Panel Votes to Hike State College Fees to Pare Budget

Democrats on a joint legislative budget committee yielded to Republican pressure and voted Tuesday to raise student fees at state colleges and universities in one of dozens of money-saving actions that trimmed more than $500 million in proposed state spending.

The two-house conference committee approved a compromise pay plan for state employees that would result in a 3% increase in their annual salaries. Senate Democrats had been seeking a 5% increase.

The six-member committee also voted to reduce spending on a broad range of health and education programs.

In its seventh day of deliberations, the committee was close to completing a compromise budget that the Legislature will send to Gov. George Deukmejian later this month.

Using the $42-billion version of the state budget approved by the Senate as a starting point, the committee’s goal is get as close as possible to the governor’s $40.8-billion spending plan.

Deukmejian, with his veto authority, has the power to eliminate or reduce individual budget items, and he has warned the Legislature that he will cut as much as necessary to balance the spending plan. In past years, he has vetoed as much as $1 billion from the budgets sent to him by the Legislature.

Complicating the committee’s deliberations is the increasingly hot political fight developing in the Legislature over the governor’s plan to take some of this year’s projected $1.1-billion budget surplus and return it to taxpayers as a $700-million state income tax rebate.

Democrats, who oppose the rebate, won passage in the Ways and Means Committee Tuesday of legislation that would take the $700 million earmarked for the rebate and spend it on public school and community college programs. The measure was sent to the Assembly floor on a 13-7 vote.

The vote broke along party lines and prompted Assemblyman William P. Baker (R-Danville), a member of the budget conference committee, to warn that Republicans would block passage of the main budget bill until Democrats agree to the governor’s rebate plan.

“We’re not going to take the (spending) bills one at a time. They go as a package or they don’t go at all,” Baker said after the Ways and Means Committee vote.

Baker, who has been meeting privately with Deukmejian and other Republicans to develop a strategy, said the governor wants the tax rebate bill to be passed simultaneously with the budget to avoid a replay of last year when Democrats agreed to a budget, then balked at passing legislation transferring $300 million in surplus earnings from the state pension system to balance the spending plan.

Baker and other members of the conference committee appeared close to agreement on a budget package after reaching rapid-fire agreement on college fees, state employee pay and a range of other programs Tuesday.

Inflationary Increases

Putting most of the biggest and costliest items over until the final hours of deliberation, the committee spent much of the day debating and voting on what kind of percentage increases they would give education, health and welfare programs to cover inflationary cost increases.

In one action alone, the six committee members reduced the Senate-passed budget by $121 million when they agreed to boost funding for basic public school programs by 2.54%, about 1% less than the upper house wanted.

On the matter of increasing university and state college fees, Democrats initially resisted imposing the higher fees sought by Deukmejian but finally yielded because of the need to reduce their spending program.

The law requires fee increases, but in recent years the Legislature has put enough money into higher education budgets to allow the university and colleges to get by without raising fees. Lawmakers put $28 million extra into higher education budgets to avert the need to raise fees, which have not been increased since the 1983-84 school year, but canceled the additional funding Tuesday.

University of California students would face an average increase of $130 a year, bringing their fees to $1,473 a year, if the committee action holds up.

Fees for students in the California State University system would would go up an average $57, boosting the annual cost for attending one of the state colleges to $630.

3% Pay Increase

In another money-saving compromise, Senate negotiators yielded to pressure from the Assembly and Deukmejian and agreed to give state employees a six-month, 6% pay raise, effective Jan. 1, 1988. The raise would amount to a 3% increase when averaged over a full year. Senate negotiators had fought for a 5% increase over a full year.

The compromise allowed the committee to trim its version of the budget by $58.8 million.

The conference committee earlier approved higher raises for UC and CSU faculty. UC faculty would receive 5.7% increases beginning Jan. 1 while their counterparts in the state colleges would receive 6.9% over a full year. The differences in pay hikes are designed to allow the state to pay salaries that are comparable to what other states pay their public college and university faculty.

The budget committee was still considering a $125-million spending proposal that would provide increased funding for emergency trauma centers, additional health benefits for the working poor and other benefits.

The proposal was put together by Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno), who said it reflected a compromise between health funding proposals by the Assembly and Senate. Incorporated in the proposal is the $9.9 million sought for Los Angeles County trauma centers by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles).

The committee adjourned for the day when it failed to reach agreement on Bronzan’s complicated proposal. Dozens of lobbyists representing doctors, hospitals, counties and other health care providers descended on the committee when word got out that the lawmakers were ready to act. Lawmakers ultimately could not reach agreement.

Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), chairman of the conference committee, angrily declared the committee at an impasse. Later, he told reporters that committee members “could not make up their own minds. Are they going to run down there and let 20 lobbyists write the budget bill for them?”

For the first time, two women legislators are serving on the conference committee--Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach). The two teamed up in an effort to get an extra $2 million for state-funded child care programs, but lost out on a 4-2 vote.

Even with the various cuts, Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose), one of the chief Demcoratic budget negotiators, said the proposed spending plan would be about $400 million above the level that Deukmejian said he would accept.

Vasconcellos said “agreement is very difficult to come to,” complicated by the fact that lawmakers know there is a pot of $700 million in surplus funds that the governor wants to give back to taxpayers. “There is no way to have a decent budget with the money we have and the money we will have to give back. It’s very painful.”