HUTCHINSON, Kan. —After serving on the Hutchinson City Council for more than a decade and working for a broadband startup, Jade Piros de Carvalho was tapped by the state's lieutenant governor to head Kansas' newly formed Office of Broadband Development. In March of 2023 she was also recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Year honorees. Now she's out of a job.
According to a LinkedIn post she made on June 7, former Hutchinson Mayor Jade Piros de Carvalho was let go from her position as the leader of Kansas Office of Broadband Development.
"As you may have heard, I am no longer with KOBD," Piros de Carvalho said. "I will dearly miss the team and the entire Kansas Department of Commerce staff. If you are a Kansan, you need to know how hard the Commerce team works for the state."
Piros de Carvalho didn't go deeply into details, but here is her description of what caused her termination.
"This was not my decision," Piros de Carvalho said. "Tuesday brought the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. At 9:00 a.m. I was taking a selfie with the Governor and listening to her sing my praises to a room full of my peers at the National Governors Association broadband workshop. It was truly a career high. I adore her. By that afternoon, I was told that my job was on the line. I said the wrong thing to the wrong person, who made a phone call and I was gone."
She won't name the person who overheard her.
"We live in a very litigious society so you will not pry the person’s name out of me," Piros de Carvalho said. "I’m not interested in being sued."
Piros de Carvalho is going to take time with her family this summer while she considers what's next.
"I’m just not sure I’m built to last in the public sector," Piros de Carvalho said. "I don’t like to move slowly and I don’t like to parse my words. But I also can’t get out of bed every morning for a job that doesn’t make a positive difference in the world."
Piros de Carvalho left Hutchinson two years ago for the post in Topeka.