It's not so much an important issue that this money was "hidden" (it was properly deducted from the government's books in the years the various foundations were established).

What is a deeper underlying issue is the way they are going about this spending.

The foundations were set up as huge pools of money back a few years ago because Martin's surpluses from the budgets were embarassingly large. They had to figure out some way to reduce them and thus dumped the money into these funds that would pay out money for a set number of years into the future.

At issue is the fact that you can no longer get a true handle as to what government expenditures actually are in a given year. Now that the funds are starting to pay out, the government essentially has "free" money that it is spending that doesn't have to appear on this (or next, etc) year's books. Questionable accounting at best from a public accounting standpoint.

The other sneaky thing about this is that the foundations are established with a set time frame. For example, the Millenium Scholarship Fund was set up to last for 10 years. At that point, there should be next to nothing left in the fund. Thus, it's a way for the government to appear to be establishing a new program / expenditure, without having to commit to funding it over the long-term / indefinitely. So, in 2010 or so, another large chunk of money will have to be set aside to continue this, or that's all she wrote for these scholarships.