Troubled Horizon

California’s pioneer settlers would not have wanted Gov. George Deukmejian scouting for their wagon trains. He has shrugged off warnings that state government must make serious plans to keep important programs, starting with education reform, from being crippled by the so-called Gann limit on spending. He has been placidly reporting all clear on the horizon.

But, according to the Commission on State Finance, the horizon is seething with trouble for as far as you can see. Its new economic forecast estimates that state income already exceeds the arbitrary Gann limit, which prevents state spending from increasing faster than the consumer price index, by about $1 billion in both the 1986-87 and 1987-88 budgets.

With school budgets facing cuts, highways deteriorating, the cost of health care rising for poor families, and other government programs that cannot be measured by a standard price index, the money can be judged surplus only by the standard of mediocrity that Paul Gann, sponsor of the spending ceiling, has set for state government. It is no fit standard for a state whose command of wealth, reputation for excellence and leadershipin technology exceed those of all but a handful of sovereign nations.

The state can scrape through one budget year by pushing much of the money that exceeds the Gann limit into public schools and community colleges. Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, for example, still is short $650 million of the money needed to maintain the momentum of school reforms that began in 1983. Community colleges also need funds. And the law lets the state pass through funds to school districts so they don’t count as state spending and therefore are exempt.

But the Gann limit applies to local governments as well as to state government, and, although the figures on school districts are spotty, some districts would exceed their own limits after one year of such generosity.

The next steps seem obvious. The education budget, at least for the next year, should have first claim on the nearly $1 billion that is at question. Then the governor should join Honig in his campaign to amend the Gann initiative before it strangles this growing state. We would prefer to see the amendment eliminated entirely. But Honig’s proposal to use personal income as the index by which spending could rise each year is the next best thing.

The California wagon train, whose scout has allowed it to drift into trouble, is too big to be rescued by the cavalry anymore. Help can come only from genuine leadership in Sacramento.