Several years ago, the federal government established a grant that put police officers into public schools.

It was a laudable program that was aimed at improving school safety, and it certainly made a difference in a number of school buildings. But the grant money came with the understanding that it would not last forever. At some point, local government would have to fund the school resource officers.

We've seen the result play out in Auburn year after year. The city of Auburn and the Auburn Enlarged City School District have gone back and forth with each other over the funding of SROs, and it's an almost annual ritual to see the positions identified for possible elimination and then debated.

Now take that type of scenario and apply it to $26 billion coming to New York state from the federal government from the stimulus program.

Yes, it would make a lot of difficult and ultimately painful decisions go away to simply take a big chunk of that money and use it to balance the state's deficit-ridden budget. But at some point the same problem of spending outpacing revenues will surface again.

The Business Council of New York State was the latest group to call for throwing the stimulus money directly into the operational budget for 2009-2010 to eliminate Gov. David Paterson's proposed tax increases. It's a great idea, except that it doesn't explain how the budget will be balanced in future years when those billions from Washington aren't there.

We agree that Paterson's tax increases must be scaled back, but it should come as a result of spending cuts. The Business Council's press release had no suggestions for reducing expenses.

But this editorial is not meant to pick on the Business Council. We've seen the same arguments for how to use the stimulus funds come from a wide range of special interest groups and even lawmakers.

At some point, we hope someone actually proposes an idea that ensures some long-term budget stability.