As the heads of the new Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—cheekily known as “DOGE” after a popular cryptocurrency—are weighing a crackdown on remote work, it is unclear how many state employees in Kansas work remotely.
The Sentinel contacted Governor Laura Kelly’s office to ask what percentage of employees—by department—worked full-time in the office.
Kelly Communications Director Ana Nixon responded that 100% of employees in the governor’s office work full-time in the office but they did not have information for the other state departments and referred The Sentinel to the Department of Administration
Department of Administration Director of Public Affairs Samir Arif said there are no records of which employees work remotely.
“We do not keep central records on remote workers,” Arif said via email. “Those decisions are handled at the agency and supervisory level.”
Arif also provided The Sentinel with the Department of Administration’s telework policy, saying that while each department has its own policy, all of them are substantially similar.
Kansas is one of the most over-governed states in the Union
Kansas ranks 48th in the nation in the number of government employees per capita, with a combined 681.6 state and local government employees for every 10,000 residents, according to United States Census Bureau data, well above the national average of 519.9.
Indeed, only Alaska (49) and Wyoming (50) have more full-time-equivalent employees per capita than Kansas, and both states have substantially smaller populations: about 733,000 for Alaska and around 584,000 for Wyoming, compared to nearly 3 million in Kansas.