Kansas Legislators will open a detailed audit that looks into state efficiencies on Tuesday – with a hope that the report will lead to money saving cuts in government waste.

Last year the clock ran out on legislators in overtime as representatives met for a record 114 days, finally raising sales and cigarette taxes to shore up the budget.

Salina Representative J.R. Claeys told listeners on the KSAL Morning News Monday that there was not enough time to tweak or eliminate waste without better information.

“When you don’t have the knowledge of what every agency is doing, what they are doing effectively, what they’re not doing effectively what programs need more support, what programs can be entirely eliminated because they no longer serve their stated purpose,” he said.

“Once we have that kind of information we can go in and make the strategic edits to the budget that make sense instead of going in with a hatchet.”

With a plan to examine the big picture with a microscope, Kansas Legislators set aside $3 million last year to hire a firm to analyze the budget process.

In October, Alvarez & Marsal were hired for the task of studying efficiencies of the Kansas government for a reported $2.6 million dollars.

Representative Claeys told KSAL News that the study will give them the best blueprint to proceed.

“We want to go in and be thoughtful about it and that’s why we hired that firm to go in and really give us some good advice from a neutral perspective.”

Early projections for the Kansas budget already show a shortfall of $190 million for the state’s next fiscal year.