Topeka ? Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration has identified $101 million in savings to reduce a predicted $238 million shortfall in Kansas’ budget between now and July 2016, his top budget adviser said Thursday.

Budget Director Shawn Sullivan said the savings are in addition to efforts by seven major state agencies to review programs to find efficiencies. Those results are due in mid-October. Sullivan also said during an interview that the administration is examining agencies’ energy use and reviewing costs for items such as mailings.

But the $101 million in specific savings include lower-than-anticipated costs in the health plan for state workers and standardizing computer systems across state government. Sullivan also said the state is managing prescription drug use in various programs better and more aggressively pursuing rebates from pharmaceutical companies.

“There are a lot of prognostications that the sky is falling with the Kansas budget, and I am here to say that, that is not correct. The economy will grow,” Sullivan told The Associated Press.

Sullivan said specific savings also will come from refinancing bonds for a recently completed Statehouse renovation and from partnering with the federal government to collect some debts.

The budget director discussed the initiatives amid a political debate over personal income tax cuts enacted at Brownback’s urging in 2012 and 2013. The conservative Republican governor is in tough race for re-election, and Democratic challenger Paul Davis contends the tax reductions have wrecked the state’s finances.

Brownback pushed for the tax cuts to stimulate economic growth. They have dropped the state’s top personal income tax rate by 26 percent and eliminated income taxes for the owners of 191,000 businesses. Personal income tax collections for the 2014 budget year, ending in June, were 24 percent below collections during the 2013 fiscal year.

Davis has proposed freezing the tax policy in place in January 2015, postponing or canceling future income tax cuts to stabilize the budget — which alone would not close the shortfall. He’s also announced a bipartisan team of economic advisers and is promising economic summits if he’s elected.

“Sam Brownback is finally starting to see the crisis his failed experiment has created for our state,” Davis spokesman Chris Pumpelly said in an email. “And instead of taking responsibility for his mess, he is trying to mislead and spin Kansans by disguising deeper cuts as ‘efficiencies.'”

The Legislature’s nonpartisan research staff predicted the shortfall in August after tax collections were $334 million short of expectations in April, May and June. The $238 million represents the gap between anticipated revenues and existing spending commitments through June 2016, though the figure can change with monthly tax collections.

Lawmakers and Brownback must close any gap next year because the Kansas Constitution prevents the state from running a deficit.