The Tangled Battle Over School Funds

To understand the intricate fight over financing the public schools, visit Assemblyman Terry Friedman.

School finance is part of daily life for the Democratic legislator, whose district extends from Westwood, Brentwood and Beverly Hills across the Santa Monica Mountains to Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Encino in the San Fernando Valley.

The schools in those communities are feeling the effects of a $15-billion state budget deficit that has sharply reduced the amount of state aid available to the Los Angeles Unified School District and to other districts in the state.

When Gov. Pete Wilson submitted his budget at the beginning of the year, he proposed suspension of Proposition 98, pushed through to victory on the 1988 ballot by the California Teachers Assn., the state’s biggest teachers’ group. It guarantees education 40% of state revenue.

Wilson’s main reason for wanting to suspend Proposition 98 is the gloomy reality of the recession, which has sharply reduced state revenues and produced the huge budget deficit.

But the schools were not helped by organized teacher opposition against Wilson when he ran for governor last year. Wilson has a long and precise memory.

School finance should be an easy issue for a politician like Friedman, who is an enthusiastic supporter of the Los Angeles public schools and faculty.

His loyalty is strengthened by the fact that his wife, Elise Karl, is a kindergarten teacher at Canfield School in the Pico-Robertson area, and a member of United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents the vast majority of the city’s teachers.

But as Friedman learned, the battle over school finance is a tangle of conflicting political goals and players.

Friedman is an intelligent, earnest man who used to run a storefront legal clinic for the poor. But he is also in the Howard Berman-Henry Waxman political organization. The play-to-win tactics of the two Democratic congressmen dominate politics on the Westside and in parts of the Valley. That makes Friedman a bleeding heart with political smarts.

He needed both those qualities a couple of weeks ago when he had to vote on a compromise on aid for schools.

Wilson had backed down on his hard-line stand. Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti, wanting to give more to the schools, figured the deficit precluded educators from receiving all they wanted. They concocted an interim financing bill that through a complex shift of available funds gave the public schools about $800 million more than Wilson had originally proposed.

The state’s biggest teacher organization, the CTA, went along. So did state Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

But there is no solid education bloc in Sacramento.

UTLA, which favors an income tax hike for the affluent to provide money for the schools, was furious. Helen Bernstein, union president, led a delegation up to Sacramento to generate lobbying pressure to kill the compromise.

Odds were against UTLA. Brown is closely allied with the CTA. And he felt the Los Angeles school district brought on its financial problems by giving UTLA a substantial pay raise two years ago.

Friedman welcomed the visitors from Los Angeles. Bernstein said that Friedman told them he did not think a final vote on the compromise would come up for a couple of days. He would get them together with other legislators later in the afternoon.

“We went to lunch,” Bernstein said. “When we were at lunch, they passed the bill. Mad doesn’t describe how we felt. We felt betrayed.”

They also found out that Friedman, their friend, had voted for the compromise.

The assemblyman had no time to warn his UTLA allies.

“I wanted to help the L.A. schools get as much money as possible,” he said.

But Friedman also felt that if the compromise collapsed, schools would get nothing extra. And he believed that passage of the compromise would strengthen Brown and Roberti’s hand in trying to persuade Wilson to accept an income tax increase.

“It was one of the hardest votes I ever cast,” Friedman said.

The UTLA members did not condemn him.

“I think that Terry thought he was doing the right thing,” Bernstein said. “But ultimately, I think it isn’t in the best interests of the people he represents.”

Bernstein vows to be back with her UTLA troops. So will the CTA. And Honig. All the members of the divided school establishment will find their way to Friedman’s door with their conflicting demands.

The assemblyman may think that the last vote was one of the most difficult he ever cast. But there are sure to be harder ones in the days ahead.