Deukmejian’s Spending Vetoes Hurt the ‘Neediest Kids,’ Vasconcellos Says

Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos accused Gov. George Deukmejian Wednesday of singling out education programs serving “the poorest, neediest black and brown kids” for budget cuts.

The San Jose Democrat said budget vetoes in education programs for urban and rural school districts last June were a ploy by Deukmejian to force Democrats to accept his plan to use pension fund investment profits to balance the state budget.

The accusation came during an exchange with Jesse R. Huff, director of the Department of Finance and a Deukmejian budget adviser, during a Ways and Means Committee hearing in the Capitol.

Huff rejected the assertion, saying Deukmejian spread $283 million in vetoes in the current year’s $38.4-billion budget proportionately between education, health and transportation programs.

The governor’s fiscal adviser also said Deukmejian made the cuts fully expecting the Democrat-controlled Legislature to agree to transfer $300 million in so-called surplus earnings generated by the Public Employees’ Retirement System pension fund into the state’s general operations budget account.

Huff said, “We did not anticipate that the vetoes would actually ever take effect. We anticipated that the Legislature would pass the (pension proposal).”

Vasconcellos replied that Deukmejian couldn’t get away with blaming the Legislature for not going along with his plan because the governor “chose where the cuts would fall and they fell on the kids that were the most in need of education.”

The assemblyman said the governor would have been more successful if he had cut the money from the University of California budget because of its political muscle and the number of UC alumni in the Legislature. “With all the old blues here, you would have gotten (the pension money). Instead, you took it from the poorest, neediest black and brown kids, who do not have political power here, and you didn’t get it,” Vasconcellos said.

The exchange is part of the political jockeying over legislation approved by the committee last week restoring $76.2 million of the vetoed money. The money would go primarily to urban and rural school districts serving kindergarten through 12th-grade students, and community colleges. Deukmejian has threatened to veto the Senate-passed bill, now awaiting a vote by the full Assembly, unless the Legislature comes up with a way to pay for it.

Assemblyman William P. Baker of Danville, the Republican vice chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said after the hearing that the flare-up between Vasconcellos and Huff was a prelude to what he predicted will be a bitter fight over Deukmejian’s proposed $39-billion budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

In another move opposed by the Deukmejian Administration, the committee voted Wednesday to appropriate an additional $18.7 million to block Deukmejian-ordered cuts in the $5-billion Medi-Cal budget. The vote, generally along party lines, was 13 to 5.

In the Senate, meanwhile, state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) introduced legislation that would give school districts annual increases of $75 million in an incentive program designed to relieve overcrowding in California classrooms. It is similar to three Hart-sponsored bills previously vetoed by Deukmejian. The program would be phased in over eight years and would cost $600 million over that period.

Deukmejian, in his latest budget proposal, provides $60 million to reduce class size, beginning with the first grade, but he would do it by cutting other education programs.

Hart, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, criticized Deukmejian for calling attention to the class size of Japanese high schools. Deukmejian, who toured a high school during a recent visit to Japan, has been pointing out during recent public appearances that there were 48 to 50 students in the class, with obvious good results since nearly all were on their way to college.

Hart, during a Capitol news conference, asserted that “a much higher” percentage of California public school students attend college than their Japanese counterparts. He also said Japanese students, in addition to classroom studies, are offered special tutoring programs where small groups of students get together with instructors after regular classroom hours. In addition, he noted that California schools have “a much greater cultural diversity,” which places added burdens on teachers.