Medi-Cal and Schools to Get More Money

The Deukmejian Administration announced Tuesday that an additional $500 million will be put into financially strapped education and Medi-Cal programs, but critics said longstanding financing shortages remain despite the increased financial support.

The extra money for Medi-Cal and public schools comes to about half of the $1 billion needed to pay “unexpected bills” for state programs that Gov. George Deukmejian disclosed during a statewide radio address Saturday.

In making the announcement Tuesday, California Finance Director Jesse R. Huff said, “These additional expenditures are necessary, primarily to maintain the existing levels of state services to an increasing number of people and to meet increasing costs.”

Overall, because of revised spending estimates, the Administration will add $410 million to the current year’s budget and another $599 million to the proposed $39.3-billion budget for the new fiscal year that will begin July 1.

Watched With Interest

Critics of the governor’s budget policies had waited with interest since Saturday for details of the new budget figures because of the large sums involved and the possibility that the governor might use some of the money to beef up financially troubled programs.

Expectations for a budget compromise were raised last week when the Commission on State Finance reported that state revenues will be $2.75 billion higher than the governor’s original estimates.

Huff said that the governor’s own revenue forecasts will be released next Tuesday. They will be accompanied by “a complete accounting” of where the state now stands in relation to the spending limit imposed by voters in 1979, Huff added. Some officials, even before the latest round of expenditure increases, were saying that the state already is over the spending limit.

The one area in which Deukmejian has made a concession is in backing away from a proposed $150-million cut in the state’s Medi-Cal program. Deukmejian still hopes to shave $37 million from the Medi-Cal budget in the upcoming fiscal year, but on Tuesday he formally restored about $110 million in proposed cuts.

Deukmejian believes that the $5 billion--and growing--Medi-Cal program can and must be reduced. But Democrats argue that while $5 billion may be a lot, it still is not sufficient to provide adequate health care to the program’s 3 million recipients and countless others who are in need of health care but can’t afford it.

Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno) said the budget increase announced Tuesday “basically brings Medi-Cal up to where it was last year. The program is falling apart. It doesn’t operate well anywhere in the state. It is probably still under-funded by $1.5 billion a year.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who has been battling with Deukmejian since January to add $600 million to the public schools budget for the new fiscal year, said the additional $202.8 million earmarked by Deukmejian for kindergarten through high school programs will simply keep the schools even with the governor’s original budget proposal, which he had termed “a disaster.”

Honig, who has been trying to mobilize parents, school districts and teachers to battle for additional money, said of the governor’s latest action: “They are not giving us extra money. This is not going to stop one cut that we are going to have to do. We are still $600 million short.”

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose), chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday’s budget action does not address spending issues that Democrats have been insisting that Deukmejian address--such as budget increases required by law for education, health and welfare programs.