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A “Rainy Day Fund” stuffed with $600 million sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Not to Iowa Auditor David Vaudt, who issued some cautions last week about the budget offered by Gov. Chet Culver for fiscal year 2009.

Vaudt tries to tap the brakes almost every year when a new budget starts rumbling down the street, no matter who’s in the governor’s office. Is he too cautious? Possibly. But it’s good to have someone using a calculator on these numbers; in their efforts to keep various interest groups happy, some lawmakers seem to be jotting figures on the back of an envelope.

Vaudt’s objections this time around:

• The budget “maxes out” the funds that have been used in recent years to balance the budget, including the Senior Living Trust Fund, various tobacco-related funds and the Property Tax Credit Fund. “The depletion of these funds in fiscal year 2009 creates a $193 million hole for Fiscal Year 2010,” Vaudt said in a press release.

• Culver relies on one-time bond proceeds of $67 million to help with the ’09 budget. Using bonds to pay for current costs? “Iowa should never use this financial maneuver,” Vaudt says.

• The planned increase in expenditures is 16 percent during the next two years, but the increase in revenues is projected to be 12 percent. “Unsustainable,” Vaudt says, unless we want to jack up taxes and fees.

• The 2010 budget shows a shortfall of $361 million; at that rate, he says, “a substantial revenue shortfall could wipe out the ‘Rainy Day’ funds in just one year.”

• The budget takes $90 million from long-term infrastructure spending and puts it in the general fund. Vaudt wonders if we’ve already forgotten about the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

Despite Vaudt’s annual concerns, a topped-off Rainy Day Fund reassures us that Iowa’s leaders have been sensible in recent years.

But you never know when we’ll run into an expensive surprise. Considering the shaky state of the U.S. economy, this would be a good time to listen to the auditor.