Gov. Bev Perdue told the Observer editorial board Friday that her budget plan "walls off education from devastation." With a 3.9 percent cut to K-12 spending, much less than the average 7 to 15 percent reduction set for most other state agencies, that's true - and commendable.

Perdue is right to maintain investments in public education and to protect the most valuable part of it - the effective classroom teachers and aides who are indispensible to student success in school, and preparation for success after they graduate. An educated populace is key to returning this state to prosperity.

But Perdue isn't being entirely honest when she says "this budget does none of the smoke and mirrors" shenanigans too often a part of budgeting. To make the numbers work, the governor's budget pushes millions of dollars in school costs down to counties. Those costs include shifting the responsibility for buying replacement school buses from the state to counties - that's nearly $57 million a year - and forcing counties to cover workers' compensation costs for school and community college employees, estimated at $36 million.

Additionally, the budget plan reportedly uses the county share of lottery proceeds - which Mecklenburg and other counties use to pay debt service on building projects - to pay for state education expenses and eliminates the county share of corporate tax proceeds for school buildings. That loss would amount to up to $200 million for counties, said the N.C. Association of County Commissioners.

These are costs most revenue-strapped counties have no way to pay for other than tax increases or staff cuts, and the cuts are likely to hit the same employee groups Perdue said she was protecting.

Perdue was careful to say she was protecting "state-funded" teacher and teacher aide jobs. But that's fine print that won't mean much to school systems such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools where state and local money fund teacher jobs. Perdue's edict would only protect some teacher positions at the expense of others unless counties can find a lot of extra cash.

Mecklenburg County commissioners' chair Jennifer Roberts is skeptical. She said early estimates indicate the state is passing $30 million to $40 million in new costs to the county. "If the commissioners want to keep revenue the same, then we have to be ready for the fact that our schools are going to start slipping back. ... I don't know if we have the political will to have a big revenue increase," she said.

Commissioners should have the political will to do whatever is necessary to keep our schools from "slipping back." But state officials should not balance the state budget on the backs of counties. Simply making state financial obligations suddenly the responsibility of counties looks like sleight-of-hand budgeting to us. It is an unfair, unfunded mandate that counties should not have to bear. Lawmakers should find another way to plug that part of the state budget hole.