Honig Refused Cease-Fire in ‘War’ Over School Funds, Governor Says

Gov. George Deukmejian accused state schools Supt. Bill Honig Monday of starting a political “war” and then refusing to agree to a cease-fire.

Deukmejian said he was rebuffed when he asked Honig to back off from their heated differences over education funding in a long, private meeting between the two leaders in the governor’s office last month.

“I asked Honig if he would be cooperative rather than carrying out the war that he started and he refused to do so,” the Republican governor told reporters at an impromptu news conference after a speech to the California Manufacturers Assn.

In his speech, Deukmejian again attacked Honig for asking for a big budget increase and a tax hike to support it rather than working “to make the most” of the $17 billion already contained in the governor’s proposed $39-billion state budget.

“He and his Democratic allies in the Legislature want even more money. They always seem to want more money,” the governor told several hundred business executives, who listened with interest but gave no sign that they were ready to take sides in the increasingly acerbic war of words between the two state officeholders.

The schools chief, a one-time Democrat who dropped his party registration when he decided to run for the nonpartisan education post in 1981, Monday denied that he is engaged in “a war” with Deukmejian. “It’s not a war, it’s a debate over policy,” Honig said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where he was conducting state business.

“His offer of a truce was, ‘You stop telling people that we are not giving the schools enough money.’ He wanted us to sit back and take what he gave us. That’s not a truce, that’s an ultimatum,” Honig said.

Honig, being viewed as a potential challenger to Deukmejian should the governor decide to run for a third term in 1990, believes school districts around the state will have to make sharp budget cuts because the governor’s budget provides only a 2% increase of state funds for kindergarten through 12th-grade classes.

Deukmejian, talking with reporters after his speech, said he asked Honig in their private meeting to give him the same type of cooperation he received from California State University Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds, University of California President David P. Gardner, and Community Colleges Chancellor Joshua L. Smith.

Deukmejian went on to defend his increasingly sharp attacks on Honig as a matter of self defense.

Deukmejian also was questioned for the first time by reporters about a $1-billion tax increase proposal unveiled late last week by a Democratic lawmaker. It would substantially boost California’s personal income and corporate tax rates while shaving 2 cents off the state’s 6 cents per $1 sales tax.

The governor, in a written statement last week and again in his speech to the corporate executives, characterized the proposal by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose), chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, as a $5-billion-plus tax increase.

In characterizing it that way, the governor ignored a proposed $3.4-billion sales tax reduction that is part of the plan as well as an estimated $1.3-billion windfall Californians would be in line to receive due to the additional tax deduction they would be allowed if they pay higher state income taxes. (California taxpayers can deduct their state income tax payments on their federal tax forms. As a result, Vasconcellos argues that his proposal could save state taxpayers $300 million.)

When pressed on this oversight, Deukmejian said, “Ask somebody if they would like to exchange a reduction of 2 cents on the sales tax for a major increase in their income tax . . . You would find out that most people would indicate that they are not anxious to do that.”

The governor, reiterating a position he has long held, said, “There is no necessity for us to call for a major tax increase.”