Editorial: Untapped special funds can't be part of long-term state budget solution

Oh, irony of painful ironies. At least $4 billion sits around untapped, while hundreds of Illinois services go unfunded or steadily decline in the midst of a desperate budget crisis.

How tempting it must be for state lawmakers to just dive in and, to use the quasi-official term for such a practice, sweep some of that much-needed money into the general fund.

Tempting, but definitely not wise.

The practice, recalled in an Associated Press story this week that identified the $4 billion sitting in 531 accounts established for specific purposes, is not unfamiliar to Illinois, and it is at the root of the budget problems that have plagued the state for years, even before Gov. Rod Blagojevich made a practice of "borrowing" from special accounts that collect and spend money for special purposes in order to plug holes in the general fund budget.

Arlington Heights Republican David Harris recognizes the danger, and he's pushing legislation that would free the remaining billions for their original intents - presumably also helping assure that the state doesn't succumb to the temptation to grab some of the money for itself.

"That's a significant amount of money that would be tempting for anybody looking at a budget problem," Harris told the AP.

Lawmakers freed up some special funds earlier this month when they voted to make special-fund payments to municipalities and lottery winners. Harris's bill would permit scores of other interests access to money that's already been collected for them. While that money sits frozen by the budget stalemate, not only are the businesses, agencies and individuals dependent on the income suffering, but that giant pool of temptation swells in the periphery.

No. 2 House Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie acknowledged the risk even as she discussed the legislation she co-sponsored to get municipalities their money.

"You create the special funds to serve special purposes," she told AP, "and once you begin saying, 'Open, Sesame' - we can just take whatever we like - that's not a good way to run things ..."

No, it's not. Perhaps under certain circumstances it can avert a crisis, but those circumstances had better be pretty dire and very well considered. That has rarely been the case in the past. It wasn't the case under Blagojevich, and it certainly wasn't the case in the 1990s when, using different accounts but the same shortsighted thinking, lawmakers plugged budget holes by dipping into pension funds.

We know all too well where that has led us. Aside from the ethical issues of snatching funds collected for, say, conservation or specific school projects and using them to fund government, short-term "sweeping" carries the very practical danger of making our general-fund crisis worse in the long run.

And it's the long run that demands state leaders' full commitment.