Governor Lists a Broad Agenda : California: Deukmejian calls for year-round schools, quake insurance for high-risk buildings and help for first-time home buyers in his State of the State speech.

Gov. George Deukmejian delivered his final State of the State address on Tuesday, outlining an ambitious lame-duck agenda that steers California toward year-round schools, requires earthquake insurance for high-risk buildings and helps first-time home buyers.

The governor--who leaves office at the end of the year--also proposed an expanded drug education program for the schools and noted that the California National Guard will increase its narcotics interdiction efforts along the Mexican border.

And on a matter that seemed to move him personally, Deukmejian called for stepped-up efforts to rid the state of graffiti and litter. “Our state is getting dirtier by the day,” he lamented. “It is time for California to clean up its act.”

Deukmejian spoke to a joint session of the Legislature from the dais of the ornate, 19th-Century-style Assembly chamber, jampacked with the state’s top elected officials, Administration appointees and guests for what traditionally is the Capitol’s biggest event of the year. The speech was televised live throughout the state.

The Republican governor laid out a smorgasbord of unfinished business that he hopes to complete by the end of his second term. He concluded by urging the Democratic-controlled Legislature to work with him in the same “spirit of unity and good will” that prevailed during most of 1989, their most productive year together since he took office in 1983.

Deukmejian’s communications director, James R. Robinson, insisted that “when it came to developing projects for this year, the word lame duck was not in the governor’s vocabulary. His primary concern was to make sure that he did not squander one-eighth of his Administration.”

Indeed, the governor’s itinerary for his lame-duck years--his final two--has seemed more activist, more progressive than the first six that many critics denounced as visionless and reactionary.

Deukmejian always has taken a special interest in education, although he and California Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig waged a yearlong, bitter shouting match in 1987 over funding for elementary and secondary schools. On Tuesday, the governor noted that student enrollment is increasing 40% faster than the overall population and argued that this is a good reason to move toward year-round schools.

“With that kind of growth, we can’t depend simply on building our way out of the shortage of classrooms,” Deukmejian said, while pointing out that he is proposing a $1.6-billion bond issue for school construction.

The governor advocated providing “strong financial incentives” for school districts to adopt year-round programs. These incentives would include extra state money for each student enrolled in a year-round school. “It is simply inexcusable and wasteful to allow school facilities to sit idle and unused for up to three months per year,” he said.

And in what some conservatives may regard as an attack on Proposition 13--the popular property tax-cutting initiative approved by voters 12 years ago--Deukmejian said he would support a constitutional amendment making it easier to pass local bond issues designed to finance construction of year-round schools.

Under Proposition 13, a two-thirds vote is needed to approve a local bond issue. Deukmejian suggested lowering that 67% vote requirement to 60% for districts using the money to build year-round schools. Before Proposition 13 passed, only a simple majority vote was required.

Regarding earthquakes, Deukmejian said the state should heed the lessons of last October’s devastating temblor in Northern California.

Future Shocks

“Let’s understand that there are going to be more serious earthquakes in California and there’s no way to duck that reality,” he continued. “No earthquake rebuilding effort will be complete or responsible until we make earthquake insurance coverage a mandatory feature of all policies written for at-risk, privately owned buildings.”

Deukmejian asked the insurance industry, the business community and the Legislature to work with him “to develop a practical plan” for mandatory earthquake insurance.

A gubernatorial adviser, speaking anonymously, said “there is going to have to be a lot of work on the definition” of what is high-risk. But he pointed out, “If you’ve got a 10-story building near a fault, you’re high-risk.”

Trying to prepare for the next big earthquake, Deukmejian also proposed a $350-million bond issue to retrofit state buildings and university structures.

And he proposed pumping another $11 million into “disaster readiness measures,” including plans for a Southern California Operations Centers--a command post for “the big one.” Currently, the only earthquake emergency command center is in south Sacramento.

Turning to California’s high cost of housing--something Deukmejian hears complaints about every time he tries to coax out-of-state corporations to move here--the governor proposed a five-year, $2-billion program aimed at helping first-time buyers. Again, the program would be financed by bonds--an increasingly used method of funding programs that avoids a tax increase, but requires larger and larger interest payments to retire debt.

In this case, voters would have to authorize issuing just $200 million more in bonds because the other $1.8 billion already has been authorized.

Deukmejian said he wants “to put home ownership back within reach of the average family” by helping out with down payments and reducing interest “for thousands of first-time home buyers.” But he did not elaborate.

On drugs, Deukmejian said the proposed new state budget he will send the Legislature today contains an additional $10 million for anti-drug education in schools. Over a two-year period, he noted, the state’s anti-drug efforts in the classroom will total $54 million. “We will now be able to include drug education in every school from grades four to eight,” he announced.

Another element of society that has become particularly depressing for the governor as he travels around the state, an aide said, is all the graffiti and litter.

He proposed doubling the amount of litter cleanup performed by Caltrans employees on urban freeways. He also called upon neighborhoods, civic organizations and youth groups to “adopt a highway” and clean up the roadways themselves. And he ordered the California Highway Patrol “to redouble its efforts to catch litterbugs in the act, pull them over and fine them.”

“I want Californians to be able to take pride in their communities and their state once again,” he said. “We must persuade, educate and insist that all residents respect our roads, freeways, walls, beaches, parks and neighborhoods--and stop using them as their own personal garbage dump.”

Praised by Democrats

Deukmejian’s 24-minute address drew only a lukewarm reception during the delivery and was interrupted just six times by applause. But afterward, several Democrats praised it--most notably Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

“An excellent speech, absolutely spectacular,” Brown said. “There’s no question that George Deukmejian is leaving this state better than he found it.”

Brown was particularly flattered that Deukmejian mentioned him by name and pledged to work with the Speaker to “develop a practical and affordable basic (automobile insurance) policy for motorists” who cannot now obtain or afford even minimal coverage. Deukmejian vetoed a Brown bill last year that would have required insurance companies to provide low-cost coverage for the poor.

The Speaker in 1989 also sponsored another insurance measure--this one on health care--that was rejected by the Legislature, but drew a Deukmejian promise to strive for a compromise this year. Brown wanted to require all firms with five or more full-time workers to provide health insurance. Deukmejian said on Tuesday that a gubernatorial task force soon will recommend a plan that is “fair to small businesses.”

Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson), after listening to the governor’s speech, said that “Gov. Deukmejian is becoming a Democrat. That’s our program.”

But one major element of Deukmejian’s final-year agenda is certain to be opposed by Democrats. And that is his budget proposal to roll back certain health and welfare programs that contain automatic cost-of-living adjustments.

Deukmejian announced he will propose a new state budget of roughly $53 billion, a $3.4-billion increase over present spending. But without his proposed cuts, he said, general fund expenditures would increase by 11%, compared to revenue growth of just 8.4%.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we must face reality,” the governor said, reverting to his basic conservative philosophy. “Any government which is programmed on autopilot to build its base budget by 11% a year, not including any new programs, is headed for trouble.”

DEUKMEJIAN TEXT: A12