Proposition 111 : Relief from Gridlock, On and Off the Road : For universities and other state services, Proposition 111 also offers a welcome change toward budget flexibility.

When voters go to the polls next week and consider the merits of Proposition 111, they may be familiar with its gas-tax provisions and with the highway projects that California so desperately needs.

But there is much more to this measure than how to deal with California’s transportation problems. It also addresses larger questions affecting California’s future, thequality of life its people would enjoy and the prospects for its nationally respected public universities.

California confronts a grave financial dilemma that can be corrected only by voter approval of Proposition 111. The unanticipated effects of three propositions voted by the people over the last 10 years are responsible for the dilemma: Proposition 13 in 1978 shifted substantial funding for public services from local governments to the state; Proposition 4 in 1979 capped state spending according to a formula driven by population increases and the national Consumer Price Index, and Proposition 98 in 1988 locked up an ever-growing percentage of the state budget for schools and community colleges, without respect to the effect on funding for every other state service.

The cumulative effect of these three propositions is to protect some state programs by sacrificing others. Moreover, they leave only a shrinking fraction of the budget for the governor and the Legislature to act on, thus effectively dealing the people’s elected officials out of the game. What this means is that programs not enjoying some kind of constitutional or statutory protection, such as the University of California, will be competing for a smaller and smaller share of the state budget every year.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel for unprotected programs, as their share of the state budget loses ground every year to the protected programs. This is occurring at the very time public higher education is seeking to accommodate thousands of additional students as a result of the exceptional population growth that California is experiencing. UC alone expects growth averaging 3,000 to 4,000 students a year between now and the year 2005.

If the state’s financial dilemma is not resolved by the enactment of Proposition 111, the alternative is for UC to tailor its size and academic programs to an inexorably shrinking resource base. This would lead, among other things, either to a curtailment of enrollment or to a slow but certain erosion in UC’s quality as overcrowded classrooms, inadequate libraries, laboratories and clinics, outdated equipment and lagging faculty and staff salaries take their inevitable toll on the university’s excellence.

What to do about it? Proposition 111 would break the budgetary deadlock by redefining the way in which the state limit on spending is to be calculated, using per-capita income--a more authentic and accurate measure of California’s capacity to pay for public services--instead of the Consumer Price Index. Proposition 111 would permit the use of revenues already collected--keep in mind this does not mean increasing taxes except for transportation--to support essential public services.

It would also modify the terms and conditions of Proposition 98 to allow more flexibility in allocating existing state revenues, while still protecting the funding floor Proposition 98 gave to the schools and the community colleges.

In short, the passage of Proposition 111 would give Californians relief from the frustrations of clogged and deteriorating roads and highways.

It would give the state some reasonable expectation of being governable over time by providing the budgetary flexibility needed to fund those services required by the people of our state. And it would permit public higher education to meet its historic commitment to the coming generations of Californians who should have the same measure of educational opportunity as the generations that preceded them.