Former Emporia State Pres. to "Find Waste" at Kansas Colleges

""We have an opportunity," Hawkins told fellow members of the Legislative Coordinating Council, according to a video the Legislature posted. "One of the presidents of a university has retired. He has intimate insight into the higher ed budget arena. And, certainly, as everybody knows, we have to be very careful and prudent with the dollars in our budget." "We really need to cut $200 million from our budget," Hawkins said, adding that the consultant would help "find efficiencies-find any waste that we can find.""

"Tom Day, Kansas's director of legislative administrative services, told Inside Higher Ed in an email, "We are currently in communication with Mr. Hush putting a contract together," and there are no documents showing what his "scope of work" will be. But Day said the payment will be "$50,000, over a 5-month period." Hawkins gets to sign off on the final contract."

"Within eight minutes-including brief objections from Democratic leaders in the room, one of whom said he was relying on "context clues" to guess whom the hiree would be-the lawmakers voted 5 to 2 to give Hawkins the power to hire this consultant. Hawkins is indeed planning to hire Ken Hush, who retired as president of Emporia State University last month, at a rate of $10,000 per month. Hush's leadership of his own institution was controversial, including budget problems, tenured faculty layoffs and enrollment declines."

Kansas legislative leaders met to approve a higher-education budget consultant without listing the name or proposed pay. House Speaker Dan Hawkins identified retired Emporia State University president Ken Hush during the meeting and sought authority to hire him. Lawmakers voted 5 to 2 to give Hawkins hiring power within eight minutes despite brief Democratic objections. Ken Hush is expected to be paid $50,000 over five months ($10,000 per month) and Hawkins will sign the final contract. Hush's presidency involved controversy, including budget problems, tenured faculty layoffs and enrollment declines.

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