TOPEKA- Kansas Governor Sam Brownback eliminated state funding for arts programs on Saturday, leaving the Kansas Arts Commission without budget, staff, or offices. Brownback seeks to replace the commission with a private, non-profit foundation, noting that “the arts will continue to thrive in Kansas when funded by private donations.”

Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times reports that Kansas’s nonprofit arts and culture organizations support 4,612 full-time equivalent jobs, which generate $95.1 million in household income to local residents and deliver $15.6 million in local and state government revenue.

The future of many of those jobs is now in limbo. Kansas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stands at 6.7% – 2 points higher than the rate at the September 2008 start of the nation’s economic crisis. Brownback’s 2010 race for the governship was based on local job creation.

As a result of the governor’s action, Kansas will also forfeit a likely matching grant of nearly $800,000 from the NEA next year, plus more than $400,000 from the Mid-America Arts Alliance. Those combined funds are nearly double the arts appropriation that had been recommended by the Kansas Legislature, which Brownback nixed. The state projects a $500-million budget shortfall next year.