While campaigning for governor, Ed Rendell promised to cut state spending as one means for ridding the commonwealth of its budget problems.

That campaign pledge was a good one.

But many state residents assumed that, if elected governor, Rendell planned to direct his fiscal scalpel on bloated areas of the government as well as waste. Indeed, in some instances since becoming the state's chief executive, he has done that.

However, the cost-cutting he has implemented has not been without error. That state spending on food safety has been cut by about 10 percent during the Rendell administration has exacerbated a situation that was troubling even before Rendell's election to the state's highest office.

Rendell should rethink his stance on food-safety spending between now and when he begins work on his 2006-07 budget proposal. There would seem to be justification for a significant injection of additional money, judging from an eastern Pennsylvania newspaper's review of more than 78,000 food establishment inspections.

That newspaper, the Allentown Morning Call, found that some restaurants and food retailers go four or five years or more without being inspected. A state official told the newspaper that, at current funding levels, the state cannot possibly meet its goal of at least one inpection annually per establishment.

The state Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for inspecting most of the 47,000 food establishments in the commonwealth, currently has 57 inspectors, producing a ratio of about 825 sites per inspector. That's certainly a daunting responsibility, both in terms of actual inspections and in regard to preparing necessary paperwork - and, in some instances - citations for violations.

By contrast, the states of Virginia and Tennessee have a ratio of about 150 sites per inspector.

Bobby McLean, director of the state's Food Safety and Laboratory Services bureau, said full-service restaurants, ideally, should have four routine inspections each year. However, McLean said the bureau's current $9.1 million budget would have to quadruple in order to accomplish that inspection rate.

Meanwhile, the Allentown newspaper found instances where frequency of inspections varied widely, almost as if some inspectors were targeting certain easy-inspection establishments more frequently to help bolster their completed-inspections numbers.

McLean said the state is doing the best it can with available personnel and funding. With the number of restaurants continuing to grow, that assessment is probably accurate - but it could portend fewer inspections and, thus, leave open the door for troubling, unhealthy situations at some eateries.

Rendell should pinpoint other areas of state government where cuts are warranted and, in conjunction with that, work to provide more resources for the hiring of additional food inspectors, who, in turn, would be able to conduct more inspections.

At a time when money exists for excessive, double-digit raises for lawmakers and other state officials, state residents are justified in questioning why something as important as adequately funding food safety is relegated to no-can-do status.