It can take a long, long time, apparently, to remove a cog from the wheels of government. In this case, it's our public school students and their teachers who must wait.

Act 51, the nearly two-year-old state law passed to give schools more control over their budgets and operations, included a directive allowing the Department of Education to handle its own repair and maintenance planning.

But the backlog of projects has grown to $524.5 million, according to a report prepared for the Legislature, signalling that the pipeline of funding remains clogged. DOE officials say that the Office of Budget and Finance hasn't released the first dollar of $75 million allotted for the current fiscal year, which began in July.

That's an appalling delay, further postponing improvements in the schools so desperately needed to create a reasonably comfortable learning environment.

The problem: The budget office hasn't been able to tell the DOE either how much it can expect or when it will be released, planners said. This makes scheduling contracts and making other arrangements very inefficient.

There's encouraging news from the state, though: The schools department and the budget office have reached an informal accord that could unstick the gears.

The memorandum of agreement has not been signed, but the two agencies already are piloting a plan to release money that's been allotted in chunks, leaving it up to the DOE to decide which projects to fund first. Such an agreement is essential if school buildings, which have deteriorated with age and delayed repairs, ever will be put right.

When lawmakers convene in a month, they ought to set aside a sizable portion of the state's budget surplus as a bonus allotment for maintenance projects. But it's senseless to do that if the budgetary system can't even handle the current to-do list.

Legislators should keep the pressure on the state bureaucracy to come through with this new, more cooperative plan. It represents a hopeful first step toward an improved budgetary process that can deliver what the schools need when they need it.

Abstract ideas of educational philosophy and governance can, and should, take time to resolve. Making our schools physically safe and worthy of education is a goal everyone shares. It's time to get it done.