Legislators Roll Out Pork Barrel Despite Budget Pinch

Even though the state is having trouble paying its bills, it was business as usual Wednesday when a two-house budget negotiating committee waded into the budget problem by listening to a parade of lawmakers plead for millions in pork barrel projects.

Nearly 30 Republican and Democratic lawmakers lined up to plead with the six members of the budget conference committee for extra money for school buses, child-care programs, new parks, museums, a wading pool, senior centers and an assortment of other projects in their districts.

Just where the money would come from to pay for the projects is not clear, although hours before the committee began its deliberations, Gov. George Deukmejian and legislative leaders released reconciled budget figures showing that the revenue gap is now in the range of $2.9 billion, rather than $3.6 billion.

Budget officials said the lower figure represents a hard number that includes some of the budget cuts requested in January by Deukmejian. Among those are savings in methods of purchasing drugs for state programs and delaying payment of Medi-Cal bills next year as well as this year. Several weeks ago, state officials revealed that the Medi-Cal program had run out of money and could not make scheduled payments to doctors, hospitals and nursing homes.

But even the $2.9-billion figure represents a huge gap, since neither Republicans nor Democrats are giving much ground--at least publicly. Democrats went into the final round of budget negotiations Wednesday still insisting on tax increases to help close the gap while Republicans were holding fast that the problem could be solved with reduced spending.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) emerged from a private meeting with Deukmejian and Republican leaders Wednesday morning talking about a one-year freeze on inflation adjustments in income tax rates that would require Californians to pay an additional $1 billion in 1990. As it is now, tax rates are adjusted for inflation, in a procedure known as indexing, so that cost-of-living pay raises do not result in higher tax bills.

During the conference committee session, Assemblywoman Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, one of the Democratic negotiators, used the pork barrel requests as leverage to build support for a tax increase.

Pointing to the shortfall, Waters asked Republican lawmakers if they would support a tax increase to help finance the proposed $56-billion budget the committee is working on.

“I am dealing with the budget with an open mind,” replied Assemblyman William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae), giving a typical answer.

One of Filante’s requests was for $50,000 to help finance a museum to show “preserved animals” at Petaluma High School.

One Republican lawmaker, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) outlined a list of $2.2 billion in cuts in a letter to other GOP legislators. He started off by proposing to save $1.6 million by eliminating free cars provided to legislators.

Noting that lawmaker paychecks are expected to increase because of voter approval in the June 5 primary election of Proposition 112, which will set up a special commission to study legislators’ salaries, McClintock said: “Surely they can pay for their own cars.”