherson Airport and estimated up to 80 mph east of the city, swept through McPherson. The storm caused significant damage, including a partially blown-off roof on 17th Avenue, uprooted trees near Galva, and a semi-truck overturning on I-135. Over 600 customers lost power, with restoration completed by Thursday morning. Surrounding areas also experienced downed trees, power lines, and structural damage.

Source: RainDrop, Ad Astra Radio Daily: McPherson Podcast News, Aug 15-16, 2024

State

1 USDA Forecasts Record Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Yields in 2024

USDA’s Crop Production Report and August World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, published on August 12, confirms that we have very large crops in American fields, with corn, soybeans and other spring wheat projected to have record and above-trend yields in 2024. The August reports are the first of the year to estimate yields for corn and soybeans based on farmer surveys and satellite imagery. Additionally, planted and harvested acreage estimates were updated to incorporate certified acreage from the Farm Service Agency.

Corn yield is projected to be a record 183.1 bushels per acre nationally, up 5.8 bushels (+3.3%) from last year’s record yield and 2.1 bushels above trendline estimates. Despite this increase in yields above industry estimates, a further decrease in planted acreage to 90.7 million acres (-0.9%). pushed overall production projections downward. New crop corn production is now estimated at 15.15 billion bushels, which if realized would be the third-largest U.S. corn crop on record.

Soybean production is projected to be a record 4.59 billion bushels, a 10.2% increase over 2023 and a 3.5% increase over last month’s projections. The month-over-month projection increase is due to both an increase in yield, up to a record 53.2 bushels per acre (+2.3%), and an additional million planted acres.

Winter wheat production is up 1.5% from July projections, reaching 1.36 billion bushels, all due to yields rising to 53.2 bushels per acre. Despite planted winter wheat acres being down 8.8% from 2023, harvested acres are up 3.7% and total production is up 9.1% year-over-year.

Twenty twenty-four is a year of big crops, with production estimates for corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat all higher than 2023. Larger crops are weighing on already low commodity prices, with prices for corn and soybeans returning to 2020 levels.

Article Source: Farm Bureau

2 Kansas Residents Voice Concerns Over Proposed Federal Transmission Line Corridor

A proposed electric transmission corridor that could run through Kansas is prompting questions from Kansans. The Pawnee County community met at the Larned Community Center Thursday evening to ask those questions, share their stories, and share their concerns. “I’m really concerned because this is our house. This is our home,” said one resident who spoke during the meeting. “How long have you known about this going to happen? When did we find out?”

Part of the project centers on the Grain Belt Express, a high-capacity transmission line set to go through parts of Kansas. Parts of that project are already approved. Pawnee County Attorney Douglass McNett says it is a private venture, and the company worked with landowners to purchase easements for the project. He says the new concern is a federal energy corridor on either side of the transmission line that could use eminent domain.

Article Source: KSN

3 Wichita School District Launches Khan Academy-linked Microschool

The Wichita school district is launching an experimental microschool in hopes of luring back some families that have left public schools. The new Creative Minds program features a one-room schoolhouse approach, with about 20 students from kindergarten through sixth grade learning from one teacher. It is housed at the for-profit Learning Lab space inside Union Station downtown — an education collaborative with ties to Wichita-based Koch Inc.

Rob Dickson, Wichita’s chief information officer, said Education Imagine Academy — the district’s online school — became hugely popular during and after the COVID pandemic. He said the virtual-school program — as well as a recent exodus of students from public schools — illustrates that families are looking for something different for their children.

Learning Lab opened last fall on the second floor of Union Station. Stand Together, a philanthropic organization founded by Koch Inc. CEO Charles Koch, partnered with California-based Khan Lab School to develop the collaborative. The Wichita site houses Khan Lab School Wichita, the first expansion of Sal Khan’s project outside of California, as well as Guiding Light Academy, a K-8 virtual school and microschool hybrid that partners with the Buhler school district
Wichita Eagle

More and more, parents are opting America’s children out of public school. The share of children ages 5 to 17 enrolled in public schools fell by almost 4 percentage points from 2012 to 2022, an NBC News analysis of Census Bureau data found, even as the overall population grew.
NBC

Article Source: Wichita Eagle, NBC

Nation

1 Erie County’s Struggles Represent Plight of Post-Industrial America

The historic inflation that hit the United States and every other advanced nation over the past three years helps explain voters’ ire. But conditions in Erie — a bellwether county that voted in turn for Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — show how long-term developments also are to blame. The county has fewer jobs and residents today than it did in 2001. Though the 3.9 percent unemployment rate in June was lower than the national 4.1 percent mark, that’s in part because many people have dropped out of the labor force because of age or disability. The poverty rate is higher than the national average; a larger share of people rely on government assistance, including food stamps; and job opportunities for the young are scarce. Almost 1 in 5 Americans live in a “left behind” county like this one, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan research outfit. These roughly 1,000 U.S. counties grew their population and household income less than half as fast as the nation did between 2000 and 2016. Erie County voted for Ronald Reagan twice but otherwise was a reliable Democratic bastion until 2016, when it switched to Trump. For places like this corner of northwest Pennsylvania, the search for a savior continues. “It seems like right now the whole country is looking for a change they’re not getting,” said Joe Sinnott, a Democrat who served three terms as Erie’s mayor and now heads the county’s economic development efforts. “They’re looking for a stability they don’t have and they’re trying these different ways to get it, to get back to the stability of the Clinton years or maybe even going back to the Reagan years.” That persistent discontent is shaping the presidential contest. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in a CNBC poll this month trusted Trump rather than Vice President Kamala Harris to deliver prosperity; 78 percent of those surveyed called the economy “fair” or “poor.” Erie’s plight reflects the U.S. economy’s uneven growth in recent decades as technology supplanted manufacturing. Starting in the 1980s, a new economy arose that showered its gains on a handful of coastal “superstar cities,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Roughly 73 percent of jobs created since the financial crisis have been in metro areas with 1 million or more residents, such as San Francisco, Boston and New York, according to Brookings. Like many factory communities, Erie has been battered over the past two decades by a number of shocks: the rise of China as a global manufacturer; job-killing automation; the Great Recession of 2008; and the coronavirus pandemic.

Article Source: WaPo

2 Five Key Facts About Democrats

1. The racial and ethnic composition of Democratic voters has changed a lot in recent decades. More than four-in-ten Democratic voters (44%) are Hispanic, Black, Asian, another race or multiracial. This is roughly double the share in 1996 (23%). By comparison, while Republicans are also more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, the change among Republicans is less pronounced. About eight-in-ten Republican voters (79%) are non-Hispanic White.
2. The share of Democratic voters with at least a four-year college degree has roughly doubled since the 1990s. The increase in voters with a college degree has been sharper among Democrats than among Republicans. Today, 45% of Democratic voters have at least a bachelor’s degree, up from 22% in 1996. Among Republicans, the change has been more modest: 35% of GOP voters have at least a four-year college degree, compared with 27% in 1996. White Americans without a four-year degree made up a majority of Democratic voters in the 1990s. Today, they account for just 26%.
3. Religiously, nearly half of Democratic voters (46%) identify as something other than Christian. Like the broader U.S. population, registered voters have become less religious and less Christian in recent decades. These changes have been much more evident among Democratic than Republican voters. The share of Democratic voters who are religiously unaffiliated has roughly doubled since 2008, from 18% to 38%. Just a few decades ago, Christians made up an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters. Today, slightly more than half of Democrats (54%) are Christian, while 46% are not.
4. Harris draws more support from Democratic voters – and considerably more strong support – than President Joe Biden did. Nine-in-ten Democratic voters say they would vote for Harris if the election were held today, including 58% who strongly support her. Another 5% of Democratic voters favor independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 4% favor former Republican President Donald Trump, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Shortly before he withdrew from the presidential race on July 21, Biden drew support from 79% of Democratic voters. And only about a third of Democratic voters (35%) said they supported him strongly. That is 23 percentage points lower than Harris’ current level of strong support among Democratic voters.
5. Most Democratic voters (66%) say they are “extremely” motivated to vote this fall. This is 10 points higher than the share who said this in early July. Over the same period, there has been a similar increase in the share of Republican voters who say they are extremely motivated to vote, from 59% in July to 68% today.

Article Source: John Ellis, News Items

3 Walmart Boosts Sales Forecast as U.S. Retail Sales Surge, Consumer Health Remains Strong

U.S. consumers are shrugging off recession fears, flocking to Walmart stores for low-cost groceries and even splurging on electronics and new cars in July. The country’s largest retailer on Thursday posted strong quarterly sales and its executives said they don’t see signs of fraying demand. “We have not seen any incremental fraying of consumer health,” said John David Rainey, Walmart chief financial officer. Walmart executives said shoppers are gravitating to deals as well as the convenience of online order pickup and delivery, which led to customer gains, especially among higher-income shoppers. In a sign of confidence, they raised their sales and profit targets for the remainder of the fiscal year.
WSJ

Retail sales in the US soared 1% month-over-month in July 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.2% drop in June and way better than forecasts of a 0.3% gain. It is the biggest increase since January 2023,
Trading Economics

Article Source: WSJ, Trading Economics

Sources

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-8sXMzNGs

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-8sXMzNGs

3. McPherson College

4. https://www.facebook.com/CityOfMcPhersonLocalGovernment/videos/522251463597433

5. RainDrop, Ad Astra Radio Daily: McPherson Podcast News, Aug 15-16, 2024

6. https://www.fb.org/market-intel/august-wasde-crop-production-reports-buoy-expectations-for-large-crops

7. https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/kansans-raise-concerns-over-governments-proposed-transmission-line-corridor/

8. https://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article291055575.html; https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/public-school-enrollment-us-states-map-chart-rcna119262

9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/08/17/erie-politics-inflation-left-behind/

10. John Ellis, News Items

11. https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/walmart-wmt-q2-earnings-report-2025-0aecea83?st=71955dfprtg9nb9&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/retail-sales