Teachers Issue Threat on Tax Hike : Education: They say unless more money for schools is guaranteed, they will fight spending measures and a gas tax increase.

The politically influential California Teachers Assn. threatened Friday to mount a massive campaign to defeat proposals to modify the state spending limit and increase the gas tax unless schools are guaranteed a bigger share of tax revenues.

Complaining that the proposed changes in the spending limit would erase many of the gains education achieved by the passage of Proposition 98, the school finance initiative, teachers association President Ed Foglia said the 200,000-member organization wants the Legislature to substantially revise its proposals.

Otherwise, Foglia said, the organization will ally itself with anti-tax groups in a campaign to defeat the June, 1990, ballot measure.

“We could very well join with the very conservative forces that we have never been with before and maybe zero in on the 9-cent (gas) tax increase because that might be the most vulnerable part of it,” he said in an interview.

Instead of donating to legislative campaigns, Foglia said members of the organization may also decide to put most of their money into a campaign to defeat the ballot measure. He estimated that political committees connected to the teachers organization usually contribute about $1 million to campaigns.

“Why give to a legislator who does not support you?” he asked.

Foglia accused lawmakers of devising their proposals behind closed doors without adequate public hearings.

The proposed 9-cents-per-gallon hike in the gasoline tax is part of a delicately crafted compromise reached by Gov. George Deukmejian and Republican and Democratic leaders in both houses last summer. It is designed to raise revenue for a 10-year, $18.5-billion transportation improvement program that would provide funds for highway construction, upgrading rural roads, expansion of mass transit and street maintenance.

But the increase cannot go into effect unless voters approve changes in a state spending limit passed in 1979. Under a key provision of the proposed modifications, gasoline tax revenues would no longer be affected by the limit.

With polls already showing the measure may be in trouble because it is linked to the tax increase, strong opposition from the CTA could further jeopardize its chance for passage.

Even so, neither Deukmejian’s office nor a legislative leader saw much enthusiasm among state officials for reopening the issue to consider the teacher group’s objections.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) called the group’s move “political dealing at the classic level.”

“What they are saying to everyone in the state of California is, ‘If we don’t get what we want, you can’t fix your roads,’ ” Katz said. “But you can’t look at the state as a series of special interests and say, ‘We’re only going to care about education and the rest of the state be damned.’ ”

He said the teachers’ position apparently does not have unified support in education circles because Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig has gone on record saying he believes “schools are treated fairly” by the proposal.

Tom Beermann, Deukmejian’s assistant press secretary, said the governor and “100 business leaders” backing the spending limit modifications hope the organization does not go through with its threatened opposition.

“One would think that CTA’s public posture would be one of cooperation,” he said. “They should remember that teachers are Californians as well and that (the ballot measure) is in the best interest of all Californians.”

But Foglia said he feared that the proposed changes in the spending limit would be used to deny schools money they now expect to receive during years when the state has a surplus. Proposition 98 requires that surpluses go to schools.

Foglia said the ballot measure creates a new formula for determining the spending limit that allows it to soar so high that there would never be any surplus for schools.

“It appears that the only real winners in this whole game are the people that are going to be building highways,” he said.