Setting a budget for a month or two, or even a year or longer in advance can often be a good practice for people. It can really help stretch those dollars out in ways that would often be unimaginable if such a practice were not in place, particularly so if money is tight or if you are looking to save up for something.

On the level of city and county governments, it’s not only something to recommend, it’s vital. One very important reason is because these localities need something in place to keep them accountable to taxpayers.

And well, with an entity as large as a local government, one can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if there were poor organization on the financial level. Sometimes it even seems like chaos when a budget is in place.

On the state level, it’s hard to imagine how they’d keep track of it all without some sort of budget.

Several months ago, the state passed a budget with the understanding that it had a revenue shortfall. Less than half a year later, they are already talking about taking some of that money back.

It’s going to affect localities, it’s going to affect higher education and it’s going to affect services that taxpayers trust the government to provide when they agree to tax hikes.

Who or what is to blame?

As a taxpayer, it’s easy to point at egregious spending on the state level. And there’s a recent example to help make that case — the $300 million spent on a new Route 460 before any dirt was shoveled.

As a state official, most of the fingers are going to point in the direction of a down economy. With the price of goods in the stores, that’s hard to argue with.

So, it’s probably somewhere in the middle.

Regardless, we certainly think it is irresponsible at best to pass a budget and come back months later to ask for some of it back. No matter the amount, it is likely to affect services on both the state and local level.

And a portion of the year in, it will force localities and service departments promising one thing to have to turn around and do another thing. Through no fault of their own this time — it’s going to further impact the populace’s distrust of the government, big and small.

We hope state senators learn to work together better next time to pass a more realistic budget. In the meantime, we also hope localities continue to make pushes toward building the local economy and tax base by investing in attracting business.

That way, we’ll be a little less reliant on state officials — and even worse, federal officials — who seem to be growing further and further apart.