Wilson Will Increase Schools Budget

Speaking to third- and fourth-graders in a suburban classroom, Gov. Pete Wilson said Monday his 1992-93 budget will increase spending for public schools, despite the prospect of another multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

In what he called a “sneak preview” of the budget to be unveiled Thursday, Wilson said it will “fully fund” Proposition 98, the 1988 voter-approved initiative that guarantees roughly 40% of state general fund revenues for public schools and community colleges.

Full funding means schools will receive about $800 million in new money to pay for the 200,000 additional students expected in kindergarten through 12th grade next school year. That will increase state support for K-12 education to $19.2 billion.

Statewide enrollment passed 5 million this year and is expected to reach 7 million by the end of the decade.

During his visit to Mariemont Elementary School in the San Juan Unified School District, the governor also indicated that schools will receive money in addition to Proposition 98 requirements but did not offer specifics.

“We have to be sure we have adequate investment in education and in prevention programs,” Wilson told a corps of reporters and camera crews that outnumbered the 27 children in the classroom. “That means we will not do all that we are now doing in certain other areas, specifically welfare and other entitlement programs.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) later told reporters that the governor had no choice but to fully fund Proposition 98 because he could not obtain the two-thirds vote needed in both the Assembly and Senate to suspend the requirement.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said Wilson’s “comment that he’s not going to try to suspend 98 is a positive sign because we got into a big disagreement about that last year. It looks like he’s trying to protect the schools, but we won’t really know until we see the budget details.”

Honig and other education officials hope that the new budget will not only pay for enrollment growth but will restore $1.2 billion that schools were expecting but did not receive for the current year.

They pointed out that even if schools receive another $2 billion--$800 million for enrollment growth plus the $1.2 billion owed for this year--they will fall behind the expected inflation rate of about 4% for 1992-93.

But others pointed out that schools apparently will be one of the few areas of state spending to be increased in the face of a budget deficit that may exceed $6 billion over the next 18 months.

Honig said one unsettled question is whether the Administration will seek to change accounting methods for Proposition 98 funds, a move that could cost the schools between $800 million and $900 million next year.

Education officials also worry that the governor might try once again to change the methods used to take attendance in the state’s 7,485 schools, a change that could cost schools $300 million.

Although Mariemont Elementary School is in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in suburban Sacramento, it shows some of the effects of the $26-million cut from the school district’s budget in the past five years.

The roof leaks, ceiling tiles are falling, classroom lighting is inadequate and the school’s 30-year-old boiler needs to be replaced, Principal Karla Dellner said.

Class size has increased and the school has lost its nurse, guidance counselor and reading specialist in recent years, Dellner said, while a psychologist now must be shared with 11 other elementary schools.

Conditions would be worse, she said, were it not for a very active Parent-Teacher Assn., which last year contributed more than $20,000 toward school needs.

Parent volunteers renovated the school offices and are installing ceiling fans in all classrooms, which are not air-conditioned.

“They’re not very happy about it but they’re not willing to let the school fall apart,” she said.