The push to balance the state budget, which dominated the closing days of the Legislature’s session, had an unintended victim.

Part of the budget plan included sweeps from some state funds. Among them was a special fund designated to promote the golden rule. Money in the account was raised through the sale of special golden rule license plates.

Through an accounting error, more than $250,000 was taken from the fund. No money collected from the sale of other special license plates was taken to balance the budget.

We’ve never been enthusiastic about the plethora of Arizona license plates created to raise money for one cause or another. But the money was intended to promote private faith-based efforts to spread the credo of treating others the same way you’d like to be treated.

Errors can happen in the hectic push to reach a balanced budget. But this is one that must be fixed. The money should be returned.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Opinion. Tags for this post: Opinion-World, page-b01, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.