Dear Editor
Kansans: Ready for an insurrection?  We are, after all, being asked yet again to bend over, this time to closely examine Brownback’s bottomless budget pit—before being kicked into it for burial.  
How big is the hole? First year after Brownback’s tax giveaway: $700 million. 2015’s Deficit: $800 million. Looming cuts: $120-$350 million.  “One of the worst reserve funds in America.” State budget: “Running on fumes.”
Instead of admitting their obvious failure, our clueless leaders have hired an outside firm, Alvarez & Marsal, to find “efficiencies.”  Really?  First they pull the money rug from under you, then make you sacrificial lambs fed to wolves.
Estimated cash reserves to end this fiscal year: $5.6 million. Amount to pay A&M: $2.6 million.
Cluelessness reigns. House Speaker Merrick is “excited” about it. Appropriations Chairman Ryckman’s inappropriate editorial letter says, “Close collaboration between A&M and state employees is the only way” to succeed. In other words, state workers, “We’re about to fire you or cut your salary, but get in line or you’ll get worse.” The corporate cutback/cutthroat model guarantees poor or no service for Kansans. Merry Christmas!
Will schools be cut? “Nothing is off the table right now,” says A&M.
Alvarez & Marsal’s record speaks for itself. St Louis: 16 schools closed; custodial and food services outsourced; bus routes redrawn, kids walking; academics “gutted”; accreditation lost. New Orleans: 7,000 teachers fired, charters replace all public schools. Other clients:  North Carolina, where churches declared “Moral Mondays” to confront legislator’s cuts. Puerto Rico, a bankruptcy basket case.
In all states, promised savings questionable. Study costs often doubled, or more.  
A&M’s Brownback donations: $2,000 in 2010 and $1,000 in 2014. Brownback didn’t pick them, but remember those private emails. . . . .
Kansans: Wake. Up.
The foxes are eyeing your roost in the hen house.
David Norlin
Salina