Kansas Helps SEIU Using Taxpayer Funds and State Resources

by Brian Johnson

At the beginning of September, we received several letters and emails from Kansas health care providers reporting on notices that Kansas state departments had sent them. The letters, printed on KS Department letterhead and bearing the name of the Governor, were asking for the providers “name, address and phone number” to hand over to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

seiu

The SEIU had contacted the KS Department of Aging and the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services asking for state health care providers information for the purposes of unionizing them. These Departments did not have this information on hand. Rather than simply telling the SEIU “sorry, we don’t have that”, they spent thousands of taxpayer dollars and state resources to gather this information.

When we contacted Gov. Parkinson’s office to request correspondence between their Departments and the SEIU, and to determine how much this cost the taxpayers of Kansas, we were told “the Governor’s office is not in possession of any information.”

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