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Missouri faces a backlog of child abuse and neglect investigations — the Kansas City region has the most, with 3,036 cases that have been open for at least 46 days. With a shortage of investigators at the state's Children’s Division, lawmakers consider hiring private contractors to help.
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The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires that Medicaid applications for the largest group of participants — who are low-income children, families and adults — be processed within 45 days. In February, Missouri took an average of 77 days to process applications.
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Kansas will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit over the 2015 murder of a 7-year-old boy.
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USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack sent out a letter to the governors of 44 states — including Missouri and Kansas — that are not meeting federal standards for processing SNAP applications.
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Missouri’s child welfare agency took at least $6.1 million in foster kids’ benefits last year to reimburse itself for the cost of providing care. It’s a longstanding practice that has come under increased scrutiny across the country.
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LaTasha Jacobs and Carl Smart come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about why Kansas City's homicide rate is so high. But they plan to work together in Jefferson City to try to persuade pro-gun lawmakers to actually consider solutions such as better childcare, nutrition and education.
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Two Missouri senators have filed legislation that would remove the state's remaining restrictions on providing food benefits to those convicted of felony drug offenses. Missouri's rules comprise "one of the nation’s most stringent bans for receiving SNAP benefits."
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A Missouri investigative team has helped locate 628 foster kids this year who were missing from state custody, lawmakers were informed this week.
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Over a year after a lawsuit alleged that Missouri's "dysfunctional" SNAP call center violates federal law, low-income Missourians are still facing automatic disconnections and wait times of around an hour.
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Sociology professor and author Alex Vitale, who is set to speak at the UMKC Cockefair Lecture on Tuesday, is calling for the end of policing as we know it. He contends that instead of directly addressing problems like gun violence and drug addiction with effective policy, the U.S. relies on police to "manage" the results.
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State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick says a review of the Children’s Division, which has struggled for years to recruit and retain staff, may not happen right away because of staff constraints in his own office. Meanwhile, Missouri has a backlog of more than 10,000 open child abuse and neglect cases.
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As some states wrap up this year’s summer food aid program, Missouri is still distributing last year’s benefits for children. The state also declined tens of millions in federal aid for low-income kids in part because officials lacked confidence they could disperse those benefits by the deadline.