Dan Rutherford

Illinois government continues to operate in near-crisis mode - with nearly each day presenting a new economic peril and another program in jeopardy.

Within the past two weeks, we have been told grants could be held up for University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service and universities might have to cut millions of dollars from their budgets to meet the gap in the current budget. Funding for early childhood and secondary education also could be threatened.

The governor's answer is to give him the power to raid special funds for which money has been set aside for specific purposes.

The Senate voted 37-21 earlier this month to give him that power. Pantagraph-area senators voted against the move.

The problem is an estimated $750 million gap in the current budget. Kelley Quinn, a spokeswoman for the governor's Office of Management and Budget, said, "We don't have enough money to pay for spending the legislators approved."

However, the problem isn't just what "the legislators approved." The problem includes the governor's special projects, such as an expanded healthcare program that the legislature did not approve.

Quinn said, "We have cut back on spending for those as well."

But the state shouldn't be launching new initiatives or greatly expanding existing programs when it's not meeting its current obligations.

Then there are the so-called legislative initiatives left in the budget for Senate Democrats while the governor slashed $463 million in what he called "pet projects" of other lawmakers in August.

The state would not be in such bad shape if the cuts made by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last summer were true cuts. Instead, he diverted that money to his pet projects.

Blagojevich and lawmakers should be looking at spending cuts in those areas before raiding special funds or threatening programs such as the Cooperative Extension Service.

Bob Greenlee, a deputy chief of staff for the governor, dismissed concerns about raiding special funds by saying most people don't know where their license, registration and user fees go and a lot of user fees already go into the General Revenue Fund.

That misses the point.

When special funds are set up with money collected for a specific purpose and excessive amounts of money are generated, then lower the fee - don't raid it for other purposes.

The governor is right about the need to close the budget gap, but raiding special funds is not the way to do it. Bringing spending

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