UC, Cal State Budgets Slashed by Negotiators : Democrats on Committee Stir Fight With GOP by Cutting Deeply Into Deukmejian Programs

Assembly and Senate budget negotiators, intent on cutting $1.4 billion from the proposed $45-billion state budget, sharply cut proposed spending increases for state colleges and universities Friday, and slashed even deeper into Gov. George Deukmejian’s programs.

The Democrat-dominated six-member budget conference committee reduced the University of California budget by $75 million, a cut of 3.7%. The committee cut the California State University system budget by the same 3.7%, a $56.9-million trim. Despite the cuts, the budgets of both institutions would increase by nearly 3% from the current year.

The UC and CSU spending cuts were among the dozens made by the committee during its third full day of work on the budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year that will begin July 1. The committee hopes to wrap up its work Monday, then send the budget out for votes by the Assembly and Senate in time for final action by the start of the new fiscal year.

In addition to the cuts already made, Democrats on the committee are considering reducing the basic public school financial aid budget of $8.4 billion by $300 million, which would take half to three-quarters of the increase being proposed by Deukmejian.

Although the committee’s four Democrats are cutting spending in nearly every area, they continued to go after programs earmarked as high priorities by the governor with a special vengeance. They remain angry over Deukmejian’s retreat on tax increase legislation that he first proposed, then dropped because of political opposition.

On Friday, the Democrats, with the two Republicans on the committee dissenting, cut the budget of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, run by a Deukmejian appointee, by 20%, or about $1.4 million. Moments later, they removed the $91,000-a-year salary of Department of Industrial Relations Director Ronald Rinaldi from the budget. Rinaldi is a key Deukmejian Administration adviser who oversaw the dismantling of the popular CAL/OSHA worker safety program.

The committee also voted to cut funds for the state’s workfare program, a job-training program for welfare recipients, by $30 million. The action, which will still allow for a hefty increase over the current year’s budget of $209 million, will require a special rules waiver by the Legislature. The program, known as Greater Avenues for Independence, has been closely identified with Deukmejian.

On Thursday, the committee, with its two Republican members dissenting, cut the $1.6-billion state prisons budget by $100 million, and took another $17 million from the California Youth Authority. The action came on the heels of earlier votes that would completely wipe out the state Resources Agency and the Department of Commerce’s office of tourism, both controlled by Deukmejian appointees.

Assemblyman William P. Baker of Danville, one of the committee’s two Republican members, said the Democrats “are just trying to embarrass the governor” with their actions. He said most of the budget actions were shortsighted. “The prison system’s going to have 10,000 more prisoners next year. Cutting the budget $100 million doesn’t make sense. What are we going to do with the prisoners?” he asked.

Predicts Defeat

Baker’s GOP colleague, Sen. Marian Bergeson of Newport Beach, said the budget in its present form probably will not be able to get the two-thirds majority vote it will need in both the Assembly and Senate for final approval.

“We’ll have to backtrack and undo a lot of these actions. You can’t reduce the dollar amounts of some of these budgets, like the Department of Corrections, without causing irreparable damage,” Bergeson said.

But Democrats insisted that Deukmejian’s flip-flop on tax increase legislation left the Legislature with a huge hole in its budget.

“We just don’t have the revenues to support the governor’s budget. We have to cut somewhere,” said Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove).

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the committee, said Deukmejian is responsible for the cuts. He called the series of reductions “the Deukmejian destruction derby.”

Governor Drops Plan

Deukmejian proposed raising taxes $800 million in late May to help deal with a $2-billion revenue shortage caused by changes in federal and state tax laws, but then the Republican chief executive dropped the plan because of political opposition.

The loss of the $800 million in revenues that would have been generated by the tax bill, coupled with $600 million in additional spending added to the budget by lawmakers, left them with a need to cut $1.4 billion. By the end of the day Friday, they had reduced the budget by nearly $1 billion.

One issue the committee has yet to resolve is which set of tax revenue projections it will use as a basis for next year’s budget projections. Revenue estimates being made by the Legislature’s two nonpartisan budget advisers--the legislative analyst’s office and the Commission on State Finance--are about $370 million higher than the estimates being used for the budget by the Department of Finance.

The committee so far has been using the Department of Finance’s estimates, but if it decides to use the higher revenue projections it will substantially ease the committee’s problem of proposing a balanced budget.

In another of its dramatic reductions, the committee voted to end state support for the operations budget of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Cut Back Support

With several Northern California committee members complaining about the amount of bond money the conservancy will receive to purchase parkland, the committee voted to reduce state general fund support for the conservancy by $250,000, wiping out nearly half the conservancy’s budget.

“Why are we supporting them at all?” Vasconcellos asked. “Let them scramble. Everyone is scrambling.”

Joseph Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, said the cuts in the state agency’s budget “raise serious questions about whether we can do the job we were assigned to do.” The cuts could force the closure of some parks, such as Solstice Canyon in Malibu, because of a lack of funds for maintenance and security, he said. Edmiston said the committee’s action appeared to go against the feelings of California voters, who passed Proposition 70, the state parklands bond measure, earlier this month.

Vasconcellos and Garamendi argued over adding $1 million to the budget of the Office of Criminal Justice Planning to expand the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting in Northern California. Arguing that it would be smarter to use the money to reduce the availability of hard drugs, Vasconcellos said trying to catch marijuana farmers “is a waste of money.” He added: “They ought to leave people alone. All they do is drive the price (of marijuana) up.”

A Difficult Process

If the committee proposals stand, officials of the two university systems will have to decide where to make the specific cuts, a difficult process, spokesmen said.

“The cut is significantly larger than we had anticipated,” said UC spokesman Ronald Kolb. “We hope to look at areas (to trim) without having to damage academic programs.”

D. Dale Hanner, the Cal State system’s vice chancellor for business affairs, said: “We will try to limit the impact on students, but a cut of this size will affect everyone.”

However, student fees are not expected to rise further because of the latest budget changes. And building plans at UC and Cal State campuses probably would not change because much of that is dependent on a bond issue on the November ballot, officials said.