In late January, the legislative office of state Sen. Gary Dahl, R-Granville, issued a press release indicating Dahl was voluntarily withdrawing from the state's legislative scholarship program, in which each of the 163 members of the state House and Senate can award a free year of tuition, graduate or undergraduate, to one of Illinois' 12 public universities.

According to the state board of education, each member of the General Assembly can give two four-year scholarships to district residents, and each scholarship can be given for the full four years or broken down into two two-year rides or four one-year waivers.

While lawmakers are able to give the award to any resident of their legislative district, Dahl in the past has specified students must "demonstrate activity in public and civic affairs and show a relative financial need," that line coming from a February, 2009 release in which he solicited applicants for the help. Furthermore, Dahl said an advisory committee chose his recipients, in contrast to other legislators who retain the sole decision.

I didn't give Dahl's withdrawal much thought until as couple weeks later when The TImes ran a picture of the senator shaking hands with an Illinois State University student who obtained one of Dahl's eight awards for the current academic year.

Of course, the student in question accepted the award before Dahl announced he was ending his involvement with the program, but the timing of the photo was unfortunate nonetheless.

The January, 2010 release indicated Dahl's people are unaware of any other lawmakers taking similar steps, which is surprising giving the scathing results of an investigation conducted by Illinois Statehouse News and a group of Columbia College journalism students.

According to a December column by veteran Statehouse reporter Scott Reeder, the study found a couple hundred cases where lawmakers funneled scholarships to the children of people who gave to their campaign.

Another December opinion piece, this one penned by Elida Coseri and Patrick Smith of ChicagoTalks.org, placed the average value of each award, for the 2007-2008 academic year, at $8,300, and the overall program cost approached $11 million. In withdrawing, Dahl said the program is worth $12.5 million.

As the Coseri/Smith piece asserts, the state does not compensate the universities for the tuition, rather it compels each school to waive the tuition for the chosen students. As we know, pretty much every publicly funded institution in Illinois is strapped for cash, which means no dollar amount is too small to scrutinize.

So kudos then, to Dahl, who said in his withdrawal notice that "it's important to look at the big picture. At a time when Illinois faces the worst fiscal crisis in its history, and colleges face a severe drop in state support, we need to ensure every dollar the state spends is put to its best use. Today, we simply can't afford to maintain the General Assembly Scholarship Program, when there are so many crucial priorities in need of funding."

The only thing wrong with that statement is Dahl didn't issue it shortly after taking office several years ago. When he took the oath in 2005, Illinois wasn't exactly in great fiscal footing. That it took five years for one of 163 legislators to realize an easy way to start making a small difference is a conviction of the whole lot. Yet we've come to expect this type of "leadership" from those who work so hard to earn our votes.

Full disclosure requires me to report a personal and professional knowledge of one such abuse of the program that Reefer, Coseri and Smith have pointed out over the years: In 2006, state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, gave scholarships to the daughter of his largest individual campaign contributor, Barb Suehl. Suehl gave $15,891 to Boland's campaign in 2005 and 2006, and Suehl's daughter, Alleyene, received a free ride to Western Illinois University beginning in 2005. After two years, she transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her scholarship from Boland followed.

I was working in Clinton, Iowa, at the time, and part of my duties included covering Boland's legislative district. Barb Suehl is very active politically in the Clinton and Fulton, Ill., area, which meant I covered her activities as well. My wife worked for a few months in an office with Suehl. We went to a company Christmas party together. So at some point, I, too, could have raised a stink about the scholarship mess.

Going forward, there are two courses of action. One is to preserve the program but safeguard it with legislation ensuring the scholarship recipients demonstrate either academic excellence, financial need or both. Two is to scrap it altogether in light of fiscal crisis.

What should be clear is that allowing the program to remain as is — essentially a several thousand dollars for each lawmaker to use at their discretion, opening the door to it being gifted in response to political favors — would be unacceptable. Yet in a state with such a reputation for dirty government, the notion of what is truly unacceptable is pretty difficult to define.

• SCOTT T. HOLLANDis former associate editor of The Times but continues to contribute his column plus help with editing, writing and page design. He can be reached at scotth@mywebtimes.com.