IT HAS BECOME A disturbing routine in our state: government agencies having to make do on less money than the Legislature promised them, and then planning for yet another round of budget cuts, all the while being expected to keep providing all the same services.

The cuts will be made again next year, and the governor’s office has already indicated that, with as much as $600 million more in obligations than revenue, the likelihood of any agency escaping the budget ax is low.

But Gov. Mark Sanford has promised that one thing will be different this time, if he gets his way: Agencies will be told not just how much to cut but, more importantly, what to cut.

This is not just a worthy goal. It is what must be done, beginning with the governor and going all the way through the General Assembly.

As first Mr. Sanford and then legislators start writing their budget, there are a couple of simple rules we need to insist that they follow: Cut all you responsibly can, but tell us what you’re cutting. And don’t tell us you’re done if you end up with more obligations you haven’t shed than money to pay for them.

Telling us what you’re cutting doesn’t mean simply taking 10 percent out of the budget of the Corrections Department, where we have already eliminated nearly every program that could help inmates be something other than better criminals when we release them, and where we have slashed the number of guards to less than half the national average. It means telling us what you intend for Corrections to quit doing: Do you propose to furlough 5,000 inmates? Will you change our sentencing laws so we’re no longer sending 1,000 additional inmates to prison each year? No? Then what?

If you take 5 percent out of the Education Department’s budget, tell us what the department, or the schools, are supposed to stop doing. Will you eliminate the PACT? Will you stop providing the master teachers and other expert help you promised failing schools under the Education Accountability Act? Do you plan to reduce the amount of money going to rich districts that aren’t charging their residents property taxes as high as other districts do? Will you mandate that schools eliminate their football and basketball programs? If you plan to eliminate the “bureaucrats,” tell us which accountability reporting requirements you intend to eliminate.

Don’t tell us you can cut funding to the Department of Mental Health and the dangerously mentally ill will magically go away. That’s not a solution; it’s a dream.

Will you cut off funding to the museums and libraries and the Art Commission and parks and force them to either become self-sustaining or close? Will you finally merge some overlapping agencies and squeeze a bit of money out of their redundant administrations?

If you can eliminate enough programs and change enough policies and inject enough additional efficiency into government to balance the budget, while still meeting the state’s essential obligations, then bravo.

But if not, understand this: There is only one other option — to raise taxes. The choice is up to our governor and our legislators. It is a choice that has been avoided for the last three years by elected leaders who built the budget by holding their breath and closing their eyes and wishing real hard that the state economy would turn around before disaster struck. That policy can no longer be followed.