Among the things we like about the Powder River Correctional Facility is that when we see inmates outside the prison walls, they’re supposed to be there.

And they’re doing worthwhile work.

No inmate has escaped from the minimum-security prison for years.

But inmate work crews, available for free due to a subsidy from the state general fund, have continued to help local public agencies and nonprofits with tasks the groups couldn’t have afforded to hire out.

At least the crews did until recently.

Starting July 1 the Oregon Department of Corrections canceled that subsidy. The cut was part of the state’s effort to trim $577 million in spending for the rest of the two-year budget cycle, which ends June 30, 2011.

Groups can still get an inmate crew but only for a price. And that price — $458 for a 10-man crew for eight hours — is too steep for nonprofits such as Community Connection that rely largely on volunteers for tasks such as shoveling snow, landscaping and moving heavy stuff here and there.

We wonder sometimes whether the administrators of certain state agencies ever mastered basic math.

It’s not that we don’t sympathize with the calculations state officials have been making.

Earlier this year Gov. Ted Kulongoski, reacting to the estimate that the state was $577 million short for the two-year budget cycle that ends next June 30, ordered agencies to propose ways to trim 9 percent from their spending plans.

The Department of Human Services (DHS) tallied $158 million in cuts.

I don’t hate plastic grocery bags.

I struggle in fact to muster even a respectable level of disdain for these ubiquitous totes.

Although this one time a sack, traveling alone and propelled by the desert wind, wedged into the rear derailleur of my mountain bike and mucked up one of the sprockets.

And since I was riding the bike at the time this intrusion was something of a nuisance.

But that paltry anecdote pretty well covers my personal antipathy for this category of container.

This makes me feel rather like an outcast.

You could almost believe, from the rash of publicity in the past week, that Chris Dudley left a prospective bride standing at the altar.

Actually, Dudley, the Republican candidate for Oregon governor, missed one debate.

A debate he never promised to attend.

A debate which, had it taken place, would have happened three and a half months before Oregon voters will choose between Dudley and Democrat John Kitzhaber.

Also, the public wasn’t invited. And the debate wouldn’t have been televised.

As political scandals go, we could scarcely conceive of one that’s less, well, scandalous.

Which isn’t to say Dudley didn’t commit a blunder.

He did.

For an agency that writes press releases to tout its sales of high-end booze, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s newfound concern about people who brew beer or make wine in their garage, with no intention of selling their wares, strikes us as passing strange.

And preposterous.

We have a couple of simple questions for Baker County’s three commissioners — questions they need to answer should they decide later this month to accept the gift of Anthony Lakes ski area.

Question 1: Based on the current owners’ 12 years of records, how many skier visits would the county need to break even?

Question 2: In how many of those 12 years did Anthony Lakes attract at least that many skiers?

The answers could go far in persuading skeptical residents that the county, by taking over the ski area, would not be risking any of their tax dollars.

That risk looks to us to be relatively low.