Print edition: 
TOPEKA — About 150 people left hanging this summer after the state redirected federal stimulus money from a home energy-efficiency program to other projects may get loans for home projects after all.
The Kansas Corporation Commission and Department of Commerce have asked the Department of Energy to let them spend $1.5 million to complete the energy-efficiency projects that auditors identified for them.
If the request is approved, the state will notify auditors and make sure customers still want to complete their energy-efficiency projects.
Efficiency Kansas offered low-interest loans through partner banks and utilities for projects that auditors identified as energy-saving. Only 13 people took out loans within the first six months because of the complicated nature of the program and banks requiring second mortgages during a time of financial uncertainty. By the end of 2010, the KCC reported the program had resulted in 137 loans for about $935,000.
Part of the problem was that the KCC used all 240 days it was allowed to complete the regulatory process needed to add Westar Energy to the program, leaving the state's largest utility out of the program until less than a year was left.
"It was clear that spending the remainder of the $38 million was not guaranteed," the KCC said in written testimony Tuesday to the Joint Committee on Energy and Environmental Policy.
Gov. Sam Brownback's administration directed the KCC to shift the money toward the renewable-energy programs in hopes of not sending the money back to the federal government.
