Yeesh, we're seriously thinking that Apple might need to adopt a strict cash-up-front policy when it comes to these mondo huge education deals, because it's becoming increasingly clear that until the money is safely tucked away in Fred Anderson's enormous underground piggy bank, Apple shouldn't be counting on using it to finance its next big corporate kegger. Case in point: we recently told you that, after an arduous two-year battle to keep other people's mitts off the funding, Maine's Governor Angus King finally signed the state's budget last week, and his controversial laptop fund remained intact-- much to the relief of Steve Jobs, who had already trumpeted his deal with Maine to be the "largest educational technology program in history." It might have turned out to be decidedly less so, had Maine slashed its $25 million laptop budget (that was originally earmarked to provide 36,000 iBooks for every seventh- and eighth-grade student in the entire state) and bought 36,000 Bob the Builder "Fun with Bob" laptops instead.

So yeah, we figured that the signing of the budget marked the end of the fight over who got their paws on the cash: the $25 mil stayed in the laptop fund, and would eventually find its way into Apple's coffers. After all, once a budget is signed and officially official, that's it, right? Nuh-uh. According to the Portland Press Herald, Maine's House of Representatives passed "surprise legislation" yesterday in hopes of snagging some of that cash back. Apparently there's a bill in the works that, if passed, would siphon $3.5 million out of the laptop fund and into an existing "cushion" account intended to help Maine school districts that, under the state's new funding formula, won't be getting as much money next year.

Not that that's a lousy use of the money, of course, but more than anything, we're just amazed at how the fate of this cash just never seems to get nailed down. We get the feeling that we're going to be hearing about this money for the rest of our natural lives, because the battle over how it's going to get spent appears to have more bad-sequel back-from-the-dead staying power than Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers combined. If the bill is passed, Governor King has the option to veto it, but the House feels that it has "enough votes to override a veto." In any case, we're only talking about 14% of the total fund maybe going bye-bye, so even if $3.5 million does get sucked away, we're still looking at roughly 31,000 iBooks for the middle-schoolers of Maine-- which, according to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, is still "more iBooks than you can shake a stick at."

If that happens, though, we're sort of curious to hear how the state will deal with the issue of 5,000 students who, while their classmates all tool along on brand new iBooks, will instead have to make use of a crayon and a legal pad. Perhaps the easiest way around that unpleasantness would be to round up 5,000 students at random, have them humanely snuffed, and then deliver their remains to the state's middle school cafeterias. Ta-daaa-- all students left standing will have iBooks, and the state gets to stretch its school lunch budget a little further. Sure, it's not a new idea, but hey, it's a classic.