THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL NEWS MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 20128A www.cjonline.com

ting written re-certification from the state, which is required by law. A letter from Weights and Measures director Tim Tyson confirmed it happened and the faulty scale remained in use for several years.

The department denied open records requests regarding Tra-vis Scale in September because the company was under "ad-ministrative adjudication." De-partment spokeswoman Mary Geiger said Friday that agricul-ture officials reached a settle-ment with Travis, but she couldn’t release the terms of the settlement without a formal Kansas Open Records Act re-quest. The request was filed Fri-day afternoon and is pending.

Geiger said the department is making real changes.

"The program is conducting

regular educational sessions for large scale owners to help them better understand their respon-sibility to care for the mainte-nance of the scales and the criti-cal importance of working with scale service companies during the required annual scale certifi-cation process," Geiger said via email.

Geiger added that the depart-ment requested an audit by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and is awaiting the results.

Jim Waggle, president of WH Scale Co. in Topeka, said Weights and Measures was "underfund-ed for several years" and the divi-sion's test trucks "were parked due to budget cuts."

"I do know that the State Test Truck is up and running, and scales across the state are being tested," Waggle said via email. "I am sure that is where the 'a new

day has come' statement comes from."

Geiger confirmed that the test trucks were out of service for "ap-proximately three months in fis-cal year 2009 and for approxi-mately three months in 2012, during one inspector’s military deployment to Afghanistan."

She said inspections contin-ued without the test trucks, which drive on to large agricul-tural scales to weigh goods.

"The Kansas Department of Agriculture is working in an era of tight budgets," Geiger said. "The department takes seriously its obligation to allocate financial resources, both state general fund and fee fund dollars, in a fiscally responsible manner."

Scale inspections in Kansas are semiprivatized.

The initial testing is still done by contractors like UniBridge and Travis, which are licensed by

the state to install, test and repair. They test scales regularly and submit reports to the state. State inspectors then select a percent-age of scales for spot-checks within 30 days of receiving the reports. The scales selected are expected to be in the same con-dition as reported, or the compa-nies must fix them.

The letters sent by the depart-ment last month asks all scale companies to provide Weights and Measures with a list of the scales they approved from Nov. 2011 to Nov. 2012 and a second list of the scales they found out of compliance.

Waggle said he was "puzzled" by the request because the de-partment should already have that information if all scale com-panies are abiding by state laws.

"We are required by law to in-form Weights and Measures within 48 hours if a scale has

been rejected," Waggle said. "We are further required to inform them of the plan to bring the scale back into compliance or if the scale is going to be removed from service. Also, we are re-quired by law to send in within 10 days all test reports for all commercial scales that we have tested that are in compliance with the tolerance levels."

Waggle said he has no scales out of service because "any scales that have been rejected, we have had a plan in place to bring the scale back into compliance and have submitted such plans to Weights and Measures."

The letters say the department is compiling the lists because "one scale company indicated their personal belief that there are a number of scales out of compliance in Kansas."

That company would appear to be Hamilton's.

Waggle declined to comment on whether he agrees that inac-curate scales are being allowed to remain in use, but said he be-lieves "any company that is bla-tantly ignoring the laws that gov-ern our profession should not have a license to practice in the state of Kansas."

Hamilton said he believes the talk of "a new day" signals the department's intent to move on from the Bird City dairy incident and allow Travis Scale to keep its license.

“We’re just gonna go from this point forward and that’s in the past?" Hamilton said. "How can you let a scale company with no repercussions continue to oper-ate and put the public at risk, when that’s your job?”

Andy Marso can be reached at (785) 295-5619 or andy.marso@

cjonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @andymarso.

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Scales: Department has requested an audit