Unless a new cadet class is allowed to begin training and graduate, the number of vacancies in the Pennsylvania State Police — now at 299 — will only increase.

While all departments in the state government must take a hit in terms of helping the state government operate despite depressed tax revenues, the state also has an important obligation in terms of maintaining public safety. Having the ranks of the state police diminish markedly is contrary to that obligation.

In a state where lawmakers keep a tight grip on hundreds of millions of dollars in a special fund whose main purpose is to protect the Legislature from ill effects of a prolonged budget fight with a governor, legislators have no qualms about requiring the state police to endure a $9.1 million funding cut this year while keeping training of new officers on hold.

There's something seriously wrong with those priorities.

That is not to say that all of the lost state police funding should be restored; again, like other state departments, the state police should absorb some cuts.

But operating with so much constraint that it deprives the department from keeping its staffing close to its authorized level is contrary to the vast needs of a state of this size with its huge network of roads and hundreds of municipalities that do not maintain their own police departments.

A force of 4,677 troopers — minus the 299 vacant positions — might seem to represent a glut of officers to some state residents — but not when three work shifts; illness, vacation and holiday time; and incidents, regardless of how infrequent, requiring a sizable contingent of troopers working in one area are factored into the state police manpower picture.

Now that the General Assembly and governor are no longer locked in a budget battle, they should be devoting more attention to the issue of finding money to fix the state police manpower issue.

According to Lt. Myra Taylor, a state police spokeswoman, Commissioner Frank Pawlowski is working with Gov. Ed Rendell's office, trying to find the money for more training.

But he should be holding meetings with top lawmakers as well. A General Assembly that has found the money to award illegal bonuses to staffers for political work should be able to find the money to at least partially resolve the state police staffing needs.

The state police provide coverage for more than 80 percent of Pennsylvania. Politicians should be more committed to the department's needs than what this year's budget suggests.

It's important to adequately fund education — as Rendell remains committed to do — but highway safety and general public safety are just as important.

The size of funding hit that the state police have taken under the 2010 budget is excessive and shouldn't have happened.