The Kansas Legislature's Joint Committee On State Affairs issued this report of its February 1886 investigation of cost overruns on a project to repair and remodel the east wing of the Kansas Capitol. The primary issue was whether an 1885 $75,000 legislative appropriation represented a spending limit on the project, which actually cost $125,000. After hearing extensive testimony from many of the individuals involved with the project, the Joint Committee determined that the $75,000 appropriation was intended to be a spending limit for the project; that the Board of State House Commissioners had not provided adequate project oversight; that the project architects, John G. Haskell and Louis Wood, had intentionally developed plans for the Senate Chamber renovation that they knew would exceed the legislative appropriation; and that the commissioners and architects should resign from their positions. This copy of the report includes the marginal notes of Erasmus Theodore Carr, president of the Board of State House Commissioners, expressing his objections to the joint committee's findings.
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