NEW DIRECTOR FINDS BUDGET CUTS, FIRINGS GUT KING COMMISSION.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: SARAH METZGAR AND MICHAEL MCKEON Staff writers

ALBANY The Martin Luther King Jr. Commission has been virtually wiped out by state budget cuts, and five commission staffers fired the day before new director Ward DeWitt took the helm.

Virgil Hodges retired from the executive director's post on Jan. 25, the same day the five commission workers were let go. The next day, DeWitt a city school board member who worked in the Cuomo administration as a $107,706-a-year first deputy commissioner for the state Division of Correctional Services took over the post.

The director oversees the King Commission and the King Institute, which are …