State Funding for Schools

Mark Slavkin’s reasoning in “Save Our Schools--Repeal Prop. 98” (Commentary, June 24) is the strangest I’ve encountered in the pages of The Times. The “political paranoia” of Proposition 98’s sponsors, Slavkin writes, “kept them from understanding that suspension of 98 could actually be a means to obtain more money for schools.” How?!

Nothing at all prevents the governor and Legislature from giving education more than the minimum 40% share of the budget guaranteed by Proposition 98. They can raise the percentage--and the dollar amount--any time they want, with or without suspending 98.

But our state officials can give education less than its Proposition 98 entitlement only if they suspend that measure. That legal fact was precisely the reason Gov. Wilson spent five months--from early January to early June--demanding Proposition 98’s suspension.

Indeed, on the front page of the same date, an article by William Trombley points out that, because of the campaign to save Proposition 98, “Instead of cutting schools by $2.1 billion as he proposed in his budget, Wilson ended up increasing school spending by $822 million.”

Not only did the California Teachers Assn. and its allies block the suspension of Proposition 98 in the Legislature, but our success means the governor cannot now use his line-item veto to cut education funding below the 98 guarantee. If he tries, educators have the basis for a lawsuit--and a sure winner. If, however, Proposition 98 had been suspended, the governor could have vetoed as much of the education budget as he wished.

Slavkin suggests that education might obtain more money “repealing Proposition 98 and replacing it with leadership and accountability on the part of our elected officials.”

When does he expect that millennium to descend? And what are our schools going to do in the meantime?

The pain that education will feel in 1991-92, though not so great as other state programs will suffer, is real and deep. But it would have been far worse had Proposition 98 been suspended. And getting $822 million in additional money is not bad in a year that has produced a $15-billion state budget deficit. Those are facts so plain and simple it is astonishing that Slavkin missed them.

D.A. (DEL) WEBER, President

California Teachers Assn.

Burlingame