In a vacuum, it would be hard not to support Schenectady County’s plans to get into the summer camp business this year.

There’s undoubtedly a need for recreation programs for low-income kids. Swimming, learning how to play tennis and learning computer skills certainly makes more sense than just hanging out, re-enacting drive-by shootings (see April 20 Gazette) — or worse.

But ... there are a bunch of buts here:

(1) There are already several day camps for city kids, including those run by nonprofit organizations that give assistance to low-income families. They include the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, Girls, Inc. and Jewish Community Center. Even if the camps aren’t located in the city, transportation to at least some of them is included.

(2 )The kids the county most needs to target with such a program probably won’t be able to afford the $50 per week tuition, and so far no provision has been made for the lowest-income families.

(3) The aforementioned programs are full-day, which for most working parents (and probably nonworking ones as well) is preferable to the half-day program the county plans.

Wouldn’t it make more sense, rather than starting up a whole new program (and finding qualified personnel instead of usual patronage appointments), to sponsor a few dozen kids for these camps? For example, the tuition for a week at the Boys and Girls Club’s Camp Lovejoy is as little as $40 per week (depending on family income), including transportation to the Altamont site. That’s $10 less than the county plans to charge. So why not use the $21,000 earmarked for the county program and let 87 kids go to full-day Camp Lovejoy instead?

Yes, these nonprofits’ camps are typically at or near capacity every summer, but with a little advance planning and the county’s commitment, perhaps an accommodation to expand them slightly could be made. The county should try that instead of spending more money in an attempt to justify former legislator Ed Kosiur’s $80,000 job as special assistant to the commissioner of social services.

That’s what really seems to be going on here. How else to explain the Legislature’s willingness to provide $21,000 for this new program when the most in any one year it ever gave Shane Bargy, its former Youth Bureau director, was $2,000. Bargy, forced into a lesser (but higher-paying) job after Kosiur lost his bid for Paul Tonko’s Assembly seat, recently left the county’s employ to become director of a Boys and Girls Club in Atlantic City. Not surprisingly, he reacted with derision when informed about the summer camp plan. County taxpayers should also question it.