Make no mistake: Indiana’s dismal economic condition wasn’t the reason legislators failed to adopt a budget last week. No money should have meant no disagreement over spending.

Other issues, including a couple of noxious education bills disingenuously attached to the budget, created the 11th-hour meltdown and now threaten a quick deal in a special session. Leaders should make it clear to the rank and file in both parties that special interests won’t be allowed to derail the process.

One measure would limit the growth of charter schools; another is a thinly disguised voucher bill. Neither has any place in budget discussions that demand a straightforward accounting of the state’s obligations to public schools.

The charter language was a compromise forged after Senate Republicans made it clear they would not accept a moratorium on charter schools, the original measure proposed by Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary. Under the Senate-approved budget proposal, each school district would have been limited to one new charter school a year – an effort to ease the pain for Gary Community Schools, where seven charter schools are draining enrollment rolls.

But any limits on charter school expansion are a bad idea. President Obama is a staunch supporter of the alternative public schools, and his administration has stipulated that to receive some federal stimulus money, states must document whether they have a cap on the number of charter schools now operating and the number closed within the last three years for academic reasons. It would be foolish for Indiana to draw any limits on charter schools with billions in education aid on the table.

Likewise, it would be foolish to adopt a $10 million “School Scholarship Tax Credit” when the state has no money to spare. It’s disguised as a scholarship bill. But it is voucher legislation, pure and simple.

For proof, look no further than the pro-voucher Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, which issued a news release last week praising “every House Republican and many House Democrat legislators” for rejecting a budget that did not include a school choice program.

The proposed language would have given a 50 percent tax credit for contributions to a school scholarship fund – a credit that would reduce available funds for public schools and transfer them to private and religious schools.

It would represent a solid step toward a voucher program, an effort with less-than-promising results where it’s been attempted in other states. Florida’s program, for example, has been plagued with scandal.

The state budget always represents a series of compromises over competing interests and priorities, but Indiana’s dismal fiscal outlook demands less horse trading and more discipline, whether it comes to education issues or gambling proposals. The fewer unintended consequences evolving from the spending plan, the better.

There will be enough pain coping with declining revenues and increased demand for public services. Lawmakers should not add to it with legislation that could ultimately cost Hoosiers much more than they can afford.