"Mama gives you money for Sunday School.

You trade yours for candy after church is through."

Stevie Wonder wrote it, state lawmakers live it.

Every time there's a special fund set up, time passes, attention drifts and the money ends up being spent away from its stated purpose. The term for that is "raiding" the special fund, and it seems appropriate, certainly more so than some euphemisms like "reappropriated" or "redirected" or "tapped."

Here are a few you may recall:

The state hurricane fund was a very big deal when it was created in 1993. Hurricane insurance was nearly impossible to come by after Iniki, and homeowners were stuck and desperate without coverage. So the fund was started in part with fees from homebuyers and insurers.

But after memories faded, scars healed and insurance companies started offering coverage again, that money just sat there like a hot pie in the window beckoning to lawmakers, "Spend me!"

Then there's the tobacco settlement money, which is supposed to go to anti-smoking education and smoking cessation programs but is now being targeted for whatevers. Anything and everything. It's fair game.

And the latest is a special fund created to pay for upgraded 911 call technology. Cell phone subscribers have paid an additional fee into this fund since 2004. That program has been paid for and put in place and there's a huge surplus of $25 million there. Cell phone subscribers are still paying into the fund — less than a dollar a month, sure, but what exactly is that money going to? Not what we were told it was for.

So it's a Catch-22 for the poor lawmakers. If they don't raid special funds, it means raising taxes and cutting the budget. If they raid the funds, they get called out for taking money that was supposed to be for something else. But these days, it's all of the above: the funds get raided, programs get cut, taxes and fees are raised. In some cases, we're still paying into those funds.

The issue isn't a smallish surcharge on our cell phone bills every month. The issue is honesty. It is like keeping a promise — the promise not to take our money under one pretense, use it for another and expect us to keep handing more over with no questions asked.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172.