IT'S AN OLD TRICK our Legislature -- like legislative bodies across the country -- has long used: Order someone to provide an expensive new service, but make them come up with the money to pay for it.

These so-called unfunded mandates typically are imposed upon local governments: Schools are ordered to teach additional courses, but given no money to pay for them; counties must provide a tax break but absorb the cost themselves, by cutting services or raising other taxes.

Now, legislators are trying to pull this nasty little trick on their own level of government. The budget bill passed by the House orders state agencies to give $200 bonuses to employees who make $30,000 a year or less -- about 32,000 people. How wonderful and generous. Legislators can all go home and brag about how they care about state employees so much that even in catastrophic budget times, they found a way to give the most needy of them a little something extra.

But the $6.4 million to pay for those legislative bragging rights? Well, don't expect the bragging legislators to foot the bill. The state agencies will have to find the money -- while they're also finding ways to continue operating with budget cuts of up to 18 percent. (That's on top of mid-year cuts of 9 percent this year, in addition to three previous rounds of cuts since 2001.)

The result, as Corrections Director Jon Ozmint told The Greenville News: "I guess I'll have to lay off some people to pay a $200 bonus. It doesn't make much sense to me."

It doesn't make much sense to us either. It couldn't possibly make much sense to anyone who cares about anything other than their own re-election.

Mr. Ozmint's case might be extreme. After all, he probably has the worst mess of any state agency: He provides a vital service, has no flexibility to determine whom he "serves" and keeps getting hammered with budget cuts. But other agencies will also have to hurt employees in order to help them. Juvenile Justice Director William Byars, for instance, expects he will have to furlough people in order to pay them their bonuses. Many of the people being furloughed would be taking that pay cut so the agency could afford to pay them their "bonus."

That's about as logical as giving someone a pay raise on Friday and firing them on Monday. We have a hard time seeing how it will serve, as Rep. Herb Kirsh said in proposing the bonuses, as "a morale booster."

Clearly, state employees could use a morale booster right now. Because the Legislature refuses to tell state agencies to close down programs it considers optional, they're being forced to do all the work that was being done before budget cuts forced agencies to start slashing their payrolls. Meanwhile, the skyrocketing health insurance premiums that private-sector workers have gotten used to have started hitting them, so their take-home pay is dropping at the same time.

But giving some employees a pay raise that will result in their colleagues being laid off, or that will result in their take-home pay being cut through furloughs, is no way to do that. That kind of dishonest and hurtful action has no place in our state government. The Senate should quickly reject it. If there's no money for bonuses, admit that, and move on.