Governor’s Budget Bills Given Little Chance by Brown

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown predicted Tuesday that key bills that Gov. George Deukmejian said he needs to balance his proposed $39-billion budget will not make it out of the lower house.

“I haven’t heard any talk about passing the governor’s budget in the form in which the governor sent it to us,” the San Francisco Democrat said at a Capitol news conference.

The proposals referred to by Brown include a Deukmejian-backed plan to finance the reduction of elementary school class sizes by eliminating half a dozen specialized education programs and a recommendation that responsibility for $477 million in state-mandated county programs be turned over to boards of supervisors.

Once these programs are transferred to the counties, the state would not be required to count the money budgeted for them as part of the expenditures subject to the spending limit imposed by voters in 1979.

The Speaker also predicted that the Assembly would consider cutting as much as $600 million from the $1-billion budget reserve that the governor said he wants to maintain as insurance against sudden dips in tax revenues or unanticipated demands on the treasury.

State Finance Director Jesse R. Huff said he hopes Brown relents. “I think the budget proposals are serious and worthwhile. I am hopeful and trustful that the Legislature will give them a full hearing on their merits,” he said.

During his news conference, Brown, in what could be a significant departure, said the Assembly would not hold its traditional months-long round of Ways and Means budget subcommittee hearings. He said he envisioned no more than “two or three weeks” of such hearings in the lower house.

And the Speaker said that rather than let individual committees decide on important budget bills, he may call the entire 80-member Assembly together as a “committee of the whole” to vote on such things as Deukmejian’s plan to eliminate some school programs or his proposal to end state support for the state office of Occupational Health and Safety (Cal-OSHA). Such a tactic would create a major public relations forum for debate of the issues.

Budget subcommittee hearings traditionally are conducted during March, April and May. Lawmakers use them to do nuts and bolts work on the budget.

But Brown said Assembly Democrats are growing frustrated with the governor’s history of vetoing many of the proposals put into the budget by the subcommittees. The governor during the last four years has vetoed more than $2 billion in spending proposals from the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

“It’s a waste of time to go through all this nonsense when you are really not having any impact on the budget,” Brown remarked.

One reliable legislative source close to Assembly Democratic decision makers said Brown’s strategy is viewed by some Democrats as a way to create a budget crisis and force the governor to negotiate.

Called a Big Risk

Under this scenario, described as “a high-risk” tactic because a number of important programs could get lost in the shuffle, much of the real decision making would be left up to what would amount to a free-wheeling two-house conference committee.

Brown, however, denied that the move is an effort to get the governor to the bargaining table. And he said that, in contrast to previous years, Assembly Democrats will not add significantly to the spending levels proposed in Deukmejian’s budget.

“I don’t intend to participate in adding one nickel in spending to the budget,” he said.

“I’m sick and tired of the governor announcing that he’s the great savior. We put all the dumb money in because people think we are doing something to allegedly satisfy the constituency; he cuts it out and claims we are big spenders,” Brown said.

Conventional Senate Plans

Brown’s proposal appears to be limited to the Assembly. The Senate still plans to keep to its time-honored schedule of springtime subcommittee hearings, with adoption of a final version of the budget in June.

In another budget development, a group of about 300 parents, students and lawmakers held a rally on the steps of the Capitol to protest Deukmejian’s proposal to phase out a special program for mentally gifted students, known as Gifted and Talented Education (GATE).

“We cannot allow the demise of our public school system in this state because we have a governor who doesn’t care about the best and the brightest of our students,” Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) told a cheering group of placard-waving protesters.