The numbers we’re hearing from Olympia with respect to the region’s ferry service are as confusing as they are disheartening.

Earlier this week the House Transportation Committee unanimously approved  a package that includes an operating budget of about $473 million for the Washington State Ferries.

By contrast, the Senate ferries operations budget is $492.3 million, which includes $82 million transferred from other transportation department accounts and mandates a 2.5 percent fare increase each year and a 25-cent-per-ticket surcharge to raise money to help build a new 144-car ferry.

Both the House and Senate proposals dwarf the $440.6 million plan put forth in January by Gov. Christine Gregoire and are even more generous than the ferry system’s predicted 2009-2011 operating expenses of $427.5 million.

The difference, of course, can be attributed to soaring fuel prices, which have rendered every projection inoperable over the past few months.

Even at the higher  rate, though, the state is still looking at a funding shortfall WSF put at $900 million over the next 10 years even before oil shot from $80 a barrel to more than $100.

State Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, announced this week that lawmakers have already started considering new revenue streams for the ferry system that would not include raising the gas tax.  And the most likely means would be some formula that includes tolling more state roads and/or imposing a mileage surcharge on state drivers.

It doesn’t take much imagination to guess how those options will play in communities east of the Cascades, where ferry service is something someone else needs.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Washington state has some hard decisions to make regarding ferry service, inclucing how long it can continue to regard Puget Sound’s waterways as simply an extension of the highway system.