State budget director asks Kansas agencies to examine divisions’ efficiencies

Several state agencies have been instructed by the state’s budget director to look at whether they can operate more efficiently, the governor’s office said Tuesday.

The Kansas Division of the Budget sent agency heads an e-mail informing them that they had the “month of September to complete the short evaluation on each program within the listed division.”

“After your evaluation is complete, you will present those results to the Division of Budget in the first two weeks of October,” the e-mail said.

The agencies are the Department for Aging and Disability Services, the Department of Health and Environment, the Department of Transportation, the Department for Children and Families, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Revenue and the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.

It “is critical that we evaluate and measure performance of the many programs within our agencies to determine if we are providing needed services in an efficient and effective manner,” the e-mail from Budget Director Shawn Sullivan said.

The evaluations are unrelated to projections that the state faces a budget shortfall of $238 million by the end of June 2016, said Eileen Hawley, the governor’s spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

She said the administration looks “for ways to govern better and be good stewards of taxpayer money, whether we have $100 million in the bank or $1 billion dollars in the bank.”

Sullivan will be working with agencies over the next few months to determine if state services are being delivered as efficiently as possible and whether there are any duplicate programs, Hawley said.

She also repeated Gov. Sam Brownback’s assertion that the state will see enough economic growth to cover its expenses.

“As you know, the Governor has said growth will address any projected shortfall,” Hawley said. “Growth is more than simply jobs. Growth takes into account a number of factors including private sector job growth, small business income growth, earnings growth of Kansas workers, GDP growth and growth in exports to name a few.”

On the campaign trail, Brownback has promised to add 100,000 private sector jobs to the state’s economy over the next four years and has dismissed concerns about the state’s finances raised by Democrats and independent analysts.

Ken Kriz, an economist at Wichita State University, has said it is unlikely that the state will be able to add the number of jobs the governor is promising or see enough growth to cover its projected budget shortfall.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said in a statement that Brownback is ignoring a budget crisis.

“This isn’t about being ‘good stewards of taxpayer dollars,’” Hensley said. “This is about cutting the state budget to soften the blow of Brownback’s income tax cuts.”

The governor’s office supplied the text of the budget e-mail to The Eagle after a reporter asked Sullivan’s office about it.

The e-mail states that the agencies are to use an evaluation tool called Performance Results: Outcome Based Evaluation, or PROBE. It also states that the chairs of the Legislature’s budget committees, Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, and Rep. Gene Suellentrop, R-Wichita, had requested that agencies use performance measures to evaluate budget needs.

Suellentrop, a Wichita businessman, said it was standard procedure and explained that October is the month when agencies determine their budget needs.

“Everything has to do with the budget,” Suellentrop said when asked if the request is related to the projected shortfall. He said the procedure would be the same if a surplus were projected.

“My philosophy is we always have to look for efficiencies,” he said. “That’s what we do in the private sector.”

Sullivan will speak on cost efficiency in government before the Wichita Independent Business Association on Monday.

This story was originally published September 23, 2014 at 1:40 PM with the headline "State budget director asks Kansas agencies to examine divisions’ efficiencies."