The latest round of potential budget cuts under consideration by Governor Beverly Perdue is simply ridiculous and not only represents terrible public policy, it doesn't  even make financial sense. The proposals are absurd enough that Perdue may finally be thinking about raising new revenue to address next year's $4 billion shortfall.

Perdue told the Associated Press that she hasn't yet been persuaded to raise taxes to avoid draconian cuts, saying Tuesday "It's hard for me to accept a broad-based tax increase, as one voter and one citizen, when folks are having real trouble."

Hard to accept isn't the same as impossible to accept and her comments also suggest she may be considering raising revenue with targeted tax hikes or loophole closings. The latest list of cuts ought to persuade her, especially the ones that will cost the state more money, not reduce expenses.

The possible reductions include abolishing the Criminal Justice Partnership Program, cutting $2.7 million from drug courts, $3.02 million from family treatment courts, $2.6 million from Sentencing Services, and ending a program in the Department of Juvenile Justice that helps keep at-risk kids out of trouble.

Every one of those programs saves the state money. The Drug Courts, supported by defense lawyers and prosecutors alike, divert non-violent drug offenders into rigorous treatment programs instead of prison.

They have a high success rate and cost less than a tenth of the $27,000 it takes to house an inmate in prison for year. And the offender is able to work, pay taxes and restitution, and take care of his or her family. Fewer drug courts means more people in prison, more cost to taxpayers and less help to victims of crime.

Just a few years ago, Sentencing Services diverted more than 1,200 people from prison to community alternative programs and treatment at a cost of less than $2,000 per case. That is a savings of $2.4 million.

Day Reporting is another program on the chopping block. It is an intensive probation system that costs the state $5,000 a year and allows offenders to keep their jobs if they abide by strict reporting rules. Day Reporting also provides access to GED classes and substance abuse services.

More than half of the people in Day Reporting stay out of trouble and stay out of prison, giving them a second chance, and leaving a prison cell vacant for a violent offender, while saving the state $20,000 per year per person.

News of the possible cuts comes a day after lawmakers were told the state faces a huge prison bed shortage in the next few years and is currently spending millions of dollars to keep offenders in local jails.

Cutting programs that keep kids out of trouble makes no sense either. The programs need more funding not less.

And if lawmakers want to really help troubled kids, they should follow the lead of all but two states in the country and stop automatically treating 16 and 17 year olds as adults when they are charged with a crime.

A wide range of studies shows that handling them in the juvenile system that is focused on rehabilitation and not just punishment makes it less likely they will wind up back behind bars. That means fewer crimes, fewer victims, and less state money for prison cells.

Bart Lubow of the Annie E. Casey Foundation made that case persuasively Thursday at luncheon presented by Action for Children and N.C. Policy Watch. Lubow said the evidence supporting a change in North Carolina's policy is based on empirical studies, the science of the brain, and the experience of other states.

New Bern Police Chief Frank Palombo also says it is time to change the law and pointed out that in the last year for which complete data is available, 720 of the roughly 31,000 crimes committed by 16 and 17 year olds were violent. But all the teenagers convicted of crimes, violent and nonviolent, are left with am adult criminal record for the rest of their lives.

Raising the age to 18 for prosecution as adults ought to be a no brainer for lawmakers if they simply take an honest look at what is best for the teenagers involved and for the state.

A little of that same common sense would also mean an end to the discussion of slashing budgets for programs that divert nonviolent offenders from prison to community alternatives to incarceration. 

The programs save money. Cutting their funding makes the budget shortfall worse. This is an easy call. Take the programs off the list.