It seems like every harebrained, nitwitted idea to scrap together a few extra pennies to balance the state budget was tried this year.

There were efforts to impose registration fees on canoes, a proposal to study a hiking tax, to spike fines for not wearing a seat belt. You name it, a fee has been proposed or one that already existed has been raised.

Now, we find out that the state has imposed an application fee on people who want to be teachers, bus drivers or otherwise work in the schools. Mind you, it’s not really an application fee like we have grown to expect with college applications, but it amounts to the same thing.

Beginning this year, teachers and other school workers will have to pay for their own fingerprinting and background checks, both requirements for employment. For the past five years, the state has rightly picked up the tab. No more.

But worse, the state was slow to notify school districts of the change. With budgets set, any school district inclined to pay the cost for applicants will have a difficult time finding the money.

The state stands to save $400,000 by shifting the cost of the background checks, which will cost applicants about $55 each. That’s money out of pocket before they even start working.

For workers at the lower end of the pay scale, it could be a day’s pay or more. But what’s really galling for the vast majority of applicants, they’re paying the fee to prove they haven’t done anything wrong.

It’s a good idea for the state to screen school workers for past criminal behavior. Every effort should be made to guarantee the quality of the men and women whom we, as a society, entrust with the education and care of our children. The burden of that test, however, should not fall upon individual applicants

Earlier this year, the Legislature approved $250 million of new state spending on education. Some of that new spending will be coming right out of the pockets of new school workers.

The fee only compounds an ugly Maine truth. School teachers aren’t paid very well when compared to their colleagues in other states. Teacher salaries in Maine are the lowest in New England and fall about $7,000 below the national average, according to the National Education Association. With an average salary of $39,864 for the 2003-04 school year, the state ranks 35th in compensation.

The state needs to knock down hurdles to attracting new teachers and school workers, not build new ones. Pushing a new fee onto applicants stinks, and it will make it harder to recruit great teachers who have plenty of other options.