Topeka ? Food-safety inspections handled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment would be transferred to the Kansas Department of Agriculture under legislation that will be considered during the next legislative session.

The proposal comes on the heels of a legislative audit that found the state’s food inspection system was inefficient and costly. The audit also led the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee to say the fact Kansas has managed to avoid major outbreaks of food-borne illnesses was due to the good work of inspectors des-pite a cockeyed system.

“Our current system not only has seams,” state Sen. Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, said at the time, “it has gaps and tears.”

The House-Senate Agriculture Committee is having a bill drafted that would move food inspection to the agricultural agency, and form a task force to work on food-safety issues.

“This is a vehicle to continue this discussion,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Dan Johnson, R-Hays. “Nothing has been decided.”

The 2004 legislative session starts in January.

The major recommendation of the audit was to bring the various food-inspection functions under one state agency. Currently, KDHE and the Agriculture Department, both Cabinet-level agencies, have responsibility for various inspections.

Kansas spends $6.57 million in state and federal money to inspect its more than 12,000 restaurants, 3,000 grocery stores, hundreds of dairies, food-processing plants and warehouses.

Under the proposed legislation, the state Agriculture Department would take over all food inspections and would be given a new name — the Kansas Department of Agriculture and Food Safety. Inspectors, currently working for KDHE, would be moved over to the agriculture agency.

The measure also would set up a task force to make recommendations to the Legislature on food-safety regulation. The audit found that some food establishments probably were overinspected, while others were underinspected.

The task force would include representatives of agriculture, health advocates, experts from Kansas State University and the two state agencies.