John Patterson, my Statehouse office mate, had a good piece this week on a recent Auditor General’s report.

One of the budgetary gimmicks implemented by the Blagojevich administration is using “charge-backs” to state agencies. CMS essentially bills agencies for services they receive from the centralized bureaucracy. It’s all the same money, of course, but it allows the governor’s budget office to essentially free up cash for other programs and projects.

But when it comes to IDOT providing air service to the governor’s office itself, well, that’s another story.

That’s the backdrop to Wednesday’s state audit that found the Illinois Department of Transportation charges state officials and employees no where near enough to cover the actual cost of having, flying and maintaining state airplanes and helicopters. Who makes up the rest? Taxpayers.

State auditors found that the current rate of 41 cents per mile, which has been the rate since 1981, would need to increase to $1.85 to break even. […]

Between the 2003 and 2006 budget years, the governor’s office was billed $459,540 for use of state aircraft, easily exceeding the second biggest user – the Illinois House at $169,635.

Using Illinois Auditor General William Holland’s findings, Blagojevich’s office should have been billed more than $2 million if the transportation department wanted to cover its costs. That means taxpayers subsidized Blagojevich’s airfare to the tune of $1.6 million those years.

But, the governor’s office maintains that chargebacks in this case would be unwarranted, perhaps because that would increase the office’s operating budget.