Whether it’s your family budget, the Lawrence school district budget or the overall state budget, spending is all a matter of priorities.

The state’s decision to redirect funds that had been supporting driver education programs in local school districts is a poor priority.

In recent years, state legislators have focused from time to time on the number of Kansas teens involved in serious, sometimes fatal, automobile accidents. Although no new restrictions have been passed, lawmakers have considered raising the age to get a restricted or full drivers license, banning teen drivers from using cell phones or restricting the passengers in their cars.

Some of those measures might be a good idea, but the most important action the state should take to ensure the safety of teen drivers and everyone else on the road is to make sure youngsters are properly trained before they get behind the wheel. One good way to do that is through driver’s education courses.

So, if legislators are so concerned about the safety of teen drivers, what sense does it make to cut the state’s reimbursement for driver’s ed by 65 percent? Under pressure to balance the state budget, the governor and state legislators agreed to a budget that raided a state safety fund that is supported by Kansas driver’s license fees and helped fund driver’s education programs.

The new budget took $1.7 million from the fund and placed it in the state’s general fund, where it will be used for other purposes. That meant the depleted safety fund now can afford to pay school districts only $38 for each driver’s ed student instead of the previous $108. For the Lawrence school district that meant a shortfall of about $20,000 this year.

Passing that cost along to each student would be one way to cover the shortfall, but if the goal is to have as many students as possible take driver’s ed, raising the cost isn’t the best tactic. That pretty much means local school districts are going to have to trim elsewhere in their budgets to make up for the lost reimbursement.

That may not be easy, but, again, it’s a matter of priorities. In the current economic crunch, many difficult decisions will need to be made, but the basic safety of Kansas residents must be a high priority. If state lawmakers aren’t going to take steps to boost the safety of teen drivers, at least they should avoid steps that make the situation worse.