This was bound to be a thin year for government largess. The economy is slowing, and tax revenues have dropped, so after the Legislature finished its primary bill-payment duties, there wasn't much left in the kitty for nonprofit grants.

Even so, neither lawmakers nor the administration show much of a spending plan. After reviewing the list of grantees this session, there's room for the state to sharpen its focus.

State Rep. Marcus Oshiro, the House finance chairman, said nearly 140 organizations submitted $46 million in requested subsidies for operating expenses, and only about $2 million — for legal-aid programs for the needy — is being appropriated this year. And of $110 million requested for capital improvement, $10 million was awarded.

One strategy applied in the annual grant-in-aid subsidies is that construction projects create jobs that, in an economic downturn, the private sector is unlikely to produce.

What's missing is a clear rationale. Several of the grants this year include land acquisition, and it's hard to see that this would generate employment in the near term.

And the beneficiaries of the grants run the gamut of agencies. They include programs from Surfing the Nations Foundation — a Christian-based organization that undertakes worldwide feed-the-hungry projects — to a community center at the Waipahu United Church of Christ.

In tough economic times, it makes sense that funds go first to projects that benefit the neediest. But there's no such measure used here.

Lawmakers want the governor to free more of the $10 million appropriated last year for agency operations; as of April, Oshiro said, only $1.5 million was released. And only $3 million of the $26 million in 2007 capital improvements have made it out.

They've got a point. Gov. Linda Lingle should loosen the purse strings a bit for agencies that help the neediest. But lawmakers need to go back at the budget and strike a better balance of program and construction works that make the most of limited dollars.