Although state government continues to rake in hefty amounts of dough, you wouldn't know that from the people who run the place.

Last week, the agency that has stopped picking up roadkill and is no longer mowing median strips on the interstate because of "budget shortfalls" sent out a desperate cry for help.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is seeking sponsors for the annual printing of the state highway map.

That's right. For a price, you could get your name or your company's moniker on more than three million maps that will be printed for the 2009-10 traveling season.

Just so you know how much cash we're talking about here, Best Western hotels paid $210,000 in 2004 for a four year run of map sponsorships.

Where might your name or logo go?

"The map has several marketing opportunities for interested sponsors including its cover, back panel and inside border," a release said.

And, what will being a map sponsor mean to the state?

"Sponsors allow the state to defray the cost of printing the map and help to boost tourism and economic development in Illinois," a release said.

So, there you go. If enough people sign up to pay enough money, maybe someone will finally come and pick up that deer carcass stinking up the highway.

Birthday bash

One of the state's more visible lobbying groups, the AARP, turned 50 last week.

Funny they are only 50. Their vocal efforts to protect retired persons have made them seem more like 100 years old.

As part of a birthday observance, members of their Illinois lobbying team put together a celebration in the Capitol rotunda.

Along with cake and a band, they made sure to let everyone know which lawmakers also have turned or would be turning 50 in the coming year.

Among them are Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, D-Crete; House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and state Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville.

Where there's smoke

We can't exactly explain what was going on at Wolf Creek State Recreational Area campground over Memorial Day weekend.

But, according to one intrepid outdoorsperson we talked to, a park ranger at the state park campground near Lake Shelbyville was walking around the campground telling people they couldn't smoke at their campsites because of the state's smoking ban.

"You can imagine our surprise, as we turned our heads to the billowing smoke from our campfire rising up into the sky so we asked him quite plainly if he was JOKING!" our angry camper said in an e-mail.

"I'm so glad I spent all that money on gas to pull (a camper) down there so my family and I could be threatened with a ticket and eviction because my cigarette smoke was against the law, though our fire smoke was not," he added.

We asked the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for a response. Spokesman Chris McCloud said campers are free to smoke at their campsites.

The new law, McCloud stressed, does not ban smoking at state campsites.

McCloud said either the ranger was confused or it wasn't a real park ranger busting people's chops. They are investigating.

Wheeling and dealing

As Gov. Rod Blagojevich worked this month to round up support for his agenda, he repeatedly threatened to cut funding for various programs.

Universities were targeted. 4-H programs were put in the crosshairs. The two final state aid payments for school districts were on the block.

In each case, however, the governor relented.

The most recent reversal came from our friends at the community college system.

According to Illinois Community College Board spokesman Steve Morse, the governor first threatened to cut one-twelfth of the funding for local colleges in order to shore up a shaky state budget.

By midweek, however, the governor's office had changed its collective mind, saying the $25.4 million allocation was in the mail.

Like many others who have found themselves the subject of a budget threat by the governor, one community college president was taking the whole thing in stride.

"We're just going to hang on for the ride and see how things shake out," said Jonathan Astroth, president of Heartland Community College in Normal.

That's apparently the key to surviving a Blagojevich threat.

KURT ERICKSON heads the Lee Enterprises Springfield Bureau, which serves The Southern and other Lee newspapers; he can be reached at kurt.erickson@lee.net or (217) 789-0865.