Not all S.C. taxpayers' donations to the wildlife fund will go to saving endangered plants and animals this year.

The $2 fee S.C. drivers pay when buying new tires will be spent on things other than cleanups at old tire dumps.

And the money collected from a surcharge on cell phone bills won't be used exclusively to help develop emergency technology to locate cell phone users in distress.

Under a state budget proposal now on the table, thousands of those dollars will end up in someone else's hands instead.

In May, Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, made a last-ditch effort to stop the Legislature from raiding special accounts that state law mandates be used only for specific purposes -- such as preserving land, providing legal defense for the poor or cleaning up pollution.

Some are funded through private donations or user fees. "It's just fundamentally wrong in my mind then to use those monies for something other than that for what the money was collected," he said.

But last week, a committee of House and Senate members wrangling with an out-of-balance $5.3 billion budget chose to dip into all but two of the accounts anyway.

The Senate rejected the conference committee's proposal for other reasons.

Both houses will vote on a second committee proposal, and whatever is approved will go before Gov. Mark Sanford, possibly as soon as this week.

The budget is for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Many of the special funds likely to be tapped support conservation causes.

Angela Viney, executive director of the S.C. Wildlife Federation, said the committee's compromise proposal to use cash from most funds but leave two untouched still fell short.

"That's not good enough," she said. "There are still a lot of trust funds that are in there, trust funds that include money from private donors."

Here are some of the funds likely to be used to pay daily government bills, according to research by Viney's group:

• The Nongame Wildlife and Natural Areas Fund is funded entirely through taxpayer donations made by checking off a box on the tax return form. It's the most popular of eight causes on the form. S.C. taxpayers gave $71,000 this year.

Legislators want to take nearly $5,000 from the fund for the upcoming budget. Last year, they took $9,800.

• The 911 surcharge appears on mobile phone bills and supports technology upgrades needed so emergency workers can pinpoint the location of a mobile phone user calling 911.

Lawmakers hope to take $4.3 million from the 911 fund for the next budget. They used $470,000 in this budget year.

• The Waste Tire Grant Trust Fund is financed through the tire fee and provides grants to counties or cities for collecting or recycling waste tires, which pose an environmental hazard.

About $194,000 would go to fund the budget next year. Roughly $541,000 was used in the current budget.

• The S.C. Housing Trust Fund helps develop safe, affordable housing for low-income state residents. It's funded through a fee levied when real estate is sold.

The budget proposal would take $5.7 million from it for the next year. Lawmakers used $893,000 in the current budget year.

• The Extended Care Fund (Barnwell Site) goes toward monitoring and maintenance of low-level radioactive waste at the Barnwell site near Aiken.

Consultants hired by the state reported last August that last year's decision to transfer $49 million from the fund left it $48 million short of the amount needed to ensure proper monitoring to keep the site safe.

Legislators want to use another $2.4 million in the upcoming year.

The S.C. House of Representatives voted in March to use a total of $41 million from more than 50 so-called restricted funds, according to a list compiled by the S.C. Wildlife Federation.

About $16 million of those funds was supposed to go for conservation. After the House vote, Leventis and four other lawmakers protested.

Leventis was most concerned about $12 million in funds supporting the cleanup of hazardous waste at Safety-Kleen's Pinewood landfill near Sumter.

That fund and another supporting efforts at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant, where the aircraft carrier Yorktown is on display, would not be used under the conference committee's last budget proposal.

This year, the Legislature took almost $90 million from the special accounts, $53 million of which supported conservation, wildlife advocates reported. Lawmakers did it by writing a sentence into the budget bill overriding previous laws setting aside the money.