It Figures

$4.4 Million

The southwest Kansas town of Greensburg, destroyed two years ago by a massive tornado, is due to receive $4.4 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Division to help repair streets and build a new business park. The May 2007 tornado killed 11 people and destroyed or damaged 95 percent of the structures in Greensburg, about 110 miles west of Wichita. The USDA said Greensburg would receive $3.2 million to repair and rebuild its streets. A separate grant of $1.2 million will go toward access roads, water, sewer and other utilities for the new business park.

$9.3 Million

An Arkansas lawyer who controlled an escrow account for a settlement in a case involving the Bisys Group Inc. insurance services firm has pleaded guilty to charges of stealing more than $9 million from the account. Lawyer Steven Eugene Cauley told U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty at a plea hearing in Manhattan federal court that he had suffered a “severe depressive episode” but that was not an excuse for his felonies. U.S. prosecutors charged Cauley with wire fraud and criminal contempt in April when a judge in New York realized that the lawyer could not account for $9.3 million that was to be distributed in a 2007, $65.8 million settlement against the Bisys Group. Cauley, a partner in the Little Rock, Ark., law firm of Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams LLC, controlled an escrow account for the settlement money. During 2007 he periodically transferred amounts totaling at least $9.3 million to pay business expenses from various ventures or for his personal investments, according to court documents.

40%

Insurers say auto insurance would increase by 40 percent or more if a proposal to increase minimum amounts of liability coverage required for drivers in Wisconsin passes. A budget provision submitted by Gov. Jim Doyle, would increase the current minimum liability limits of $25,000 for each person, $50,000 for each accident, and $10,000 for property damage per accident to $100,000, $300,000 and $25,000, respectively. Wisconsin would have the highest mandatory auto liability limits in the nation if the law were to pass, according to the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. Republican lawmakers have so far been unsuccessful in countering the proposal.