Every now and again, a little phrase mesmerizes lawmakers. This year, that phrase appears to be “consultant study on efficiency in government.”
The idea: Kansas is probably spending money on programs or assigning similar duties to different agencies or requiring certain reports or fees or something just because, well, that’s how we’ve always done it here.
The idea expands: We’ll spend up to $3 million next year to hire a consultant—presumably not from “here”—to look at how Kansas government operates and whether there are efficiencies that can be found by private contractors who don’t drink the local water.