photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners met on Wednesday, February 19, 2025.

Douglas County leaders are urging Kansans in Congress to stand up for residents affected by the Trump administration’s executive orders — including the dozens who were laid off at Haskell Indian Nations University and the many others whose livelihoods rely on federal grants and contracts.

At their meeting on Wednesday, the County Commission discussed a letter that it plans to send next week to Republican U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall, and Republican U.S. Reps. Tracey Mann and Derek Schmidt. The letter was written on behalf of the commission by commissioners Patrick Kelly and Shannon Reid, and it asks for assistance in helping those affected by the numerous executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.

“As locally elected officials, we are compelled to express our concerns regarding recent executive orders and how those orders will impact Douglas County and our close to 120,000 residents in many adverse ways,” the letter to each legislator reads. “We ask you, our federally-elected representative, to provide the essential legislative checks and balances that only you and your peers have the elected authority to do. You must prevent a single branch of government from becoming too powerful.”

The letter added that many federal workers in Kansas reside in Douglas County, and many community members’ employment comes directly from federal grants – some of which fund large health, bioscience and national security research projects.

As the Journal-World reported, the idea of writing a letter came after county commissioners expressed concerns with the layoffs of dozens of Haskell Indian Nations University employees, part of Trump’s effort to slash the size of the federal workforce. The letter said that for those who were terminated, “these reductions appear baseless” and that the cuts targeted employees whose only “deficiency” was that they were recently hired or reclassified to a different type of federal employee.

“These terminations have a particularly profound local impact on the already small team dedicated to providing Native American students their right to a higher education, a right guaranteed to every one of those students by the federal government,” the letter said.

The commissioners said in the letter that Kansas’ congressional delegation was responsive to the state’s needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, recognizing that the federal government had a role in protecting the health and welfare of all citizens.

“We hope for the same now,” the letter said. “With these recent executive actions, we expect an increased demand for physical and mental health care across our community. We anticipate a need to retrain our workforce and provide increased social service support for all those who will be impacted.”

In addition, the letter adds that the job losses will result in housing insecurity; contract cancellations will cause businesses to close; and the loss of federal grants will end some organizations.

“Will Douglas County and our municipal partners be expected to resolve all this disarray created by our federal partners? Will there be support from your congressional offices? If these reductions cannot be avoided, we ask you to engage with local and state leadership to respond with resources for all who are impacted by this overreach,” the letter reads.

Commissioner Karen Willey on Wednesday asked to include information about the impact of the executive orders on farms in the county. She said there are many farmers on a number of conservation contracts, and those are farmers who have been guaranteed federal money for a project. They put their own money out on that project and are then reimbursed in federal dollars.

Willey added that it would also be important to acknowledge the research being done at the University of Kansas. As the Journal-World reported, nearly 70% of all external research funding that came to KU in fiscal year 2024 came from federal sources.

Commissioner Erica Anderson said that the letter would demand action from the community’s representatives in Washington.

“You put forth action,” Anderson said. “You request that they come back to the table and that they do their due diligence to stand up for our community and that they not only just stand up for Haskell, but they stand up for everyone else that has been impacted by the sweeping actions that this administration has chosen to take, whether they have realized their actions or not.”

In other business, county commissioners:

• Approved an application for Kansas Department of Corrections Reinvestment grants that would support restorative justice practices, parenting classes, mental health and substance use treatment and staff development for juvenile supervision. The grant application is for a two-year allocation totaling $196,696 for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

The grant funding will be split up to provide $98,348 for 2026 and $98,348 for 2027 and would support four service areas. The largest allocation of $131,604 would pay for mental health and substance use treatment for youths and families who are uninsured or under-insured.

• Approved an application totaling $825,184 to the Kansas Department of Corrections 7th Judicial District Adult Community Corrections Comprehensive Plan grant, which helps counties develop and run probation supervision programs. In addition to those types of programs, $55,000 would be allocated for behavioral health services.

• Approved an application for a Kansas Department of Corrections Juvenile Comprehensive Plan Grant, which supports juvenile justice programs and services, for $570,965 for fiscal year 2026.

A memo in the agenda states that $37,199 will support the Bert Nash WRAP Program, which partners with local schools and assigns a master’s-level clinician to work with mental health staff, and the Douglas County Truancy Program, which works with students in grades K-8. In 2024, the WRAP Program served 640 youths, and the truancy program served 56.

The remaining funds totaling $533,766 would be used to support a variety of graduated sanctions programs, which is a series of responses to non-compliant behavior for juvenile offenders. The goal is to help juveniles avoid a criminal record.