Assembly Panel OKs $49.4-Billion Budget That Restores Cuts

As Deukmejian Administration officials and legislative leaders reported progress in their negotiations on politically sensitive fiscal issues, the Assembly Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday adopted its version of a $49.4-billion state budget.

Like the preliminary budget approved by a Senate committee on Tuesday, the Assembly spending plan rejects most of the program cuts proposed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Using a $2.5-billion windfall resulting from unexpectedly high income tax payments, the plan would boost the budget by nearly $2 billion over the level the governor had recommended in January when state fiscal officials were predicting a severe budget squeeze.

The vote by the committee was a surprisingly lopsided 23 to 0, with Republicans joining majority-party Democrats even though the spending plan contains some highly controversial proposals, such as unrestricted funding for abortions for poor women and elimination of some of Deukmejian’s pet programs.

Ease of Vote

Lawmakers from both parties said the ease of the vote stemmed from agreement on all sides that weeks of negotiation lie ahead before a final budget is approved by both houses of the Legislature and is sent to the governor.

Meanwhile, talks of potentially historic magnitude on transportation, education, tax and spending issues resumed Wednesday in Deukmejian’s office, with legislative leaders saying they were making progress but offering few details.

Deukmejian Chief of Staff Michael R. Frost, who met with Republican and Democratic leaders from the Assembly and Senate, said a tentative agreement reached Tuesday on an $18.5-billion, 10-year transportation plan that will require a 9-cents-a-gallon hike in the gasoline tax is “pretty much a done deal.”

But he and other negotiators made it clear when they emerged from their fourth meeting in the last two weeks that the transportation agreement is contingent on a satisfactory resolution of other issues.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said all the issues “are locked together” and will not be resolved separately.

As for the general progress of the talks, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) said, the leaders will meet again next Wednesday and in between will talk to Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig on Proposition 98. “Things are moving very well,” Roberti said.

The negotiators still must decide how to divide up the $2.5-billion tax windfall, reach agreement on a proposed constitutional amendment repealing the cap on government spending approved by voters in 1979 and decide a long-term education financing plan that keeps faith with Proposition 98, the landmark school funding initiative but allows the Legislature to spend some of the money that otherwise would be going to schools.

Given so many issues, Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose), Ways and Means Committee chairman, made it clear that most budget issues are going to remain open even as the formal budget document moves through the Legislature. “The overall picture is still unclear,” Vasconcellos said before the committee voted on the proposed budget.

Differences between the Assembly and Senate versions of the budget will be negotiated by a two-house conference committee that will begin work next week. Each house must approve its version of the budget first in what basically are expected to be procedural votes.

The Assembly budget calls for restoring $1.1 billion in health and welfare programs, including beefing up medical services for the working poor by $360 million, adding $110 million in AIDS treatment and education programs, and boosting payments to welfare recipients and others receiving monthly income payments by $274 million.

In the past, Republicans and some Democrats, including Vasconcellos, have fought to restrict state-funded abortions to poor women to cases where the pregnancies result from rape or incest or when the mother’s life is endangered.

Assemblyman William P. Baker (R-Danville) said Republicans still hope to place the restrictions in the budget, but figure they will have a better chance when the spending plan is taken up by the full house next Monday.