Gutted Kansas Arts Commission Seeks Continued NEA Support

The Kansas Arts Commission still exists, but it has no money and no staff to administer its program. Judging from last week’s meeting, it also appears that commission members have little idea how they will move forward.

First, there’s the funding. This week, new KAC Chairwoman Linda Browning Weis sent a letter (a letter that wasn’t shared with other commission members in advance) to the National Endowment for the Arts making the argument that KAC should remain qualified to receive federal arts grants. Obviously that question should have been answered definitively before funding for the KAC was deleted, but it was not. Kansas would be the only state to receive NEA funding even though the state government isn’t contributing any funding of its own. The Mid-America Arts Alliance, which distributes NEA funds, said all Kansas requests have been put on hold pending clarification of Kansas’ grant status. The funding is anything but certain.