SPRINGFIELD (AP) - Helping steer Illinois through a financial crisis keeps John Filan on the move.

Chicago to Springfield. Springfield to Chicago. The governor's budget director flies on state aircraft nearly once every 2½ days as he tries to find ways to control costs.

In fact, Filan's 210 flights during the first two years of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration was nearly twice as many as the previous budget director took in nearly four years. Typically Filan, who lives in Chicago, flies on one of the six daily shuttle flights the state operates between Chicago and the capital.

He isn't the only Blagojevich aide who is often aloft: The Blagojevich administration's use of state aircraft is up 27 percent from Gov. George Ryan's administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of flight records.

While other state officials have curtailed their use of state planes, Blagojevich and his agencies are flying more than ever.

The agencies pay for the flights, but those payments cover only a portion of the real costs. That means the state Transportation Department, using some funds meant for road work, has subsidized state aircraft travel by hundreds of thousands of dollars - amid three straight years of budget deficits in excess of $1 billion, agency cutbacks and layoffs.

Administration officials argue that while flights might be up, Blagojevich has cut general travel costs by 21 percent since he took office.

Still, a spokeswoman concedes more top aides are flying because more of them live in Chicago than in previous administrations - precisely the point made by critics who claim Blagojevich, who does not live in Springfield's Executive Mansion, has largely transferred the state capital to Chicago.

"We have more people in senior positions that are out of Chicago than there was in the past," Blagojevich budget spokeswoman Becky Carroll said. "It is what it is."

Overall, use of state aircraft from January 2003, when Blagojevich took office, through April 15, 2005, is down 2 percent from the same stretch of time at the start of Ryan's administration, January 1999 through April 15, 2001, the analysis shows. Other sectors of government - the attorney general and secretary of state, for instance - have reduced their use of aircraft by more than 3,700 flights, or 27 percent.

But employees under Blagojevich have jumped on state planes 15,000 times. That's 3,100 - or 27 percent - more than those under Ryan in his first 27 months in office.

More than 90 percent of those flights were between Chicago and Springfield.

Sen. Dale Risinger, a Peoria Republican and retired Transportation Department engineer, said too much state business is conducted away from the capital.

"Do we have the seat of government where it should be?" Risinger asked. "Historically, it's been in Springfield, and up until now and this governor, there's been a lot less travel to Chicago because of that."

Carroll said the increased number of flights doesn't matter because Blagojevich has cut overall travel spending from $33 million his first year to an estimated $26 million this year.

"You can slice it and dice it any way you want, but at the end of the day, state spending on travel is down significantly under Gov. Blagojevich," Carroll said.

Dicing the state flight numbers shows hidden costs, though.

The Transportation Department maintains a fleet of turboprop airplanes and helicopters to ferry officials around the state for official business. But the agencies using them pay only about 80 percent of the cost, according to an analysis of agency figures. It has cost the Transportation Department $1.24 million to operate flights for gubernatorial agencies since 2003, but the agencies have paid back only $990,000.

Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, said having to pay only part of the cost makes flying an attractive option for agencies.

"You don't deliberately say, 'This is a hell of a deal, I'm going to use it all I can,' but if it's there and you want to do something, it's a hell of a lot more convenient to take a helicopter or a plane than to drive," said Black, who has tried unsuccessfully to get the General Assembly to order an audit of air operations.

Blagojevich has flown 20 percent less than Ryan did in his first 27 months - 263 flights to Ryan's 327. He and his immediate staff have flown about 160 times more than Ryan and his staff, a 5 percent increase.

Much of the increase among the other agencies can be attributed to Filan's budget office.

Filan and his staff have taken state planes 1,230 times, a 428 percent increase over the 233 that Ryan budget director Stephen Schnorf and his staff took during the comparable period under Ryan. The budget office's 2004 expenditures, $79,300, were double what they were the previous year.

Other departments have seen similar increases under Blagojevich.

Blagojevich's director of the Environmental Protection Agency has flown an average of once every five days; when she was Ryan's EPA director, she averaged flights once every 10 days.

The Public Health Department has increased its flights by 265 percent over the Ryan administration.

Even the head of the obscure Illinois Industrial Commission flies nearly once every three days - three times more often than the entire agency flew during Ryan's first months in office.

Such numbers concern Rep. John Bradley, a Marion Democrat who sits on the State Government Administration Committee. He said flights should be taken only when absolutely necessary.

"When you're in tough budget times like this," Bradley said, "you have to be very mindful of the public perception of what they might consider to be a luxury."