GOP plan: slash aid to schools?

Republican legislative leaders, vowing to block passage of a state budget until Democrats agree to more spending cuts, have proposed in secret talks to slash $400 million from schools, according to education groups that were briefed on the negotiations Tuesday.

School officials say they were shocked to learn of the proposal at a briefing on the state budget impasse -- now in its third week -- by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

The officials said they were told that, under the GOP plan, the money would be cut out of cost-of-living adjustments for salaries and other expenses and funding for the growth of student populations. The cuts would apply to schools with kindergarten through high school classes and to community colleges.

“We are very concerned,” said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn. “We had received public assurances that education would not be cut. A lot of districts have already adopted their budget for the coming school year based on those assurances.”

Republican leaders refused to comment on the proposal. They have repeatedly said they will not vote for a budget until Democrats, who dominate the Legislature, agree to at least $2 billion more in spending reductions. But Republicans have declined to reveal publicly what programs they want to cut to reach that goal.

Although the overall reduction the Republicans are seeking accounts for a relatively small amount of the state’s $103.7-billion general fund, half of that general fund money goes to schools. Budget analysts say making a multibillion-dollar cut at this point without eating into school spending would be extremely difficult.

Assembly Republican leader Michael Villines of Clovis and Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine left through a back door after two hours of budget negotiations with Democrats Tuesday evening, avoiding half a dozen reporters waiting in the hallway to question them about the status of the talks.

Villines and Ackerman have repeatedly said that they would not support even the spending plan drafted by the governor, criticizing it for not going far enough to wipe out the state’s chronic multibillion-dollar deficit.

But the Democrats’ spending plan closely resembles the spending plan drafted by the Schwarzenegger administration, and Nunez criticized members of the governor’s own party.

“The Republicans are asking for cuts that are way too deep,” Nunez said. “They would eviscerate public education and public safety. We’re not going to go there.”

Perata (D-Oakland) said he and Nunez had called education officials to the meeting Tuesday afternoon to “give them a status report.”

“They told us they would view any additional cuts to education as a hostile action,” Perata said. “We told them that we will stand firm and they should let their members know that.”

Both he and Nunez declined answer questions about what specifically the Republicans were proposing, saying that as a condition of the budget talks, they had assured Republicans they would not publicly disclose such details.

But education leaders who attended the private briefing said the cut being proposed would wipe out a good chunk of school districts’ discretionary spending.

“I cannot tell you how extremely disappointed our members will be to hear this news,” said David Sanchez, the incoming president of the California Teachers Assn. Sanchez, who spoke by phone from an annual association conference of 600 teachers in Monterey, said he expects the teachers at the event to immediately begin working to resist any education cuts.

“We are going to mobilize,” he said.

Aaron McClear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, declined to comment on the GOP proposal. “We have not been commenting on private budget negations,” he said.

The state has been operating without a budget since the July 1 start of the fiscal year, with legislative leaders unable to reach a compromise. Democrats had initially planned to bring their spending proposal to a vote before the full Senate and Assembly today.

Although the plan does not have the GOP support needed for approval, Democratic leaders say a floor vote would put pressure on Republicans to share with the public what specific cuts they are seeking.

But Perata said Tuesday night, after the negotiations with Republican leaders, that the floor vote may be put on hold. This actually could mean progress, because it would leave room for further negotiations.

“Our position has always been that as long as we continue to make progress, we are not going to go to the floor for some sort of a pyrrhic victory,” he said. “It’s looking like [the Republicans] are now interested in making progress.”

evan.halper@latimes.com