It was announced Tuesday, May 10th, that Brownback’s Secretary of Administration sent a letter to the Commission telling the five government employees of the Kansas Arts Commission they were out of a job – laid off immediately and unemployeed come June 10th.
Brownback had pushed to disband the Kansas Arts Commission back in January, but the Legislature allocated funds to keep KAC running through the end of the fiscal year, June 30th. Now, with 50 days until that deadline, it’s all changed.
There isn’t much more than stunned silence at this point in time, but the uproar should start soon.
Brownback’s solution all along has been to transition the KAC into a not-for-proft agency, but, even with government funds to set up this new venture, the chances of receiving federal funding (which in some instances KAC parcelled out to organizations across the state) could be diminished.
This is not the only department to get a shaking down from Brownback’s administration. But this last ploy is surely one of the sneakiest. And probably not one of the last.
Proust Eats a Sandwich 
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